Astrology Sign Essences

When I first built the Fantasy Astrology Baseball League back in 2012, I separated the 12 teams into four divisions based on the classical elements: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. This structure has the double benefit of being recognizable (not only to fans of Captain Planet), but also because the leaders of each division easily slot into a final four playoff situation. I’ve mentioned how it might have been better to set it up with two six-team leagues instead of four three-team divisions, but I decided to err on the side of more specificity.

Here’s how the FABL standings look after four weeks, with Virgo and Leo still undefeated.

This setup is fine when building a league from scratch, but it doesn’t work when trying to simulate a FABL season using a predetermined structure. Any attempt to superimpose the astrological signs on, say, the teams featured in any MLB video game made after 1994 (when the Central division was added to the previous East/West arrangement) requires fitting a square peg into a round hole.

Luckily, the 12 signs of the zodiac can be divided by six as well as four, which fits the current six division layout of Major League Baseball. But in order to make this organization work, you have to look not at the four Elements, but at the three Essences.

In addition to Polarity (Positive or Negative) and the Elements (see above), each sign also has an Essence: Cardinal, Fixed, or Mutable. The best way to understand these Essences is to think of them in terms of the seasons of the year. Cardinal signs appear at the start of each season, Fixed signs are in the middle, and Mutable signs come at the time of transition into the next. Here’s how they break down:

I rearranged my signature graphic to show the seasons instead of the elemental divisions.

Spring starts with Aries (the Cardinal Fire sign), then moves on to Taurus (Fixed Earth), and ends with Gemini (Mutable Air).

Summer begins with Cancer (Cardinal Water), then Leo (Fixed Fire), and finally Virgo (Mutable Earth).

Fall (or Autumn… is there a difference between them?) has Libra (Cardinal Air) at the top, followed by Scorpio (Fixed Water), and ending with Sagittarius (Mutable Fire).

And last but not least, Winter is kicked off by Capricorn (Cardinal Earth), then Aquarius (Fixed Air) is in the middle, and Pisces (Mutable Water) brings up the rear.

I never considered using seasons as divisions instead of elements, because I didn’t want to arrange the teams chronologically (i.e. how they appear on the calendar). But they are useful to get a handle on where they fall in the Cardinal/Fixed/Mutable hierarchy. And we’ll examine how those link up with traditional MLB divisions in the next Sunday analysis.