Sagittarius

Sagittarius, the Archer, closes the autumn and looks ahead to winter, aiming its arrow at something far away. The sign inclines toward optimism, adventure, philosophy and the search for meaning — long journeys, foreign places, big ideas, teaching and learning. It tends to speak its mind and to trust that things will work out. Its gift is faith and breadth of vision; its difficulty can be restlessness, over-promising, or bluntness that forgets the listener.

Element, mode and polarity

Sagittarius is a Fire sign of the mutable mode. Fire gives it enthusiasm and spirit; the mutable mode makes that fire roving and adaptable, ready to move on to the next horizon. It is masculine (active) and diurnal. Its fellow Fire signs are Aries and Leo; its fellow mutable signs are Gemini, Virgo and Pisces.

Rulership and dignities

• Domicile: Jupiter, its day house (Pisces is the other).
• Exaltation: no traditional planet is exalted in Sagittarius.
• Detriment: Mercury, whose home Gemini lies opposite.
• Fall: none in the traditional scheme.

Jupiter rules Sagittarius in both traditional and modern astrology.

In a chart

Planets in Sagittarius tend to reach outward and upward, toward experience and understanding. The Sun here often finds itself through travel, study or a cause; the Moon needs freedom and room to roam to feel at ease; Venus loves adventure and honesty; Mars fights for its beliefs. Mercury, in detriment, may favour the big picture over the detail, and speak before it has checked its facts. The house with Sagittarius on its cusp is often where a person wants to grow, explore and find something to believe in. With Sagittarius on the Ascendant, Jupiter becomes the chart ruler, and the person often seems open, cheerful and frank.

The tradition

Ptolemy counts Sagittarius among the bicorporeal signs, which bridge the seasons, and gives it with Pisces to Jupiter — signs he calls "windy and fecund", in trine to the houses of the luminaries, a harmonious and beneficent configuration. Lilly calls Sagittarius "fiery, hot, dry, masculine, cholericke, diurnall, common, by-corporall or double-bodied", of the fiery triplicity and the East, "the house and joy of Jupiter". It governs the thighs and buttocks. Its places are stables of great horses or warhorses, the hills and highest ground of an estate, and in a house the upper rooms near the fire. Lilly describes a well-favoured, somewhat long face, full and ruddy as if sun-burnt, light chestnut hair and a strong, able body a little above middle height. Its colour is yellow or a green sanguine; among its countries and cities he names Spain, Hungary, Toledo, Narbonne and Cologne. The Fire triplicity is ruled by the Sun by day and Jupiter by night.

In the tarot

The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow.

Major Arcana: Temperance

Its three decans: Eight of Wands (Mercury, 0°–10°), Nine of Wands (Moon, 10°–20°), Ten of Wands (Saturn, 20°–30°)

Suit: Wands (Fire)

Related

• Gemini, the opposite sign
• Jupiter, its ruler
• Ninth House, its natural house
• Fire · Mutable