Cardinal signs
The cardinal signs are one of the three modalities of Western astrology, alongside the fixed and mutable signs. They are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. Their role is to initiate: each one opens a season, Aries the spring, Cancer the summer, Libra the autumn, Capricorn the winter. Tradition links them to beginnings, to impulse and to the capacity to set things in motion.
What they initiate
If you have planets in cardinal signs, you know how to start: you launch projects, you take initiative, you open doors. This energy makes you a mover, the one who gives the first push. It only gains from surrounding yourself with people who like to finish what you begin with the same enthusiasm.
Against fixed and mutable
Cardinal signs open, fixed ones hold, and mutable ones adapt and close: a full cycle. Where the cardinal shines at launching, it sometimes grows bored over the long haul. That is why the three modalities complete one another, each taking over the work where the other one starts to tire.
Sources
- , Astrology, Psychology, and the Four Elements (1975)