Detailed Classification of the Astrology signs
Countless articles are made about the Astrology Signs. Before understanding the meaning of the Astrology signs in detail, let’s try to understand how it works from the point of view of the signs.
In semiotic theory, the sign is a complex entity, as it is a system composed of elements: a signified, a signifier, and a referent. That is, to function, a sign must exist as a signifier, have a form and a substance (a sound, a concept, a graphic element, a material object) that refers to meaning, that is to a content that we want to express through that sign (a piece of information, an indication, but also an injunction or a prohibition).
This meaning arrives and is interpreted by the referents, that is the subjects who can see, hear, receive the sign both in its physical manifestation (signifier) and in its content (meaning). A sign is always a sign “of something” and “for someone”.
The astrology signs have traditionally been grouped according to three different criteria: polarity, modality, and the element of belonging.
Polarity – Masculine and Feminine Signs
Masculine signs (active/positive):
Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius. These are signs brought to action, and they are the signs of Fire and Air.
Female signs (passive/negative):
Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces. These are reaction signs, and they are the signs of Earth and Water.
The association between the active/masculine polarity and the extroverted attitude and the passive/feminine polarity and the introverted attitude is clear. Jung himself states that in reality each of us has both polarities, but consciously identifies with one of the two, and necessarily leaves the other to act in the unconscious: whoever has a prevalent and manifest extrovert characteristic, will have relegated all of them to the unconscious. the introverted functions, and vice versa.
According to Carl Gustav Jung’s formulation of psychological types
The most interesting psychological reference to this distinction refers to Carl Gustav Jung’s formulation of psychological types. He first introduces two basic attitudes of the human psyche, one that he defines as extroverted, that is, turned outside the psyche itself, towards facts and people, open to experience, to knowledge, to others. He is about assertive, sociable individuals, and an introverted one, that is, turned towards oneself, one’s interests, one’s feelings. It is proper to reflect individuals.
Elements – The four astrology signs elements (fire, earth, air, and water)
The astrology signs are traditionally associated with the four elements that Western science considers the constituents of matter and reality: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. On a psychological level, Jung associates the four elements of the astrological and medical tradition of antiquity with four functions of the psyche: intuition, thought, sensation, and feeling.
For Jung, thought and emotion is judging functions, because they express an evaluation, a judgment, while intuition and sensation are receptive or perceptive functions, because they limit themselves to recording an experience. Each function can be expressed in an introverted or extroverted way; the sixteen “psychological types” of the Jungian theory are born from the intersection of possibilities.
For our discussion, we remain with the four elements and the four psychic functions, which lead us directly to the concept of the modality of the zodiac signs.
The fire sign element
Overall, each element refers synthetically but at the same time in a complex way to a fundamental, “elementary” quality:
Fire in nature burns transforms matter into energy, produces light and heat, the Sun itself is a great ball of fire; Fire is a masculine element (active, positive, extroverted) and is connected to energy in all its manifestations: it is light, heat, action, it is a fundamental element of life as it gives vitality, it is an active, dynamic principle, it gives the impulse and thrust to things.
The fire element is associated with energy, movement, action, heat, strength.
Fire is associated with the psychic faculty of intuition, which is a receptive function of the mind: it is an irrational faculty, which perceives directly from experience, through a direct shock, not mediated by reason or judgment; it presides over the instincts, the basic need for life and recognition (survival principle). He is connected to the concept of energy.
Which are the fire signs?
The zodiacal Signs Of Fire are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, in Quan The Fire can manifest itself either as a spark that ignites, lightning that strikes, volcanic explosion (Aries, cardinal mode); both as the sun that burns and heats, the fire that burns, flame that devours (Leo, fixed mode); finally, he knows as a light and a lantern that illuminates the night, a torch that conserves and transmits heat, a flame that cooks and transforms (Sagittarius, mobile mode).
In a natal chart, the excess of Fire (i,e the presence of many planets in the signs of Fire) produces a centripetal, playful and selfish movement, which can result in destruction and violence, in a longing for power and recognition; the defect of Fire brings a lack of vitality, a lack of enthusiasm and spirit of initiative, inertia, and indolence.
The Earth sign element
The Earth is a female element (passive, negative, introverted) and is connected to stability, solidity, secure support, concreteness: it is the soil to tread on, the foundations on which to build, the earth in which to sow and plant, presides over the fundamental biological function of nutrition and safety (conservation principle).
The Earth element is associated with stability, patience, practical sense, materiality, firmness which is also immobility, solidity.
Corresponds to the psychological function of sensation, a receptive function of the body, immediate, that is, not mediated by thought, but directly conveyed through the senses, the sense organs, through taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing. It is related to the concept of substance.
Which are the Earth signs?
The Earth Signs are Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn. The soft and fertile earth associated with the sign of Taurus, which represents the sense of patience and calm necessary for growth, conservation, and nourishment (fixed mode); but it is also the concreteness of the Virgo that divides into parts, sterilizes, and preserves; it includes the infinitesimally small, it is the yeast that added to the mass makes it grow in a protected space, it is the separated and preserved ingredients, it is the order and cleanliness (mobile mode); or finally, the cold, solid and compact rock of the impenetrable Capricorn, solid and reliable, eternal and infallible (cardinal mode).
The excess of Earth leads to a sense of greed, jealousy, possessiveness, and closure, as well as obsession and obsession; the Earth defect leaves things pending, fails to materialize, to make decisions, to build, it lacks balance and stability.
The Air sign element
The air is light, mobile, the wind is cool, but also hot, sometimes icy; gas molecules have weak bonds, and it is the element that for this reason offers less resistance to change, it is indeed a good conductor: through the air, they can pass light and sound frequencies. In this sense, the
The Air element is associated with mobility, change, communication, sociability, fun, mental faculties, imagination.
Air is a masculine element (active, positive, extroverted) and is connected to what has no matter or energy, but is light and mobile, such as ideas, thoughts, projects; due to its lack of concreteness it needs connections, and therefore it is a creative, communicative, associative and social element.
It corresponds to the psychological function of thought, which is the understanding of reality based on the categories true/false and right/wrong, therefore mediated by judgment and rational activity. It leads over the fundamental instincts of aggregation, communication, sociality, and sharing, as well as having an ideational sense of an artistic or inventive type (principle of adaptation). It is related to the concept of form.
Which are the Air signs?
The Air signs are Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. The Air sign manifests itself in the three forms of the spring breeze charged with the scents and pollens of the sign of Gemini, which therefore convey incentives, creative ideas, suggestions, and pleasure and testify and convey reproduction and creation.
It is the air of the voice, of the song, of the whistling of birds (mobile sign); or the warm wind of late summer, of Libra, which softens the heat and postpones the first cold, maintaining a thermodynamic balance of peace, quiet and harmony, devoted to aggregation, to planning (cardinal sign); or the air of the stratosphere, the air of high altitude, where everything is rarefied and subtle, and the panorama is wide and all-encompassing, the sense of wholeness, equality, the all-encompassing horizon of Aquarius (fixed sign).
The excess of Air not only takes its qualities to extremes (rational thinking, severe judgment, continuous and uninterrupted analysis, and evaluation), but above all it highlights its shortcomings, that is the feeling, the action, and the concreteness, and therefore will lead to a difficulty to understand their feelings and express them, or to realize everything that is intensely thought, rethought and planned. A defect in the Air sign will lead to a lack of incentives, ideas, and projects, difficulty in understanding and communication.
The Water sign element
Water in nature adapts to any circumstance: if it’s hot it evaporates, then condenses and becomes liquid, then solidifies; in the liquid state it does not have its shape, but adapts to the content, wraps, and fills every space and every crack. Water is a feminine element (passive/negative/introverted) and is connected to the profound universe of feelings and emotions: it includes passions, agitations given by feeling, love in all its forms, as a cure, as a reproductive act, like empathy, as closeness and deep understanding.
The Water sign is an element associated with feeling, emotion, transformation, mutability, adaptability, sensitivity, it needs someone or something that contains it.
The Water element is connected to the psychic function of feeling, an evaluative function of the heart, which is mediated by judgment, by the pleasure principle (pleasant/unpleasant, beautiful / ugly), and translates into the capacity for imagination, free fantasy, and dream, of artistic creation (principle of protection/reproduction). It is related to the concept of flow.
Which are the Water signs?
The Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces. The Water sign manifests itself in the generative mode of water in which life is born, starting from single-celled organisms to the amniotic fluid that allows the gestation of the embryo (Cancer, cardinal sign); to the water that decomposes and creates humus, which penetrates deeply and generates aquifers, which flows underground to suddenly gush out (Scorpio, fixed sign).
And finally, the water that mixes with the earth, which softens and revives what is dry, which is drunk to quench the thirst, which falls copiously from the sky to nourish the earth, but also the mass of the oceans, the depths of personal consciousness and collective, access to the world of the spirit (Pisces, mobile sign).
Excess water results in strong emotional conditioning due to excessive sensitivity, which prevents action and initiative, lacks balance and reasonableness, gets lost in the vision and imagination of a reality that does not exist. ; the lack of water is an emotional and spiritual dryness, it is the lack of empathy, hope, and dreams, the inability to celebrate and enjoy the present.
Thus connecting the polarity of the signs with the elements, we find that the signs of Air (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) and Fire (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius) therefore represent an extroverted attitude, those of Earth (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) and Water (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) an introverted attitude.
Modality – Cardinal signs, Fixed signs, Mutable signs
Cardinal signs
The Cardinal signs are strongly pushed to act, they always need to start something new and they dedicate themselves to it with a strong ambition and motivation. They know they can make a difference by making decisions and changing everything around them. Their limitation, however, is that they often tend not to complete projects.
Within a working group, they are those who constantly propose new ideas and stimulate others to carry them out.
Speaking of Houses (that is, placing the signs in order on the circle representing the horoscope cycle, the point where a sign is located in its “house”) they correspond to the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth. That is, they are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.
Characteristics of the Cardinal signs
The Cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. They are linked to the seasons because they represent the beginning. Aries begins with the Spring Equinox, Cancer with the Summer Solstice, Libra with the Autumn Equinox, and, finally, Capricorn with the Summer Solstice.
In particular, Aries are animated by a constant need to move and do something, but also very impulsive in decisions. Cancer is guided by its strong emotions that prompt action. Libras are more reflective, but they feel the urge to do something and make a decisive choice. Instead, Capricorns are extremely ambitious when it comes to working.
Fixed signs
The fixed sign coincides with the climax of the seasons (Taurus – full spring, Leo – full summer, Scorpio – full autumn, and Aquarius – full winter). Their job is to continue building something that has already started. They dislike change and are opposed to everything new. This is evident in Taurus or Scorpio who is always attached to the past, but it may seem strange for Aquarius: then try asking an Aquarius to abandon an idea! The obstinacy of the fixed signs, very evident in Leo, leads them to achieve goals that others are unlikely to achieve.
Characteristics of Fixed signs
The Fixed Signs are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. They represent and match with the peak of the seasons. Taurus is full spring, Leo is summer, Scorpio is autumn and Aquarius is winter.
The Taurus can devote their great inner strength to completing projects. While more stubborn and always trying to outdo themselves, Leos can achieve goals that may be more difficult for others. Thanks to their ability to channel their intelligence, Scorpios always manage to find a solution to problems. Instead, Aquarians implement each of the many ideas they have.
Mutable Signs
As the name implies, the Mutable signs are those who willingly accept any change. They can adapt to the situations that are proposed to them, always managing to bring out the best in themselves. Sometimes, however, they could turn out to be slightly inconclusive, they risk getting tired quickly of the monotony.
They are placed in Houses three, six, nine, and twelve and are represented by the signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces.
Characteristics of Mutable Signs
The Mutable Signs are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. They are those who coincide with the transformation of the seasons, placing themselves precisely on their conclusion. Gemini places themselves on the end of spring, Virgo on that of summer, Sagittarius concludes autumn, and Pisces winter.
Duplicity, the sense of constant transformation, are the main characteristics of Gemini, in constant movement and change. Virgos, on the other hand, seek and pursue perfection in whatever they strive to do. The curiosity of Sagittarius leads them to constantly explore new possibilities. While, thanks to their depth of soul, Pisces can fully grasp situations and moods, making themselves useful to the fullest.