I’ve known a great deal of Aries people throughout my lifetime, and many have been right within my own family. They are quite marvelous people. In fact, it’s difficult for me to think of one I haven’t genuinely liked.

I’m going to use my own mother as a prime example. Born an only child with a father well into his fifties, she became the apple of his eye. Hers was a positive father imago with some striking Aries-like stories as part of the family mythos. He was an Iowa farmer who butchered his own animals and often sold the meat to local neighbors. One day he had a little lamb on the butcher block, ready to slaughter, when someone came to the front of his dwelling needing his attention. When he returned, the lamb was still lying there waiting, innocent and vulnerable. He never butchered another lamb the rest of his life. He just couldn’t do it.

He became a preacher man and, though poorly paid, he found the money to buy my mother a beautiful red velvet coat and hat when she was about six years old. Red is often a favorite color of Aries. Later he scrimped and saved so she had enough money to go to college in Nebraska, and like a lot of Aries, she later became an excellent teacher. In fact, by the time she reached retirement, she had taught every grade level from kindergarten to medical students studying psychiatry. The pursuit of intellectual excellence was in her. She never stopped learning or developing her mind.

The quality I remember most about my Aries mother was her cheerfulness She truly had a sunny and even disposition. She was also adventurous and always ready to go hiking, explore, travel, and be on the move. Why we moved 14 times by the time I was 12 years old! These were major moves to new towns and new homes. She would pack everything up herself, including boxes and boxes of books.

Another Aries trait she had, in spades, was honesty and integrity. Not every Aries lives up to that one, but she even wrote a series of articles called “Ideals for Ida”. She was well on her way to sainthood by the time she left this world. Her word was always good and true. That straight-arrow quality carried her though a good deal of hardship, travail and pain during her long and productive life. She lived through World War I, the depression, and World War II, when everything was rationed. She suffered a miscarriage, a terrible betrayal in her marriage, and she lost her beloved son when he was only 18 years. She devotedly cared for her own mother when she became both blind and deaf, and she put up with me during my ‘wild-oat-sowing-days’. Aries are never ones to shirk a challenge.

Her final leap of faith was to re-marry, after 20 years of prudently staying single and celibate (!), at the young age of 69. She married a happy Leo and they had nearly 20 more good years of companionship and travel all over the world together. She died feeling loved and surrounded by family, a woman who truly lived her life with courage and integrity, and even maintained a certain air of innocence to the very end.

If she was still alive—and she’d be 98 years old this month—she’d be welcoming another Aries, her great-granddaughter about to be born in far off Ireland.

It’s fun to pay attention to the patterns of signs in your family and genealogy. Like I say, our family is loaded with Aries energy. My husband’s father was also an Aries. A man of few words, he, too, had been a butcher and later a meat inspector. By the time I knew him, he was retired and just loved to go out in his boat on the lake by his home in Minnesota, and fish. Everybody liked Wally and you just felt good and safe with him. He was honest, solid, and ‘what you saw is what you got’.

Greg, my husband’s son from his first marriage, is an optimistic and generous-hearted Aries. His family is loaded with fiery verve, and they are always taking off somewhere for another adventure of travel combined with sports. I remember when Greg was in his early 20s he decided, quite spontaneously, to get on a small sail boat with a couple of other guys and just sail from the West Coast to Hawaii. Yep, just like that. They actually made it! He had quite a few more exciting mis-adventures, which left him without his glasses, his wallet, or his money. But, hey! He ended up with the Hari-Krishnas for a bit of free food and hi chants before coming back to his life in the Aries city of San Francisco.

Our daughter, Rose, is also part of this Aries clan, and her partner, Joe, is an Aries as well. They run a fast-paced valet parking business together and Rose is a professional dancer and ballroom dance instructor, while Joe plays soccer in his leisure time. Movement is such an intrinsic part of being an Aries. I remember when Rose was a tiny 2 year old, she’d say “Me First” every time we went on a hike. She was always wandering off with our dog, Cecilia, into the brush behind our mountain home. It was all I could do to keep track of her. She, too, took off at the youthful age of 18, to find herself and her confidence through exploration and travel. She worked in a youth hostel in Drumnadrochit, Scotland. She went to Moscow on her own. She and a friend went trekking in the Himalayas, and she made her last pit stop in Hawaii and went sky-diving before coming back two years later a changed young woman ready to meet the challenges of young adulthood.

It would be great if some of you who read this would share stories of Aries people you have known. Remember, astrology is based on observation. Each sign has certain qualities and characteristics that show up again and again in those who bear their signature. Aries qualities can also be strongly seen in people with Moon in Aries, Ascendant in Aries, Mars rising, even Sun on the Ascendant or within the first house of the birth map, and Mars conjoining the Sun. Finally, we all have Aries somewhere in our birth wheel. That is where we can all participate in the high energy and initiative of this very action-oriented, fiery sign.