Most Americans claim to love and seek freedom. But do we really?

Erich Fromm wrote a book titled (in North America), Escape from Freedom. I haven’t read it in years so will borrow blurbs from Wikipedia. Fromm’s premise is that freedom, rather than being truly desired, fills us with emptiness and anxiety so we turn to security in the form of authoritarianism, destructiveness and conformity.

Who really loves to be free?

There are two signs that I believe truly seek freedom, with all its loneliness and anxiety. Those two signs are Sagittarius and Aquarius.

Interestingly enough, Fromm had moon in Sagittarius.

Sagittarian Freedom

Sagittarian freedom is about freedom from physical and emotional restraints. Sagittarius is the archer, a mutable fire sign whose key phrase is “I perceive.” Sagittarius came into his world to roam and find meaning.

Boundaries and restraints (the realm of Saturn and Capricorn) create in Sagittarius the desire to flee, to escape. Sagittarius, lover of freedom, is most likely to “run away” from problems. Some of us hide, some of us deceive, some of us confront, some of us acquiesce. Sagittarius is off in another world.

Do not try to control your Sagittarius. It simply won’t work. The more you tell this sign what to do, the more you will see headstrong and opinionated resistance.

Sagittarius is a fire sign, so enjoys a fight. Aries (cardinal fire) fights about self and Leo (fixed fire) fights for attention. Sagittarius fights for a cause, any cause, as long as it has meaning.

Aquarian Freedom

Aquarius, a fixed air sign, whose key phrase is “I know,” is the sign filled with ideals and mental images of a perfect world. Perfection, to the Aquarius, involves human ideals and human potential. Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged) and Sir Thomas More (Utopia) were Aquarians. The both believed in a perfect world created by and for MAN.

Divine perfection and intervention, on the other hand, is in the realm of Neptune and Pisces.

Aquarian freedom involves freedom of thought. Aquarius is the non-conformist of the zodiac and is able to think a path different from the path of the crowd. Just because everyone believes something is not a reason for an Aquarius to jump onto the prevailing-thought bandwagon.

Sometimes Aquarius opposes the crowd just because it has the guts to do so. This is the rebel side of Aquarius. If everyone says left, I say right. When dealing with your Aquarius, do not say something like, “You should trust him, he’s the President.” It will get you nowhere.

Aquarius, the fixed air sign, is able to walk the path of ideas alone. The other two air signs Gemini (mutable air) and Libra (cardinal air) are too concerned with socializing and partnership to take an intellectual stand that might lose them friends and popularity.

Sagittarius & Aquarius in Combination

Woody Allen has sun in Sagittarius and moon in Aquarius. Jennifer Aniston has sun in Aquarius and moon in Sagittarius. Both stars are freedom loving and independent.

This combination of Sagittarius and Aquarius makes for an independent and unusual person. If you have a friend with this combination, do not expect him/her to have a routine schedule. If you wake up one night at 3 a.m. and think how nice it would be to eat some fried chicken right now, this is the friend to call (do not call your earth sign friends) who is willing to comb the city for a 24-hour chicken joint.

What you cannot expect from this combination is extra-durable warmth. This friend understands your pain and will fight for your pain, but doesn’t care for messy tears and sticky faces. In other words, don’t get weepy and self-pitying with this combination. They will listen, but not forever. One day, this friend just won’t be around when you call to complain, for the third year in a row, about your failing relationship.

Woody Allen

Allen, when involved with Mia Farrow, lived in a separate residence. That’s probably a good idea for someone like Allen. His sun, Jupiter and Mercury are in Sagittarius. He was meant to wander without calling home.

Mars in Capricorn and moon in Aquarius are both cold fish. The Mars placement suggests that he is more calculating than he appears. Capricorn gets what it wants and loves to have Mars as a companion to knock other people out of the ring.

Allen has some water in his chart – Pluto in Cancer and Saturn in Pisces – but not in a personal planet. Pluto in Cancer means transforms through home life and Saturn in Pisces means a lack of spiritual connection and empathy with others.

Jupiter, the ruler of Sagittarius, conjuncting Allen’s Sagittarian sun means that he rarely feels the need for self-restraint. Allen seems a waif but if I didn’t know the person behind this chart, I would guess that he loves to eat and drink and would lean toward corpulence.

Jennifer Aniston

Aniston has more water in her chart than Allen with Mars and Neptune in Scorpio. That might seem good, but Scorpio is much too emotionally intense to be saddled with an Aquarius sun and Sagittarius moon.

Most likely for Aniston this involves getting very, very close to others very, very quickly. While Sagittarius loves freedom, it is also open and risk taking. The problem is that the next morning, when the Scorpio has gone underground and the Aquarius wakes up, that Aniston might have a “how do I get rid of this person now?” feeling.

Aniston’s intensity button has only two levels – on or off. Don’t try to set her to, say, a three. It may go something like this – let’s get intense. Wait, I forgot to mention some of the rules. They are unique because I march to the beat of a different drummer. Intensity was fine yesterday, but today I’m in the mood for something light.

Aniston’s Saturn is in Aries suggesting a lack of directness. I’m guessing that she’s a difficult person to understand because she may come on strong, back off, and then have a very unusual explanation as to her behavior.

If you love someone, set them free

Whoever coined this phrase probably had strong Sagittarius or Aquarian energy in the chart (or both).

I agree with Fromm that while we all say we want freedom, most really want comfort and security. Having a truly freedom-loving person in your life means going against your animal nature and throwing them up in the air, like a kite, but not holding onto the string.

If you want to your Sagittarius and Aquarius to stick around in your life, allow them freedom. If you try to glue them into your life, you will find your Sagittarius has run away and your Aquarius is mentally not in the room with you.