The Air Element

Some people can explain anything. They see the pattern, find the words, connect the person who needs help with the person who can give it. They step back from a situation and suddenly it makes sense. That is the air element: the part of life that is about thinking, talking, relating and seeing the bigger picture.

Air is invisible, and so is much of its work. It is the conversation that changes a mind, the idea that changes a company, the fairness that keeps a group together. It moves between things and connects them.

Three faces of air

Air appears three times around the zodiac, once in each modality.

• Gemini (mutable air) gathers. Air as curiosity, words and learning, the mind that wants to know everything.
• Libra (cardinal air) relates. Air as partnership, fairness and beauty, the mind that weighs both sides.
• Aquarius (fixed air) sees the whole. Air as principle, community and vision, the mind that thinks for everyone.

The three air signs sit 120 degrees apart, linked by trines. Planets in air signs understand each other easily: they share a love of ideas and exchange.

Hot and wet: the oldest layer

In the four-element philosophy astrology inherited from the Greeks, air is hot and wet: hot because it moves outward and expands, wet because it flows, mixes and connects things. Its temperament in early medicine was the sanguine, from the Latin for blood: sociable, optimistic, talkative, lively, and sometimes scattered.

Traditional astrology also gives each element its own triplicity rulers, and air's are a surprise. By day air is ruled by Saturn, by night by Mercury, with Jupiter participating. Saturn, the planet of structure and limits, leading the element of ideas? It makes sense once you see it: ideas become useful when they are given form, rules and principles. Aquarius, Saturn's day home, is an air sign for the same reason.

What is your element balance?

Count the fire, earth, air and water in your own chart.

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