Sign lineage

[James Condor]

Thought- might we be an accumulation of previous sign quality which becomes the sign essence we are experiencing, that we are? Like a biological lineage. Allot of Sagittarius' identify with Scorpio. Everyone is the sign born into, the essence. But before we were born, do we gather intrinsic qualities of previous signs we passed through on the way to being born our natal sign?

[Soft Alpaca]

Eh that's how astrology originally was told each sign builds on the qualities of the signs before it. Do I think that's the reason why sag ppl act like Scorpio, no. I'm agreeing with Scorpio because I'm reading saggitarius and going what {bs} this? Socially elite? literally my grandma told me when I told her I was supposed to be this to go back to whoever said that and ask them what their on. Kings are meant to be beheaded there kingdoms to be burned down and rebuilt out of the ashes. Every description of Sagittarius on here goes against my innate human nature, maybe this is just me but maybe people have us pinned down wrong? (Normally it's just me.)

[Jim Eshelman]

I don't have a direct response for James' interesting inquiry, other than to say that, as a Virgo, I haven't felt myself to be Leo-like more than many other signs (though people used to comment on my mane so often in the '70s and early '80s that I naturally paused to wonder if my birth time could be so far off that my 2° Virgo Ascendant as really in the last degree of Leo).

On sequence... I've never published here my notes on my old talk on archetypal essences and sequences in the zodiac. (They're buried in storage somewhere.) But, yes, there is a natural sequencing of the - a stepping from one thing to the next - and I think we must consider that each stage of the process may find itself not just itself, but the thing that follows what came before and precedes what comes after.

The easiest ways to display this is in terms of a human life-cycle: Taurus is the ejaculation that starts the story, Gemini the splitting of the ovum, Cancer the time in the womb, and Leo the roaring out of the womb into childhood. Virgo is the "latency" half of pre-pubertal childhood, coming up to the brink of puberty. Libra is the "sunrise," breaking loose all the primal forces at puberty (analogous to several other Libra-liked phenomena), and all the Venus-themed issues of adolescence. Scorpio is the next phase of hormonal extremism in late teens and early '20s when most civilized countries send their young men to some other country to kill, rape, and break things (I'm joking, but it's true).

Sagittarius is then the first phase of adulthood (more or less centered in the 20s and the general time of the second Jupiter return - which is also the age that, neurologically, we first get the actual capacity for critical thought). Where Scorpio had been the unleashing of the animal, Sagittarius is the essence of evolving / developing / training the animal out of its primary animal state into the human. " (The beast behind, the upreaching, aspiring, civilizing human at the fore.) In a word, it is the civilizing power.

Capricorn corresponds to the time from Saturn return onward, the next phase of adulthood, in which one has at last secured one's autonomy - the real adulthood threshold IMHO. It is both stodgier than the Sagittarius phase, and more free - a more mature adult with responsibilities, settled, authority, and the track record to go his or her own way. (Many different ways, but you probably get what I'm saying. Simplisitically, I've thought of saying that Sagittarius is the pre-family / pre-parenting phase of adulthood, Capricorn the family phase, and Aquarius the post-family phase; but that's obviously not a fit for all times and climes.)

Aquarius corresponds to the Uranian "age of oppositions" or "middlessence" that begins 40-ish or a litte earlier, and is a time of autonomy now with freedom, of reinvention, of widest horizons and possibilities. Pisces is late-stage, marked for many by increased dependency and for others by wisdom (to use developmental code words). Aries is the point of death - yet also the instant of orgasm that triggers the ejaculation coming forth as Taurus... and the circle continues.

So... to return this to the inquiry above... I'd say that, sure, Sagittarius (like all signs) finds itself not only as itself but as what came after the prior thing, and comes before its successor. That is, Sagittarius finds itself as post-Scorpio and pre-Capricorn. I don't think, there is any to live the continuing struggle of "beast into human" without fully recognizing the beast. At the same time, shouldn't we be able to see in it, just as much, that which, in time, will become the next stage? (Not that we become the next stage in our lives, but that we live our lives as that which foreshadows somethin else). The civilizing centaur comes before the old goat (or ancient fish-headed god emerging from the sea) to come redeem civilization and seed its going forward.

I don't know if this "myself, what came before, what comes after" experience is universal or even wide-spread. I take it as the start of an inquiry; and I know it's now what James first talked about, but it's what I was able to make of what he started.

[James Condor]

Good stuff Jim. Makes sense to me. An inquiry indeed. Very good stuff.
What stands out to me initially (and because of my current Cancer sun experiences) is the pole of Cancer and Capricorn. Cancer is very much in the womb gathering impressions or preparing for the world outside the womb, aka birth. Cancer has gathered all these general ideas that are vaguely relatable to human experience yet I know (and they don't seem too)far from my actually experience of their description. And Capricorn is stodgy and wise from having lived outside the womb and through all experienced phases up to itself. Cancer is giddy from images of what might be outside and also from the comfort of being inside. Cancer is very surface oriented and cannot help to relate back to home-the comfort inside the womb. Of course, this is a necessary phase of human development.
Sagittarius being first phase of critical thinking makes sense in the their ego of non content character, higher and higher, etc.
I want to know more on each sign Jim. And I don't understand the wording on Pisces. I don't know any Pisces suns anymore. I don't know any Aquarius suns either. I've met some.