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CHAPTER XI :: TRIPLICITIES AND QUADRUPLICITIES
(Originally published in The ASCENDANT, Oregon)
This issue of The Ascendant is about the fifth and sixth houses. One way of looking at it would be to consider a creative (5th) aspect of astrology as it applies to actual practice (6th). Creativity, to my way of thinking is irrevocably something that is related to childhood or an attitude that is child-like! Often, when astrology tends to look too much 'cook-bookish', I find myself returning for inspiration to some basic concepts that we all learn in our early student days that sometimes do not get a lot of attention when practicing what we learned, later on.
We all learn about the elemental qualities of signs and how each sign could have the attributes that are known as the triplicities and quadruplicities. Most didactic materials on dasha (remember the vedic system of timing that uses a unique lunar progression technique?) effects generally approach the subject by considering and discussing the rulership of houses, the planetary strengths, mutual relationships between the dasha and bhukti lords etc. One aspect that is generally not discussed is the triplicity and quadruplicity of the sign in which the indicator planets are.
To recapitulate, the triplicities are:
Cardinal or movable signs - aries, cancer, libra and capricorn
Fixed signs - taurus, leo, scorpio and aquarius
Mutable or common signs - gemini, virgo, sagittarius and pisces
The quadruplicities or elements are:
Fire - aries, leo and sagittarius. Sun, mars and jupiter are
fiery. Sometimes jupiter is considered to represent ether
(akasha).
Earth - taurus, virgo and capricorn. Mercury is earthy.
Air - gemini, libra and aquarius. Saturn and rahu are airy. Some
people consider mercury to be mixed, being airy and earthy!
Water - cancer, scorpio and pisces. Moon, venus and ketu are
watery.
Let us look at the very interesting and meaningful interaction that goes on between the triplicities and quadruplicities in a sign and the various planets and lights. The icy image of fixed water (scorpio) is different from that of flowing, movable water (cancer) and its free flowing emotions. That, in turn, is different from mutable water (pisces) and its indecision to keep flowing or to crystallize, to be a part of this reality or to dwell in the beyond! Though seemingly a bit imaginative, such an approach could lead to interesting insights. Let us examine the moon for instance. It is a watery and mobile planet. Is it any wonder that it feels at home in the movable water that cancer represents? Is it any surprise that it is most uncomfortable in its frozen state that is represented by scorpio where the life-forces and flexibility and mobility of moon are lost due to the 'fixed-water' situation. Moon represents the mother, nurturing, growth and eyes. The exaltation of moon in taurus cannot be accidental. Taurus represents the second house of the zodiac and is related with eyes, mouth, eating (nurturing begins there!). Taurus also represents fixed earth and one of the most magical deeds of water is witnessed when it works inside the fixed earth and help plants grow. Truly, the pinnacle of performance that represents growth, nurturing and nutrition, all attributes of moon!
Sun, the father, on the other hand is hot and relatively rigid and central. Leo the fixed fire and representative of generation and children provides sun with a great place to call home. It exalts in aries, a movable fire that is conducive to sun's fire and adds motion to it, making it more flexible, willing to move forward. Fiery and cruel planets such as sun and mars always need challenges. This is also true for individuals with these planets prominent in their horoscopes. Place them in an unproductive, unchallenging, rigid desk job and watch them get indolent and wither away!! The airy mobility of libra however is not a very welcome environment for sun. It is too cold and takes its energy away. The persnickety, meticulous detail-oriented, intellectual environment of libra is not very comfortable for the intuitive, "big-picture seeking" mind of sun. Though brilliant, the solar intelligence works more in fits and spurts, taking in information as 'digital' chunks or packets, rather than in the sequential form preferred by mercury (virgo) and venus (libra). A libra organization would make the solar individual very fidgety and would soon lead to a reduction in his efficiency. Sun really shines in higher echelon government positions where the broad picture and overall efficiency matters more as opposed to the libran environment of law, for instance. And libra is where the mighty sun hits the dust (debilitation)!
Mercury, finds the analytical, intellectual, non-emotional environment of virgo (mutable earth) sympathetic and stimulating as polar issues can be examined to heart's content in the earthy and comfortable environment that Hermes loves, like in a cozy study or library. It calls it its own home as well as its sign of exaltation. Pisces too is mutable, but extremely emotion-seeped for mercury to feel comfortable in. The prolonged stickiness of emotionality proves too binding for the flitting mercury that is dying to move on to newer issues. Mercury would love to give advice without getting its hands dirty. That is not possible in pisces which needs friends that do not mind getting a bit more 'involved'. Astrology in some respects takes after the nature of mercury, trying to delve in the future through a set of intellectual approaches consisting of rules and procedures. Pisces, on the other hand is a psychic!
Venus, in contrast to mercury, is happy in pisces, where it gets exalted. The mutability of the sign provides it with enough variety, challenge and contrast to make it want to 'stay' and the emotionality of the watery influence suits its intrinsic watery nature perfectly. Though venus represents the emotion of 'love', in order to grow, it needs to experience other emotions and pisces provides that opportunity. Cancer does that too, but it is too fast and too clingy. Venus needs to feel the security of being able to turn off the switch and the "playful-polar reversal" during an intense emotional experience is just not possible in cancer. Virgo is too earthy, too linear, too practical, too 'boring', a "no fun" situation and the planet is debilitated there. Venus can get earthy and basic as in taurus, its own sign, but for that it has to fix its range and decide upon its priorities so that it can relegate itself to enjoying the pleasures and luxuries of life and living. The mutability of earthy virgo confuses venus and it ends up enjoying neither its higher nor its lower manifestations. Venus finds the movable airy influence of libra conducive for the expressions of its higher, ethereal vibrations and manifestations of global love, almost reaching into the spiritual plane. The critical and detail-loving qualities of libra bring out that part of the nature of venus where an attention to details is acceptable in order to beautify a situation, where familiarity and a certain degree of order in the surroundings is actively resorted to in order to bring about harmony.
The fiery and aggressive mars also has an interesting story to tell! The warrior really shines when it must face the confining influence of saturn in capricorn, its sign of exaltation. As the predictability of the pragmatic earth tries to harness the indomitable spirit of mars, the movable nature of capricorn allows the warlord just enough room to move, and move it sure does in capricorn! The emotional movable water of cancer, on the other hand, makes mars too whiny as it gets soft and too preoccupied by the scars rather than the battle itself and finds its debility and a negative expression of all its sterling qualities of strength, courage, resilience, optimism. Its anger sometimes turns inwards as it keeps looking for release with none in sight externally and might even resort to drugs etc. It is easy to see mars flourish in aries, the movable fire which allows mars to express its initiative and leadership fully, its battling instincts expressed as innovative attempts and pursuits. At first glance, it seems strange that the fixed icy water of scorpio should even be considered as home by mars. But this is another situation where the heat and mobility of mars is challenged. The mysterious sign entices and seduces the explorer and the adventurer in mars as the emotional nature of the sign magnifies the passion in mars. The internalization of the energies of mars, as if trying to melt the ice that scorpio (fixed water) is, sometimes gives the impression of coldness, aloofness, even disinterest as the mars in scorpio concentrates its energies inwards, leading to the mistaken outwardly impression of a lack of passion or interest in the scorpio. And they are pursuing too intensely whatever they are after without even noticing or caring about the peripheral things or opinions harbored by others.
Next we arrive at jupiter, the expansive planet, dry and hot, wise and ponderous by nature, tackling things slowly but expertly. Perhaps to aid in its inherent strife for perfection, the slow and steady jupiter needs some polarity in its life. Its discriminative and judgmental skills need the mutability of sagittarius and pisces to exercise those. The pinnacle of expansion is attained by jupiter in cancer, the movable water, which represents the highest and most selfless form of love that is possible, the ability to love and care for as a parent. The ethereal expansiveness of jupiter is cramped in capricorn, its sign of debility. Saturn is very opposite to jupiter in many respects including its predilection for darkness, depth, closedness, ignorance, restrictive traditions, narrow outlook, constrictive, deathly morbid, limiting and absorptive tendencies. Jupiter on the other hand is bright, open and high, wise, expansive, broad-minded, limitless and freeing, ready for living and projective. Jupiter gives out energy, saturn absorbs those, no wonder jupiter is left weak and resourceless in capricorn.
Saturn, the uncouth, loveless, cold, eccentric recluse needs the harmonious, beautiful yet ordered environment of libra with its venusian warmth, and airy intellectuality to bring the best out of saturn without aggravating it. The opposite sign of aries debilitates saturn. It is too brash, too aggressive for the shy and indolent saturn, too pushy, too disordered and too fiery. Saturn cannot handle the openness of aries. Its ways are more calculated, inapparent! Saturn disintegrates in warmth. It is after all the illegitimate son of sun who banished him into darkness so that he may not tarnish his father's name. No wonder, saturn is so starkly inimical to sun. Horoscopes with sun and saturn conjunct almost invariably show an intense love-hate relationship between the father and the nativity. It is no wonder that the two houses of saturn, capricorn and aquarius are so close. The slow (manda or slow is a sanskrit term for saturn) saturn can do without distances and if it must it would rather have a movable sign with the qualities of earth, inherent immobility with enormous potential for growth as soil has. Saturn does not like contrasts and it is surprising that to call its home, it chooses two signs which represent maximum contrast, namely movable earth and fixed air! Perhaps this indicates the need for saturn and nativities ruled by it to get beyond limitations and to embrace the opposite view for personal salvation.
Obviously, one must take into account these very basic 'traits' of a sign to understand what makes the two signs ruled by the same planet different and why planets behave in a certain way in a sign. Both leo and virgo represent illumination, the former of the soul and the latter of the mind. In writing this article for this issue that addresses these two houses of the "universal or archetypal horoscope", I feel as if I have gained a better understanding of the soul of the signs and this would desirably affect how I apply my knowledge when I am delineating a chart. A linking of the attributes of the fifth and the sixth, bringing a concept to its concrete applied form.
©Copyrighted by Crystal Pages (1995)
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