By John | For EraofLight.com

When I see Astrology employed in an argument, I often notice that some of it’s premises are either accepted or rejected dogmatically simply because there isn’t enough information readily available for one to assume a pondered stance, contributing to a mystification of the field.

As with Algebra or Alchemy, sometimes it seems that rather basic concepts and constructs have become cryptic under the weight of symbolism. This is unavoidable to the extent symbols are necessary to relay multiple layers information at once, but if you don’t venture to examine their roots you risk ignoring connections of a broader context.

To tend doubts of the general public and perhaps rekindle the interest of fellow astrologists, I have compiled a relatively straightforward approach to the Zodiac that sensibly covers the role of Elements but relies further down onto their underlying principles.

The word ‘elements’ designs basic building blocks with which something is construed. In the world of form that we partake, they amount to four – a number that conveys the totality of material possibilities in many different cultures and knowledge systems – often named fire, air, water and earth. 

This number results from the conjugation of two fundamental magnitudes: temperature and humidity, each one breaking down into two polar opposites totaling four primitive qualities. These are more abstract and primordial concepts that can refine our understanding of the Elements and any esotheric knowledge that derives from them.

Temperature refers to the basic flow of energy: hot elements give (active) and cold elements receive (passive). The flame of a candle radiating light and heat embodies the ‘hot’ primitive quality. The eyes receiving it’s light or the hands receiving heat embody ‘cold’.

It’s not a precise match to the material definition of temperature; hot and cold elements don’t neutralize each other to a middle ground: one keeps giving and the other keeps receiving with no entropy whatsoever. Their balance is dynamic and continuous.

Humidity refers to how energy is transfered: dry elements impose (active) or resist (passive) and wet elements conduct (active) or conform (passive). If you gently blow on a candle, the flame will not go out but it will bend in the direction you suggest – this is ‘wet’. However if you blow on an ember to put it out, it will not only resist your intention but go the opposite way and shine even brighter. This is ‘dry’. 

Again, the term ‘humidity’ falls somewhat short of the abstraction it actually represents, but ‘flexibility’, ‘resistance’ or ‘fluidity’ are also named after a polar quality and not the magnitude itself.

Laying this conjugation of magnitudes on a graph, we have a first visual ordering of the elements.

Fire is hot and dry: It radiates unconditionally. It is the Spirit, the original Life, the formless Volition that penetrates and animates all things. It’s a heart beating and a sun shining without being asked to, for better or worse.

Air is hot and wet: It actively distributes. It is Intelligence, the rational seek of order, harmony and understanding. It’s the life being poured in by your lungs, while granting you Freedom to directly control your own breath.

Water is cold and wet: It receives unconditionally. It is Emotion, the universal solvent, the varied forms of expression. It’s the ebbs and flows of your humors, the energy drive of your desires at any given moment regardless of what they reflect.

Earth is cold and dry: It passively resists. It is Physical Matter, the most stable and dense expression of existence. It’s your body, the organic vessel that sustains practical experiences and allows their manifestations to endure.

The primitive qualities establish comparative parameters between the four elements themselves and all four-fold divisions that can be properly traced back to them. For example, the four suits of the Tarot’s Minor Arcana (a.k.a. the regular card deck): Clubs/wands are a blunt offensive instrument (hot/dry-Fire); Swords are a sharp offensive tool (hot/wet-Air); Cups/Hearts are a receptive device (cold/wet-Water) and Pentacles/diamonds/shields are a passive resistence icon (cold/dry-Earth).

Jung’s four psychological functions is another example: intuition is fire (active/hot), sensation is earth (passive/cold) – both irrational (dry) – while thinking is air (hot) and feeling is water (cold) – both rational (wet). He also explains that people of a main function type tend to have the complementary function deficient, and proceeds to map the relationship difficulties they tend to experience when dealing with people/arguments of other functional types. And since the understanding of our human nature is an endeavor deeply rooted in the same intent of more holistic enterprises such as Alchemic Astrology, let’s get back to it.

Usually, the four Elements are multiplied by the three Modalities to compose the twelve Zodiac Signs. Modalities are the possible states of continuity that an element can assume in either time or space. In other words, Zodiac Signs are how Elements manifest within a periodic context. 

Cardinal modality refers to initiative, to set in motion or interrupt, to start something different. 

Fixed modality refers to preservation, to sustain either movement or stillness, the inertia. 

Mutable modality refers to transformation, progressive or regressive, change in directions.

The classical approach associates modalities to the beginning, middle and end of seasons. I liken them to more abstract trinities, such as Repetition, Variation and Constrast (the key processes of sensory elements in various Art forms) since it bears self-defining integrity (i.e. Variation is a Repetition of Constrast, etc) and helps to highlight the spiritual aspect of number three against the more material aspect of number four.

However, I find this sudden addition of a third magnitude somewhat artificial: it doesn’t blend in organically with the primitive qualities that we have previously laid out. A more elegant, thorough and educational approach is to simply divide each quadrant of our initial graphic in three zones and relating them to each other using the same logic we have used for the elements.

Hence each element has a central zone where it’s primitive qualities are balanced and two outer zones where they are oppositely unbalanced.

In a periodic context, the balanced zones correspond to moments where the Elements are the most stable in regard to their respective compositions. These are the fixed signs of the Zodiac: Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio and Taurus. They are remniscent of the four animals that represent the Elements in the Egyptian Sphinx or the 4 Evangelists (The eagle has been replaced by the scorpion as it would dispute the ‘air’ position, but their connection to the legendary phoenix’s regenerative power is not hard to establish. The snake is also a recurring symbolic animal for water).

The adjacent zones correspond to transitional moments, when an Element’s composition is more inclined towards the Primitive Quality that it shares with the neighboring Element. These are either cardinal or mutable signs depending on their relative Temperature: cardinals are colder as their focused intensity disperses less energy than the extensive, hotter mutables.

In light of these concepts and their implications, we can finally synthetise the Zodiac Signs both as unique energies and as parts of an integrated whole:

Fire starts with a spark. At the peak of dryness, in conditions of dire insulation, all it takes is a small amount of focused heat to set things in motion. Ignition. This thrust movement is represented by Aries the Ram, an animal that doesn’t boast much but reacts fiercely when provoked.

As the heat increases and dryness diminishes, a steady bonfire ensues. Constantly radiating it’s own perene light and warmth in all directions, this magnetic presence is often a symbol of authority – as is Leo the Lion, the golden feline that naturally commands respect.

If the isolation of dryness recedes or the heat increases any further,  the fire easily grows into a firestorm, quickly spreading to everything it comes in contact with. This expansive motion is represented by Sagittarius the Centaur, who combines the beastly procreative yearn with the human social quality.

And at the peak of heat, as dryness shifts into wetness, we enter the air quadrant: realm of the most human symbols of the zodiac.

Broad yet superficial, the air of Gemini hits like a whirlwind. Mirroring Sagittarius’ expansiveness but persuasive instead of pervasive, this scattering motion is more about the dispersion itself than the actual subject. And since propagation is carried out essentially by replications, this is aptly represented by the Twins.

Air is a lot less agitated in the vortex of the hurricane. It may even seem to be still as it continuously carries the clouds around, while building up the tension that eventually leads to lightning. Likewise, Aquarius the Water-bearer may seem to have his emotions bottled, but is actually steadily pouring them to the thirsty.

When air is more wet and fluid than it is dispersive, it blows directionally in an intense gust of wind. It actively motions to compensate a specific pressure difference between two points as elegantly as possible (with the most ease and least energy expenditure). This impulse to balance things is portrayed by the symbol of Libra the Scales.

At the maximum flow of wetness, the Temperature magnitude reaches the tipping point where ‘less hot’ becomes ‘more cold’: active becomes passive as we dive into the water quadrant.

The same high fluidity level of Libra under the receptive bias of water makes for a very plastic energy. It mimetizes, extrapolates or echoes everything around it with only slight input, like ripples in the sea. Easily dispersed like Gemini – but in a passive, introverted way – this ‘dissolution’ movement is represented by either-way slipping Pisces, the Fishes.

Balancedly fluid and receptive water eventually reaches stillness, when it unconditionally receives whatever is left to it, conforming into a lake or a cesspool. Such stagnancy may appear lifeless and even toxic – like desires are not actual things but a voidness of them – yet under the reflective surface it breeds the very essence of life. This inexorable consummation finds a symbolic match in the deadly and secretive Scorpio (the Scorpion).

Nesting at the depths of cold and near the earth element, we find the kind of water that absorbs intensely but more selectively. Once it finds the path of least resistance, it leaks through until it slowly grows into a nurturing fountain or a river. This sensitive seek of the opportune is embodied by Cancer the Crab, a water animal with a protective shell that walks the dry ground. The word also means growth, as the eponymous disease.

At the bottom of cold, wet shifts into dry as we climb upon the shores of the solid earth quadrant – and what once was ‘receiving‘ starts to feel more like ‘being subjected to‘.

Once earth takes form, it loses flexibility. At this stage, it retains just enough humidity to form into the most solid structures and sustain their integrity as tall mountains or deep valleys. This directional build-up mirrors that of Cancer’s flowiness, but in the position of assembling ‘the path of least resistance’. It figures as Capricorn, a mountain-climbing goat with a fish tail or ‘a hint of the water element’.

Cold and dry being equal, earth is inert. It resists just as much as it is subjected to, remaining placid like a vast plain. Be it a commodity or pure gold, stability is the basis for measure and value in all things – even the prosper stability of fertile motion. It’s the very consistency of nature. This power to substantiate life is represented by Taurus the Bull.

Approaching the extreme of dryness, earth becomes less permeable: it resists more than it is given and thus is less prone to breed life, like arid desert lands. The extensive strictness acts somewhat like a filter, rejecting or rectifying whatever falls short of the standards. This purifying motion is represented by Virgo the Virgin.

And at maximum dryness, shifting from cold to hot we step into the fire quadrant, where Aries – the ‘active’ version of Virgo – is ready to trigger movement again.

While this ordering of the Zodiac is clustered by Elements, note that it also follows the ‘official’ Zodiac logic sequence of Modalities: Cardinal-Fixed-Mutable. However,  in a periodic context the Elements do not follow that circular sequence because Primitive Qualities don’t shift polarities at the same pace. 

 This is because Humidity and Temperature are actually polar opposites and the periodic context itself (“pace”) is their Fundamental Magnitude (which thereby unfolds into the three Modalities), but that delves into a level of abstraction that exceeds the scope of this material.

As a result, Fire-Air and Earth-Water Signs form balanced opposite pairs in the Zodiac sequential order, but never succeed each other.

From the inertial reference point, this sequence is radially projected in twelve equal sections across it’s plane of rotation – which originated the names of their prevailing constellations as seen from the Earth. Geocentric Astrology assigns relative function to Planets in the Solar System (of which the Sun is often considered most central) that is modulated by the sector or Sign it aligns with as seen from the Earth at a given moment. 

Planets are also assigned an Element that reflects the nature of their function (with distinct levels of Primitive Qualities distributed among them) and assume different dignities regarding Signs – but these intricacies involving different numerical balances deserve a separate, in-depth study.

For now, I hope that this article managed to contribute to your appreciation of Astrology, whichever it is.

Namaste