Operating Styles Of The Astrological Modalities

All of the signs of the Zodiac can be divided into Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable signs. AKA the Modalities. It refers to a mode of operating and is surprisingly apt.

Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn are the Cardinal signs, but you can call them “Boss.”  Their core competency is taking charge. If there is an initiative, they’ll seize it. They are utterly relaxed in management positions. Leadership is less stressful for them than following, no matter what the circumstances.

Their weak spot is control-tripping. Automatically assuming authority, they alienate people by telling them how to run their everything. Cardinal signs see everything and everyone as an issue to be managed, controlled or confronted.

Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius are the Fixed signs. Their word is their oath. Once set upon something; they will not budge. Such dependability and self-discipline rightly earn them success in anything demanding tenacity. Whether they’re training for a marathon, patiently hunting down the perp of a crime or making a movie, they will not stop. They endure.

But this attribute flipped can see them sticking to people and projects when they should have abandoned ship and swum on. It becomes stubbornness and rigidity that they rebrand as principles.

The Mutable signs are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. They’re beyond just change-adept. They sense shifts in the Zeitgeist and incoming trends the way birds feel wind or storms. Mutable people are clearing their desk or throwing money at something nobody’s ever heard of while others wait for some memo or announcement.

However, their temperament also means that they find it hard to commit to anything. They set a big goal or standard at dawn, and adjust it by evening. Each policy shift is utterly logical, at the time. And because impulse is statistically their most successful ‘method,’ they can deploy it where a more robust strategy is needed. That causes loss of their most valued asset; time.

To make it more involved, you could be a Sun Sign with one mode (say, a Cardinal Aries) but your actual birth chart is predominantly – say – Mutable. My Astral DNA report displays your Modalities ‘score.’

Knowing other people’s dominant modality is super-handy. Why? Because if you try to impose Mutable values on a Cardinal sign or any other permutation of this, it backfires.

Thoughts?

Image: Edith Head (Scorpio) and Gloria Swanson (Aries)

36 thoughts on “Operating Styles Of The Astrological Modalities”

  1. can I just send a memo to the Fixed signs:

    Just because you Don’t Like something, doesn’t make it Wrong.

    kthx

    signed, pisces completely over fixed signs (colleague, housemate, friends, family members) who can’t deal with change and openness to things which have not passed their 100-point pre-approval checklist.

    1. probably a bit unfair in the cold light of day
      saturn in my 7th house? forcing me to define myself better?
      progressed sun in toro, and progressed moon/asc in Leo, showing me what fixity is all about?

      would a fixed sign be having this conversation with themself?

      1. Wish Upon a Star

        Oh don’t beat yourself up. I agree with your first comment.

        I usually see the fixed signs coming and if I am grounded enough I just give them a wide berth or just smile and nod if cornered.

        A bit hard if they are in your circle. The really full on Fixed signs can suck the oxygen out of a room. Tres boring.

        I think a sense of humour is the balm in these situations. But I would say that as I am a mutable Gemini with a Taurus moon.

  2. Mostly Cardinal, then Fixed. I guess this explains why my Myers-Briggs is ENTJ and why my current job as an assistant gives me hives anytime I walk in the building.

  3. socialgraffiti

    Very much fixed, but I have a Cancer rising plus Saturn in Aries that gives me my “go go go” personality. I am really so impatient. I need what I need now and I will worry about the consequences later.

  4. Just checked mine and I am Cardinal first! It surprised me because my two very vocal older sisters turned out to be both primarily Fixed. I don’t think they got the newsflash the youngest, shortest sister was also the Cardinal one. But my Cardinal-ity is fairly balanced with my Mutable-ness. (As I am Leo Sun, Scorpio Moon I may not be very fixed but I am pretty fixed too).

    Lucky my partner is insanely high in Mutability. Though he is a Cancer Moon, and I feel like that and his Cap NN, play the larger role in his life in terms of ‘strategy’. So the mutable descriptions of a lack of strategy seem not to apply. Or could be because he is Ox year. 😉

  5. I’m 42% fire, 8% earth, 25% air, 25% water.
    And 42% cardinal, 25% fixed, 33% mutable.

    I consider myself primarily water (Sun, Moon, Saturn which is my ruler in Pisces and Scorpio), so it’s funny I actually have so much fire, but it’s only with two personal planets (Venus and Mars in Aries), the rest (Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune all in Sag) are outer planets.

    Likewise I think of myself as a Mutable (Pisces sun) but I’m Cap-rising and have a cardinal midheaven with a lot of planets so I know I’m actually quite set on doing things my own way and very averse to being controlled.

    I just looked at my sister’s astral DNA and she’s a Sun Leo, but she’s 42% water, and 25% fire, so sort of the inverse of me (our ascendents and descendents are also perfectly conjunct). This could explain why we butted heads so much as kids perhaps because we have the same proportions of cardinal/fixed mutable but in different elements, we both have cardinal rising signs (me Cap, her Cancer) and both have cardinal mars (me Aries, her Libra). I’ve never looked at it that way and it’s insightful!

    Also my boyfriend has NO earth, he’s all fire and air with a bit of water, I feel I ground him with my bit of earth from my ascendent, in our composite the only earth is our moon in Cap.

  6. Saturn in Pisces

    I’m 50 percent fixed. Before Astral DNA I described myself as “all fixed/cardinal and NO mutable.” Cardinal Moon/ASC and Fixed Sun. My only mutable placements are Jupiter in Sag and Saturn in Pisces, though Astral DNA gives me 20 percent mutable because it tallies Chiron in Virgo too.

    My friends who know anything about astrology think of my as “the least mutable” (and I tend to only make friends with super-mutable people). But they aren’t think about my dad, whose Astral DNA is 80 percent fixed!

    I’ve always thought of power and control games as a Fixed thing. Universally in my experience the Fixed signs are the “strong personalities” who are demanding and cause interpersonal trouble and need to do it “their way.”

  7. 50% mutable (sun/moon/mercury/jupiter in gemini, neptune in sag, virgo midheaven)
    41.6% fixed (mars + venus in taurus, uranus + ascendant in scorpio)
    8.3% cardinal? (Pluto)
    Always thought I was zero cardinal!? Despite my scorpio rising I’ve always felt pretty passive and flimsy. Is it due to no fire in my chart (only ol’ saturn in leo) or maybe 1st house neptune is the culprit?

  8. 66% mutable, 16% cardinal and 16% fixed here and I’d say that is a v accurate reflection of my modus operandi. Generally pretty happy with mutable strategies but I’m very grateful for my fixed Taurus Venus – really a go-to for me if my usual strategies aren’t working. I think of it as “she conquers who endures.” Don’t see as much of my cardinal side at first glance – will think about it a bit. I often wonder what it must be like to have more cardinality and fixedness ..

  9. 58% mutable/50% earth with 0% air. Do I move mountains for the highest good? Or just piles of dirt for no reason?

  10. I’m 50% fixed, with an angular t-square.
    41.6% mutable, including my closest planetary aspect and an 8th house stellium.
    My chart ruler Pluto rounds it all out to give me 8.3% cardinal.

    I’m stubborn yet unpredictable with an underlying urge to light things on fire.

  11. Maybe it’s a new feature as I can’t see the percentages on mine, only the grid with symbols?? No matter, I can work it out – 57.1% mutable, 35.7% fixed, 7.2% cardinal. My friends call me a commitophobe but it’s really that the optimal decision changes by the nanosecond

  12. Fire: Sun Mercury Venus Saturn Neptune – 35.7%
    Earth: Moon Mars Jupiter Chiron Asc – 35.7%
    Air: Pluto MC – 14.3%
    Water: Uranus True Node – 14.3%

    Very little air or water and I feel it

    I am a Leo sun and Virgo moon so probably not as stubborn as I could be

    1. that is a fair whack of Air and Water though – there are people with Zero. This is actually fairly well balanced!

  13. Wish Upon a Star

    OMG. Thanks Mystic for drawing my attention to this. I never noticed it before.

    And it is a great help.

  14. I’m a cardinal sun (Libra) with a stellarium in a mutable sign (Virgo), my rising in a mutable sign (Gemini), and my moon in a fixed sign (Taurus). I’m not particularly inclined to management (although micro managers give me the yips). I work pretty well independently, and I’m fairly flexible until someone hits one of my hard stops, at which point I’m really, really not. I don’t know that you’d call this operating firmly in any one modality.

  15. Love this astro-school bit of post. I have always been pretty ignorant at the whole Cardinal / Fixed / Mutable thing. Though being Gemini with Virgo rising (and 58% mutable in my BC) I know first hand what that entitles to. Happy to know that I am almost 40% Cardinal too (thanks to you awesome Astral DNA report), which helped me shed some new light on other characteristics of mine.

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