posted 1st December 2025
Are you the kind of person who hears a rule and instantly feels the urge to challenge it… to ask why, to push the boundary, to explore what lies beyond it?
Or are you someone who naturally aligns with structure — finding clarity, safety, and direction in established frameworks, trusting them as the path forward?
Some people label this difference as leaders vs. followers. But in Astrology, this polarity is far richer and more nuanced than that.
It speaks to archetypes, to planetary influences, to the way our souls are wired to respond to life itself.
Understanding where you fall on this spectrum isn’t about judgment — it’s about awareness. It can illuminate how you navigate conflict, how you build relationships, how you create, and how you rise into your purpose.
So let’s dive in.
Energetic Modalities Of Zodiac Signs
If you’ve been following my blogs, you’ll already know about the different modes of energy within an astrology chart — Cardinal, Mutable, and Fixed signs. These energetic modalities shape how we initiate, adapt, and sustain action in our lives. Combined with the elements (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water), they create the foundation of how we move through the world and what motivates us at our core.
Your Sun sign, the sign the Sun was in at the moment you were born, highlights your most natural essence — the qualities that radiate effortlessly from you when you’re aligned with your truth. This is where you shine without having to try, and where your life force feels the most authentic.
For Example:
An Aries Sun expresses its brightest light through courage, instinct, and action. Aries energy thrives when pioneering something new — being bold, honest, passionate, and unafraid to take the first step.
In contrast, A Cancer Sun shines through emotional intelligence, empathy, nurturing, and deep intuitive understanding. Cancer energy is gentle yet powerful, guided by a strong inner compass and a profound ability to hold space for others.
Expressions Of Each Horoscope
It’s important to remember: You are not just your Sun sign.
We all carry every sign somewhere within our chart. What changes is where these signs live and which planet sits within them, shaping how those qualities show up in daily life.
For example, the planet of communication — Mercury— expresses itself very differently depending on the sign it resides in:
Mercury in Ariescommunicates with directness, clarity, and fiery honesty. It gets straight to the point and values truth over sensitivity.
Mercury in Cancer, on the other hand, speaks with emotional awareness and intuition, choosing words that comfort, protect, and consider the feelings of the listener first.
This is how astrology becomes a map — not of fate, but of understanding. It reveals the different layers that make you uniquely you: how you think, how you feel, how you lead, how you love, and how you grow.
And once you begin to understand the language of your chart, you can start aligning with the version of you that feels the most empowered and liberated.
Cardinal Signs - *Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn
Initiating • Pioneering • Creative • Forward-moving • Visionary
Cardinal signs are the activators — the ones who start the cycle and open the door.
They don’t wait for permission or perfect timing; something within them simply knows when it’s time to begin.
Each cardinal sign initiates in its own unique way:
• Aries leads through instinct, action, courage, and inspiration.
• Cancerleads through emotion, intuition, nurturing, and deep inner wisdom.
• Libraleads through connection, harmony, balance, and understanding both sides.
• Capricornleads through structure, discipline, strategy, and long-term vision.
Different elements, but the same energetic heartbeat: they start the journey.
Fixed Signs - Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius
Steady • Stabilising • Persistent • Devoted • Resistant to change
Fixed signs anchor energy. They’re the ones who hold, build, and stay with something long enough for it to grow roots.
Their gift is commitment — and sometimes that devotion can feel like stubbornness from the outside, but it’s actually a deep sense of loyalty and purpose.
• Taurusstabilises through the physical world, comfort, security, and self-worth.
• Leo stabilises through identity, creativity, loyalty, and heart fire.
• Scorpio stabilises through emotional depth, truth, power, and transformation.
• Aquarius stabilises through ideals, innovation, community, and future vision.
One shared function: they sustain and strengthen.
Mutable Signs - Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces
Adaptive • Flexible • Transformational • Curious • Evolving
Mutable signs complete cycles. They’re here to help us transition, shift perspective, release old forms, and open to something new.
They’re thinkers, teachers, and shape-shifters — able to see multiple paths and possibilities.
• Gemini adapts mentally, through communication, curiosity, and dialogue.
• Virgo adapts practically, through refining, problem-solving, and service.
• Sagittarius adapts through belief, movement, and expansion into the unknown.
• Pisces adapts emotionally, through intuition, spirituality, and compassion.
They may appear indecisive at times, but in truth, they’re absorbing everything — making space for transformation.
Connected Signs
Even though Aries and Cancer may feel nothing alike, they share the same essential energetic purpose: to begin.
Even though Taurus and Aquarius operate very differently, they both hold firm when others waver.
Even though Virgo and Sagittarius express opposite beliefs, both carry the gift of growth and evolution.
When we understand modalities, we begin to understand:
- Our natural pace
- How we handle change
- Where our inner wisdom lives
- How we move toward what we desire
It becomes less about labels and more about recognizing the energetic architecture of the soul.
Rebellion & Challenging the Norm
There are certain energies in the zodiac that are simply not designed to accept “that’s just the way things are.”
Some of us are born with a pulse inside that cannot stay silent when something feels out of alignment — a deep knowing that another way is possible. This instinct lives most strongly within the Cardinal and Mutable signs, and in turn the reason for there so called rebellious streak.
Cardinal Signs — The Initiators of Change
Cardinal energy is the spark.
It is the moment before movement begins — the brave breath that says go, even when the path is unclear.
These signs feel a natural pull to push forward, to open doors, to carve new tracks where tradition has become too tight or too small.
They are the ones who feel deeply uncomfortable in stagnation and cannot pretend everything is fine when it isn’t.
Here’s how each Cardinal sign expresses its own form of rebellion:
• Aries challenges limits through instinct and action — leaping boldly where others hesitate.
• Cancer rebels by honouring emotion and intuition in a world that often rewards detachment.
• Libra rebels through truth and justice — refusing to accept imbalance or inequality.
• Capricorn rebels through strategy and restructuring — dismantling old systems and building something wiser in their place.
Different elements, different expressions, but the same purpose: They begin the shift.
They are wired for momentum, for evolution, for revolution — large or subtle. The status quo has never been their home.
Mutable Signs — The Transformational Questioners
Where the Cardinal signs initiate, Mutable signs reshape and evolve.
They are the winds of change — fluid, curious, adaptive, and always reaching beyond what is known.
Mutable energy refuses rigidity. It is constantly asking:
Is there another way? Is there something more? What truth are we not seeing yet?
Each Mutable sign dismantles the old through a different doorway:
• Gemini questions ideas, narratives, and the stories we’re told.
• Virgo questions the details — what isn’t working, what can be healed or refined.
• Sagittarius questions beliefs and ideology — searching for deeper meaning and freedom.
• Pisces questions reality itself — dissolving illusion and opening the spiritual heart.
Their rebellion isn’t loud or chaotic.
It is subtle, dissolving, alchemical — the kind of change that transforms from the inside out.
They turn what has begun into what is becoming.
And the Role of the Fixed Signs
These signs root, protect, preserve, and stabilise.
They anchor what is sacred so that change does not become destruction.
This is why rebellion can feel uncomfortable for them — their role is to maintain and deepen, not disrupt. They move only when the ground beneath them is sure.
Fixed signs wait to see:
-Is this necessary?
-Is this safe?
-Will this support longevity?
Once convinced, they become the unwavering foundation that allows change to truly last.
They may not start the fire, but they will keep it burning.
Why This Matters
Understanding our modality softens the friction we feel inside ourselves and with others.
If you carry strong Cardinal or Mutable energy, you may have always been the one:
• Asking the uncomfortable questions
• Feeling restless with complacency
• Refusing to follow rules that don’t make sense
• Challenging authority and inherited belief
• Sensing potential where others see limits
And this is just part of your make up.
The world needs all modalities:
- Cardinal to begin
- Mutable to transform
- Fixed to stabilise and sustain
But which one are you?
And how does this predominately navigate your inner compass?
Book a elemental reading for just £9.99, and find out!
Much love, Crystal x
