I love the symbolism attached to Aquarius as the water bearer. Water can represent emotion, but it also represents spiritual knowledge and intuition. So when you think of the water bearer in these terms and you know the Aquarian archetype, you can put it together. Aquarians—
Carry the water without getting themselves wet and without submersing themselves in it. Each air sign precedes a water sign in the chart, and Aquarius is the last air sign in the chart, preceding Pisces. So I think of it as Aquarius can carry the water without getting their—
Hands wet, so to speak. They can be with the emotion without being influenced by it. As an air sign, Aquarius can transmit the water with their words and thoughts. They can deliver the water or they can dump it out. There’s a clear distinction between the Water and the water—
Bearer. They are never one in the same, they don’t merge or melt within one another. It isn’t that Aquarius doesn’t feel the water, it weighs heavily on them while they carry it, but the water they carry is separate from themselves.

They can also take the water that they carry and dump it into a larger body of water, which I think of as the collective consciousness.