Polarity

poh-LAR-ih-tee

Definition

Polarity splits the zodiac into two alternating groups of six signs as you go around the wheel from Aries to Pisces. The Fire and Air signs (Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius) make up the diurnal — also called positive, masculine, or yang — polarity. The Earth and Water signs (Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces) make up the nocturnal — negative, feminine, or yin — polarity. Two signs opposite each other on the wheel always share a polarity; two neighbouring signs always alternate.

In Tradition

Hellenistic and modern Western astrologers treat polarity as the broadest way of sorting the signs, alongside element (a four-way split) and modality (a three-way split). Traditional sources read it as diurnal versus nocturnal within the sect system. Psychological and humanistic Western astrology, in the Rudhyar–Arroyo lineage, frames it as the alternation of an outwardly active posture and an inwardly receptive one, much like yang and yin.

In Practice

To read a chart's polarity balance, astrologers count placements, weighting the Sun, Moon, and planets near the angles more heavily. A chart leaning toward fire-and-air tends to read as initiating and outwardly engaged; one leaning toward earth-and-water as receptive and inwardly turned. A strong imbalance often shows up in synastry — comparing two people's charts — as a projection pattern, where each partner supplies the polarity the other is short on. Polarity also sets up the natural opposition pairs and is one of the inputs to deciding a chart's sect, the diurnal-or-nocturnal distinction.

Historical Origin

The diurnal-nocturnal polarity of the signs is treated in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos I.12 ("Of the Masculine and Feminine Signs"), in Valens' Anthologiae, and across the Hellenistic compendia, and it is preserved by al-Biruni's Kitāb al-Tafhīm (c. 1029) and the Arabic-Latin tradition. The "positive/negative" and yang/yin labels are 20th-century Western reframings, popularised in the humanistic-psychological writings of Rudhyar and Arroyo.

Etymology

Origin: Latin/Greek. Meaning: Axis or pivot.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Etymology

Further Reading