Aries

Aries [update for all links (February 4, 2104): MOA T & A Glossary] - This gleeful Greek god of war and passion is the prodigal first-born son of Zeus (spirit and mind) and Hera (jealousy and arrogance). He's always running around wreaking havoc, having an ongoing affair with the married Aphrodite (ethereal beauty and unbreakable bonds), getting all the girls pregnant and often ignoring the influence of his sister Athena (inspiration and restraint). His destructive influence is often alarming, as witnessed by his sons and constant companions Deimos (fear and dread) and Phobos 1 (panic and flight), but sometimes palliative from which encounters his daughter Harmonia (harmony and concord) is born. His lovers and offspring are too numerous to recount here; as a dynamic force he's prolific in both conquest and reward. He's often not well-liked - both parents are said to dislike him and his father even claimed at one time to hate him - but he goes about his business of slavishly serving his own passions and those of others when they appeal to him and creating destruction where growth is no longer possible, whistling while he works one might say. It's a dirty job if one chooses to see it that way. He doesn't. :)

Lightning - In a flash it's there and gone, megajoules of energy arcing through the sky purifying everything it touches down to it's essence, burning a single frozen moment on the brain in stark clarity, only to replace it with another, sometimes so quickly it all becomes a blur across the sky, sometimes taking an instant too long, striking just after one turns one's head away.

The Ram - Standing atop the mountain, silhouetted against the sky holding those great horns high, looking out over his world owning all he surveys, the Ram seems a lonely figure. That's not it at all - look around and you'll see his family and friends cavorting under his watchful eye a little further down the hillside - he's just self-assured, self-aware and in need of no confirmation to know who he is and where he belongs. If you doubt me go ask him (but be warned, a challenging tone in doing so may earn you a good solid head-butt and if your footing isn't as sure as his you'll soon be tumbling down and maybe breaking your crown). He's led, as is his way, his clan to this spot and intends to thoroughly enjoy it until he spies another interesting peak and moves everyone on. That's how he does thingsl; he sees what he wants to experience and then he goes about getting to where he needs to be to do so. He's not rude about it, won't just plow right through you for no reason, but do take care getting in his way. He does sometimes charge about with his head down just for the heck of it. The rest of the time, if this goat is going your way it's well worth taking a spot behind him when the terrain gets rocky. Put your feet exactly where he does and you'll come out on top every time.

Tarot's Emperor Card - The Emperor, like the Ram, is removed from his people, out in front leading. His place is one that requires clear unbiased vision, freedom from undue attachment. From this place he's able to discern the direction most appropriate for his empire and teach future leaders to do the same for their own. Of course he's also interested in his own well-being, understanding that he is his people and as he flounders and flourishes so will they. Some deem him arrogant and self-centered, others see him as kind and benevolent, but few think little of him at all. He is after all a pervasive force, often even seen as God of his people. One's approach will nearly always determine the result of an audience taken or granted with him.

Tarot's Four Principle - The four is a momentary holding pattern at an unpredictable fork in the road, at which one is behooved to use one's head in choosing a direction.

I Am - Take him or leave him. There's nothing more to say or know. Utter simplicity, to the point that no other sign in the zodiac can quite grasp it. What the Ram is the Ram is, and one thing the Ram certainly is is endowed with a special capacity to change on a dime and be something else entirely, but have no doubt that he is fully whatever he is in any given moment.

New- and Reborn - This energy has just jumped (back) on the merry-go-round, fresh from the pool of thought that is the Source, all possibilities rolled into one bundle of heat and light, the manifestation of the belief it spent it's last go-round (if it's chosen to follow the order of our zodiacal wheel) creating and accepting, dying in order to birth it as we must do in all cycles. Every incarnation is a new experience to the Universe, a new fulfillment thereof, and Aries leads the way into most.

Self, Ego and Personality - The first step in any endeavor is development of the skills, talents and abilities necessary to compleating it. The Ram's energy brings us a clean slate, a fresh broad perspective from within a limited and therefore simple schema, perfect for drawing in the broad strokes and building a foundation for endeavors upon which we're embarking.

Mars - A more mature version of the Greek Aries, Rome's Mars ruled first agriculture and only later war (as a part of the reproductive process). He's that which is born out of death; dynamic growth and unrestrained indulgence with an inherent understanding of what's enough.

The Head - The head is the temple of the mind, the place from which the spirit emanates to manifest and animate the body and in which we carry the brain designed to receive the frequencies we've chosen for our incarnation. It also houses our three eyes, those instruments with which we receive and triangulate what we call visual signals from coagulate reality which must then be interpreted by the brain. Another triplicate sensory system integrated into the head is the one composed of the ears, teeth and the tuning fork we call a jawbone, taking in auditory information in the way our eyes receive optical data, which again must then be arranged and interpreted by the brain. Without the head we can have no purposeful effect in the wider world, and neither would we have the face that tells so much about us.

Red - This is the first color of a lower frequency than the psychic realm, the first color on the spectrum visible to the human eye and the color most usually recognized first by the brain, human and other. It's the color of regeneration and fertility, protection from and attraction to unrestrained energies, power and appetite, life and death. It's heat without light.

Diamond - Exceptional in every way, even the way in which it breaks, this stone is made of the foundation of all known life on our planet in it's most durable form, exactly opposite in every way to it's complement and counterpoint, graphite. The diamond's molecular structure is perfectly cubical, and perfect alignment of it's molecules requires heat and pressure so great that all diamonds near the Earth's surface are disintegrating, 'though at a rate so slow as to be nearly imperceptible, reverting into graphite (more usable on the dynamic surface of the Earth). The diamond is to Earth like a glycogen molecule in the human body, stored energy and nourishment, released as needed for her use. It is potential incarnate.

Iron - The basic building block of our red blood cells and of the chlorophyll in plants, this elemental metal is cheap and abundant, easily forged into a nearly infinite variety of tools and machines. It's been in use since ancient Egyptian times at least, and in combination with carbon it becomes steel, a foundation of our modern technological age. In it's pure state iron is white and malleable; alloyed and anodized it becomes pitch black and relatively indestructible, illustrating the wide range of it's usefulness.