Digging into Aries symbolism

[Jim Eshelman]

A friend's chart got me digging this morning...He has a recurring pattern through life of reaching a significant achievement and then, almost immediately, someone undercuts him emotionally in a way that seems to strip away the victory. (There's no causal connection between the undercutting and the achievement; I think the real loss is of the "riding high" on his victory, but with a more or less total loss of pleasure in the achievement and no real recovery from it - like a bubble popped and gone.)

Whenever there is such a strong pattern in the life - like exact "wiring" of the psyche - we expect to see it clearly in the nativity. In this case, he and I know that the main component is his afflicted Venus which (without going into the fine points) is vulnerable to deep disappointment and emotional let-down.

But the second part isn't obvious - why there is a link of this (in his life and, therefore, necessarily in his psyche) to an achievement and the emotional betrayal devastating the sense of achievement. The link of the basic vulnerability to Venus and its aspect is clear, so I decided to look deeper into Venus' "total state" in the chart to see what else I could find. There isn't much. Venus' other aspects are few and minor. There are no midpoints on the Venus axis worth mentioning. Really, the only thing worth considering seems to be that Venus is in Aries, its detriment - not a bad Venus overall, but put under some kind of stress from the anti-Libran quality of its lodging. Might this mean something?

On reflection, I rejected several "first impression" ideas on how Venus in Aries brought these psychological themes together. For example, it's not true (at least: not true enough) that the offending people are authorities or people in some kind of power. There's not a social out-of-placeness in any of the stories that could come with a debilited Venus.

And then it occurred to me! Something really basic. As I dug into the root symbolism of his Venus, one important ancient piece of symbolism came to mind. It's the same symbolism that seems to give birth to the cyclicity, or "rise and fall" roller-coaster of Sun in Aries people in various areas of life, a piece of symbolism Tropical astrologers rightly ignored for thousands of years and Sidereal astrologers rightly brought back into the modern discussion.

It's from early 1st Century, in the writings of Manilius, who spoke of sheep growing their thick coat of wool and then having it shorn - having it taken away. I started thinking of this from the perspective of the sheep, especially if growing thick, luscious wool were some kind of accomplishment (it's not, of course) and then having it taken away by the farmer. I ran this image past my friend who quickly affirmed that yes - yes! - this is exactly how things felt. Every time he would figuratively grow a full, luscious coat of wool, someone would just come in - exactly at that moment (which, of course, is the right timing) - and take it away.

I thought this worth sharing both as an example of astropsychology and also as a reminder that this "growth, then shearing" (which can take many forms) is a truly fundamental piece of Aries' archetypal symbolism. The practical thing to remember, though, is: wool grows back. (Notice how this is a less dramatic but no less descriptive version of the "phoenix" themes often attributed to Pluto - it just lacks the catastrophic element.)

To quote Manilius at some length on this roller-coaster: "The Ram, who is rich with abundance of fleecy wool and, when shorn of this, with a fresh supply, will ever cherish hopes; he will rise from the sudden shipwreck of his affairs to abundant wealth only to meet with a fall... These are the callings and allied crafts that the Ram will decree for those born under his sign: in an anxious breast he will fashion a diffident heart that ever yearns to commend itself by its own praise."