The cardinal signs

Why these four

Each of these signs opens a season — each cardinal sign begins at a solstice or an equinox. Starting at Aries and stepping a quarter of the way round the circle three times lands on the other three, so the group is a square drawn in the zodiac. Twelve divides by four, which is the whole of the arithmetic: each element contributes exactly one sign to each quality, and each quality takes one sign from each element.

This is the one grouping that is not a convention at all. The zodiac is measured from the March equinox, so the sun enters Aries at that instant by definition; the other three cardinal signs begin at 90-degree intervals from it, which puts them at the June solstice, the September equinox and the December solstice. The four cardinal signs and the four turning points of the year are the same four moments.

What the tradition makes of it

In Western astrological tradition the cardinal signs are associated with starting things, and the restlessness that goes with starting them. That is a statement about a tradition of reading, not a claim about anyone born under one of these four signs, and this site makes no such claim.

The four turning points

Worked out from the sun's position with the VSOP87 planetary theory, to the minute. Why the dates shift →

Read on

• The fixed signs
• The mutable signs
• Every sign