The Fixed Signs

Some people, once they decide, do not move. They keep the promise, finish the degree, stay in the friendship through the hard years. You can lean on them. You can also run into them like a wall. That is fixed energy: the power to sustain, to concentrate, to hold.

Fixed signs sit in the middle of each season, when the season is at its fullest and most itself. Cardinal energy starts, mutable energy adapts, and fixed energy keeps going.

Four kinds of holding

Each fixed sign holds something different, in the way of its element.

• Taurus holds the middle of spring. Fixed earth: it keeps resources, comfort and what it values.
• Leo holds the middle of summer. Fixed fire: it keeps the flame of the heart and creativity burning.
• Scorpio holds the middle of autumn. Fixed water: it keeps feeling, loyalty and secrets, all the way down.
• Aquarius holds the middle of winter. Fixed air: it keeps principles and ideas, firmly.

All four are determined. When they disagree, none of them wants to move first.

The four creatures

Here is something few horoscope pages mention. The four fixed signs are linked to one of the oldest images in Western art: the four living creatures, a bull, a lion, an eagle and a human figure, from the biblical visions of Ezekiel and of Revelation. Medieval artists used them for the four Evangelists, and many astrologers have seen in them the four fixed signs: the bull of Taurus, the lion of Leo, the eagle as Scorpio's higher form, and the human water-bearer of Aquarius.

The sky holds a parallel. Near the four fixed signs lie four bright stars that ancient astrologers called the Royal Stars: Aldebaran in the Bull, Regulus in the Lion, Antares in the Scorpion, and Fomalhaut, below the Water-bearer. They were the watchers of the four quarters of the sky.

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