Aries - The Pulse Of Life- Part 3

Aries is the dawn of personality as an objective and conscious fact in the cycle of human unfoldment. In that dawn the light of consciousness gradually sweeps through the Eastern sky, awakening all forces which belong to the realm of the Day. But there is still darkness in the West. The power of the Night is still holding sway over vast regions of the human psyche. Henceforth it will control the memory and gain possession of the regions below-the-horizon. These regions constitute the Unconscious.

Aries is the dawn of personality as an objective and conscious fact in the cycle of human unfoldment. In that dawn the light of consciousness gradually sweeps through the Eastern sky, awakening all forces which belong to the realm of the Day. But there is still darkness in the West. The power of the Night is still holding sway over vast regions of the human psyche. Henceforth it will control the memory and gain possession of the regions below-the-horizon. These regions constitute the Unconscious.

The balance between conscious and unconscious is very subtle in Aries ? and also in Libra. These two signs are signs of equilibrium, in which the Day-force and the Night-force are of nearly identical strength. "Nearly" identical only; because in Aries the Day-force has an outward momentum which assures its domination ? but a domination which must pay homage to the past, to the Night-force.
In one sense at least, the Aries person is called upon to sacrifice his past, to burn it on the altar of his dedication to the new life. This sacrifice could be a joyous or serene act; but the power of the Night-force in the subconscious often makes of it a dramatic martyrdom. Thus the feeling of self-pity so often found in Aries people. That self-pity is produced by the ebbing Night-force clinging still to its hegemony. It is a negative characteristic of Aries. Self-pity, weariness before the act, a sense of "What is the use," a sense of being a "Sacrificial victim" of destiny ? are all negative aspects of that sign. They can only be overcome when the conscious ego succeeds in "assimilating the contents of the Unconscious" (in C. G. Jung's terminology), when all the energies of the Aries type are embodied deliberately and consciously into a work and a destiny, consciously accepted and discharged.