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splendid energies into, something that stimulates him and has open possibilities. Ariens do not work well as complacent employees for strong bosses. They need scope and challenge and plenty of personal freedom to follow their visions without interference.
Now, there is a type of Arien who suppresses all this, just as anyone can suppress the natural qualities of his nature. You might see a meek, mild, docile Arien led along by a powerful wife or husband, or kept in his place by a powerful employer. All that fire goes inside, and eats at him from within. Headaches are a common Arien symptom, when the anger goes inside. You can't expect the god of war to be happy tending geraniums in the greenhouse. He'll either tear himself apart, or make life miserable for everybody else instead.
Not all Ariens display the physical prowess of the mythological Mars, although a lot are fond of sports and physical competition. The spirit of competition and winning is there, but it may be on an intellectual level instead. Many Ariens seem to have this quality of dynamic energy in the mental realm, and whether they are scholars, philosophers, prophets, artists, religious leaders or one kind or another, you are immediately impressed by the vivid life of their minds. They love mental challenge, difficult problems, impenetrable texts which they can battle. Don't think all Ariens wear armour and ride horses physically. Some do it very unobtrusively. But watch out for the glint of the steel cuirass someplace. You'll always find it.
Like all the fire signs, Aries has a problem coping with the facts of the situation he finds himself in. Some Ariens are terribly impractical, about very mundane things - like food, money, taxes. Some are sufficiently protected by an army of secretaries, agents, cleaning ladies et al. so they appear to be models of efficiency when in fact, if left alone with their own resources, they would make a hopeless muddle of the material world. Some are a little better with the things of this world, but are oblivious to the limitations of things. For Aries, anything is possible. Of course, anything isn't possible. But you can't tell an Aries that; he'll simply think you're cowardly, unimaginative, frightened or weak, and walk away to prove that it can be done. And he gets himself into a lot of trouble as often as he wins honours and accomplishes the impossible at the same time.
One of Aries' most dangerous problems is that he can be easily disillusioned and made bitter. Because his reality is so often tinted by the values of the chivalric code, he may be injured over and over again by other people who refuse to recognize the code themselves. Aries doesn't compromise gracefully with either people of life. And if he's unlucky, or pushes too hard, or has visions which are too wild or impossible, he can wind up in a very bitter state. He needs more than anything else, to learn to see people as they are and to let them remain as they are without crusading. Conquering the infidel didn't work in the thirteenth century; it's certainly not going to work in the twentieth. It's important for Aries to learn balance, a happy medium between his noble visions of how the world might be and the limitations not only of himself but of the times he lives in. If he can find this balance, he sets his aims low enough to be achievable, without abandoning them to the kind of black despair which overwhelmed the knights when the Holy Land was lost.
A strange creature, our fiery Aries. He's capable of profound thought and considerable tenderness; but without warning he'll be leaping on his feet again to stir up another crusade. Life is certainly not boring with an Aries. If he can't find a crisis, he'll make one. There's a certain mischievous streak in him too; he'll poke and goad people and situations which are too staid, too prissy, too stagnant, until the whole thing burst into a conflagration. He, of course, is out the door first, so that he never gets burned - or almost never. But Aries can be a tease, a gadfly nibbling away at whatever has grown fat and complacent and too sure of itself. He likes to play the role of the Devil's advocate, and doesn't mind having everybody else thoroughly annoyed at him for doing it. At least it generates a little action; and action, for Aries,
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