Aries
March 21-April 20
Aries is a masculine ,cardinal Fire sign rules by Mars. It is the first sign on the zodiac wheel directly opposite Libra, and is names for the constellation Aries (the ram), which shouts and struts behind the Sun at this time of year.
On the Darkside, this makes you a loud, overconfident, aggressive thug with way too many Y chromosomes and a will of titanium-clad granite.
Annoying Habits
Punctuality
You are either 30 minutes early, raring to go, and incandescent that everyone else is late, or you turn up four days later at a different venue and are outraged that the expedition went without you.
Toothpaste
After a five-minute rant in the bathroom when you throw everything out of the window looking for your tube of toothpaste, you finally find it in the laundry basket. You hammer it flat with your bare hands.
Temper Gauge
0* to boiling point is instantaneous, and occurs roughly every two minutes because people just won't do what you tell them, and you've lost the keys/hammer/remote control/plot.
Personality
overwhelming, overbearing, overconfident
Brightside astrologers proclaim that you burst with creative energy and confidence, and that you prefer to express yourself through action. Well, they would, wouldn't they, especially with your knife to their collective throat? This is just salon talk for laying about you with a meat cleaver when you wish to make a point, isn't it, Aries? You have absolutely no trouble with this year's buzz concept, "Me-time," although you do have trouble with the idea that there might be any other kind.
Greedy, aggressive, argumentative, restless, willful, confrontational, headstrong, and self-obsessed, you are the zodiac's permanently enraged adolescent (and just look at the state of your room); you have what nice social workers call "a problem with authority." Show you a no-entry sign and you are up the forbidden highway like a ferret up a drainpipe. No one has ever explained the phrase "consequences-of-your-actions" to you (mostly because you won't stand still long enough, and even if you were nailed to the floor, you still wouldn't listen). Consequently the nation's ERs are an Arien's second home.
Subtle you're not; no one will ever find you sitting quietly in a corner brooding on life's great mysteries, or sitting quietly anywhere. You blunder through the world like Tigger gone rogue, looking for new frontiers to smash. Fortunately you can be easily distracted by bright lights, loud noises, meat, blood, fire, and knives. On good days, this means a neighborhood barbecue; on bad days, World War III.
You generate a kind of low-frequency tetch field all around you, which unnerves the rest of us, and can be condensed into a stamping rage by practically anything. Lost your keys? House turned upside down, loved ones lambasted, doors slammed off hinges. And instructions for anything from a flatpack to a cruise missle are torn up in a rage (nobody tells Aries what to do!) before you get past step one.
Have you ever willingly finished anything in your life? You're just one big booster rocket, all fired up for blastoff, and falling away as soon as your boredom threshold (usually around sea level) is reached. Some of you can't even get to the end of a sentence before moving on, which is probably why the military speaks in speedily articulated acronyms.
Pathologically, addictively competitive, you have to come first in everything, even if it's only a spitting contest, and you will do anything to win, as your concept of fair play means that you triumph. This extends to your kids, whom you are likely to disown if they don't win a Nobel prize, the World Series, and an Oscar.
Your political opinions are strongly held: bigoted and extreme. The doctrine is irrelevant--it's the extreme part you like, along with the street fighting and mob violence. Many Ariens become politicians. How scary is that? Aberrant Ariens who show a mild interest in other life forms can clean up by running elite assertiveness-training courses-although the rest of you wonder why anyone would want to give ammo to the competition.
Bitch Rating
C+. Think about it: bitching demands subtlety and finesse, neither of which your Bad Fairy Godmother left in your cradle. If you want to say something nasty about someone, you don't sneak around; you just open your mouth and blast away, Refreshing, in a strange way.
Collective Noun
A safety tip for non-Ariens. You may find yourself, for some bizarre zodiacal reason, in a room full of Ariens (perhaps your local slaughterhouse is hosting an open evening in the spirit of community outreach). The air is thick with testosterone, and thrums with shouting and the sound of keen blade-whetting. You have rashly stumbled into a Headbutt of Aries. Run away.
Fave Deadly Sin
You simply do not have the time for anything intellectual, or namby-pamby, so you go straight for Wrath, or Anger: a big, strong, all-terrain sin that's just as unhelpful halfway up K2 as it is in a downtown gridlock. It's straightforward, uncomplicated, and requires hardly any brain power (it's just a matter of coupling mouth and fists to you awesome irascibility drive). Plus you get to do the shouting. In your quieter moments, you might consider Greed; it makes a useful indoor sin for the older Arien whose form is slipping.
Planet Planet
Every sun sign has a planetary enforcer, whose job it is to strike the first blow, establish pole position, and engage in a little preemptive defense to make it clear who is the leader around here. Before there were telescopes, astrologers could on see five planets in the sky, plus the Moon and Sun, so they counted these two as planetary rulers. It seemed a good idea at the time. Each planet babysat two zodiac signs--except for the Moon (Cancer's minder) and the Sun (which allows Leo to rule). Your planet is Mars. It's true that until 1930 you had to share it with Scorpio. Any other sun sign would have been toast, and Mars would have been all yours, but you respect Scorpio because, although you are headstrong and reckless, you like the idea of keeping all your organs on the inside.
Blame Your Planet
the red menace
If you are feeling even more hot-eyed and steam-driven than usual, your children are cowering behind a bunker of cereal boxes at the breakfast table, strong men are crossing the road to avoid you, and the world is bathed in a red mist, is this your fault? Is it, punk? Not entirely. Blame your planet. In your case, it's Mars.
Mars knows where we live. In fact the red, glowering psychopath is out next-door neighbor, fourth rock from the Sun. Isn't that comforting? Somehow the fact that it's only half Earth's size doesn't really help. It stalks our orbit at half speed, so we can always see it just out of the corner of our eye. Worse, it has two hench-moons called--wait for it--Deimos and Phobos, for fear and loathing. They're tiny, but they do a menacing double act.
Deimos, midget made entirely of black rock, is in synchronous rotation with the boss; this means it doesn't rise of set--it's a constant eyeball in the sky. Phobos, au contraire, the hyperactive one, pops up every five hours, just when you thought it was safe. The Martian atmosphere is almost entirely carbon dioxide; this is what happens when you are so angry with your mom and the cosmos that you hold your breath until you go red in the face.
Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Adored and worshiped by the Roman army, he was a remix of an ancient agricultural god and the Greek god of war, Ares, notorious on Mount Olympus as a violent but stupid, bloodlusty braggart. Ares/Aries--you see what's happening here?
Bad Moon Rising
the darkside of aries' darkside
It's not all sunshine on the Darkside. You know just how power-crazed and monomaniac your innermost thoughts and secret fantasies are, but where do you think they come from? The Moon, that's where-or whichever area of your birthchart the Moon was moodily plotting when you were born. The Sun is our daytime self, the Moon represents our inner psycho. The nippy little wretch rushes around plunging in and out of signs every few days, so throughout Areis' month in the Sun, the lunar nuisance dodges around like a guerrillista in a South American jungle. That helps to explain why two Ariens born only days apart stamp their feet in a different rhythm when thwarted, depending on which sign the Moon was bothering at the time.
Catching the Moon
That's all very well, you say, but how do I know where the Moon was when I was born? There are long, complicated (and, frankly, dull) tables called ephemerides that tell you where every planet (and for tedious astrological reasons, the Moon is an honorary planet) stood in the heavens, atmosphere bated, as you made your sorry debut. However, we have provided a Moon itinerary at the back of this book to enable you to get a rough idea. IF that sounds like too much hard work, and you have the techno technique, then try visiting the following website: www.alabe.com/freechart. If you know where you were born and when, they will produce, for free, a rough-cut birthchart that will pin your Moon on the zodiac wheel. [For time, click the Moon Chart for a quick reference as printed in Darkside Zodiac.]
Lunatic Combinations
Here's what happens to Aries when the Moon marches off in a lust for glory.
Moon in Aries -- Twice as tetchy, twice as trigger-happy, twice as likely to start World War III.
Moon in Taurus -- Aggressively greedy for territory, but easily distracted by cakes and ale.
Moon in Gemini -- Soldier of fortune; a dirty fighter unencumbered by old-fashioned burdens such as loyalty.
Moon in Cancer -- Pistol-packin' momma; you like to bake a lovely apple pie for your enemies after you have knocked their teeth out.
Moon in Leo -- Will only lead the charge if you get to wear a big plumed hat and your troops all swear to adore you.
Moon in Virgo -- Aries despises detail Virgo lives for it; internicine strife and an obsession with uniforms.
Moon in Libra -- You know that diplomacy is a war continue by other menas; your weapon of choice is the charm offensive.
Moon in Scorpio -- Scarily focused aggression, ideal for silent surgical strikes just before dawn.
Moon in Sagittarius -- Captain Reckless: you can't see what was wrong with the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Moon in Capricorn -- Your preferred tactic is to bury the enemy in paperwork.
Moon in Aquarius -- Intellectual warrior; you avoid "red mists" as you like to outbrain your opponents.
Moon in Pisces -- Aggressive but irresolute; unreliable under fire.
Born Under A Bad Sign
the scum also rises
And another thing. Your sun sign is modified by your rising sign. This is the zodiac sign that was skulking over the horizon at the very minute you were born. If your sun sign is your ego, then your rising sign gives you your public manners (such as they are), your Sunday worst. It's the painted smile behind which the real, disgusting you lurks. Some astrologers maintain that it's malign influence affects what you look like. Be afraid.
You will probably be bitterly aggrieved to discover that, in the northern hemisphere, for tedious astronomical reasons, there are fewer people with Aries and Pisces rising, or ascending, than any other sign. (In other words, you have a short ascension span, ha-ha!) We say: good; there are only so many world dictators one little globe can take.
Going Up
Now pay attention, because the following is quite brain-busting. There are 12 signs of the zodiac, and astrologers like to think of them as occupying a band of sky that spins around the Earth once every 24 hours. (This is a convention; it is not astronomically correct, and you will not see the signs if you look up, so don't write in.) So, every two hours or so another sign hauls itself blearily over the eastern horizon. This is going on whatever time of the day or night you were born, and whichever benighted spot you chose to appear in. These astro-mechanics help to explain why rams born at either end of the same day take a different route as they charge through life. There are long, nerdy ways to discover your rising sign, but the easiest way is to get hold of a birthchart.
Upwardly Mobile
If your rising sign is Aries, your public persona is a fierce, pushy extrovert on a short fuse, obsessed with coming first. This is to distract the rest of us from discovering your plan for a Thousand-Year Reich. Here's what happens when other zodiacal upstarts rise above their station.
Taurus Rising -- It's all calm, bovine tranquility until you catch site of a red rag.
Gemini Rising -- Cheat, lie, and con your way to the front; if that fails, bring on the heavy artillery.
Cancer Rising -- Mother knows best; after all, you know that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Leo Rising -- Swagger all you like in that dress uniform, but we all know it's a gun you've got in your pocket and that you're not particularly pleased to see us.
Virgo Rising -- Don't you find, Lady Macbeth, that however hard you scrub at ingrained bloodstains, they just won't shift?
Libra Rising -- Handsome, dashing freedom-fighter, armed with Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Scorpio Rising -- You appear darkly, hypnotically menacing; actually, you are just menacing.
Sagittarius Rising -- Our knight in unpolished armor.
Capricorn Rising -- Your papers are always in order and your jackboots gleam like a raven's wings.
Aquarius Rising -- Aren't you far too cool for all this petty squabbling over world domination?
Pisces Rising -- They'll all be sorry they didn't appreciate you, when you are world dictator.
Don't You Love Me, Baby?
venus and aries
Just how much of a high-maintenance tease or bunny-boiler you are may depend on where the solar system's heartless tart (Venus) was blushingly dropping her handkerchief when you were born. Oh, and Venus also has a say in how harmoniously you blend in with the rest of the world, but what do words like harmony have to do with the Darkside? Now, for astrological reasons that will fry your brain if I explain them here (basically, Venus is far too luxury-loving to move too far away from the Sun, and her orbital rate is in bed with Earth's), Venus only appears in your sun sign, or two signs on either side of it. In your case, rams, that means Venus will be in Aries, Aquarius, Pisces, Taurus, or Gemini. And this is what it does to your love and lust life.
Make Love and War
Venus is the girlie planet of luv, right? And Mars is planet lad, the warlord, You may also have a sneaking feeling that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Don't be upset if I tell you this is not true. All of us, of all genders, have a stake in both planets. Where they are in your birthchart has what I shall call consequences. You may think your sun sign makes you a born babe-magnet, but Venus in a chilly sign will cut you off at the knees; you may think that your sun sign means you are the twin soul of the dove of peace, but you may go red-eyed with bloodlust when beaten to a parking spot. Mars will be somewhere irascible. You'll need a birthchart to find out what Venus and Mars were getting up to when you were born. It is far too complicated--and, frankly, dull--to work out here.
Venus in Aries -- You always get your man (or woman), often at gunpoint, and you are a tough love fanatic: whips, pain, domination--and that's just when you're on your own. You always hurt the one you love, on principle.
Venus in Aquarius -- You may be gung-ho to storm love's citadel, but you know better than to charge at it with all flags waving. You have cunning plans involving decoys, disinformation, and playing dead.
Venus in Pisces -- You are not above faking a war wound, or a dueling scar (so romantic!) or three, to incite pity and admiration in the heart of your love object. You know there's nothing more alluring than a wounded hero, even though you aren't one.
Venus in Taurus -- Once the love target is in the crosshairs, you lock on and don't let go until you've brought him or her down; but you do provide a very cozy prisoner-of-love nest.
Venus in Gemini -- Heavy-duty extreme flirting, usually while bear hunting, base jumping, gun running, or liberating small countries, and usually with the whole platoon. You know you're irresistible in distressed combats.
SEX
hard, fast, competitive
Sex is just another extreme sport as far as you are concerned, and you don't like to waste time; foreplay is for wimps. You are strictly a notches-on-the-bedpost kinda guy (or girl), so you like to multitask sometimes. Your Little Black Book is almost ready to be cataloged by the Library of Congress. You always need to be told that you are the first (and naturally, best) lover that your partner's had, ever; you don't bother to do the social math that proves this is impossible without virginity becoming a renewable resource. Your affairs burn with a gemlike flame for, oh, several days, during which time you are extravagantly possessive and jealous every time your prey steps out for a comfort break. Lust does not, however, quench your competitive spirit. You have to do it harder, faster, longer, and quicker than anybody else, and of course you always have to come first. (You silently count your partner's orgasms just to make sure you are not being outclassed.)
What kind of love rat are you?
The worst. It's the winning, you see; the fighting off of all rivals, or defeating overwhelming odds (you are in Hawaii, they are in Alaska; they are Amish, you are a Texas Ranger, etc.); once you've got the prize, it's no longer what you want. You wander off to find a new challenge, abandoning the poor sap who believed you when you said you'd slash your wrists with a rusty blade if they did not come with you to be your love.
For more on the Darkside of Aries, please check out Darkside Zodiac by Stella Hyde.
