According to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the following tarot cards represent Aries:

• Emperor (IV)
• Queen of Wands
• Two of Wands (Mars in Aries)
• Three of Wands (Sun in Aries)
• Four of Wands (Venus in Aries)

In this article, I’m going to give some traditional ideas about Aries, then three new ideas I personally associate with Aries, and last I will give my personal interpretations of each tarot card.

Traditional Ideas about Aries

In her book “The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need,” Joanna Martine Woolfolk describes Aries as “active, energetic, excitable and impulsive, optimistic, open to change and new experiences.” (p. 8)

In his fifth lecture on Astrotheology, Manly P. Hall describes Aries the Ram as representing the virtue of courage and the vice of aggression or combativeness. He said the true test of Aries is whether we can be strong, yet kind. Instead of becoming aggressive like the Ram, he said we must become like the Lamb of God — seemingly passive, but actually powerful beyond all measure. In other words, the most effective way to cause change is through calm conscious assertiveness, not angry emotional explosions.

Teaching from an esoteric astrology standpoint, William Meader said in his blog and lecture at the Theosophical Society that the lower personality nature of Aries, with its traditional ruler of Mars, represents the “warrior on the march.” However, the soul nature of Aries, with its higher ruler of Mercury, is associated with the will to initiate new and progressive forms, whether they be new physical forms or new mental forms (also known as paradigm shifts). This is why Aries is such a powerful sign — because it takes a colossal amount of strength to change the course of the world. He also said that, while both Aquarius and Aries are about initiating change, Aquarius is more about working with large groups of other human beings in order to cause the change while Aries is more about dedication to the cause over anything else, saying, “I’ll do it myself if I have to.”

Now that I’ve touched on some traditional ideas, let’s move on to the new concepts.

Concept #1: Accepting the Call to Adventure

After analyzing mythologies throughout history and from around the world, Joseph Campbell discovered a underlying narrative pattern which we typically refer to today as the “Hero’s Journey.” (Here’s a hilarious Glove and Boots video that summarizes the idea.) Dan Harmon, creator and writer of shows like “Rick and Morty” and “Community”, uses his own simplified version of this pattern which he calls “the story circle.”

The idea boils down to this: a protagonist wants something, so they journey from the known world into an unknown world to get the thing and bring it back. (An interesting and illuminating characteristic of this model is that, since humans are social creatures, the hero always returns back to the tribe with the treasure to improve the lives of the entire group instead of just keeping it for themself.)

In the hero’s journey, the “Call to Adventure” happens when an external force invites the protagonist to embark on the adventure. In Harry Potter, it is when Harry receives the letters from Hogwarts. In the Lord of the Rings, it is when Gandalf asks Frodo to take the ring out of the Shire. In Star Wars, it is when Obi Wan Kenobi invites Luke Skywalker to come with him to Alderaan.

Then we reach the stage of the journey called the “Refusal of the Call.” This is when the protagonist says something like, “But but but… I’m no hero! I’m just a ordinary person living an ordinary life! I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” Then the environment forces them into it — whether its Hagrid arriving on his flying motorcycle, or Luke Skywalker discovering that his aunt and uncle have been murdered.

With all of this in mind, Aries can represent the strength you need to accept your call to adventure. Whenever an Aries tarot card comes up, ask yourself, “Is there a call to adventure happening right now, and am I refusing the call?” Perhaps instead of an “external person” showing up on your doorstep and inviting you on this adventure, it’s an “internal voice” whispering to you, “You were meant to do this thing, and there’s still time.” Your call to adventure may seem like an outrageously impossible task, something totally beyond what you are currently capable of… and you’re right. According to the Hero’s Journey, that’s what makes you the perfect protagonist for this story.

This brings me to concept number 2.

Concept #2: Not How You Start, But That You Start

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” G.K. Chesterton

Aries season begins on March 21st, which is the first day of Spring (or “Spring Equinox”). During Spring, we see the slow rebirth of life around us after the cold killing hardship of Winter. Aries is associated with “the will to initiate” because Spring initiates us back into the warmer seasons.

When we initiate a brand new venture, we will probably suck at it. Psychologist Carol Dweck, famous for her influential research on growth and fixed mindsets, points out an incredibly magical word and mantra to keep in mind anytime you’re beginning something new — “yet.”

I’m not a good artist… yet.
I’m not a good entrepreneur… yet.
I’m just not good at this thing I feel called to do… yet.

From a Qabalistic view, esoteric author Dion Fortune said in her book “The Mystical Qabalah” that the center sephira of Tiphareth — which represents our “Higher Self” or “Soul” or “Christ or Buddha within” — is symbolized by the “Divine Child.” This is because “the Child-Christ does not spring like Minerva, full-armed from the head of God the Father, but starts as a small thing, humbly laid among the beasts and not even housed in the inn with the humans.” (p. 194) In other words, just as humans enter the world as a tiny helpless baby, our Soul does not enter this world as something complete but rather something to be developed.

Dion Fortune also said that “initiation” is “the forcing-house of evolution.” (p. 35) In other words, evolution can happen to us, or it can happen through us. Either we can passively wait for our environment to change enough that we are forced to evolve, or we “take initiative” and consciously put ourselves into new environments that we know will force us to evolve. In order to embody the heroic spirit of Aries, we must start the journey even though we feel unprepared, because it is the journey itself that will prepare us.

This brings me to the third new concept.

Concept #3: Failure as Goal, Not Death Sentence

In their book “Go for No!“, authors Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz said that people typically operate from a model of success and failure that looks like this:

SUCCESS ←←← ME →→→ FAILURE

In this model, we do everything we can to move toward success while moving away from failure. However, a better model looks like this:

ME →→→ FAILURE →→→ SUCCESS

They said, “I realized that failure was the halfway mark on the road to success… Most people get to the sign marked ‘failure’ and they figure they’re heading in the wrong direction, turn around and head back home. They think that success must be back the other way, but it’s not! It’s straight ahead!” (p. 29)

Seth Godin summarized this idea with his quote: “If I fail more than you, I win.” He also said on Tim Ferriss’s podcast, don’t ask yourself, “What would I do if I knew I could not fail?” Instead ask, “What would I do if I knew I would fail? What would be worth doing, even if it doesn’t work?”

Oftentimes, our “fear of failure” is actually a “fear of social rejection” which is an ancient instinct bestowed upon us by evolution through our genes. Ivan Tyrrell, co-creator of the Human Givens theory, explains here why we developed this instinct:

“I mean look at you! You’re tasty meat for a hyena! You’ve got nothing to defend yourself with! You’ve got no claws, you haven’t got big hairy hides that are half-an-inch thick, you can’t run particularly fast… you’re easy meat! So the only way we survive is by being a group animal and developing techniques for scaring off the wild beasts, because if you band together in a large group, you look to a hyena or a lion… like a large animal… If you were cast out of the tribe, that was a death sentence effectively.”

Similarly, when we put a considerable amount of effort into something and share it with the world, only for someone else (or everyone else) to tell us that it is garbage, our emotional alarm system goes off and starts blairing, “YOU ARE IN DANGER!! YOU ARE IN DANGER!! DON’T MAKE ANY MORE GARBAGE OR YOU WILL DIE!!!” But this instinctual sensitivity to social rejection is old biological technology developed for old environments, and thus in our modern environment, it will often trigger false alarms when we aren’t really in danger.

Inspired by Mark Tyrrell’s advice on how to deal with panic attacks, I like to think of my “emotional self” as a huge grizzly bear friend that follows me around and that I call “mama bear.” Wherever I go, she goes, and whenever she detects danger, she loses it and starts roaring at the threat, ready to kill to protect me. But then, I use my thinking mind to look around, see if I’m actually in any danger, and if not, I tell her, “Stand down, mama bear, stand down. I am not in any danger here. Thank you for your protection and your love, but you can stand down.” I do this because, like Mark Tyrrell said in the video linked above, the emotional self takes cues from the thinking self, and if the thinking self is confident there is no danger here, then the emotional self will calm down because nature conserves energy and emotional outbursts require a lot of energy.

When we first begin to pursue a higher calling, we will almost certainly fail hard for a long time and experience some form of social rejection (especially in this Internet age). However these failures are to be embraced and the social rejection expected because they both mean you have started your journey and you are on your way. You may fear failure, but you are the hero in this story, and heroes aren’t fearless — they overcome their fear. Like Carl Jung wrote in The Red Book: “You must endure the temptation of fear and doubt, and at the same time acknowledge to the bone that your fear is justified and your doubt is reasonable. How otherwise could it be a true temptation and a true overcoming?” (p. 139)

Tarot Card Interpretations

Keeping in mind these traditional and new ideas, here’s some of my personal interpretations of each of the Aries tarot cards.

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Emperor (IV)

In the Hermetic Qabalah, the Emperor sits on the path between the second sephira Chokmah and the sixth sephira Tiphareth. According to Dion Fortune, Chokmah is the radical force of change emanating from the first sephira Kether, while Tiphareth represents our Higher Self or Soul or Holy Guardian Angel — and is a direct individualized reflection of Kether manifest in this world. (Kether is God, Source, and Supreme Consciousness.) In other words, this is essentially where the “force of God” meets the “God within you.”

The Emperor can represent the inspiring force of God compelling your Soul to a particular calling or action — your divine purpose. It is the promise of the Cosmic Father who says, “If you, my Divine Child, choose to accept my Call to Adventure that I sound from deep within the core of your being, I will open the doors to my heavenly treasury and provide you with all of the strength, energy, and courage you will need to fulfill your destiny. With the power of God behind you, you will become a force of nature that can move mountains and part the sea. However, if you refuse my call and you reject my invitation to transformation, the doors to my treasury will remain closed and you will be on your own.”

When you pull this card, it is a good time to ask, “What adventure am I being invited on right now, and would my soul support me and provide me strength on this adventure, or would it see this adventure as a distraction away from my true path?”

Queen of Wands

The Queen of Wands represents “watery fire” which can be interpreted as “reflective action” amongst many other things. Joe Monteleone, the awesome teacher over at the Tarot Mysticism Academy whose Level 2 class inspired me to start this blog in the first place, associates the Queen cards with interpersonal one-on-one situations between you and someone else. (This is compared to the King or Prince cards which are about more mass communication between you and groups of people). The interpersonal interactions of the Queen can manifest as a personal conversation between you and a friend, or as a spiritual conversation between your Lower Self and Higher Self.

At its core, the Queen of Wands can represent finding the divine sparks of Soul around you and providing them with kindling on their journey to become a roaring fire. It is about motivating someone who is acting on their higher calling, whether that “someone who needs motivation” is yourself or someone else. To motivate someone else, you can do things like show up to an event that is meaningful to them, commission a piece of work or performance from them, or console them after they’ve experienced a rejection or failure (making sure to use that magical word “yet”). To motivate yourself, you can treat yourself to an adventure that is in alignment with your higher calling that you know will inspire you. This can be attending an event like a conference or a festival, signing up for a class or a workshop, or reaching out for some one-on-one advice from someone who is currently doing something similar to what you dream of doing one day.

Two of Wands

The Two of Wands is composed of 4 building blocks:

• Wands as Fire, representing motivation and transformation.
• Two as Chokmah (Zodiac), representing energizing force and freedom.
• Mars, representing heroism and leadership.
• Aries, representing courage and initiation.

This overwhelmingly fiery card is bursting with power and ready to initiate radical change. It represents stepping up and taking action regardless of what anyone else is doing, because it draws its strength directly from a Higher Power instead of its environment. This is a card of trailblazing leadership—but its leadership comes through “leading by example” instead of “managing the team.” This card is less focused on the past or the future, and more on doing what is right, right now, and it accepts that the future will work out however it works out. From a practical standpoint it says, “Do what is right, not what is popular.” From a spiritual standpoint it says, “Thy Will be done through me.”

When you pull this card, it is time to start sucking. Your mantra can be, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Start racking up your failure count ASAP. If you are already following your calling, now is the time to start failing BIGGER. Like Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy talk about, shoot for a short-term goal that is 10-times bigger than what you think is possible. (You can preorder their new book “10x is Easier than 2x” to learn more about this.) If you do not know your calling, take a guess, give that a shot, and see how you feel afterwards. Above all else, now is the time to take action.

Three of Wands

The Three of Wands is composed of four building blocks:

• Wands as Fire, representing motivation and transformation.
• Three as Binah (Saturn), representing form and restriction.
• The Sun, representing the Higher Self and awareness.
• Aries, representing courage and initiation.

In this card, we have a tension between Fire’s energetic activity and Binah’s restriction into form. Whereas the Two of Wands acts in the moment, the Three of Wands acts with time in mind. Using the awareness of the Higher Self that is beyond emotional needs and egotistical thoughts, it acknowledges the past, contemplates the future, and acts courageously in this moment to unite the two. One way this can play out is “disciplined force.” This concept is summed up by Gustave Flaubert quote: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Another way this card can play out is as “force that destroys an existing form so a new form can take its place.” In the hero’s journey, the protagonist must sacrifice their life of comfort in order to begin their journey into the unknown. In the Three of Wands, we find the strength required to self-immolate our existing form so that, like the phoenix, a new form more aligned with our higher calling can rise from our ashes. However, just as the phoenix is reborn as an egg or a hatchling, we too will initially emerge from our ashes as an incompetent child. Like the bold child, we must not be afraid to fall down. Instead we must seek bigger and better failures as we develop the new skills, new attitudes, and new lifestyle of our new self.

Four of Wands

The Four of Wands is composed of four building blocks:

• Wands as Fire, representing motivation and transformation.
• Four as Chesed (Jupiter), representing organization and values.
• Venus, representing emotional needs and instincts.
• Aries, representing courage and initiation.

In this card, we have a complex combination of Fire’s passionate energy, Chesed’s organizational structure, Venus’s instinctual emotional needs, and Aries’s courage and initiation. To me, this card represents creating a system that both allows for expression of your Higher Self and divine purpose, while also tending to the emotional needs of you and those around you. It can also represent injecting a spontaneous act of love or kindness into an area of your life that is otherwise structured and monotonous, like buying a gift or doing a favor for someone at home or at work.

In Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s video on morning routines, he discusses Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg’s concept that design beats willpower. The idea is that, if you want to change your behavior, redesign your environment so that the environment naturally draws the behavior out of you. For example, if your Higher Self is whispering to you to become sober, then don’t keep a bottle of wine in your fridge. Instead, remove all of the alcohol from your home. If you want to become a better guitarist, then don’t store your guitar in a case tucked away in your closet. Instead, leave it on a stand or hung from the wall in your main living space so that it stares at you everyday, ready to be played. If you want to become a better partner, then set a daily or weekly recurring reminder on your phone to do something loving that day. The Four of Wands can represent this conscious redesign of your environment so your desired behaviors are the easiest options available and thus less willpower is needed on your path to becoming your Higher Self.

Conclusion

To summarize, Aries is about being bold, taking initiative, and acting — not without fear — but despite fear, because you are a hero and that’s what heroes do. It is about having the courage to accept your Higher Self’s Call to Adventure. It is about embracing the fact that on your journey, like a child learning to ride a bike, you will suck a lot at first, and you will probably suck for a long time, but the more you suck means the more room you have to grow. Failure is not something to be avoided, but sought after because it is how you learn and a signpost that you are on your way. Failure and social rejection may feel scary and dangerous, but that’s just your primitive-human emotional-instinctual brain telling you, “If you get rejected from the tribe, you will have to fight lions and bears by yourself and you will die!!!” I can almost certainly promise you that creating a work of art that someone does not like will not lead you to fist fighting lions and bears by yourself. Social rejection is an inevitability on the journey to becoming our Higher Self—especially in this day and age where there are so many people in the world. The thing you should fear far more than social rejection is dying without trying. Aries gives us the courage to do the thing that is scariest of all — to give an honest shot as fulfilling our destiny.