Aquarius the Water Bearer or Water Carrier

Aquarius is an old constellation. As the Water Carrier or Water Bearer, he is carved in stones of the Babylonian Empire and probably is still older than that period. Others must have regarded Aquarius, as the God of the Water, as a good god and a bad god by some, depending on the prevailing climate of their region.

In an ancient Greek myth, it is said that Aquarius poured water from the heavens for days on end, inundating the Earth. Afterwards, two sole survivors of the great flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha, walked about as the waters became lower and exposed more and more land. What were the two to do? They appealed to an oracle and were told to "... throw over your shoulders the bones of your mother." Deucalion guessed, "The bones of Mother Earth must be stones." So as the two walked along the picked up stones and kept tossing them over their shoulders. After a while, they looked behind them and there were people. The stones that Deucalion had thrown had become men and those thrown by Pyrrha had become women. Therefore, Aquarius became known as the taker of life and the giver of life. This myth of a world flood and then a rebirth of life on Earth is a common one and can by found in many myths.

To the Egyptians, Greeks, and others who lived in lands plagued by a dry climate, Aquarius surely was looked on as a kindly god who brought rain when they were most needed during the planting season. The Babylonians looked on Aquarius as a bad god and referred to the month when the Sun was in Aquarius as the month of "the curse of rain.

In ancient Greece, Aquarius is identified with a man and his wife known as Deucalion and Pyrrha. According to the myth, in 1500 B.C., Aquarius caused a great flood to wash over Earth. Deucalion's father advised his son and wife to build a great boat and stock it with provisions. They did and the two floated in the world-sea for nine days and nine nights, eventually running aground on Mount Parnassus.
In Egyptian mythology, Aquarius pours water into the Nile River at the season when the Nile normally overflows its banks; this brings the much-needed water to the farmlands bordering that great river.

The Arabs, dependent on the water of the rainy season, saw Aquarius as a bucket because their religion forbids them from showing pictures of any living form.

In modern times, this constellation was immortalized by the counterculture of the 1960's, which proclaimed the Age of Aquarius. This was a bit premature, as the Aquarian, age will not actually begin for another 600 years. As astrological age is identified by the name of the constellation in which the vernal equinox (the position of the Sun on the first day of spring, March 12) is located. This location moves slowly from one zodiac constellation to the next because of the Earth's procession.