Aires Overview

March 20 -April 19

Key Words:  “I Am”

Aires energy is the phallic thrust of new spring life. It wants to make love, move, take-charge, grow.  In the Northern Hemisphere, we feel that force in lengthening days of light, in the power of the Sun expanding its rule.  Mars wishes to manifest as expressive will, and most Aires people love a challenge!  “The Egyptians called him ‘artes’ giving us the word for arts.  Mars symbolized ‘man’s personal, creative expression, and his motivating force is Inspirational fire.  Often courageous, with a great facility for cutting through bullshit, unless they are working the dark side of their nature.  Beware the short fuse.

The sun god, Surya, and Mars have much in common and support a body growing into selfhood.  Both are fiery energies, with a driving will. Aires, as the first sign of the zodiac, supports the soul to understand itself as a separate entity, to express a life force vigorously so that it may withstand the pressure of change, to not grow back toward Pisces oneness.  Rarely does the Mars-ruled body stagnate, or sit still, unless other forces are strongly at work.

Because of their innate leadership abilities, Aires are aware that playing the fool at times can reveal the signature of a great commander.  They understand that it does not always serve to boss others around, rather to lead by becoming the lowest/the fool, and serve as an example to move others forward. If there’s no channel for all the Aries energy, if you’re feeling bottled up, irritation and anger are sure to follow. Whatever you do, the “same old, same old won’t suffice.  Aires energy needs to create new outlets for its energies or suffer headaches, frustration, or road rage.

Mars Rules Aires

Mars, Aires ruling planet, has charge over the head and brain, plus important organs associated with the head, especially the eyes. Mars loves to be ahead of everyone, or the head of anything.  He can be the wild beast within asking to be tamed. His is the satisfaction in our physical expression, commitment, decisiveness, assertiveness, willpower, and anger. He has been called ‘the god of war’, and ‘the light of the aggressor’, and his force is ‘ego in action,’ employing both dynamics of destruction and creation. We need his vitality, warrior can-do dedication, and fiery enthusiasm. Martian energy can be of headstrong.  Their glyph represents the Ram’s head.  Because of their drive, Aires can be prone to headaches, head injuries, nose and eye issues.  Many Aires carry strong Ayurvedic Pitta (fiery) energies.

Balancing Aires fire through a Yoga Practice

One of Aires lessons is patience, to pause and take a long a breath to reconsider.

Spend more time in forward folds, and cooling headstands before moving on into the next great adventure.

Approach poses from different linking of Asana.  The direct way is not the only way.

Aires need strong physical challenges, poses that require focus and muscle.  They also need to balance through the opposition of slow stretches, cleansing Pranayama, and a longer Savasana.

Aires, as one of the three fire signs, manages energy.  With a strong Mars, there likelihood of a high nervous drive.  This is assuaged by quiet music, longer Pranayama, and calling peace into the body: “Om shanti, shanti”

“We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds.” 

Roger Ebert, film critic, an iconoclastic Aires.