According to mythology, in Hellenistic astrology, the sign of the ram was associated with the golden winged ram that rescued Phrixos and his sister Helle from the altar where they were to be offered as a sacrifice to Zeus. The golden ram carried them to the land of Colchis, but on the way Helle fell into the sea and drowned.

When Phrixos arrived at Colchis he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and presented the Golden Fleece to his father-in-law, the King of Colchis. The fleece was then hung upon a sacred oak and guarded by a dragon until rescued by Jason and the Argonauts.

The myth recounts that Zeus was so moved by the ram’s fate that he gave it the greatest honor of being moved to the heavens.

Thus, the astrological sign of Aries, the ram.

I was born in April under the sign of the ram, a couple of days before the heavenly sign of Taurus the bull. Mother, bless her heart, told me that she had willed me to be born on a Sunday. She never explained why, and she didn’t mention astrology. Well, I arrived at 1:36PM  on a Sunday afternoon. She said I wanted to come days earlier, but she got her way.

Could that explain why I tend to be impatient?

The ruler of Aries is Mars, the Roman god of war. Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace; Mars had a love affair with Venus. I hesitate to comment on how that might have affected me, however, upon thinking of Venus considered a detriment in the Aries sign, I wonder. I’ve been wedded four times, although my last wedding, in 1989 to Barbara Kay, worked. Perhaps, like John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, suggests, it must have been a Venus-Mars matter regarding my first three unsuccessful marriages. No further comment.

Although the zodiac element of Aries is fire, I am rarely passionate about things, although I often seethe below the surface whenever faced with intolerant people. Perhaps I’m fierier than I care to admit.

Another Aries quality is cardinal. I am not certain I know what bearing that might have on me, only that deep scarlet is my favorite color.

Under Aries, the exaltation is the Sun. Well, I do like living in a sunny clime. And now I’ve settled in Mexico. Thankfully, Barbara loves the area, and the people, too.

Anyway, most of my life I’ve paid little attention to the astrological sign I was born under, yet, as I grew older and thought about events in my life, brought about in large by my behavior, I thought about Aries and the ram sign. I compared what I’d experienced in life to what people who specialized in horoscopes wrote, like the late Sydney Omarr. Often, I found I could fit what astrologists claimed to some little event that had occurred to me that particular day. It was easy to read into their comments only what I wanted to see.

Having said that, I don’t know if there is a connection to the alignment of planets with my actions, but I have heard that we humans generate energy that can cause things to happen. I say “things,” because I can’t put a label to it. I’ll leave that to the specialists.

I recall, however, when I was a youngster riding the red car into Hollywood from my foster home in the San Fernando Valley, seeing a large billboard on Cahuenga Boulevard; it was located where the winding pass became Highland Avenue. It displayed a pair of clasped hands along with the words: Prayer Changes Things.

I’ve thought about the energy thing and have wondered whether there truly is power in prayer to change things. I’ve read when people mentally concentrate in unison on a specific thing, that the sought result has happened.

Anyway, astrology and phenomena that can’t easily be explained fascinate me.

And then I should mention numerology. I’m not well versed in it, but when it comes to numbers, my favorite is 48. I think that came from being born in the fourth month when the U.S.A. was made up of 48 states. Also, World War II ended when I was eight years old.

However, I can’t say the number 48 has ever been a lucky number for me.

And that’s all I have to say about that.