Imagine you are in the air, gently floating above the Earth. Below, you are objectively witnessing nature and its myriad ways of unfolding. Cities and settlements look different from this perspective, like a network. From this angle, you can see everything humans are doing wrong because you can see how everything is connected. You are the Water Bearer.

A question that people who are beginning to familiarize themselves with astrology ask is “Why is Aquarius an air sign and not a water sign?” Quickly looking away from the fact that nobody asks this question of Scorpio whose emblem is a creature which lives in the desert, we need to fixate on the symbol of Aquarius, which is quite literally a water bearer. That is someone who carries the water, not the water itself. Aquarius is the one who brings the rainy season, preceding the waters of Pisces. And what is it in nature that brings and carries water? Why, it’s clouds of course!

Aquarius is the fixed expression of air. When we think of fixed air, just like Aquarius it makes little sense. Unless of course, we go beyond our human experience and think about outer space, which is a vacuum. Wrapping our minds about this complete fixity is hard, because it’s the opposite of how we exist down here, which is a perfect description of Aquarius.

The air triplicity deals with connection and information in the social sphere. If in Libra we had the cardinal beginning of relating and finding the eloquence of expression, in Gemini we have the mutable ability to communicate about a wide range of intellectual interests, then in Aquarius we take the information and create the ideal philosophical system which will benefit everyone.

Just like Capricorn, Aquarius is ruled by Saturn. But where in Capricorn we had the Wall, the structure, the system upon which society is built, Aquarius deals with what is beyond that Wall.

And just like Pink Floyd, Aquarius hates being another brick in that wall. An aquarian cliche is knee-jerk contrarianism which cares very little about the social niceties of its Libran airy counterpart. And like a lot of astrological pop-culture knowledge, it has its basis in a more complex reasoning.

Saturn by definition separates. It is extreme coldness and extreme dryness, both qualities which separate things. If in Capricorn this coldness was applied to the earth and therefore material, tangible and concrete things, giving Cap the ability to build and structure, in Aquarius this ability is dried out and detached. Aquarius is all about the mind, ideas, narratives and social structures which shape society. Not physical, but still concrete. Because it is under the rulership of Saturn, it deals with time and while Capricorn might build things which last, given enough time mountains turn to dust, while ideas can become immortal.

What in our daily life is defined by both concreteness and intangibility, both communication and lack of personal connection? The internet, of course! A world wide network of connective ideas which are available in the same format, no matter where we are located or what the time is (or at least, that was what the internet was intended to be, before censorship and eventual monetizing of its technology). Aquarius is tightly connected to both technology – which has as purpose the constant progress of humankind, but has a special connection to the internet, which became widely used during the previous time Saturn was in its home turf of Aquarius between 1991 and 1993.

Saturn’s transits have a very heavy way of teaching us about the meaning of a sign, and perhaps none has been more obvious than the most current movement through Aquarius, which started on the 21st of March 2020, ending on the 7th of March 2023. The pandemic years, which were kickstarted by the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, oversaw restructuring of ideals, but also issues around freedom of thought, expression, communication and perhaps heaviest of all scientific development. Paired with the foggy influence of Neptune in Pisces, it resulted in a veiling of what is true and what is fiction.

Going back the odd one out principle. if Saturn rules boundaries, then what do we get when we combine those with the idea of airy connection? We get misfits and anarchists. We get utopias and dystopias. We get ideas of how things should be, could be, would be, if only we could transcend our human limitations, and somehow teleport into this ideal future.

The fixation on ideas and opinions can give Aquarius a certain robotic quality. After all, emotions are a very subjective thing, and Aquarius is the master of objectivity. When you function beyond the need for personal connection, strong ideals become divisive, because to Aquarius nothing is more important than the truth and its science, which of course can easily lead to radicalism.

Temporally, Aquarius is on the opposite axis of Leo, the vibrant center of self-expression and shining out. It is why the Sun has its detriment in Aquarius, meaning self-centered ideas about identity don’t mix well with anthropological ‘an observer of own surroundings’ thinking. Leo wants to perform, Aquarius wants to inform. Leo is the King, Aquarius is the kingdom and its collective society.

Aquarius is very good at denying the self, because it does not function within the boundaries of the self. Fueled by a constant ideological orientation, Aquarius is on a constant pursuit of finding out the ultimate philosophy which can organize society into a humanitarian inclined system. Because even though Aquarius wants to break the system, it is only so it can build a better, more inclusive one.