Aquarius: Awakening Your Heart

While the Sun travels through Aquarius each year, it brings all of us powerful opportunities for personal awakening.

Aquarius, the 11th sign of the zodiac, is ruled by Uranus, an unusual planet sometimes called “the Great Awakener.” Named for the ancient Greek sky god Ouranos, this planet has a tipped rotational axis that causes it to revolve on its side. This sideways point of view gives us a clue to Aquarians’ tendency to see the world in unusual ways.

While the Sun is in Aquarius, we all become “honorary Aquarians” and may benefit from this sign’s peculiar energies. For example, Aquarius is associated with electricity and lightning on both the physical and spiritual planes. As in a thunderstorm, when lightning flashes suddenly and seemingly randomly, we may experience flashes of Uranian wisdom in the form of noble thoughts, unusual solutions to difficult problems, and sudden spiritual awakenings.

How to use inspirations well

To use these inspirations well, we need to ground them. Simply recording them—jotting them down on paper or capturing them digitally as a text or e-mail or other note to ourselves—will help our minds begin working with new ideas.

In addition, we need to reflect on the inspirations we receive to decide how best to use them. Although some ideas may prove ingenious or even brilliant, others may be simply eccentric or strange and have no practical use.

Opening the heart

While reflecting on our various inspirations, it’s helpful to remember that Aquarius is an air sign and that air symbolizes the mind and ideas. When out of balance, Aquarians earn a reputation for living in their heads and being out of touch with practical considerations. They also may become so focused on ideas and implementing their version of utopia that they lose sight of emotional considerations as they try to fix or control other people.

To balance these tendencies, we can turn to Aquarius’s opposite sign, which is Leo. Like yin and yang, astrological signs come in pairs of opposites, and our work lies in balancing these pairs. In the case of Aquarius and Leo, we must balance head (Aquarius) with heart (Leo).

The watercolor painting that accompanies this article, Lightning Heart II, suggests how to do this. As Aquarius is associated with lightning, Leo is associated with the heart. While Aquarius tends to be impersonal, Leo is deeply emotional and tends to take things too personally when it’s out of balance.

As the painting symbolizes, rather than restricting lightning flashes of brilliance to your mind, allow Uranus’s electric power to flash through your heart via meditation and prayer. During these times of silent introspection, reflect on the ideas your mind has been given and filter them through the wisdom and compassion of your heart, your spiritual self.

As you engage in this process, you will find a beautiful balance between your head (Aquarius) and your heart (Leo). Over time, you will come to understand why mystics say that true intelligence lies within the heart.