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Chapter One
ARIES
MARCH 22—APRIL 20
Aries is the sign characterized by people with impulsive and compulsive personalities. They are very avid learners—but they will only learn what they want to learn. The other fire signs, Leo and Sagittarius, will learn things that they don't necessarily want to simply because they feel they need to know these things. An Aries is not the type of person to take a generalized humanities course, but will be riveted into specialization, usually becoming an authority on some subject.
Arians will only get into subjects that are totally involved with themselves—things that will aid and help them, so to speak. That is why they will study astrology—it tells them about themselves. Like the other fire signs, Arians are also very loyal. Most of the Arians that I have known and dealt with over the years are very fanatical about certain things. If Arians get religion—God help you—because they are going to give it to you! They are not what I would call crazy fanatics, but boy—they get on one binge, and it's a lifelong one. So they don't change horses in midstream. They will put their allegiance someplace, and that's it—it will not waver.
Don't tell Arians that their beliefs are wrong, because Aries is the one sign that will just deck you. They don't mess around with you. But at the same time, to get rid of an Aries is almost impossible. If you have ever been married to an Aries individual, or have any dealings with one, and you get fed up with themfor any reason, you cannot shake this person! It is almost impossible; Arians will dog your heels.
Arians have a beautiful, almost charming way of leading with their chin. They step in where angels fear to tread, and they almost beg you to go along with them. When no one else will taste a certain food, it is the Aries who says, "Oh, to hell with it! I'll try it!" Or if someone says not to walk somewhere, the Aries will say, "Forget it! I'm going over there."
Arians are the ones who will typically step into any kind of joke. If you want to make a joke work, run to an Aries and say, "Knock, knock ..." because this person will immediately take the bait every time! Arians are so inquisitive that they must say, "Who's there?"—even if they don't want to. And if you ever want a straight man, put an Aries beside you. These individuals have the naïveté to give you the most beautiful openings for jokes.
A very beautiful thing about Arians is that they not only laugh with you, but they can also laugh at themselves. Not many signs can do that very well. If Arians find themselves in compromising situations, they will laugh right along, even when they are totally off-kilter. And Arians have the ability to make a joke out of their own embarrassment, so everybody laughs with them. They have that natural charm.
Arians are very good writers of documents, especially legal ones. Even though much of their writing can be boring and scientific, it is quite factual. Arians will prove a point to the "nth degree," when speaking or writing. They will go over and over something because they're convinced that you're too dumb to get it the first time. They ought to all teach kindergarten, because then they could go over and over and over information again with those little, itty-bitty people. They feel compelled to repeat something four times, in four different ways. You will finally say, "Okay, I give up, I believe you, anything you want!" What is amazing, though, is that once you prove your intelligence to an Aries, he or she will usually back down, but not until you have proven your worth beyond any shadow of a doubt. After proving your intelligence to Arians, they do not tend to "hog the show." They will let you have equal time, which is an amazing thing about them. But, my God, the effort needed to prove it!
An Aries can work marvelously with any group of people, even the senile or the handicapped. This is not to demean such people, but the Aries could go over things 140 times with no problem. They would know that they have a captive audience there, and they have all the patience in the world. You never want to turn your back on Arians when they're talking to you, though. That is the most horrible affront, because they know that what they say is important for you to hear. And if you turn your back on them, that is an unforgivable sin.
Arians do not like change. They want to know that the same building has stood for 50 years. If something is torn down, they don't like it at all. They will say, "Remember that place on Bascom Avenue that stood there? And now look what they did to it!"
Arians are also tremendously involved with their own childhood, where many signs are not. They will tell you what they did at age four, three, two, and one ... and have slides and movies to go with it. They will tell you what they did when they were a kid. And you say, "Who cares?" Arians will also evaluate things by how they were done when they were children: "When I was a child, it was done this way."
What is really amazing about Arians is that they have really refined the art of sarcasm. And you cannot help but love these individuals because even with their sarcasm, they are funny! After an Aries gets through with you, you stand bleeding and laughing at the same time, because it's so funny. And Arians don't feel that they have been that sarcastic at all. They will say, "I merely stated it as it is."
Arians are very loyal and protective of their family unit—or of anybody they have absorbed into their family unit. They are tremendously loyal and adoptive people. They will take a person, and they will say, "You are just like my mother, or like my sister." So you will be absorbed immediately into their family unit—whether you like it or not! You are the second mother, or second sister, or whoever! If you are ever in a battle about anything, you want an Aries on your side. There is no doubt about that. But you had better make darn certain that they are on your side. You do not want to go into battle where the Aries has a predisposition for the other person, because then you could get annihilated. Leos think they have big mouths, but Arians far surpass them. I would never want to go up against a Leo and an Aries, especially together.
The Aries will usually be found in technical work, law, documentary writing, graphics, or anything that has to do with forms, statistics, managing, and overseeing. And they are inventors-they could be called the inventors of the zodiac. They will have ideas and pull in thoughts that no one has ever dreamed of. And they can make them work. "This wire goes in here; and I know I can make this." And they simply do it.
In their early years, Arians are tremendous gatherers of information and concepts. Then in midyears and later life, they will draw on this wealth of knowledge. They also have a marvelous retentive memory (although not the "file cabinet" mind of Libras), but they just retain an amazing amount of trivia. They know exactly how many light-years away such-and-such is, and so forth.
Arian attention to trivia is similar to the Capricorn trait of detail retention. Yet Arians get very aggravated with Capricorns, because Arians do not care to know if it was Tuesday or Wednesday when they wore the blue suit. The Aries could not care less, while the Capricorn is concerned with such details. No fire sign wants to put up with that. Libras and the other air signs will sit there yawning away, and the fire sign will say, "Get to the point!" They just come right out and say it. And the water sign just floats away with it they couldn't care less. The water sign will say, "I am going to go into my own alpha state, and I don't care."
Arians need their own space—but it is usually their own constructed space, which is different from other people. In other words, they get very territorial: "This is my niche, my stereo, my desk, and my eraser." But they don't have to go out into the wilderness like some of the other signs do. Some signs will say, "Give me wide open spaces, give me the desert, give me the ocean, give me ..." But an Aries would rather have their time alone in their own workroom. They just need a little place that is theirs to hang up their shingle. And they have to do all their own little charts and their own little diagrams and their other little things. They will spend many hours alone, and they need their secluded time. If they had an air sign hovering over them saying, "Notice me, notice me ...," it would drive them crazy.
It is best to let Arians work independently; they do not work well with somebody dominating them all of the time. Just tell an Aries what to do, and then let them do it. You cannot stand over Arians and dictate to them; you would make them crazy. No fire sign likes to be dominated, but especially the Aries. They do not want to be pushed around. Usually Arians are thinking way ahead of the boss anyway, and they will always want to tell their supervisor how to do it better. This does not go over too well with that person, as you can imagine. Leos, on the other hand, will say, "That's your problem!" and walk away because they get fed up and that's the end of it.
If you can finally establish a working relationship with an Aries, and convince this person that you are the boss, then he or she will respect you and not force everything to be their way. But it takes several years to reach that understanding. I spent five years saying, "I'm the boss!" every morning to my Aries employee.
Most Arians have very loud speaking voices, and I do not mean projection. You get the feeling that you are deaf when you're around Arians or you soon will be—because when you're sitting right next to them, they will yell at you! Even when they're "whispering," they will blast out, "Did you see that?" You then tell them, "Shhh, that's not a whisper—it's more like a stage whisper," and they say, "I am speaking quietly!" They even yell on the phone. Most of the water signs are more soft-spoken. The air and the fire signs seem to have the louder voices.
Physical Characteristics
Arians have naturally agile bodies. They can be very good dancers; and they are very fluid when moving. If you have ever watched Arians walk, they tend to undulate in some way.
Arians have a lot of problems with their teeth, but they do not want to take care of them.
Anyone fiddling around with the mouth or face of an Aries drives them crazy. Usually you will not find them with tight collars on, either. They do not like anything around their neck—especially if your hands happen to be around their throat, choking them!
Their feet give them a lot of problems; most of the time they are born with flat feet.
And like some of the other signs, the spinal area gives Arians problems, as well as the lower intestinal tract.
Arians are usually light-complected, even if they have dark hair. Their whole visage seems to be light in color.
