3 modes of AIR

ONCE again we return to the ‘Triplicities’ [check out early posts] or zodiac sign groupings according to the classical philosophical elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Let us look again at the qualities of AIR when combined with each of the 3 modes or ways of doing things in the Cardinal, the Fixed and the Mutable people.

Primal Egyptian god of air – Shu

[Lucy Lamy, ‘Egyptian Mysteries’]

The air gives us the ‘Breath of Life’ and the quality of this medium and element is associated with breathing and with brain function. Air people need to circulate amongst their friends like the air amongst the trees whispering and sharing the latest gossip, ideas and news. The air quality of life blows in gentle refreshing breezes to shift away the dust, or it rages like a tornado to clean away the debris. With the breath we send out words that reflect the inner hidden thought; or with unspoken thought we move our bodies to express the inexpressible either in dance or athletics. Thus it is seen that the air quality is necessary to bind and share all we have with each other, after we have gulped down its life giving energy.

[From Budge, ‘The Egyptian Zodiac’]

GEMINI is the first air sign of the zodiac. It has a duality or polarity, which may be the twin states of body and soul, or soul and spirit. Sometimes Gemini people are aware of this duality and it either causes them to be constantly vacillating between two states or conditions, a bit like Libra, or they are found using their intelligence and questing for knowledge and information in order to learn how to find a middle state that utilises both conditions. In the mundane world this quality is reflected in the ‘middle man’ or agent, the mediator, the bringer of news and gossip. The versatility of the mutable quality, the planetary rulership of Mercury and the flowing nature of air makes the Gemini person the most communicative of the three air signs and sometimes never still.

[From Budge, ‘The Egyptian Zodiac’]

LIBRA is the air sign that combines with the quality of cardinality, thus it moves in a more direct line than Gemini natives, either focusing on inter-relationships of the human sort or the inter-relationships between intellectual factors or material objects. By so doing these people demonstrate their great need to achieve a balance between all seeming polarities and disparities as befits a combination of the circulatory quality of air. The rulership of Venus, planet of harmony, proportion ensures their constant searching for balance and beauty, whether in fashion or mathematics. You will catch these people making active effort [cardinal] to make things appealing to others and to find meaning in human relationships and they need to be part of such a world.

[From Budge, ‘The Egyptian Zodiac’]

AQUARIUS combines the movable air quality with the fixed state of being. Aquarian people know that they need to circulate and interrelate with other humans but do not always find this easy due to their fixed mode of action, and sometimes they get stuck for words and feelings too. However, those Aquarians that are expressing themselves well belong to groups that share either their ‘way-out’ thinking or their love of shared activity such as in sporting or working teams. Air wants to be friendly and when combined with the static nature of the fixed mode, this friendship can be relied on to stay around for a long time, even if sometimes at a little distance. By the same virtue the Aquarian can be most aggravatingly stubborn, almost like a Taurean! Under Saturnian rulership, some Aquarians are locked into the past. Under Uranian rulership, some Aquarians live in the future; most are a combination.