Dana Gerhardt: The Signs - and Hercules' Twelve Labors
Zero Aries, that point when the north-climbing Sun crosses the equator, marks the beginning of the tropical zodiac and launches spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It brings warmer days, renewed vitality, new growth and new optimism. Where Aries appears in your chart, you have a gift for beginnings, for blazing new trails, for leaping where spirit wants to take you.
Hercules finds his target without delay, subdues the beast without struggle, and patiently rides it home. We like our heroes to charge out, wield clubs, and dominate their opponents, but those are masculine values and Taurus is a feminine sign. Its goals are simplicity, security, and peace. Its virtues include receptivity and acceptance.
The wind was a trickster. It was quick, clever, playful; also restless, noisy, unpredictable, and infuriating. If the desert wind were a zodiac sign, there's only one it could be: versatile, elusive, inventive and scatter-brained Gemini.
The doe is a formidable quarry - but also sensitive and vulnerable (as are we in our Cancer house). One critic has suggested the hind is reminiscent of Sibyls and ancient priestesses who were incapable of issuing prophecies in anything less than a harmonious environment. Their delicate sensibilities required seclusion, being protected from anything unpleasant, harsh or upsetting. To unfold the sensitive powers of Cancer is what Hercules' mission is all about.
Just look where Leo resides. In Leo's house, with our Leo planets, and through Leo's ruling light, the Sun, we're called to a special destiny, something only we can do. It's Leo that makes us hope and wonder: Are we the One the world is waiting for?
Sadly, people are often disappointed to learn they have planets in Virgo. By comparison, its opposite sign Pisces is so transcendent and mystical that Virgo descriptors can sound rather dull. Pisces is intuitive and imaginative. Virgo is analytical and practical. Yet Virgo couldn't tackle a disorganized desk, a cluttered room, or a broken world without some belief in magic.
Airy Libra inspires our visions of prince or princess Charming, our "ideas" about relationship, but without the passion of fire to send us into the other's arms, or the emotionalism of water to bond us in all our vulnerability, Libra can sit in the netherworld of indecision for a long time. A friend with a Libra Moon is always wondering if she's really in love, if this one's The One. "How do you know?" she keeps asking me. For a Libran it's sometimes hard.
This sign's clichés are creepy. Pick up a pop astrology book and you'll find that having Scorpio planets can make you secretive, controlling, vengeful, power-mad, paranoid, obsessive, and over sexed. They can also bring you passion, determination, resourcefulness, and a keen intuition - but these positive Scorpio traits aren't on the tip of most people's tongues.
In the Sag Zone, you feel as fit and cheerful as an Alpine hiker. With a philosopher's wit and the barefoot stride of a spiritual seeker, you're eager to head out and read the Vast Book of the World! You might find God on a crowded Bangkok sidewalk or in a musty volume from a forgotten library shelf. Words like "justice, freedom, integrity" make your heart pound. If you see wrongs, you want to right them. When it's dark, you're full of hope. If life gets inscrutable, answers fall to the tip of your tongue. In the Zone, you happily leap to your soapbox to preach to your friends - but strangely, they draw back in horror.
Obey the rules. Be responsible. To gain respect you've got to earn it. Work hard and you'll go far. Capricorn is conventional, dependable, practical, and disciplined. It's ambitious too, but prefers climbing the stairs of existing structures. Its success generally follows traditional routes. Being a sixties - hippy at heart, I worried about Cap Pluto's approaching hey-day, never imagining how shiny its virtues would appear in a post-millennium world. I'm now delighted that Capricorn keywords like "respect," "integrity," and "effective leadership" are making a comeback.
Capricorn kings inevitably get stuck in their own ideas and can't relinquish their own authority. Creativity is stymied. Problems pile up. Fortunately, the limitations of every sign always take us to the next one's gifts; so Capricorn leads us to the genius in Aquarius. Altruistic, progressive and unconventional, Aquarius brings the leap in consciousness that keeps our world from getting hopelessly mired in old dung.
Clinging to Virgo virtues, I've spent years demonstrating my inability to understand my Pisces mates—poets, musicians, alcoholics, liars and dreamers. How many times I've peered into their nebulous world and thrown up my hands: "What d'ya mean you just 'forgot' to meet me when you said you would?! You lost your keys for the third time this week?! Go ahead. Give me one good reason why I should believe your promises now!"Topics in the Astro Shop
Current Planets
28-Apr-2025, 06:19
UT/GMT
| |||||
| Sun | 8 | 13' 8" | 14n15 | ||
| Moon | 14 | 38'55" | 19n53 | ||
| Mercury | 11 | 55'31" | 2n05 | ||
| Venus | 28 | 42'30" | 0n55 | ||
| Mars | 4 | 21' 0" | 21n10 | ||
| Jupiter | 20 | 49'31" | 22n53 | ||
| Saturn | 27 | 34' 4" | 2s48 | ||
| Uranus | 26 | 9'47" | 19n05 | ||
| Neptune | 1 | 0'37" | 0s46 | ||
| Pluto | 3 | 48'32" | 22s44 | ||
| TrueNode | 26 | 45'48"r | 1s17 | ||
| Chiron | 23 | 54'48" | 9n59 | ||
| Explanations of the symbols | |||||
| Chart of the moment | |||||
