As the days begin to noticeably lengthen in the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun enters the Fixed Air sign of Aquarius, the diurnal home of Saturn. We’re in the part of the year where we’re in the thick of winter (NH) or summer (SH). All fixed signs occur when a new season has firmly taken root which gives these signs the quality of constant, stable and sustaining, or “fixed”.
As an Air sign, Aquarius is motivated by values and ideas. They’re inquisitive, alert, conceptual and communicative. The diurnal aspect gives Aquarius a more yang quality. Fire & Air signs are more outgoing and left-brained than the Water & Earth signs which tend to be more magnetizing and inward. Air values freedom, movement and self-expression.
With his Sun, Mercury and Venus in Aquarius, Edward Abbey is my pick for ambassador of the Aquarian archetype: rebellious, outspoken, firmly committed to his beliefs, and a humanitarian that was 100% ok with alienating himself from the “maddening crowd”. Ed Abbey was a pioneering environmentalist—some say “eco-terrorist”—and gifted author that changed the way many people look at the desert and the destructive effects of tourism. Influenced by his father, an anarchist and atheist, EA trailblazed a life path that included two demotions in the military for opposing authority and an honorable discharge, civil disobedience, earning a place on the FBI’s watch-list his entire life, five marriages, and becoming a powerful voice in the protection and conservation of wild places, especially the Southwest. A passionate advocate and activist, he inspired a generation to not only look more closely at our place in nature but at our own wild natures within.
I read Desert Solitaire in an environmental lit class and this book never left me. True to Aquarian ideals, activist Abbey fills the pages with what Douglas Brinkley writes in the NYT “coyote humor, in-your-face wrath, field science detail, philosophical righteousness, and moral clarity”. It’s a powerful book written by a revolutionary man whose values, like many Aquarians, lay in the timeless truths that exist beyond general consensus.