Aries

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Mars
Color: Red
Gem: Diamond
Part of Body: head, face
Herbs: Garlic, Cayenne, Nettles, Honeysuckle
Flower: Sweet Pea
Element: Fire
Mode: Cardinal
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is simply to do something that makes you feel an independent and effective individual. You could be doing this in some form of leadership or selling, or by forcing others to look at themselves in a new way. You could accomplish this either consciously, by carrying out a deliberate act in the name of some cause, or unconsciously, by making it hard for others to relate to you as you are.

You should be consciously aware of your pioneering streak, for in this way not only do you enjoy life more, but you avoid feeling pushed around by others – and with you it’s more or less a case of push or be pushed.

This can be objectionable at times – and indeed your childlike impetuosity can repel others’ co-operation – but you must have the freedom to act. Don’t just think about it and get pent-up in the process. At all costs you need to avoid negative emotions like resentment, regret or self-pity, for they would deny you what is essential to your Arian nature – straightforwardness in responding to a challenge with action.

You should not be afraid to be forceful in this. If you are afraid, then look for negative examples of force in your personal history, what initially compromised your right to assert yourself. This right is like the outpouring of life itself and nothing should be allowed to get in the way of its innocence and freshness for this is what enables your Sign, like no other, to set the ball rolling.

Taurus

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Venus
Color: Pale Blue
Gem: Emerald
Part of Body: neck, throat
Herbs: Thyme, Coltsfoot, Goldenrod
Flower: Poppy
Element: Earth
Mode: Fixed
Polarity: Negative

Your essential purpose in life is to maintain the stability of Earthly things. You can go wrong if you interpret this only to mean having a substantial amount of money and possessions, or being assured of a predictable future in a purely tangible world.

In actual fact, your main possession is your sense of Earthly harmony and wholesomeness. When you truly get in touch with this sense, you need worry no longer about blindly reassuring yourself with external possessions and securities, for you will then know and feel that this sense attracts these very things. Taurus is the great provider.

This is not just in the material sense, but more essentially it is your calm and unruffled vibration, along with a well-vitalized body, that work wonders on the physical and emotional state of others. This could come about through sensuous affection, massage, good living, artistic expression, or just your sheer physical presence that emanates that aura of stability, that feeling that the Earth and Heaven are in their respective and proper places.

However, the other side of your Earthy wisdom and natural docility is inertia or grossness – which is born of a fear of change and all that it could mean to you. When you fall into this state it is only a matter of time before you attract someone or something that will make such immobility uncomfortable and compromising. It is then that a change has to be made, and something must be let go. You then discover how much more stable and rewarding things become as a result.

Gemini

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Mercury
Color: Yellow
Gem: Agate
Part of Body: arms, hands, nervous system
Herbs: Parsley, Flax, Linseed Tea
Flower: Lily of the Valley
Element: Air
Mode: Mutable
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is to make contact with, and connections between, whatever or whoever you regard as important – which is more or less everything! You do this because at heart you find everything interesting in some way or another. You are very alive to the variety of animate and inanimate objects on this planet, and you want to get to know as many of them as possible. As a rule though, ‘get to know’ is all you want to do.

As long as you have a ‘taste’ you are satisfied; getting deeply involved is not really to your taste and you will flip like a coin from one interest or person to another as it suits you. There may be other parts of your personality/birth chart that need or are attracted to more intimate situations, in which case a more profound sense of human interaction will be asked of you.

Like the many facets of life that you are acquainted with, you are able to turn your hand to many tasks and skills; indeed, it is your hands, as well as your quick mind and wits, which are your most excellent tools. You are, or should be, the communicator. There is nothing like a Gemini for keeping itself, the world and society in touch with each other and with what is happening.

Cancer

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Moon
Color: Silver
Gem: Pearl
Part of Body: stomach, breasts
Herbs: Lettuce, Chickweed, and Honeysuckle
Flower: Larkspur
Element: Water
Mode: Cardinal
Polarity: Negative

Your essential purpose in life is to nurture and care for whatever or whoever you believe needs it. At first, this is yourself! And the degree to which you received this support in childhood greatly determines how well you go about giving it to yourself or others as you grow older.

Esoterically, it is written that all souls are first born onto planet Earth in the Sign of the Crab, simply because they know intuitively that the Cancerian will is the one most likely to find a way of being looked after in their new home. Cancer has been called the “Lighthouse of Welcome”, which is something that the individual Cancerian would do well to become. For when you seek to protect rather than just seek protection, your essential qualities of neediness, sympathy and emotional receptivity then become a recognition of where nourishment and care are needed, along with the motivation and method required to give and sustain them, rather than an aching dependency in itself.

What were clinging claws that can clam up in the face of emotional intrusion then becomes a pair of open arms that holds firmly and cradles gently. The acute awareness that you have of another’s feelings, which can be misused to emotionally blackmail them, becomes a ray of healing. And that vulnerable sidestepping becomes the sensitive approach that cares for more than just family – but all human beings. Cancer’s motto could be ‘Who cares is cared for’.

Leo

Ruling Planet: Sun
Color: Gold
Gem: Ruby
Part of Body: heart and circulation
Herbs: Eyebright, St. John’s Wort, Walnuts, Mistletoe
Flower: Sunflower
Element: Fire
Mode: Fixed
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is to bring warmth, light and vitality to whatever you regard as important. Thus you generate more brightness and creativity. In order to achieve this, you have a radiance, an inner glow, which quite magically draws the attention of others. This same quality then lends an air of certainty to whatever it is that you have involved yourself with. What could be called your royal seal of approval bestows a confidence upon whomever or whatever meets with your approbation.

The trouble is that your curse is as disastrous as your blessing is great. And the curse of Leo is, of course, pride. Your pride makes you vulnerable to being taken in vain – and when you feel taken in vain, your bright sun goes behind a dark cloud. (Some Leos are even born with their sun behind that cloud). When it re-emerges you are very wary of having your pride wounded again and anything that alludes to this – like advice or criticism – you disdainfully ignore or haughtily put in its place.

However, when you are the Leo who does put pride aside, who is aware that the sun cannot see its own shadow, and who gracefully accepts constructive advice or criticism, you become like the Sun itself – utterly inextinguishable, ever-giving and ever-warm, funny and romantic, the noble ruler, the creative teacher – the healing heart. You, of all the Signs, have the Light. All you need do is shine.

Virgo

Ruling Planet: Mercury
Color: Brown
Gem: Sapphire
Part of Body: intestines and solar plexus
Herbs: Fennel, Dill and Liquorice
Flower: Pansy
Element: Earth
Mode: Mutable
Polarity: Negative

Your essential purpose in life is to improve the expression or state of whatever it is that you regard as important. To enable you to accomplish this you are analytical, and are well able to spot the best and the worst in any given person, thing or situation. The danger here is that you can be over-critical and become anxious about things not being right or going wrong.

This can apply especially to the functioning of your own body and mind, although such an attitude could also mean that you are particularly good at caring for health generally. However, you need to cultivate tolerance and acceptance of things as they are. As a consequence of all this, on the one hand, you will attract or be attracted to circumstances and relationships which require your accuracy and eye for detail, and that employ your sensitive and helpful disposition. Yet on the other hand, they could try your fastidiousness to the point of isolating you.

Libra

Ruling Planet: Venus
Color: Indigo
Gem: Opal
Part of Body: kidneys
Herbs: Burdock, Pennyroyal, Feverfew, Violet
Flower: Rose
Element: Air
Mode: Cardinal
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is to bring balance, justice or harmony to whatever it is in your world that you regard as important. You are naturally equipped for this in that you are only too aware of the fact that there is a right and a wrong, a rough and a smooth, a pleasant and an unpleasant, etc, etc. side to every situation and person.

It is this innate awareness of the ambiguities of life that gives rise to Libra’s renowned indecisiveness. But really there is only one basic decision that you have to make. This is that you arrive consciously at a firm set of social values. This means that you have to ascertain what you think is important to society in your eyes and what you can do that will contribute to society in that respect.

Indeed, that contribution may be simply the establishing of a balanced relationship, or a balance within yourself. Anyhow, until you have begun to achieve this end, this social contribution, you will most likely vacillate between what you feel others expect of you and what you really want to do – something of which you are only partly conscious.

This in turn can lead to your being rather superficial as you use your innate sense of harmony to blend in with everything and everyone. Or, perversely, you may even be quite deliberately uncooperative as a kind of overreaction to your basic but vapid agreeability. No other Sign can draw attention to beauty and justice in such a beautiful and just way as Libra can – when you know what your pitch is.

Scorpio

Ruling Planet: Pluto
Color: Red
Gem: Topaz
Part of Body: generative organs (bladder, uterus, etc.)
Herbs: Horehound, Blackberry Leaves, Blessed Thistle
Flower: Chrysanthemum
Element: Water
Mode: Fixed

Your essential purpose in life is to deepen and make more genuine whatever it is that you regard as important. To enable you to accomplish this you have an ability to see into the heart and soul of a person or situation, and to heal or transform what you find there.

The response that you get to this insight of yours varies. You can elicit from others extremes of mistrust or devotion and consequently be either mistrustful or utterly devoted yourself. Your probing intensity can certainly reach the parts that other Signs cannot reach. But if you don’t wish to emotionally exhaust those people that matter to you, give the probing a break occasionally, for the world will get by for a while without it. This ability of yours to penetrate into another’s emotional reality is sexually based. This means to say that Scorpio’s renowned sexuality is more to do with your mind and feelings than your body.

This is what sets you apart from other Signs, for you are able to ‘enter’ someone else’s space without even touching them. This psychological insight and the powerful influence that it can wield is compromised by one thing only: you suspect that others are doing the same to you with dubious intentions. This in turn gives rise to a downward spiral of discord that appears to prove your suspicions correct. Behind all this is your fear of having the chink in your armour – your vulnerability – spotted and taken advantage of. Spot it yourself first, and you are invulnerable.

Sagittarius

Ruling Planet: Jupiter
Color: Purple
Gem: Turquoise
Part of Body: thighs
Herbs: Red Clover, Chicory, Dandelion
Flower: Narcissus
Element: Fire
Mode: Mutable
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is to further and discover more about whatever it is that you regard as important. To enable you to accomplish this you are very able to grasp the whole meaning of any subject that appeals to your sizeable enthusiasm.

There is always a danger of running away with yourself and overlooking details, as you get carried along by your zest and full-blown opinions. However, because you are a good manager of things and know how to get the best out of people and circumstances, you have probably equipped yourself with something or someone that keeps you grounded by practical considerations. Some kind of goal, vision or belief is of paramount importance in making sense of your life and use of your prolific nature.

By the same token, you need to bear in mind that your ability to make a lot of anything had best not be employed solely for material ends – otherwise you could get stumped by a need for something that money or influence just can’t buy. You also, in an impersonal way, like to create friction for it gives you the feeling that things are on the move. Yours is probably the most positive Sign for the simple reason that you see life as an opportunity. So it doesn’t matter too much how difficult the road ahead may look, it is still a road – and roads go places!

Capricorn

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Saturn
Color: Rich Green
Gem: Garnet
Part of Body: knees, bones, and teeth
Herbs: Slippery Elm, Horsetail, Wintergreen
Flower: Carnation
Element: Earth
Mode: Cardinal
Polarity: Negative

Your essential purpose in life is to establish a material position in the world that you regard as useful. In order to accomplish this you have an innate sense of ambition and orderliness. You make a point of knowing how the world of politics and business works – along with anything else which your canny mind determines as being practical and relevant to your overall intentions.

Such earthy common sense is something that others depend on you for – and at times can feel rather inadequate in comparison to. However, your weakness is that you tend to overlook, or simply not see, matters of emotional significance that are patently obvious to types less pragmatic than yourself.

So although you are more likely than most to achieve some sort of success in the world as a result of your industriousness, you are at some point more than likely to encounter a collapse or a profound sense of pointlessness because you have only taken into consideration the practical side of life, and underestimated the importance of unseen factors like human longings and weaknesses, and the mystery of life itself.

When your sense of what matters begins to include these more invisible and mystical aspects of existence, you then become the true manager that you were born to be. When you apply your worldly, responsible and hard-working nature to making a sound base for the furtherance of collective or spiritual interests, then you truly feel that you are the success, which you originally thought you would be.

Aquarius

Ruling Planet: Uranus
Color: Deep Blue
Gem: Amethyst
Part of Body: ankles and blood stream
Herbs: Valerian, Lady’s Slipper, Snake Root
Flower: Orchid
Element: Air
Mode: Fixed
Polarity: Positive

Your essential purpose in life is to view and approach all things in an impartial and humanitarian way. In so doing, you hope and intend to liberate yourself and others from guilt, fear and conditioning. To enable you to accomplish this, you are emotionally detached to one degree or another.

If you like, you choose to not even recognize your own or others’ emotional shortcomings – or if you do, you shrug them off or distance yourself from them in some way. Being such a cool observer of life inclines you to being a natural psychologist, therapist, scientist – or simply a good friend.

However, this distancing of yourself from awkward emotional areas that reflect your own discomfort can have the effect of divorcing you not only from them, but also from some of your best qualities. Consequently, you stand in danger of being someone who has been processed and packaged by what you think should be you, rather than what actually is you. Others find it very hard to relate to this, then get very emotional, and cause you to do more of the same!

When you eventually immerse yourself in the pool, well or cesspit of your own rejected feelings, you lend a power and conviction to your outward expression that convinces, influences – and liberates – both yourself and others. The reason for this is that others, and your emotional self, can then identify with you.

Pisces

Attributions

Ruling Planet: Neptune
Color: Pale Green
Gem: Aquamarine
Part of Body: feet
Herbs: Sea Weeds, Irish Moss, Water plants
Flower: Jonquil (small daffodil)
Element: Water
Mode: Mutable
Polarity: Negative

Your essential purpose in life is to make acceptable to yourself and others whatever you regard as being important in this respect. Your ways of doing this are manifold. In fact you have more facets and possibilities than any other Sign – and you also have as many ways of disguising them! But you are usually trying to do one or both of two things: to inspire or escape.

Inspiration can take the form of being an artist of some sort, or of being some kind of reliever of suffering. Equally, you could be on the receiving end of inspiration, as say, a lover of beauty and mystery. Your escapist tendencies on the other hand are seen in your inclination to look away from what is really bothering you – probably quite unconsciously. Your means of doing so can range from being ever so intellectual and logical (thereby dodging emotional dilemmas), to being extremely vague – possibly assisted by drugs or alcohol.

Underlying these two extremes of inspiration or escape is one thing: your acute and unrelenting sensitivity to life. Probably the easiest way to handle this in a positive way is with a limited means of escapism. That is, you have say, a drink or two, but not three, so to speak, in order to ease the pain, to deaden the sensitivity to manageable proportions.

However, the nature of the beast in you is inclined to slip and slide, so inevitably a more reliable and healthier means of handling your sensitivity is required – such as meditation, yoga, or some other spiritual practice. It is very desirable that you keep on the right side of your sensitivity for it then enables you to catch, and express, both the comedy and the tragedy, the heaven and the hell, of the human condition.