Aries I: Unknown Desires

a poetic assay with the decans in astrology

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much I love the decans. Not only do these subdivisions of the zodiac add so much richness to my understanding of the signs, but they open up whole worlds of meaning that are only just beginning to be uncovered. Decans not only provide specificity to our understanding of our placements, they each come with fantastical images, qualities and magical attributes that satisfy the poetic mind.

For a long time, the only contemporary resource on the 36 decans was Austin Coppock’s “36 Faces,” a ground-breaking, yet sadly out of print book that cemented Coppock as a pioneer in the study of these esoteric sections of the zodiac. Luckily, Kira Ryberg published her own decans guidebook and just last week, she and I began our own foray into the decans on her Threads of Fate podcast.

But even this hourlong deep dive into Aries I is just the beginning. To demonstrate how much exists within each face, I will be releasing my own essay on each decan after Kira and release our podcast episode on it. While Kira’s guidebook and our discussions are great, comprehensive resource, these essays are more intertextual, poetic, weird. I’m less beholden to explaining all the basic details of the decans here and more interested in seeing where my mind and my curiosity takes me.

In this first essay, for example, I discuss a seminal 90’s post-rock album, Ancient Greek theories of desire, and the erotic horror of the unknown.

Let these expand your idea of the zodiac, yourself, and enjoy.

If you’re sick of being misunderstood or don’t relate to your sun sign stereotypes, book a session with me to get a deep dive on the decans in your chart :)

Aries I

Planetary Ruler: Mars/Mars

Dates: March 21st-March 30th

Zodiacal Degree: 0-10º Aries

Deity: Aidoneus (Hades)

Symbol: An Axe

Tarot Card: II of Wands

Decanic Image: A black man, standing and clothed in a white garment, girdled about, of a great body, with reddish eyes, and great strength, and like one that is angry; and this image signifieth and causeth boldness, fortitude, loftiness, and shamelessness (Agrippa)

Contents:

• The Power of Desire

• Eros and the Void

• Shamefastness/Shamelessness

• Riding the Roller Coaster

The Power of Desire

It took me a while after discovering Slint to realize that Spiderland was made by a bunch of kids. The oldest member of the band was barely 23 when they released their second album in 1991. Spiderland sold fewer than 5,000 copies that year, and for good reason. The band broke up months before their second album hit stores and thus suffered from no live shows or press cycles to create a fan base. They did little to promote their album and rarely sent it to music publications for review. The album never charted and the band never toured it, having already moved on to new projects. Despite their lack of effort, the record didn’t escape the notice of Steve Albini, former member of Big Black and producer for countless 90’s rock bands including Nirvana, PJ Harvey and the Pixies. He gave it ten stars in his review of Melody Maker the year it came out and predicted, “In 10 years it will be a landmark and you'll have to scramble to buy a copy then”.

Albini’s remarks turned out to be prescient. Spiderland is seen as a major influence in a legion of post-rock and math rock bands and is, according to Rachel Devine of The List, “arguably the most disproportionately influential [album] in music history”. It has been described as the “ur-text” for the post-rock genre and one that “demands a new kind of appreciation” for the music style it spawned. But you don’t need to hear its praises to know that this album is Different. You just have to listen. The varied melodies across the six tracks are repetitive and trancelike, yet often following an erratic, meandering time signature. The sounds goes from soft to loud and back again, and traverses long digressions and surprising exclamations. The lyric’s narratives are often mystifying and creepy, relayed in a conversational, yet slightly menacing tone. It’s not the particularities of the album that impress, however. You listen to the album and you just feel something vital in these six songs. That digging into the album will bear rich fruit.

This album was also released on March 27th, 1991, at midnight, when both the Sun and the IC were in Aries I. In many ways, I see this album as encapsulating that exuberant, initiatory energy of the first decan of the zodiac. What can we learn about this face when we study this album?

First off, I really do recommend listening to Spiderland yourself. It’s truly one of my favorite pieces of music and really comes together when you take it in as a whole, as it works best that way. But each song has its own story and theme. “Breadcrumb Trail”, Spiderland’s opener, takes place at a county fair. The central action of the song is a roller coaster ride the narrator takes with a fortune teller. But even this relatively mundane experience takes on deep significance. Though most of the song is spoken in a quiet speaking voice, that all changes when the narrator and the girl get on the ride. As the car begins its ascent, the guitar gets crunchy and begins to emit high-pitched squeals. Vocalist Brian McMahon begins to shout along in a voice of insistence and exhilaration, not unlike the feeling when a roller coaster drops. It is not angry. It is joy. I think dividing these two intensities is important when talking about the Aries I decan. Both, while opposing forces, are catalyzing emotions. They are not just inert feelings but demanded to be acted upon, like a roller coaster barreling down the slope.

Ultimately, this double Mars decan is not just an angry one– just direct and purposeful. This decan also corresponds to the Two of Wands in the Tarot. Though twos often connote initial steps, we get the sense that the figure in the Waite-Smith card has already achieved something immense. He is dressed in fine robes and stands at the top of a stone fortress. While looking out beyond the landscape below, he holds a globe in his hand. Arthur Waite likened this stance to the sadness of Alexander the Great, realizing that there are no more worlds to conquer. He has no plan about what he wants to do next, but he feels the urge to act. But before the action itself, is the impulse, forming from seemingly nothing, propelling one to change. To quote another musician, PJ Harvey, you can almost see the question forming in his mind: “Is this desire?”

Eros and the Void

In Buddhism, understanding desire is crucial for living the good life. In Pali, the word for desire is “tanha,” which translates as thirst or craving. With desire there is always a lack. It doesn’t matter the grandeur of what you already have. If this figure is said to be Alexander the Great, then he had, quite literally, the whole world in his hands. Yet you can still see the longing in his partially occluded face as it faces the distance. You can’t talk about this card without talking about imperialism, this spirit of domination and pure tanha with no regard for the people, cultures, and ways of life that are destroyed in the selfish, white supremacist urge for breaking new ground in order to satisfy desire. Many wars have been fought, lives have been lost in the name of desire. It can be a cruel fire when handled recklessly.

The second song off Spiderland depicts a similar sort of craving. Called Nosferatu, the song depicts a vampire trying to resist his urge for blood around his “smiling queen”. This decan is ruled by Mars in a Mars-ruled sign, one of impulsive, decisive action and cutting, severing energy. The decanic images for Aries I show, accordingly, armed warriors and ferocious, dark men. There is a one-dimensional quality to the task of soldiers. They are trained to fight and many often find it difficult to return to civilian life when this function is no longer needed. When we are born from intensity and face this world fighting, what do we do with peace? We see this conflict play out in “Nosferatu, where the narrator can no longer resist his vampiric urges: “My teeth touched her skin/Then she was gone again”. To deal with desire is to face our monstrous lack. In the words of poet and classicist Anne Carson, ““The Greek word eros denotes ‘want,’ ‘lack,’ ‘desire for that which is missing.’ The lover wants what he does not have”.

Something I’m forever obsessed with when it comes to Aries I is how horror-coded it is. Both Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, and Wes Craven, the director behind A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream trilogy, have their chart rules in this decan. Mars is already the planet of jump-scares, gore, and fearsome attackers and we have to consider the fear that comes about when we face the unknown. In this decan there is no blueprint to follow: one must stay alert and follow one’s instinctual impulses as they arise.

Similarly, the risk of this decan means that one may take a risk for what one desires and still have nothing to show for it, lose the object or person regardless. Even gaining what one wants is a kind of loss. “After that girl I'll keep her warm,” McMahon goes on, returning to Nosferatu Man “There's nothing more to save”. Much can be sacrificed to the blaze of desire until we have nothing left but an empty stomach and people hurt or gone.

Shamefastness/Shamelessness

“Aidōs dwells upon the eyelids of sensitive people

as does hybris upon the insensitive. A wise man would know this.

(Stob. Flor. 4.230M)”

Interestingly, the god associated with this decan is Aidoneus, another name for Hades used specifically in relationship to his abduction and rape of Persephone, his own object of desire, though in this version he is a mortal king who fails at his quest. The name comes from the Greek α + ειδον, roughly meaning "Not seen" or "The hidden one". This tells us something about the impulsive will to act of this decan: not only is the object of desire hidden, but the path there is occluded as well. We don’t have all the answers at the start. Desire necessitates not-knowing, mystery. To do something new we can’t know too much, though we may yearn to.

From this perspective, desire serves several purposes: It drives us into action. It brings us closer to people and things. It makes us alive beings with the ability to act and shape the world. To completely give up our desire is just another way of being ensnared in its clutches.But without a true relationship to whom or what we desire, we risk entering the master-slave dialectic which Hegel describes. In this exchange, he explains how part of the reason we wish to meet the other is to become aware of ourselves. But these initial steps towards our desire do not wish us to rush into knowing, into union. There’s still the fluttering sense of trepidation that comes with something new, something unknown, which the Greeks call “Aidōs,” meaning ‘shamefastness’. Carson characterizes Aidos as “a sort of voltage of decorum discharged between two people approaching one another for the crisis of human contact, an instinctive and mutual sensitivity to the boundary between them.” While we can certainly feel this shy deference in the presence of an elder or powerful person, or in the face of our host if we are the guest, this word also names “the shared shyness that radiates between lover and beloved”.

Alexander the Great conquers worlds because that’s how he knows who he is, and that he is real. But, when the relationship becomes one where the other is no longer a mystery, then the self loses the ability to surprise as well. For there to be true satisfaction of one’s desires, for a true meeting to occur, there must be an honoring of the individuality, of the unknown country, of the other, whether that be a project or a lover or a new road. There must be a goal to Aries I, eternal beginner, dancing with the void, beside mastery. Nevertheless, Agrippa explicitly names this decan as one indicating “boldness, fortitude, loftiness, and shamelessness”. Despite the fear of the unknown, the struggle and vagaries that come with not the idea of the thing but actually engaging with the thing itself, we have to begin, shamelessly, somewhere, while still not knowing what will come. This lack of knowledge, the struggle it takes for something to coalesce seems to be part of the allure of this decan: “Eros is often sweeter when he is being difficult”.

Riding the Roller Coaster

As a malefic decan of a malefic sign you have to, in other words, enjoy the pain of effort and not knowing that comes with this initial burst of action and desire.

Take the narrative between the narrator and the protagonist in the first song off Spiderland. He originally sits down to have his fortune read which, in some way, is a gesture towards dominion over the future, a desire to know completely. He changes his mind, however. He asks the fortune teller if she would rather join him on a roller coaster. She says yes and they both assent to the mechanical climb. In these moments of anticipation, the narrator “shouted, and searched/The sky for a friend”. “I heard the fortune teller/Screaming back at me,” he reports, showing a mutual grab for control, but eventually they both “stuck out [their] hands and met the winds”. The song ends on an ambiguous note for these two characters. He says goodnight as they leave the park and is met with silence but makes this final observation: “The carnival rides were different colored shadows on her face, but I could tell that she was blushing”. There is aidos between these two individuals, a dance with the unknowing between them. Though we don’t know if they will see each other again, we know a moment of intimacy took place. Their experience impacted both of them and bonded them in some way but did not promise a specific outcome. His very decision against getting his fortune told demonstrates a willingness to meet the future, desire in hand, with an openness to encounter something truly new. .

The whole of this album can be seen as a master class in this sort desire. For months, four young kids spent all of their energy and ideas on an inventive, influential album that would also not get its due for years after its release. They made no attempt to push the band past its expiration date and made no effort to market the album or help it find its audience. But without intending to, they made something that is seminal to an entirely new genre and generation of listeners. Through pure desire and a dance with the unknown, they created something that has affected and will continue to affect countless people and change the music landscape in America. They couldn’t have planned it. I don’t think it would have been the same if they had.

When following the route of Aries I ask yourself: where do your impulses take you? What information is really necessary to act and when is keeping some things hidden wise? Don’t ignore the power of a struggle yet, or the power of the initial, hesitant steps between desirer and desired. We may get untold pleasures out of the beginning flirtation with a new thing that we miss out on building a certain foundation when we rush towards certainty.

I myself, access this energy when I have a lot of energy but don’t see where it will go yet; planning ideas for my business, working on my website with a friend, starting a project just for the hell of it (i.e. a list of what kind of sex each decan represents). It seems to represent a kinetic, playful energy that works best when there is leeway around what I desire and what it will turn out to be. If you have any placements in Aries I, I would ask you to consider both desire and its end. How will engage with desire and its lack? Can you leave space for slowly beginning and the immediate rush towards what you want? Give it a try. See where it takes you.

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe