Slushpile Astrology

Thoughts on Pluto in Capricorn (and Aquarius)

2011-01-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

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Pluto has been in Capricorn for three years now, and we’ve all seen what it has to offer.
It’s entry into Capricorn inaugurated the largest economic meltdown in the United States since the Great Depression, and I think most American adults will remember how their financial picture changed in September, 2008 for the rest of our lives.

If any metal out of the earth passed Pluto’s smell test, it has to be gold, which climbed from roughly $400.00 an ounce in 2005 to more than $1300.00 an ounce today. Pluto should be fascinating every astrologer right about now.

Buffalo Gold Coin

This article takes a closer look at what Pluto in Capricorn actually means for many Americans, and how its trends will drive the future events of Pluto in Aquarius. As the Sun moves into Aquarius this year, I took a day off work because I felt like I HAD TO WRITE this article.

SATURN

Capricorn is all about Saturn. Saturn interacts synergistically with Pluto, and Pluto manifests more strongly with Capricorn. A lot of smart thinkers have pointed out different facets of this idea. Raven Kaldera (see the blog entry) observed that Pluto delivers us into Saturn’s hands. Pluto in Capricorn values the treasures of the earth, anything from minerals to buried treasure to the Periodic Table of the Elements in chemistry. Someone on another blog pointed out that lead is the only metal used to contain deadly plutonium, and lead is one of the metals associated with Saturn. Astrologer Maurice Fernandez also observed that Pluto in Capricorn is “sixteen years of Lent”.

THE MYTH OF PLUTO AND PERSEPHONE IN OUR DAILY LIVES

Jeff Bridges as Pluto/Odin in "True Grit", a movie made by the Coen brothers in 2010. Odin is depicted as wearing an eye patch over his bad eye.

Pluto in Capricorn determines the nature of the stories that you see in your daily newspaper - everything from the porn explosion, older men marrying or having sex with very young women, the emphasis on the Hollywood careers of very young movie starlets who are still children, the sexuality of pre-teen girls(with almost no attention being paid to pre-teen boys),
14 year old Hailee Steinfield as Persephone in the film, "True Grit"

the unearthing of long-forgotten buried treasure, the high price of food in the developing world, and the revealing (or “unearthing”) of wide-scale military, diplomatic and corporate corruption by Julian Assange and his organization, Wikileaks. Nearly every one of these topics is associated in some way with the myth of Pluto and Persephone.

A sharp-talking Persephone gets her Pluto in the Coen brothers' movie, "True Grit". It's a clean movie. Pluto doesn't take advantage of her.

By energizing Capricorn, Pluto has an effect on the way all other planets manifest in Capricorn. Saturn is strong in Capricorn, and we have already seen how industries involving conservation and farming have more than their fair share of the media’s attention at the moment. Less attention has been paid to industries associated with Jupiter. Jupiter is fallen in Capricorn, so professions associated with Jupiter are really going to be in trouble for the next decade (more on that later).

DEMETER IS PART OF THE MYTH, TOO

Demeter doesn't get a good rap in the myth of Pluto and Persephone. She is depicted as having an extraordinarily close relationship with her daughter but she also smothers her. How well does this turn out for Persephone? She ends up married to the Underworld CEO. (There's also that little matter of rape or ravishment, depending on your take on it.)

"Helicopter" moms are Demeter's modern manifestation. Bitch mother Amy Chua just made the cover of the Jan 22, 2011 issue of Time Magazine, I see.

My Note: Ivy League dominatrix Amy Chua makes the case for Demeter in no uncertain terms. Her memoir has caused a splash, because it implies that China and its children will soon rule the world because of their competitive mothers who demand the best.

Little attention is being paid to boys at the moment, which may be a good thing, because it will allow them to grow up without having to participate in an archtypal energy pattern. At least one boy who is effeminate enough to be able to tap the Persephone myth has managed to make a fortune, however. Justin Bieber will represent Best Buy during the Superbowl - companies are eager to cash in on the drawing power of young girls (or those who appear to be girls).

Justin or Justine?

My friend's daughter posted this photo of herself dressed as Justin Bieber on Facebook. The Persephone archetype seems fairly obvious.

CAPRICORN IS ALL ABOUT THE OLD-FASHIONED

Everything old-fashioned has come back around. Folks are making their own jam, distilling their own fruit-flavored brandy (shhhhhhhhh), crocheting their own shawls, or keeping chickens again and making a big deal out of selling truly fresh eggs. Small farmers are finally making money again, although most find that selling at the farmers’ markets is more lucrative and less aggravating than participating in community supported agriculture (CSA’s). Most Americans are tapping this energy in some way. I started knitting in 2009, and I love it. Knitting is wonderfully portable, and it helps me fill all the “dead time” in my day that annoyed me to no end because it went to waste and I felt I had nothing to show for it.

On Friday night, a knitting circle gets together at Border Books in Frederick, MD, and from week to week we see as many as fifteen women show up – this never would have happened just a few years ago when Pluto was in Sagittarius, because the same people were probably too busy renovating their houses, and also because just a few years ago, knitting wasn’t “cool”.
Toronto soccer-mom Stephanie Pearl McPhee, a yarn goddess who started a blog called “The Yarn Harlot”, was still “under the radar” during Pluto in Sagittarius. Now she’s a best-selling author who can shut down traffic in a small city when the word gets out that she is doing a workshop at a wool convention.

The motivation behind all this has to do with a revolt against the computer. Americans love our technology, and we delight in our I Pods and our Blackberries and our Mac Book Pros, but on some level, we are also sick of these things. There’s a real yen for handmade things that are imperfect and made in small batches because, well…., those things are the exact opposite of the computer I work on every day.

PLUTO AND THE POOR

An odd thing is happening in America, and it’s a difficult thing to see. Pluto isn’t kind to the poor or the unemployed, and the gulf between rich and poor is an abyss gaping wider by the day. While the official unemployment rate is stuck at 9.6%, the unofficial rate of the unemployed, those working part-time jobs while they look for full-time jobs, and those who have stopped looking and are no longer being counted is conservatively estimated at 17%. None of these people have enough money to make ends meet, let along enjoy what life has to offer. Capricorn is an ambitious, ladder-climbing sign, so the poor don’t get our attention at the moment – they’ll muddle through somehow, I suppose!

PLUTO IS WHERE THE MONEY’S AT…

The wealth at the top has become rather obvious to everyone. What’s left of Wall St. is doing better than ever before. 500 or so partners at Goldman Sachs have become extraordinarily wealthy in the last two years, despite the fact that few if any actually drew a salary. These Plutos (87% of current partners are men because few gals are promoted) cashed out more than $20 billion in Goldman shares in the past 12 years, according to results of a recent study. The Chief Pluto and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, cashed out $93.8 million since 1999, and remains sitting on a tidy pile of some $355 million – not bad for a boss of a company that doesn’t actually make a tangible product.

PLUTO IS ALL ABOUT HIDDEN WEALTH AND OUR CHILDREN (SOCIOLOGY 101 FOR OUR TIMES)

Pluto for planet-hood, or Pluto for parenthood? You decide.

Wealthy Americans are having more children than an earlier generation of wealthy folks did. When I was young, yuppie women wanted a career outside the home as well as a family, and all the upper-middle class parents in the community where I attended high school had two kids, or maybe three. Solidly middle-class adults who came from working-class backgrounds like my parents, on the other hand, had lots of children. I was the oldest of five, and households with seven or eight children in my childhood neighborhood were not uncommon.

Now the wealthy are having three and four children, or even five and six, because wealthy women are no longer as concerned about having an identity outside the home – most of them worked until some point in their late twenties or early-to-mid thirties, and then happily quit for good, while some of them manage to have it all with lucrative, non-traditional careers that can be managed out of the house.

It’s the middle class where a revolution is occurring, one that doesn’t get much attention. The middle class now is afraid to have kids. One child is the new norm. Middle class parents are afraid for the future, even if their jobs are stable. They know that their kids are going to have to compete against the children of the better-connected wealthy for jobs, and that four years of college at a public university now costs $100,000. Middle class parents with a sharp-as-a-tack first born child are eyeballing the price tag on an Ivy League University – currently $260,000 for four years with limited financial aid. By the time the kid grows up, a four year education at a public university education could cost $200,000, and an Ivy League education will top out around $500,000 – that’s right, $125,000 a year!

If the child is graduating during the next decade of Pluto in Capricorn, they will be lucky to get a starting salary of $35,000 a year, if they find a job at all. Middle class parents aren’t stupid – they’ve done the math. College is no longer worth the money, but society’s view on the necessity of a college degree hasn’t changed yet. So one child is all they can afford.

The only children of the middle class are poised to inherit quite a bit of money, however. There’s quite a bit of hidden wealth in the current middle class that will only become apparent as these only children grow up. If these only children marry each other and combine resources, they may enjoy a wealthy lifestyle even if their earnings remain middle-class. In terms of inherited money, the next generation of families will benefit even if only one parent is an only child.

In Vedic astrology, Jupiter is a karaka, or indicator, for children. Jupiter is fallen in Capricorn, but is said to do well in Aquarius. Surfing the web for this article led me to read Lynn Koiner astrological research, and a respondent who goes by the name of “Raz” supplied the missing piece of astrological data for the trend regarding children noted above.

Raz writes,

“Rearding Pluto cycle and the USA: while transiting Pluto will enter Aquarius in 2025, progressed Jupiter, in the US chart, will turn direct after more than a hundred years, (US progressed Jupiter is retrograde since 1906). These are just my own thoughts: since Jupiter is the lord of the US chart this is important. Progressed Jupiter is wondering around in Cancerbetween the eighth and seventh house….

JUPITER IS FALLEN IN CAPRICORN, AND SO ARE ITS PROFESSIONS!

Jupiter does not do well in Saturn’s sign of Capricorn, and the two professions most associated with Jupiter are education and the law. Teachers are under siege at the moment, particularly if they teach in under-performing, inner-city schools, where they are blamed immediately if a child fails to learn – the current belief is that student failure must be due to shitty teaching instead of student laziness or unwillingness to do the difficult work of learning, because the teacher is a scapegoat (Capricorn is the sign of the scapegoat).

The other profession under assault is the law. Newly graduated law students are defaulting on student loans of up to $300,000 because there are so few entry-level jobs available in law. Many of them are bitter because they will never be able to repair their credit or obtain a home mortgage to buy a home (Capricorn is associated with the past, one’s roots, and the home). It isn’t just law students, although they are the most vocal about their plight. A lot of young people have gotten totally screwed by education lenders.

Unless we change the law to permit students who have defaulted on education debt to discharge this debt in a bankruptcy, a whole new group of young people will never be able to rebuild from the catastrophic effects of this recession. For as long as these young people remain in the U.S., their wages will be garnished and their tax refunds will be seized. These students have had their entire careers destroyed before they ever had a chance to begin them, all because bankers and money-lenders (represented by Saturn) are so busy making money off of poorly regulated education lending. Allowing students who default the same legal protection available to homeowners who lose their homes would kill the education-lending cash cow for good, so the Plutos of Saturn are fighting it tooth-and-nail.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE KIDS…

A Capricorn era magnifies the power of beautiful young girls, represented by Persephone, but other children are being hurt before they are even born in ways that are still “under the radar”.

ADD, ADHD, and autism are all topics that engage our awareness, but nobody is talking about the sheer number of children with learning disabilities that are clogging the American public school system. Some of these special education students, known derogatorily as “SPED” kids, have clearly defined disabilities, but others have a combination of learning problems that don’t even fit a precise category of disability. Many of these children are being born to parents who had mild learning disabilities that did not prevent them from becoming functioning adults with jobs; the same cannot be said for their children who are experiencing more severe, lifelong disabilities.

Why is this happening to our kids? High levels of carcinogens in the parental diet may affect sex cells and the developing fetus, and chronic exposure to chemicals in drinking water probably play a role as well. Another cause is the utter failure of public health authorities to convey the message that having twins is not “low-risk”. Any child born prematurely has a much higher likelihood of learning disabilities, and twins born to mothers over 35, many of whom underwent IVF, are particularly likely to arrive prematurely. Overall in the United States, when conceived naturally, 11 pregnancies in 1000 produce twins. Principally as a result of fertility treatments, 32 pregnancies out of 1000 now result in twins, and 60% of these children are born prematurely. Why do so many kids have learning disabilities? Do the math.

Should the birth of these children continue unabated, we may be forced to consider genetic manipulation as early as the mid-21st century, although it seems unthinkable now. This may possibly prove to be the dark side of Pluto in Pisces (2043 – 2067). Pisces is normally depicted as intertwining fish immersed in fluid - very symbolic of our DNA – and Pluto has a transforming quality to it.

WHO LET THE OLD GODS OUT? PLUTO-IN-CAPRICORN BRINGS BACK THE ANCIENT BEINGS…

The strangest thing I’ve noticed about the last three years is that angels and demons seem to be more palpable. This past Christmas, candy-cane demon horns were available at my local CVS – I bought a pair, and quickly noticed that everybody on my Facebook page had found some excuse for getting a pair, too. I went to Borders Books, and books with demons on the cover (or angels that looked a little like demons) popped out at me. One was a book on dinosaurs, and another was a new translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. A magazine with Lady Gaga on the front of it caught my eye – I opened it to find an article featuring her with demonic looking back-up dancers, and fans she calls “Little Monsters”.

The most recent issue of The Mountain Astrologer Magazine came in the mail. It had a beautiful poem by Alice O Howell titled, “Pluto: My Descent”. The poem was originally published in a collection that came out in, you guessed it, 2010. In it, she recounts a dream-journey descent into Hades, and an encounter with Pluto (it is up to each individual reader to decide whether this dream actually happened to the author, or whether the poem is merely a poem). The most powerful part of the poem is when she makes love to Pluto, although she deliberately leaves this part out, making us even more aware of the poem’s invisible climax.

The demonic world is full of misshapen, ugly, powerful beings that frighten us. In fact, I’m not sure that their greater access to us during Pluto in Capricorn is a good thing.

O Howell writes, “The cavern walls are streaming
with tears and flashing with slime
and the usual assortment
of creeping red-eyed monsters are
mewling about, obviously not housebroken.

Yet sex with one of the old gods was said to be incredible – this was the one way in which they connected with humans in a way that delighted us and did not frighten us.
Old tales of witches who confessed to having sex with demons flitted through my mind as I read this poem.

In Lynn Koiner’s article on Pluto in Capricorn, a respondent who goes by the name of “Sai Grafio” must have perceived something similar, for he also noted the following:

The Bible tells us of pre-Antediluvian patriarchs who lived to almost a thousand years and some were giants. The legends say there were men of renown but the knowledge only led to wickedness. Titans ruled and along with the fallen angels, Nephilim and the like, they were condemned to Tartarsus.

The old gods are making their presence felt, and a lot of them feel suspiciously like demons. The angels don’t seem to be as active in this era of Capricorn, or maybe it is just that I don’t perceive them as easily – I don’t doubt their existence – something has to hold the demons in check!

PLUTO IN AQUARIUS 2024 – 2043

Quick – what do you associate with Pluto in Aquarius? Here’s a quick summary of what’s circulating out there among the futurists:

An era of technological revolution.

We finally get our Constitution back.
(This means different things to different folks.)

The collective is more important than the individual or the family
or the corporation. A return to communal living that isn’t just for
aging hippies anymore.

Computer terrorists – hackers run amok!

Babies born from a scheduled C-section are delivered between 8am and
noon, placing their personal planets in the 10th, 11th, and 12th houses
(the collective houses) of the horoscope. These children will become
adults as Pluto enters Aquarius.

The last one on children born from scheduled C-sections sparked my interest. Carrie Cooperman wrote an article on this topic in the Aug/Sept issue of The Mountain Astrologer. We don’t know what percentage these are of U.S. births, but the author mentions that these children may possibly be more cooperative and collaborative, and more likely to be oriented toward the local and global community. For my part, I would love to know whether women who only plan on having one child are more likely to schedule a C-section, but we don’t have this data available either.

My niece was born from a scheduled C-section in the final year of Pluto in Sagittarius (2007). She is a bright and cheerful four year old, with all of her personal planets except Mars in the 11th and 12th natal houses. Her loving aunt isn’t much inclined to worry, but the thought has occurred to her that these kids will have a strong technological bent, but may also be too swayed by their friends, and too focused on doing anything to be popular, particularly if they are only children.

The other thought that went through my mind is that girls with all of their personal planets in the 10th House tend to marry the CEO – and their own achievements usually pale by comparison. Fortunately, my niece was born a little too early in the morning for this configuration.

Here’s what I think will happen during Pluto in Aquarius:

College educations will finally become so expensive that both
corporations and the middle class will finally change their minds about
the necessity of a college degree.

The coin of the realm will shift from gold to electricty.
Expect the price of electricity to spike sharply and remain high as Pluto
enters Aquarius. Companies that make back-up generators will also do
very well.

Pallas Athene is associated with Pluto in Aquarius, and her myth will
replace the myth of Pluto and Persephone in our consciousness.

HERE IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HAPPEN IN PLUTO IN AQUARIUS (2024-2043)

Education is how the collective shapes the individual, and education as we know it will be totally transformed by Pluto’s transit through Aquarius. Young people coming of age after 2024, or possibly toward the end of the period in 2043, may attend college courses that interest them, but they will no longer have to get a college degree in order to get a good job. Obtaining a specific technological expertise will get these kids a job, and you don’t need a college degree for that.

Ivy League schools will still be around, because interacting with an elite collective in one location is what gets you a job if you attend one of these schools. Medical schools will still train students on cadavers in one location. Law schools might even stage a comeback, as Jupiter gains strength in Aquarius. In general, though, students will have more options. Four consecutive years of training before accepting a job will hopefully no longer be a rigid requirement for these kids.

Online education currently has a number of drawbacks, but the demand for online education is going to reward colleges and universities that eliminate the drawbacks. The rest will simply go out of business. Look for a lot more flexibilty and detachment related to the high school and college experience once Pluto enters Aquarius.

The powerful generation from Pluto in Leo calls themselves "The Greatest Generation", a byword for elitism. Pluto in Aquarius will be an extremely anti-elitest era. Expect the largest cultural shifts to occur in education, where elitism is bred to begin with.

ONE FINAL WORD ON PALLAS ATHENE…

The Greek goddess Pallas Athene was a warrior, and an unmarried woman who maintained her independence from men. The city-state of Athens was dedicated to her.

As her energy replaces Pluto’s during Pluto in Aquarius, women will likely be allowed combat positions in the military. A woman with a strong combat record may become the first female President of the United States. At the very least, the first female President is likely to have a military background of some sort. Her election may inaugurate the Pluto-in-Aquarius era, much as Obama's landmark election occured just as Pluto entered Capricorn.

Temple of Pallas Athene at Delphi.

Women will still marry. Pallas Athene was not a feminist in our sense of the word, and the fact that she remained unmarried does not mean that women won’t marry during Pluto in Aquarius. But single motherhood may tick back up, because the Sun represents fatherhood, and it is fallen in Aquarius.

Pallas Athene, Venus, and Juno by Hans von Aachen

Pallas Athene was known for leadership and detachment from men. Women who aren't married, widows, divorced women, and wives who are perceived as independent of their spouses are going to dominate the consciousness once Pluto-in-Capricorn is over. This is a very different dynamic from the current focus on demanding mothers, powerful old men, and pre-pubescent and adolescent girls.

A lot of barriers to female achievement and advancement will finally fall once Pallas Athene's energy predominates, in what will otherwise be a fairly conservative era. Yet the irony is that feminists won't be able to take credit for the upsurge in female achievement, just as traditional black leaders were not able to take credit for Obama's election.

SOURCES

For a source on Wall St. wealth:

Craig, Suzanne and Dash, Eric.
“Study Points to a Windfall for Goldman Partners”, New York Times, Jan 18 2011.

Source of quotes by “Raz” and “Sai Grafio”:

Lynn Koiner's Astrological Research

For a source on severe financial hardship experienced by young lawyers:

Segal, David. “Is Law School a Losing Game?”, New York Times, Jan 8, 2001.

For a source of statistics on twin births:

Thiernstrom, Melanie.“Meet the Twiblings”, New York Times Magazine, December 29, 2010.

For a source on the poem, “Pluto: My Descent”:

O Howell, Alice. From the Archives of the Heart, Lindisfarne Books, Great Barrington, MA, 2010. Republished in The Mountain Astrologer Magazine, Issue #155, Feb/March, 2011.

For a source on the astrology of babies born from scheduled C-sections:

Cooperman, Carrie. “Changing a Baby’s Birthday”, The Mountain Astrologer Magazine, Issue #152, Aug/Sept, 2010.

Jupiter in Aries...will you look at that dress?

2011-01-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

We're going to be drowning in red this year, now that Jupiter is in Aries. Take a look at the gown Michelle wore while visiting China with her husband recently. Oh, I was in love with a dress...

If you've been itching to wear scarlet and crimson, this is the year to do it. You won't stick out like a sore thumb this year, because all around you, folks will be picking up on Jupiter's color energy in Aries, and doing the same thing.

Jupiter shifted from Pisces to Aries right around December, 2010. Did anyone notice those deep, rich blues that bordered on purple? That was Pisces blue morphing into Aries red. It lasted about a month.

When Jupiter shifts out of Aries at the end of 2010, we may see darker reds and even some true purples, as the color wheel swings over to robin's egg blue of Jupiter in Taurus. Once again, it will only last about a month.

One other thing: I was wondering if the color pink would tap the energy of Aries along with all these vivid reds. But I haven't seen much of this.

"Mystery" Horoscope

2010-10-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

This horoscope does not have a known time of birth. It belongs to a man who arguably has become the most well-known member of my graduating class of Walt Whitman High School Class of 1988. He is now a comedian and performance artist who lives in LA and goes by the name of Bad Ass Frank.

Here is a link to his website:
www.badassfrank.com

Be sure to read some of his articles, which are wonderfully funny. Frank is no feminist. In fact, he is currently "channeling" Pluto in Capricorn to the core, and has a beautiful "Persephone" named Lisa Marie to prove it. According to Frank, she is 17 years younger than he is. He appears very devoted to Lisa, just as Hades was devoted to Persephone.

Frank wrote a book called "Pimpin' Aint Easy", which is available on the website. Most pimps are too busy dominating their girls to be funny, but Frank made plenty of money with one foot planted in a seamy subculture, and the other foot in more respectable mainstream media. I learned a lot about porn from reading this book. I also noticed how much writing craft goes into making porn into literature...it takes more mental effort and careful editing than one might assume.

Originally, I posted this "Mystery Horoscope" on the forum at www.skyscript.co.uk, Deborah Houlding's website. Readers there had little interest in a horoscope with no birth time, and lost no time in telling me so. However, my description of the native and the resulting comments is interesting reading, if I may toot my own horn a little.

Look for the "Mystery Horoscope" thread under "Nativities and General Astrology" in the forum at www.skyscript.co.uk

By the way, Bad Ass doesn't like astrology or astrologers, and loses no opportunity when it comes to mocking us or having fun at our expense. So I'm sure he won't mind seeing himself on a blog like this. If he doesn't sue me, he'll find a way to roast me.

Which Vedic Techniques Actually Work?

2010-09-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Beginners in Vedic astrology get exposed to so many different Vedic techniques, but a lot of novices may wonder how many of them “actually work”. This is a good question from a sharp mind – because Vedic wisdom was collected from respected sages over the centuries in India, but it was also a racket in which techniques of questionable value were passed down from father to son in order to preserve the reputation of families who did astrology for a living. Over the centuries, useful techniques got mixed up with those that don’t appear to work very often, and it is now a challenge for modern Vedic astrologers to figure out the difference.

The problem is that a lot of Vedic students are more interested in learning all the obscure features of a tradition than learning whether or not they actually work. James Braha writes about this phenomenon, and James Kelleher mentions it frequently as well. To get respect in Vedic astrology, you need to be familiar with all of the intricacies of the system. To appeal to clients who want a traditional reading with all of the typical Vedic techniques interpreted in the context of their horoscope, you need to know the jargon. But it also helps if you “don’t outsmart your common sense” - these techniques actually have to work for them to be valuable, and unless you’ve made careful comparisons on at least a couple of hundred charts you may not be certain about some of them.

So, here’s a quick guide to what works and what doesn’t:

WHICH TECHNIQUES WORK?

1. Ruling planets, exalted planets, and fallen planets work. Understanding how these planets impact the house they reside in and the houses they rule is the most crucial skill needed to accurately interpret a horoscope. Try to remember that there is no such thing as a “debilitated” planet, at least not in the western sense of the term. Vedic astrology uses fallen planets, but not debilitated ones.

2.Traditionally, the navamsa is a chart that describes a woman’s first husband. In a modern context, it has been shown to represent a general description of the lives of both men and women from the age of 35 to roughly retirement. This technique is one that I have used often enough that I would stake my reputation as an astrologer on its accuracy.

3.The nakshatras are an amazing technique for pulling out small details that will be very meaningful to the individual born under each asterism. The novice would do well to study the nakshatras thoroughly, before even thinking about learning other Vedic techniques.

WHICH TECHNIQUES DON’T WORK?

1. The degrees of exaltation do not appear to make a planet any more exceptional in a native’s life. Example: The Moon is said to be exalted at 2 to 3 degrees Taurus. I have also read that the Moon is considered exceptionally powerful in the last degrees of Aries, because it is so close to the degrees of exaltation in early Taurus. In practice, I haven’t seen any difference between a native who had the Moon in its degree of exaltation, and those who have the Moon anywhere else in Taurus.

2.The concept of “moolatrikona” does not work. James Braha first observed this, and he appears to be correct.

3.Rahu is not “exalted” in four different signs; it probably isn’t exalted in any of them. This is a modern technique that doesn’t hold up. In traditional Vedic astrology, Rahu and Ketu had no lordships at all.

Rahu does have a strong association with air travel and advanced technology. Originally, it was said to be especially strong in Gemini, and many astrologers do feel that Rahu has a particular strength in the third house. Unfortunately, astrological “creep” set in after this. Rahu is said to be “like Saturn”, so folks started saying that Rahu must have special strength in the air signs of Libra, where Saturn is exalted, and in the air sign of Aquarius, where Saturn is lord. Then came the idea that Rahu must be powerful in Scorpio, because the western associations of Scorpio are so similar to Rahu’s qualities.

There is no traditional basis for any of this. This author has Rahu in Aquarius, and has compared it against other charts with Rahu placed in average signs, and also in the air signs or Scorpio. No difference is apparent. Rahu will manifest more strongly when it is tightly conjunct a planet or an angle. The sign has nothing to do with it.

A WORD ABOUT YOGAS…

They work. That’s not the point.

During traditional Vedic instruction, students had to memorize hundreds of yogas before they were ever allowed to interpret a horoscope – mastery of the jargon shaped the discipline and became its overarching principle. The “common sense” approach to interpretation got lost somewhere during the centuries – many yogas are combinations of two planets in a ruling, exalted, or fallen position. It’s not the yoga that matters in many cases – it’s all about the underlying planets.

The student who really understands how a ruling, exalted, or fallen planet behaves in the house that it resides, and also in the houses that it rules, is ahead of the game. He or she can accurately interpret a Vedic chart without ever resorting to a single yoga. I would never say that it is a waste of time to learn the formal intricacies of the Vedic system with regard to yogas. That said, I have never memorized even fifty yogas, and I probably never will.

Being familiar with yogas helps to preserve the tradition in it entirety – they were such an important part of traditional astrology that forgetting them does a disservice to the profession. Yet it is possible to competently interpret a Vedic horoscope without knowing a Satkalatra yoga from a Downward Dog – I do it all the time.

Yogas do yield up some very specific insight if we know the lore associated with each one. For example, I have some obscure yoga which promises that I will “maintain the archives for the common man” at age 39. Sure enough – I started this blog right on schedule. But I also have a yoga which should have brought about a marriage at age 24 – and this never happened. Knowing how to determine which yogas are true for the native and which are never destined to manifest is the real issue behind using yogas. The gap in our knowledge in this area is huge.

Mayan Day-Counters...Some Background

2010-08-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

The final article on “The Jagaur Magicians – Mayan Day-Counters” will be published at some point this fall. Meanwhile, I came across some background material on the Maya that does a good job of explaining the context in which they developed their calendar and their astrology. What follows is excerpted from Susan Wise Bauer’s History of The Medieval World.

BACKGROUND ON THE MAYA

Both the Maya and the Zapotec wrote. The development of writing in much of the world was driven by economics, by the need to keep track of goods and payments. But for the Maya, writing was developed to keep track of time.

The Mayan calendar had a sacred calendar that placed great importance on birth dates and auspicious days. Its core was a series of twenty days, each with a different name. Each one of these days occurred thirteen times during the Central American “year”, each time paired with a different number and a different name (example: 5 Deer, 12 Flower). This yielded a total of 260 days before the sequence of names and numbers began to repeat again.

The 260 day calendar ran side by side with a 365 day calendar. It took 18,930 days, approximately 52 years – for each permutation of the two calendars to play themselves out, and each of those days had significance. The skimpy records of the Maya and the Zapotec fit each birth and death, each marriage and conquest, the ascension of each ruler, into this framework. The passage of time, and the connection between the day and its sacred meaning, was at the center of each kingdom’s history. Every creative act, every god, and every human came into being already slotted into the intricate patterns of the calendar.

On the day of his coronation, a king might glance at the written chronologies and see that on the very same day, in a previous cycle, a king had died or been born. Each of the 18,930 days of the cycle was the site of both past and present events. (See the source for Boone below.)

In this way of thinking, the past was always present; and the rulers of Central America kept their power by connecting themselves to the legendary beginnings of their world.

***

In 500, Teotihuacan was the 6th largest city in the world. It was home to 125,000 people who probably spoke a range of languages. They lived almost entirely within the city walls. It had the densest occupation of any Central American city. Observation of sacred time was built directly into the streets and walls. Its map was not shaped by rivers or the rise of land, but by the phases of the moon and the places of the stars.

The city’s main thoroughfare, the Avenue of the Dead, ran from the Pyramid of the Moon, on one end, to the Pyramid of the Feather Serpent (later known as Quetzacoatl). His greatest deed was to restore life to humanity after all men and women had been destroyed in a battle between rival gods.

My NOTE: There is an interesting parallel between this myth and the Norse belief that a man and a woman are said to shelter in the World Tree, and repopulate the world after the total destruction of Ragnarok.

Quetzacoatl went down into the Land of the Dead, ruled by the Bone Lord Mictlantecuhtli, and retrieved the bones of a man and a woman. He then slashed his own penis, dripped blood over the bones, and restored them to life. In the view of the Mayan and the Zapotec, bloodshed generated life.

The people of Teotihuacan, like the Maya and the Zapotec to the east, believed in a force called tonalli, a sort of radiance or animating heat that brings life. In the words of religion scholar Richard Haly, tonalli was the “blood link that binds generation to generation”; it “comes down to humans at the time of their birth, linking the newborn to the ancestors.” In return, humans offer blood back to the sky, in order to complete they cycle.

Carvings and pictographs hinted at complicated bloodletting rituals, echoing the shedding of blood that first gave life to humanity, carried out by kings. The king who cut himself on the top of a pyramid was not simply copying Quetzacoatl’s actions in the distant past; he was with Quetzacoatl, acting alongside of him, as his representative – and perhaps even as his incarnation.

There was a LOT of blood sacrifice in this culture. Some of it was voluntary and non-fatal. From what we know, however, much of it was coerced, performed on captives, and fatal in outcome. For example, Chichen Itza had one of the most elaborate ball courts of any Mayan city, a court where players who represented life and death battled to slam a ball through a stone ring in a sacred ritual that remains obscure to us (although reliefs of decapitated players suggest that bloodshed played a large role).

Most of the Mayan records – the elaborate calendars, genealogies, and chronologies – break off at 534, and the silence lasts for nearly a century. Archaeology must fill the gap: outlying fortresses of the larger Mayan cities were burned, the population dwindled, tree-rings show long, cool, wet summers. Hunger stalked the Maya as well –skeletons show malnutrition dating back to around 540. Susan Wise Bauer connects this decline with the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa in Indonesia in 535. (See my note below.)

The eruption had a devastating effect on the Mayan culture, which may have collapsed due to malnutrition and internal dissension. People voted with their feet and left the major Mayan cities to return to farms in the hinterland where they might have a better chance of eating. The people survived, but the kingdom died.

***

NOTE ON THE ZAPOTEC:
Southwest of the Mayan territory, in the fertile plain of what is now Oaxaca, lived another people, the Zapotec. Monte Alban was the capital city. It was occupied by over 20,000 people and extended for fifteen miles across ridges and valleys.

NOTE ON KRAKATOA:
Contemporary reports from around the world point to climatic devastation caused by the eruption of Krakatoa, most likely in 535.

Krakatoa darkened the Sun for four to five years, which caused major famine in many parts of the world. Procopius reports in 536 that the sun “gave forth light without brightness, like the moon…and it seemed exceedingly like the Sun in eclipse, for its beams were not clear”. Michael the Syrian writes, “The sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours, and still this light was only a feeble shadow…the fruits did not ripen…”

In early 538, the Roman Senator Cassiodorus, serving at the Ostrogoth court in Ravenna, writes, “We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon…and the phenomena which accompanies a transitory eclipse prolonged through an entire year. The Moon too, even when her orb is full, is empty of her natural splendor. We have had a winter without storms, a spring without mildness, and a summer without heat. Whence can we look for the harvest, since the months which should have been maturing the corn have been chilled?”

***

SOURCES
Elizabeth Hill Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning In The Mexican Books of Fate(2007), p 14

Richard Haly, “Bare Bones: Rethinking Mesoamerican Divinity,” History of Religions, 31:3 (1992), pgs 280-281.

Susan Wise Bauer,The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade (2010), pgs 187-190.

Obama and the 2012 Election

2010-07-29T13:53:00.001-07:00

Just thinking ahead, as my brain turns on the giant wheel of time. I want a drama-filled election, even better than the last one, don’t you? There’s not much to do when the economy is this bad, and its not like the American people can afford a lot of entertainment these days, so the thought of politics over two years away is the most exciting thing on the plate.

Now, I think we all know the election is going to be VERY CLOSE. Don’t need astrology for this. Pluto goes opposite the U.S. Sibley Jupiter in 2012 – all of our emotions are going to be coming straight out of hell by then. Another contested election would be so exciting, but I don’t think the Supreme Court wants the precedent of getting involved again. We’ve got European astrologers predicting that states will start seceding from the Union in fury – they don’t know anything about how we States really operate. I bet Arizona is cooking up secession right now as we speak, but it will never happen. Mexico would invade immediately, and before the Tea Party could raise a militia, they’d be looking at annexation!

Now, Obama has Pluto trine natal Pluto during 2012 – possibly one of the most powerful transits of his life – he is really going to be on top of all the rabbit holes to underground power in this country during this year.
Plus Neptune is making a trine to his natal Venus – and if you have any doubt about what that means, take a good look at how cute he is without a shirt on in Hawaii!

But there is one whammy of an astrological detail that no celestial bean-counter had better miss – Obama’s progressed Sun is at 29 Virgo two years from now – and the U.S. Sibley MC is at 1 degree Libra. Talk about magnetic attraction. Talk about soul mate synastry. It doesn’t seem possible, given how much the American people are blaming him for the atrocious economy. But as a wise astrologer (Dr. Z) once pointed out, there’s nothing to stop soul mates from killing each other. Still, any Republican candidate is going to have to go one better with his natal chart and the U.S. Sibley, or else I fear The Big O may have it in the bag…

NOTE

Those who want to better understand the love affair between Barack Obama and the American people (represented by the U.S. Sibley Chart) should check out the first item titled "Magnetic Attraction" at the recent article Dr. Z's Top Six Soulmate Clues in Astrology on his website.

This is reinforced by a partile conjunction between Barack Obama's natal Ketu and the U.S. Sibley Moon. In electional astrology, the Moon represents the people. In Vedic astrology, when Ketu conjuncts any planet, it is said to make it behave in a weird, unexplaniable way.

Jaguar Magicians: Mayan Day-Counters...Part Two

2010-07-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Readers may understand this article more easily by first reading
Part One, published June 21, 2010.

The paintings of Juan Fermin Gonzalez Morales accurately capture the details of the way of life of Maya people, a way of life that is changing as the young people leave the villages for life in the city, and many traditions disappear.

THE NAGUALS

CLASSIC MAYAN NAMES
IMIX (ee-MISH) Earth Dragon (Mayan) Crocodile (Aztec)
IK (eek) Breath, air, life (Mayan) Wind (Aztec)
AKBAL (a.k.a. UOTAN) Night, darkness (Mayan) House (Aztec)
KAN Ripe Corn (Mayan) Lizard (Aztec)
CHICCHAN Celestial serpent (Mayan) Celestial Serpent (Aztec)
CIMI Death, owl (Mayan) Death (Aztec)
MANIK Grasping hand, deer (Mayan) Deer (Aztec)
LAMAT Venus (Mayan) Rabbit (Aztec)
MULUC (moo-LUKE) Water, rain (Mayan) Rain (Aztec)
OC Dog (Mayan) Dog (Aztec)
CHUEN (chew-EN) Howling monkey (Mayan) Monkey (Aztec)
EB (abe) Tooth (Mayan) Grass (Aztec)
BEN Reed, cane (Mayan) Reed (Aztec)
IX (eesh) Jaguar magician (Mayan) Jaguar (Aztec)
MEN Eagle (Mayan) Eagle (Aztec)
CIB (keeb) Vulture, ancestor (Mayan) Vulture (Aztec)
CA BAN Earthquake (Mayan) Earthquake (Aztec)
ETZ’NAB Flint Knife(Mayan) Flint Knife (Aztec)
CAUAC Storm, Rain (Mayan) Storm, Rain (Aztec)
AHAU (ah-HAW) Lord, Chief (Mayan) Flower (Aztec)

MAYAN COSMOLOGY IN A NUTSHELL (COURTESY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)

The universe of the Maya was centered on a tieredpyramid, and rest upon a crocodillian cosmic sea. Recall that the first nagua, Imix, is the crocodile.
Each quarter of the earth was associated with color, and the center of the earth was a "fifth direction".

Four sacred beings supported the dome of heaven, illustrated as a two-headed dragon, which had a body as a sky band of celestial symbols. Recall that the fifth nagual, Chicchan, is the celestial serpent, located at the four quarters.

It is arched over the moon goddess, who is holding the rabbit discerned in the moon's face, and a skeletal Venus. From the chart above, we see that the eighth nagual Lamat is associated with both the rabbit and Venus. Venus in this tradition was male. He was associated with a quick, energetic, competitive personality type, and also carried associations with the occult, drunkenness, and death.

Creation of both sun and probably the planet Venus was explained with a legend of Hero twins who vied with the Lords of Death during a series of ball games. The victorious twins became these celestial bodies.

The Mayan Moon was linked with the goddess Ix Chel (esh chelle), or "Lady Rainbow", the wife of the supreme god. She ruled over a woman's world of weaving, childbirth, and healing.

HOW MAYAN DAY-COUNTERS PRACTICE

Mayan day-counters use their astrology loosely, as a point of departure. They have a “natal chart”, a 9-nagual diagram (more on this later). They also have twenty personality archetypes, called naguals. Twenty blocks of thirteen days go into a calendar of 260 days – one that appears to be closely associated with the synodic cycle of Mercury.

They also manipulate 260 red tzinte beads to answer a specific question (this sounds a lot like the diloggun, or Vodoun divination), and obtain direct knowing during a Mayan ceremony – all of this is channeled from the Mayan spirits.

Most often, they receive this information as pulses in their veins, which they learn how to interpret with experience. A pulse in the left shoulder means such-and-such, a pulse in the right wrist means something else (somewhat similar to traditional Chinese medicine). The Mayan day-counter knows he is on the right track with the pulses – the astrology part is just an adjunct aid to intuition.

NAGUALS, OR THE DAY-SIGNS

The nagual on the day of one’s birth is the “heart” nagual. It is the foundation nagual that sums up youth and much of adulthood, and the core of one’s personality.

Each nagual is preceded by a numerical coefficient, from 1 to 13:

1-3 are considered timid, immature, and hesitant.
11-13 are considered stronger and more extreme.
The number 8 is the ideal number, and 8 of any nagual, even an unfavorable one, becomes fortunate.

Prior to the Spanish conquest, it was normal for people to be named for their birth nagual; thus the hero of the Popul Vuh legend is named Hun(1)Ajpu.

Mandala painting of animals in the Mayan and Aztec zodiacs by Peter Eglington.

Click on this graphic to enlarge it. The artist's depiction includes animal variants that differ for some of the naguals in this article.

Unlike our Western zodiacal signs, these naguals are considered to be alive and petitionable (the ruling deities of the Vedic nakshatras are also alive and petitionable). One invokes one’s birth nagual for protection, guidance, and blessing. Traditional Mayans still do special propitiatory rituals every 260 days when the nagual and its numerical coefficient coincide.

THE TRECANAS

This is another way that Mayan astrology faintly overlaps with Vedic astrology, which is also based on a lunar cycle. In lunar Vedic astrology, each nakshatra spans 13.20 degrees of the zodiac, for a total of twenty-seven nakshatras (plus a lost nakshatra, the mysterious 28th nakshatra known as Abijit). In Mayan astrology, the bundle of thirteen days is what mattered.

Each block of time, known in Spanish as a trecana (meaning thirteenths) took on the meaning of the nagual generated by the first day of the cycle. A birth occurring during this thirteen-day period is strongly influenced by that trecana.

This means that each birth is designated not only a day-sign, but also by its position within a thirteen day period. (Those of you who are now curious about your own Mayan profile can head to
www.onereed.com, click on “Maya-Aztec Report” on the top banner, and calculate a free horoscope. Remember that if you were born later than 8:30 pm, you should input the date following your birthday and use that as your day-sign.)

Below is an example which illustrates the trecana and day sign in action.

EXAMPLE: PRINCESS DIANA

As in any system, at least a couple of the signs were considered unfortunate, and in Mayan astrology, this lot fell to the 9th nagual, Muluc, and the 19th nagual, Cauac.

Princess Diana was born on the first day of the trecana Cauac, and therefore under the day-sign Cauac. (So was the author of this blog, so you all know why I chose her for the example.) She got a double dose of an unfortunate nagual, yet managed to have a positive impact on millions, before dying at the very young age of thirty-six. Cauac projects youthfulness and compassion, and inclines one toward the healing professions. Diana was concerned for the less fortunate, and made them the focus of her public role. In other circumstances, she might have become a nurse or a teacher.

Further, Venus was in its morning star phase on the day of her birth, a position that inclined Diana toward a social life full of risks. Cauac has an independent streak that causes one to desire time apart from intimates, but it is also a sensitive sign that is overly dependent on family. Taken together with the Morning Star, this meant that Diana could never accept the traditional rules of social interaction, and found herself pushing the social envelope, right up until her death. (p 80 How To Practice Mayan Astrology)

A beautiful turquoise blue color survived the centuries due to its unique chemical characteristics. The use of Mayan Blue survived until the sixteenth century, when the technique was lost.

IT’S TIME FOR A DISCLAIMER

The Mayan tradition is scattered and fragmentary, and it doesn’t all line up neatly. The Mayan people of Mexico had different naguals from the Mayan people in Guatemala. The Aztec had a different lore and divination traditions, some of which contributed to Mayan astrology. By now, some of you must be wondering how much of this is a reconstructed tradition, and how much of it can be traced to pre-Conquest sources.

Bruce Scofield is upfront about the fact that his book is a reconstruction, and that many of the personality associations with each of the naguals are his interpretation.

The modern delineations presented here are based on comparisons of many people born under each day-sign as well as interpretations of Mayan and Aztec symbolism. They were developed by Bruce Scofield in the late 1980’s and have proven to be accurate and reliable indicators for hundreds of people who have applied them since.

P 16 How To Practice Mayan Astrology

THE VENUS CYCLE AND THE LORDS OF THE NIGHT

A native’s astrological profile also includes one of four possible positions of Venus with respect to the Sun, and another constant repeating cycle of nine night deities known as the Lords of the Night, each of which impart a different cast of character to the native. A detailed explanation is beyond the scope of this article - for those who run a free profile at www.onereed.com and find that they simply must know the meaning, I highly recommend getting a Full Report or, better yet, a copy of “How To Practice Mayan Astrology”.

Buying the book is a better deal, in my opinion, because it has an ephemeris from 1919 – 2021 that lists everything – day-signs, trecanas, Night Lords, Venus phases, you name it. This will allow the reader to look up everybody they know, and not just get a profile for themselves.

THE VENUS CYCLE

Bruce Scofield explains how the events of the Quetzalcoatl myth were associated by the ancient Mayans with components of the astronomical cycle of Venus. He also does a clever, insightful analysis of the similarities between the Mayan view of Venus and the great Western astrologer Dane Rudhyar’s observations about Venus as a morning star or an evening star in natal charts that anyone who is even mildly interested in Rudhyar will most likely appreciate.

THE LORDS OF THE NIGHT

The nine Lords of the Night were ruling gods of the Underworld, gods that humanity had to contend with in order to find everlasting life. Not much is known about them – it is possible that they only applied to night births, when the gods of the underworld were dominant. Even many of the Mayan names for these Lords have been lost. Scofield does a good job of explaining what little scholars do know about them.

Hunahphu killing Itzam from the Popol Vuh

Scholars do know that the Maya had these lords tagged to the Long Count, which makes it possible to assign them accurately to any given day in the Western calendar. The Lords of the Night also have their counterparts in the Lords of Death of the Popol Vuh, one of the most important Mayan texts to have the destruction of Mayan culture which followed the Conquest.

One would think that a native with a night birth, say one after 8:30 pm or so, would use the Lord of the Night for the day on which they were born, even if they are using the day-sign for the following day. From what I have observed, however, the Lord of the Night associated with the following day seems to make more sense in most horoscopes.

Like many other ancient cultures, one Mayan creation story involves a World tree, or tree of life. The Mayan World Tree, often represented as a ceiba tree or “Wacah Chan”, embodies the 4 cardinal directions and 4 ordinal directions. North / NE/ East / SE / South / SW / West/ NW

THE MAYAN NATAL CHART – A “NINE NAGUAL” DIAGRAM

Right arm -14 days, Head -8 days, Left arm -2 days
Right waist -6 days, Heart = Birthday, Left waist +6 days
Right leg +2 days, Feet +8 days, Left leg +14 days

The three naguals in the center column are the most important – these are the ones that I look at first when developing a Mayan natal chart. If I am not going to do a full diagram for someone, I will always at least glance at these three naguals.

As mentioned earlier, the “heart” nagual is the foundation nagual that sums up youth and much of adulthood, and the core of one’s personality.

The “head” nagual shows what is in your mind, how you are thinking, and what you are thinking about. Because it shows how your mind works, it is very important in determining character and destiny.

The” feet” nagual symbolizes what the person seeks and also where the person is going: his destiny, the end of this his life, and his death. It reveals the qualities the person has as he ages. Some people will start manifesting more of this nagual by middle age, but others will see more of it after they retire from their primary careers. The age at which this final nagual starts to manifest noticeably is widely variable, in my experience.

***

The “right arm” nagual is the person’s force of achievement, his motivation and power, the strength of his personality to reach out and take what he wants.

The “left arm” nagual symbolizes the person’s worries and problems, what impedes or weakens him.

Both right and left waist naguals symbolize duties and obligations. The right side is positive energy, and the left is negative. The left waist shows how one is burdened, held back, or loses what he has won.

The legs show how you move forward through life. The right leg is how you get ahead in life, while the left leg can lead you down the garden path, if you are not careful.

El Parto [Childbirth] 2007. Antonio Vasquez Yojcom paints original themes rather than repetitiously painting the several themes that are sold to tourists around Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala.

PROBLEMS WITH THE MAYAN NATAL CHART

There is a reason why I focus primarily on the “heart”, “head”, and “feet” naguals. The “right leg” nagual and the “left arm” nagual also make sense in terms of the person’s life experience. But the remaining four naguals aren’t all that meaningful when delineating a natal chart, because they tend to contradict each other.

There is a nagging problem of duplication in the numerical sequence of the natal diagram which makes it difficult to interpret. Using the example of Princess Diana again, we see that the “right arm” nagual (-14 days) is the same as the “left waist” nagual (+6 days), and the “right waist” nagual (-6 days) is the same as the “left leg” nagual (+14 days). Only the numerical coefficients are different. This is true for any diagram drawn using this method, and is not unique to the date of birth of Princess Diana (or the blog author’s).

PRINCESS DIANA BORN JULY 1 1961

Right arm -14 days
13-CHICCHAN
Head -8 days
6-CHEUN
Left arm -2 days
12-CABAN
Right waist -6 days
8-BEN
Heart = Birthday 1-CAUAC
Left waist +6 days
7-CHICCHAN
Right leg +2 days
3-IMIX
Feet +8 days
9-MANIK
Left leg +14 days
2-BEN

If the right arm is the force and motivation to get ahead, to reach out and get what you want – then why should it be the same as the left waist, the responsibilities and obligations that hold you back? The same contradiction emerges with the “right waist” and the “left leg” naguals.

Good luck trying to explain how opposite interpretations both apply to a person’s life. The differing coefficients don’t offer enough of a distinction to be meaningful. I have a feeling that this system worked for the ancient day-counters who used it, but not enough of it is left for us to figure out how they got around the apparent discrepancy noted above.

SO, WHAT DOES PRINCESS DIANA’S CHART ACTUALLY MEAN?

This is what most readers probably want to know, so I won’t disappoint you. Her unfortunate “heart” nagual, Cauac, has already been discussed .

Her “mind” nagual was the 11th nagual, Chuen, the howling monkey. It is associated with the soul of the artist or craftsman. It is an attention-getting, clever, demonstrative archetype that is often found working or at least interested in the performing or communication industries. Chuen likes to “play the field”, which is just another way of getting attention, as Scofield points out. People with this nagual influencing their minds learn at a fast pace, and are interested in almost everything around them, but tend to have a problem with commitment in relationships.

Her “right leg” nagual was the first nagual, Imix, the fertile crocodile that is most associated with parenthood and acting as a steward for the next generation. It is certainly true that Princess Diana got ahead in life by becoming the mother of the future King of England. Motherhood is what secured her position in the Palace, rather than any emotion she may have felt toward her ex-husband, Prince Charles.

Her “left arm” nagual was the 17th nagual, Caban, the earthquake. The “left arm” impedes or weakens the native. One thinks of unexpected catastrophes, and circumstances completely beyond one’s control, and this nagual does fit the circumstances of her death very well.

Her “feet” or destiny nagual would hardly have had time to take effect at the young age that Princess Diana died, but to some onlookers, glimpses of it may already have been evident. Her destiny nagual was Manik, the sign of a personality who struggles with issues of freedom versus security. Manik displays an urge to take off for parts unknown, but balances with it a desire to care for their loved ones. Equality of the sexes emerges as the signature of this nagual, as does creating somewhat unconventional personal lifestyles.

The Golf Ball Theory of Astrology...

2010-07-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

The seven traditional planets of classic astrology, all lined up in the grass before God gets a good whack at them.

Did you ever think the karmic gods were out playing golf in the stars on the day you were born? Can you picture them (tee hee) at the tee just hitting stars randomly out into the universe, and that pattern in the night sky ends up becoming your horoscope? Well, folks, you are not alone...there are days when the irony of this just kills me (and I have a lot of respect for God (and gods) mind you).

No, this isn't just Tiger Woods birthchart. From space, I bet all of our horoscopes look just like this.

July, 2010 Solar Eclipse and Other Thoughts

2010-07-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, the old wisdom about eclipse is bearing up! You don’t have to worry about them unless they make a hard angle (meaning a square or opposition) or a conjunction to a personal planet within, say, a degree and a half of orb. And if that happens, you should really worry!

THE LAST ECLIPSE

Remember, we had a bad-ass lunar eclipse back in January. In my experience, the two to seven days before the eclipse are when problems occur. By the date of the actual eclipse, the trouble-making energy has often (but not always) spent itself.

Poor Haiti along with their terrible earthquake was strongly associated with the January 2010 eclipse. This earthquake occurred several days before an eclipse that took place at 25 degrees Capricorn (around January 14 or January 15, 2010, depending on your location on Earth). This eclipse took place on my birthday this year, and it has not been a great year (that’s putting it mildly). Yet at the time, it was Haiti I was crying for. My own problems didn’t really get triggered for at least a few months after the eclipse occurred.

My natal Sun is in the 5th House, but I haven’t really seen eclipse events show up in personal experiences in terms of house associations. Just thought I’d throw this in the pot, in case anyone is curious.

THE CURRENT ECLIPSE

The July 11 eclipse is at 19 degrees Cancer, and it makes a tight opposition to my natal Mercury at 20 degrees Capricorn. Oh, a tight angle or a conjunction with two eclipses in one year isn’t something I would wish on anybody…

On July 6, I fell for no reason in front of Border Books (nothing wrong with their sidewalk, so no lawsuit in it for me) and sprained my left foot. I’m going to be on crutches for at least three weeks. I had a little summer job lined up that was supposed to help me eat and pay bills, but I lost it because I can’t even walk, let alone stand up at a cash register all day long.

This is after falling last December, spraining my left knee, and being in a full-length leg brace for eight weeks. That fall had nothing to do with the January eclipse, but it burns me up that a second fall in less than a year is looking like the nasty karmic leftover of this eclipse.

AND OH RATS, DIDN’T I PROMISE ALL OF YOU A MAYAN ASTROLOGY ARTICLE?

Well, I have a real good excuse for being so late in getting around to it, now don’t I? It takes forever to do anything on crutches, and it is miserable going outside on crutches in 100+ degree heat.

But now that I’m sitting here in nice air-conditioned Border Books with no summer job, and no prospects in sight, I might as well try to get around to the second part of the article soon. At least my blog followers would be learning something (hopefully) if I did get my butt in gear and write it…

ECONOMIC PREDICTION

While my mind is fried from this Solar Eclipse opposite my poor Mercury, I figure this would be about as good a time as any for an astrological prediction on the U.S. economy for the next several years…

The double-dip recession was predicted by a lot of astrologers for the summer of 2010, including Tem Tarriktar, editor-in-chief of The Mountain Astrologer magazine, and it turns out they were right. Now I see that some astro-folks are trying to line up a triple-dip recession for December 21, 2012 to supposedly coincide with the culmination of the Mayan Calendar. Those of you who tuned in to my articles on Mayan astrology will have a better sense of my opinion on this – I don’t think it will be this neat or convenient, and I don’t think it has much to do with the way Mayan day-counters originally interpreted this time period.

I DO think there is a very good likelihood of a triple-dip sometime in 2012, though. We are looking at a very long recession that is going to rival the decade-long Great Depression of 1929-1939. Our Great Recession will probably be 2008-2016(we don't call it a Depression anymore because we've all had too much psychology). Perhaps this is because the Pluto-in-Cancer phase of the Great Depression is starting to look a whole lot like the Pluto-in-Capricorn phase of our current era – its as good a guess as any.

In 2014, we may start to see the beginnings of a turn-around in the U.S. economy. Regrettably, I think this will be because large businesses and small business owners perk up due to an anticipated end of the Obama presidency in 2016. Unless the Republicans can field a very strong candidate in 2012, they are not going to shove Obama out after one term. Failing this, they will be so dejected that the economy won’t do much between 2012 and 2014.

This isn’t really fair to Obama, who has had Bush’s and BP’s messes to clean up, and who doesn’t have the clout to give Wall Street the ass-whupping it deserves. All Democrats are hoping that health care reform will be Obama’s lasting legacy, but the truth is that a President gets remembered on the economy more than anything.

BY 2014, WE ARE JUST ABOUR READY TO SEE THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Now, why do I think this?

Uranus is sprinting during the next four years, and will be at 14 degrees Aries by July 2014 (in other words, it will have passed the opposition to U.S. Saturn, which is going to hurt, and on its way to the U.S. Chiron at 20 degrees Aries, which I think is going to heal.)

Neptune should get left out of this. It is making trines to all the U.S. Sibley planets in Cancer, and all that does is make us lazy. Artsy and creative, yes, but LAAAZZZY!

Right around this time in 2014, Jupiter will be at 28 degrees Cancer. Remember, the U.S. Sibley Pluto is at 27 degrees Capricon. A Jupiter-Pluto opposition, and the energy that leads into the applying aspect, just isn’t good for a country. Once Jupiter moves past the Sibley Pluto, we just need Pluto to do its part and get moving, too.

Pluto is retrograding at 12 degrees Capricorn, in a T-Square with U.S. Sibley Saturn Sun at 13 degrees Cancer and U.S. Sibley Saturn at 14 degrees Libra (oh, are we going to be hurting by then –the Underworld God’s whip is going to sting), but as soon as Pluto moves past that Saturn (end of 2016) we will feel the relief.

In 2016, the economy will swing around just as a Republican president enters office –one doesn’t really need astrology to see this, only common sense.

Jaguar Magicians: Mayan Day-Counters...Part One

2010-06-21T05:58:00.001-07:00

In case anyone is curious, this is my day-sign, known as "Cauac" or Rain nagual. This is my "heart" nagual, associated with the day of my birth.

QUALITIES OF "CAUAC" OR RAIN NAGUAL

•Youthful personality, very likely involved with teaching or healing in some way. Rain is more inclined to imitate than to innovate, which is why many of its natives become teachers or instructors.

•Acts like a child even as an adult. Restless mind – constantly needs exercise in some way. Compassionate personality – acquired through a lot of personal hardship and pain. Rain is considered an unfortunate nagual for this reason. It was also feared in traditional Mayan culture because it was said to be a time when sorcerers were born and demons came to earth.

WHAT'S THE UPCOMING ARTICLE ABOUT?

There's a new article in the works on Mayan astrology, and I'm hoping to have it up by early July, depending on my work schedule, and a lot of other daily, ongoing annoyances=]

Mayan astrology is a quirky blend of both astrology and numerology, in my opinion. This article will only briefly touch on the numerology, and focus instead on personality delineation associated with natal astrology.

Mayan astrology has a wonderfully detailed system of "naguals", or day-signs, that describe personality, and an interesting system for describing the qualities of a subject's mind, and the personality that one grows into as one ages. Mayan astrology is one of those fascinating areas outside the mainstream that often gets ignored (and it always surprises me how many people have never heard of it at all), so I think it is an excellent topic for a blog dedicated to alternative, under-appreciated areas of astrology.

"Mayan" astrology is also a blend of Mayan and Aztec astrological traditions. Both systems are fragmented, and probably represent a fraction of what was originally practiced by traditional day-counters, or astrologers. The naguals available to us today have been reinterpreted by astrologers who practice in a modern context. There is a lot of debate among practitioners among which of the competing traditions is most valid - getting too caught up in this is counter-productive, in my opinion.

This article is not going to be an introduction to Mayan astrology - that is beyond the scope of this blog. Rather, it will focus on my observations on how to actually use the system - some parts of the system are more applicable than others for quick, at-a-glance insight, particularly if one is not a practicing Mayan astrologer or researcher and does not have extensive knowledge of Mayan mythology.

For this reason, I am going to put the sources up front in this "teaser" article, in hopes that readers will do some reading up on the basics before they jump into the upcoming main article.

The first thing that most readers will want to do is to find out their day-sign. Bruce Scofield has a free report available on his website that everyone should check out. Folks born after 8:00 pm at night should use the next day as their birthdate - trust me on this! Folks born between 7:00 and 8:00 pm should try out the nagual of their birth date, and the one for the following day, and pick the one with the closest fit. Other than this, Mayan astrology is not dependent on birth time.

SOURCES
www.onereed.com

Click on "Mayan-Aztec Report" located on the top banner across the home page, and then click on "Order Maya-Aztec Astro-Report". Choose the option of a "Free Sample Report" or a "Full Report for $14.95"

Scofield, Bruce & Orr, Barry C.How To Practice Mayan Astrology: The Tzolkin Calendar and Your Life Path,Bear & Company; First Edition, 2006.

This book is highly recommended. It will teach you a lot about the Mayan naguals, in a far more thorough fashion than I can do in this article. Also, anyone wishing to understand why the Mayan calendar did not predict a new era beginning in 2012 (a popular New Age belief) should definitely take a careful look at this book. In fact, Scofield and Orr argue that the tradition points to a culminating period of tremendous change occuring between 2012 and 2032.

Maransky, Bob.Barack Obama's Mayan Horoscope, The Mountain Astrologer Magazine, February/March 2010.

This article explains how naguals corresponding with body parts such as the heart, feet, and head are used to develop a full profile for each native, using Barack Obama as an example. Wonderful example of what is likely to be a significant Aztec innovation to Mayan astrology.

Neptune, the 12th House, and Pisces by Maurice Fernandez

2010-05-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

There is a discussion on Neptune, the 12th House, and Pisces by Maurice Fernandez going on over at the forum at astro.com that folks may be interested in.

Click on Neptune, the 12th House, and Pisces

Fernandez presents an interesting alternative that Neptune is related to career placement - an idea I was fascinated with. His book isn't that easy to read, but it may reward the persistent reader with a whole new way to look at Neptune. Summaries of Neptune in the various houses are included in this thread, as well as samples from my files which suggest that natal Neptunes definitely do influence career preferences.

BTW: I go by the name of "Evescaduceus" on this forum, or just plain "Eve". I love hearing from my readers (I almost always learn something from all of you), so say hello.

SOURCE: Fernandez, Maurice. Neptune, the 12th House, and Pisces, Trafford Publishing, 2006.

Genesis 49: Jacob "Blesses" His Sons

2010-05-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Esau embraces his brother Jacob while Jacob's wives and young sons watch their unexpected rendez-vous.

THE ZODIAC AND THE SONS OF JACOB
Were the Twelve Tribes of Israel evenly distributed among the twelve signs of the Zodiac? Lore outside of the Bible suggests that Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, may have interacted with or even lived near the Chaldeans for a period of time. The Chaldeans were said to be a small tribe known for ancient astrological wisdom. Theoretically, Abraham and his immediate descendents could have had some exposure to Chaldean methods, and at least one chapter in Genesis gives clear hints of this(although the evidence is fragmentary).

GENESIS 49 JACOB BLESSES HIS SONS
The title is significant. Jacob isn’t “blessing” his sons so much as prophesying the future of their descendents, but prophesy was often described as “blessing” when an important Biblical figure like Jacob engaged in it. Some of Jacob’s “blessings” are downright negative and seem more like judgments or curses. More than half the “blessings” strongly suggest that Jacob used astrological archetypes to describe his sons and, in some cases, their descendents. Some of the blessings are ambiguous, however, and a couple of them don’t seem to have much to do with a recognizable western astrology. But taken together, his “blessings” form one of the most enigmatic and intriguing chapters in the Book of Genesis.

Even more irony is attached to the title when one considers that a younger Jacob wrestled earlier with the Angel and would not give up until the Angel had given Jacob his blessing. The back story is that Jacob had treated his brother Esau in a wretched manner, and was now afraid of him, so he needed the Angel’s blessing. When it becomes his own turn to confer blessings upon his sons as an old man, Jacob appears to forget that some of his sons may also feel a strong need for his blessing.

(Interestingly, there is a parallel tradition of double-tongued “blessings” in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad was said to have offered the blessings of Paradise to many of his key associates before major battles, and they knew that this meant Muhammad had already accurately anticipated their imminent death and martyrdom.)

EXAMINING JACOB’S BLESSINGS, SON BY SON, STARTING WITH HIS FIRSTBORN, REUBEN
Jacob calls his sons to him, saying. “Gather around so that I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come.” He starts with his oldest son, Reuben.

Unfortunately, Jacob is still furious with him because Reuben intruded on his sexual privacy, and his “blessing” turns into a curse which focuses sorely on an incident that occurred many years before.

Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the first sign of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.
Turbulent as the water(indecisive), you will no longer excel, for you went up onto your father’s bed, onto my couch and defiled it. –Gen 49:3

There is a very slight suggestion of an Aries/Libra polarity in this description. As I see it, “the first sign of my strength” points to Aries, and “turbulent as the water” suggests Libran indecisiveness. It is not much to go on, and it doesn’t associate Reuben with a specific zodiac sign.

However, when viewed alongside descriptions of his other sons that do seem to delineate particular signs, this verse does seem to possess an astrological core. It is almost as if Jacob is trying to figure out where Reuben’s nativity lies in the zodiac, as he pronounces his “best guess”.

DOUBLE TROUBLE – SIMON AND LEVI, JACOB’S MOST EVIL SONS
Jacob curses his next two sons, Simon and Levi, in no uncertain terms. Simeon and Levi were the children of Leah, and they killed all the males of Shechem, because their sister Dinah had unmarried sex with a man known only as “Shechem” after falling in love with him. Their revenge was totally outside the bounds of what was considered normal in this culture, and the impression is that Simeon and Levi were sociopaths.

Their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger…cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel. I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel. -Gen 49:5

In the verse above, note that Jacob describes his territory by his own name “Jacob” and also by the name “Israel”. Joseph’s name was changed to Israel when he wrestled with the divine visitor at Peniel.

In this painting by Paul Gauguin, Jacob wrestles the angel while pretty girls watch.

There is little obvious astrology in this verse, but to some observers, there is still a “shadow” of Gemini lurking beneath Jacob’s depiction. He describes them as brothers (sharing the traits of brutality, anger, and cruelty). He doesn’t do this for any of his other sons, even though four of them were full brothers of this pair. Modern astrologers have also described Gemini as capable of great cruelty. Once again, this isn’t much to go on. Here, the reader who seeks a one-on-one association between the sons and the zodiac signs is deconstructing some very slim clues.

We do know that the people of Levi were not included among the tribes given land allotments following the conquest of Canaan. Moses designated the Levites apart for priestly duty as belonging to the Lord (Nu 3:1-4, 49). Joshua awarded them 48 towns scattered throughout Israel (Jos 21: 1-45)

THE LION OF JUDAH
Jacob’s blessings are mostly short and to the point. He gives only two of his sons a somewhat lengthier blessing, Judah and Joseph, both of whom are fire signs and natural leaders. With Judah’s blessing, the reader doesn’t have to “stretch” very far to see that Jacob is talking about a Leo.

You are a lion’s cub, O Judah, you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness – who dares to rouse him? -Gen 49:9

Jacob describes his lion son as a predator, and also at rest. In modern astrology, Leo is described by the core attributes of the Sun, which both rises and sets. The rising sun is said to be active and life-giving, while the setting sun is thought to recuperate its energy “offstage” in preparation for a time when it will once again hopefully be the center of attention (see Endnote). The lion and the sun share this quality of vibrant activity alternating with quiet withdrawal.

***
The next line in this verse simultaneously describes Judah and his descendents, and is widely considered to be one of the most controversial statements in the entire Old Testament.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff, until Shiloh comes, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. -Gen 49:10

The scepter and the ruler’s staff are the symbols of kingship. Jesus will be descended from the lineage of Judah, and this is what all Christians are intended to recall when they read this prediction of Jacob’s.

Shiloh is a shadowy figure in the Old Testament, and there is probably good reason for this. Shiloh as a place-name is described several times in later books of the Old Testament. As with other place-names in the Old Testament, the name is often intended to refer to both a place and a person.

There is more than one translation of this verse, since the Old Testament available to us today has been transcribed across many languages.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, unto whom tribute belongs. -Gen 49:10

So who was Shiloh? Was it Jesus, the distant descendant of Judah? Or could Joseph have been predicting a later prophet and law-giver to whom the Jews would (and did) actually have to pay tribute to, in other words, the prophet Muhammed? Shiloh is not synonymous with the territory that the Prophet Muhammad emerges from. Nor was Muhammad descended from Judah, but rather from his great-uncle, Ishmael. Nevertheless, the parsing of this spare description about the nearly invisible and forgotten Shiloh has given rise to more speculation in modern times than any of Jacob’s other blessings.

ZEBULON WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY A CANCER OR A PISCES
Zebulon is described very suggestively as a water sign in a single line of verse.

Zebulon will live by the seashore, and become a haven for ships. -Gen 49:13

Pisces is clearly symbolized by the sea and ships, but Alan Oken leans toward the association with Cancer because Jacob’s use of the word “haven” also describes a nurturing man who protects his descendents. (Jacob blesses his sons as an old man, and it is presumed that all of his sons were adults who very likely had sons of their own.) Moon-ruled Cancer is also associated with the sea, and the descendents of Zebulon were close enough to the Mediterranean to “feast on the abundance of the seas”. Dt 33:19

ISSACHAR IS ANYBODY’S GUESS…
Jacob bluntly tells poor Issachar that his descendents will end up as slaves because he is so lazy!

Issachar is a rawboned donkey lying down between two saddlebags. When he sees how good is his resting place and how pleasant is his land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labor. -Gen49:14-15

Issachar was probably born under a Saturn-ruled sign (sigh), but the description of his brother Naphtali fits Capricorn more closely. The more critical Jacob is of his sons, the less obvious is any evidence of his astrological judgment regarding them. In my opinion, Issachar is anybody’s guess…

DAN THE JUDGE
Jacob sums up his son Dan with praise, but the two verses suggest two different signs (Could Dan’s nativity have been on the cusp?)

Dan will provide justice for his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Gen 49:16

In the line above, Dan personifies the highest manifestation of justice-loving Libra. If I had to bet, I’d wager that Jacob is telling us Dan’s sign in the first verse. Yet the following verse has strong Scorpio overtones.

Dan will be a serpent by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horses heels, so that its rider tumbles backwards. -Gen 49:17

The verse above is a prediction for a celebrated hero destined to be born in Dan’s lineage. Samson, from the tribe of Dan, would single-handedly keep the Philistines at bay. Simultaneously, the serpent imagery is strongly suggestive of Scorpio, although another one of Jacob’s sons will fit the Scorpio archetype more closely, as we shall see.

FOR GAD, “A TROOP COMETH”
Alan Oken is spot-on about Jacob’s description of Gad as a Scorpio. Oken points out that when Gad was born, Leah cried out, “A troop cometh”. (Mars was the classical ruler of Scorpio.) When Jacob was an old man, he said of Gad:

“A troop shall overcome him; but he shall overcome at the last.” Gen 49:19 (An allusion to the great recuperative powers of this sign, usually associated with the modern ruler, Pluto.)

ASHER TURNS GRAIN INTO FOOD FIT FOR A KING
There couldn’t be a more generous description of Virgo, and we suspect that Jacob must have really cherished his son Asher.

Asher’s bread will be fat; he will provide delicacies fit for a king. Gen49:20

THE MYSTERIOUS NAPHTALI
Jacob’s praise of Naphtali comes down to us in at least two very different versions. The first translation is one that I associate strongly with Capricorn, being one myself.

Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth good words.” -Gen 49:21

(In other words, Capricorn can be fucking nuts and not especially chaste, but he may make a good writer.)
Naphtali depicted as a goat in The Tribe of Naphtali, from the Twelve Maquettes of Stained Glass Windows for Jerusalem (1964) by Marc Chagall.

Think of Capricorn, and one thinks of the Greek god Pan. Pan had a body with a lower half like a goat, plus he was wild and erotic, like a “hind let loose”. Capricorn is also known for its dry, understated humor, and Jacob expresses this idea with understated praise, “he giveth good words”.

Overtones of Saturn are admittedly more characteristic of Jacob’s description of his slave son, Iccashar. Capricorn is not an easy zodiac sign to live under. Yet with Naphtali, we see the fun-loving, sly-tongued reaction to living under all these Saturnine obstacles.

A very different translation of this brief verse is more enigmatic:

Naphtali is a graceful doe that gives birth to beautiful fawns. -Gen49:21

In this interpretation, Jacob appears more focused on predicting a handsome tribe of descendents for Naphtali. Interestingly, there is a Vedic asterism called Mrigashira that is symbolized by a deer, and those born under this cluster of stars are also said to be very clever with words. There is no evidence that Jacob would have had any knowledge of Vedic astrology, even from sources of lore outside the Bible, but I did find it fascinating that Jacob’s carefully chosen words of praise could possibly be interpreted in a Vedic context.

JOSEPH THE HERO
Jacob’s son Joseph became prime minister and lawgiver to the Egyptian pharaoh.
This is James Patterson's painting of Joseph and his Coat of Many Colors.

Jacob gives Joseph one of the lengthier blessings, and as with most of his other ones, it combines astrological imagery with a prediction for Joseph’s descendents.

Joseph is a fruitful bough (bow) by a well, whose branches run over the wall (an allusion to the limitless expanse of the Sagittarian mind). The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the mighty God. -Gen 49:22-24

The bow as a symbol of the Sagittarian archer is pretty hard to miss. Joseph is also “fruitful” and his “branches run over the wall” – his numerous descendents are everywhere in Israel. Joseph is described as king-like, a strong bow “made strong by the mighty God”, which fits the Sagittarian archetype very well.

BENJAMIN, THE “SON OF MY SORROW”
The final blessing for Jacob’s youngest son, Benjamin, is more than a little intriging. The blessing is ominous, and does not use an image from recognizable western astrology.

Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder. -Gen 49:27

What is known about Benjamin is that his mother Rachel died soon after giving birth, and knowing that she would die of his delivery, she gave him the name “Benoni”, which means “son of my sorrow”.

When Jacob predicts the future of his lineage as an old man, he is referring to a series of horrible incidents involving his descendents (the Benjamites). Most of them were slaughtered by the Israelites after an incident where they were responsible for raping a Levite’s concubine to death in Judges 19. In retaliation, the Israelites (mostly descendents of Judah) kill almost all of the Benjamite men, women, and children, with the exception of an unspecified number of men and four hundred young girls who had never slept with a man. These girls were given to the remaining Benjamite men, so that the tribe could be “reseeded”.

Apparently, there are still not enough women left to propagate a new tribe, and it is decided that the remaining Benjamite survivors must have heirs, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. The Israelites couldn’t give them their own daughters as wives because they had already taken an oath to the Lord to abstain from doing so. So they instructed the Benjamites to hide in the vineyards of Shiloh, and seize the girls who came out to join in the dancing.

Western astrology doesn’t speak to this image, but the wolf seems cursed, and it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to call him demonic. For some reason, it brought to mind the demon-like qualities of Vedic Rahu, who is said to be a forest-dweller, among other attributes. The day that I wrote this article, I was looking over my notes on Norse runes. The tradition of Norse runes extends far back into the past, although it is impossible to know if it was ever contemporary with the events of the Old Testament. Nonetheless, I was more than a little surprised to find this Norwegian rune fragment for Fehu (note the linguistic similarity with Rahu).

Wealth is a source of discord among kinsmen;
the wolf lives in the forest.

SOURCES
Oken, Alan. Alan Oken’s Complete Astrology: The Classic Guide to Modern Astrology, Nicolas Hays, Inc., 2006. (Much of this book was originally published as three separate titles in the 1970’s.)

Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Inner Traditions; Revised edition, 2006. Originally published 1983. (The new edition of this classic title was approved by the author in 2005 before his death at the age of ninety-six.)

The blessings are quoted from various translations of the Bible. Some of these versions are far more amenable to astrological interpretation than others.

ENDNOTE
1 For an excellent article on Leo in its alternating phases of activity and withdrawn repose, see “The Offstage Leo” by Moll Frothingham in the Dec 2009/Jan 2010 issue of TMA.

Astrology in the Old Testament

2010-05-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

There is a new article in the works about the zodiac signs and the sons of Jacob. I hope to have it up in another week or so. I'm working two jobs besides writing here from time to time, so ideas for articles don't bubble up to the surface quite as rapidly as I hoped, and they don't magically take shape in neatly edited articles either (darn them!). But I think that anyone who has ever been interested in astrology as it was briefly recorded in the Bible will be interested in this upcoming essay. Thanks to everyone for their patience.

-Sunny Dawn

Good Idea Not Forgotten: Social Vampires and Black Holes

2010-04-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

Artist's rendition of a black hole.

Every once in a while, I come across an astrological theory or concept that is worthwhile, but is in danger of being forgotten. It could be because the author is obscure, or because the idea wasn’t packaged properly, so the astrology community never became aware of it. When I find an astrological technique that I know is worth a second look, I am going to include it in a series called “Good Idea Not Forgotten”. “Social Vampires and Black Holes” is the second article in this series.

VAMPIRES IN THE BIRTH CHART? COULDN’T YOU SPARE US UNTIL HALLOWEEN?

I love the wild “trickiness” of this theory – even though I know there are folks out there who will not find this an application of astrology worth embracing. Take it too literally, and the vampire phenomenon looks like a bunch of human leeches that are looking for attention. Look beneath the obvious, however, and a connection between black holes and a particular type of personality begins to seem possible. The possibility of this teases and “fools” you. Publishing on April Fool’s Day seemed appropriate.

SOCIAL VAMPIRES AND BLACK HOLES? SOUNDS VERY FAR OUT. JUST HOW WEIRD IS THIS GOING TO BE?

The idea, and the book that it was published in, is about the farthest thing you can get from “mainstream astrology”. The book is The Ethical Psychic Vampire, by Raven Kaldera, and the section of particular interest is, “Chapter 12: The Astrological Vampire” You won’t find this author, or his book, reviewed by The Mountain Astrologer magazine.

Yet the premise is fascinating. Kaldera theorized that those who are adept at “sucking” energy from others and then “recycling” it into their own endeavors, or possibly for the benefit of others, may have personal and generational planets that are tightly conjunct black holes.

The idea goes beyond the psychological concept of co-dependency, a common phenomenon. Vampires are co-dependents, but a more potent variety. They are, in fact, a pretty rare breed, according to the author and his peers. After comparing the data against every chart that I follow, I only came up with one individual who had four natal planets tightly conjunct black holes. Because the data set is so specific (see the table below), and the applicable orbs are so narrow, most of us don’t fall into these categories. Also, the effect appears to be cumulative – the subject with four planets tightly conjunct black holes is far more likely to manifest this vampire power than someone who merely has a Sun or Ascendant tightly conjunct a black hole.

FULL DISCLOSURE ON THE AUTHOR

Raven Kaldera is a female-to-male (FTM) trans-gendered activist, shaman, and author who is also considered a spiritual founder of the Northern Tradition, an unorthodox offshoot of Norse paganism, or Asatru, which is itself considered a highly alternative religious practice in the United States.

Raven Kaldera is in a consensual master-slave relationship with FTM Joshua Tenpenny, a Buddhist who does a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes work at Cauldron Farm, the homestead and spiritual center of the Northern Tradition.I mention this fact up front because it always seems to become an object of trepidation, disgust, or dissension among those who have a hard time distinguishing an author’s personal practices from his ideas.

I met Joshua at a workshop that I attended with Raven at Free Spirit Alliance in Maryland, and I can tell you that he is a caring, dedicated, very hardworking individual. People are immediately drawn to him. Without his prodigious effort, I am certain that Cauldron Farm and the Northern Tradition would not be as productive or influential as it is in the pagan community.

Kaldera is also married to male-to-female (MTF) Bella, whom I have not met, because she is less likely to travel to workshops or large pagan events.

Kaldera hasn’t written much on astrological theory. He has written an application book for pagans who want to incorporate astrology in their devotional practice, but the main focus of his output is on the gods and goddesses of the Northern Tradition. He made a tremendous wealth of material available to anyone in the Archives of his website www.cauldronfarm.com.

Scroll down to the bottom of the main page on the website to find the link for the Archives.

It was here that I first became acquainted with Raven and his work. His website served as the inspiration for this blog. After seeing how much material Kaldera made free to anyone who was interested, I decided that I needed to attempt something like this for the astrological community.

While this article is devoted to Kaldera’s theory on vampires and black holes, he is particularly proud of his theory that tight aspects between personal planets and the asteroid Pallas Athene are a signature of the trans-gendered. You may want to poke around on his website to see if you can locate it there. I didn't have any luck last time I perused the Archives, but I know its in there somewhere.

FULL DISCLOSURE ON THE BOOK

Much of The Ethical Psychic Vampire has nothing to do with astrology. The vampire phenomenon was very much in vogue five years ago with the publication of Michelle Bellanger’s Vampire Codex series, but self-identification as a vampire did not catch on heavily in the pagan community (which may be for the best). Raven Kaldera published a more intimate “insider view” of this phenomenon in Ethical Psychic Vampire, introducing some readers to an exotic, unfamiliar, and frightening world. Parts of it are very graphic, and leave the reader with the feeling of needing to come up for air. Here’s a sample passage:

Don’t drink a lot of blood. First of all, you shouldn’t be taking that much anyway. Second, blood is very rich and tends to curdle in the stomach. If you drink more than, say, an ounce, you may well get sick and throw up, which isn’t going to make your donor very happy, or you for that matter. Human blood passes through the body undigested. No, you won’t get nutrients from it like you would [from] animal blood. Your body is designed like that, so that you won’t digest yourself in the case of a peritoneal leak. The blood may show up in your fecal matter later as a dark color, so be warned.
-“Chapter Seven: The Blood is the Life”, Ethical Psychic Vampire, p 91.

Clearly, the author knows how to cultivate shock value, and seems to enjoy it. The motto which serves as a tagline on the back jacket of many of his books is, ‘Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.

WHY IS THIS BOOK RELEVANT TO ASTROLOGERS?

The majority of this book has to do with blood-drinking and non blood-drinking vampire practice, the difference between primary and secondary vampires (primary vampires are born that way, and secondary ones are “made”), and the link between vampires and shamanic practitioners. There are some fascinating ideas here, even if one is not inclined to take them all literally.

From my perspective, it is possible to engage this book on both a literal and a metaphorical level. You could pursue the literal route, if drinking other people’s blood is your thing. It isn’t mine. Or you could examine people who feed off the energy of others in less dramatic ways - what I would call “social vampires”. Are storm-chasers a form of vampires? What makes a vampire different from anyone else who is skilled at psychic perception and energy work? What makes a vampire more of a nuisance than a mere co-dependent? What does one do with the vampire child, otherwise known as the “psi-vamp” kid? (Parents will find a cleverly titled chapter, “The Family Vampire: Bringing Up the Next Generation”.) Kaldera attempts to answer most of these questions.

You could engage with this world-view as the author’s delusion, which it might well be, and still come away with some thought-provoking ideas. In particular, I was looking for something that would validate the vampire experience unrelated to the self-reported perceptions of the participants engaged in the vampire sub-culture.

What I came up with was the astrological data, and the perspective it afforded me. While it isn’t appropriate data for a scientist who is solely limited to an empirical framework (and who doesn’t take much stock in vampires), it was a highly original viewpoint from an author who believes an empirical mindset can be applied to astrology, and creatively used it to come up with an explanation for the “born” vampire, or possibly as an explanation for the talent of a secondary vampire. I liked the idea enough to want to give it a second viewing, since I have a feeling that The Ethical Psychic Vampire did not make it on to the bookshelves of a lot of practicing astrologers.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “VAMPIRE”? IS THIS SOMETHING THAT NORMAL FOLKS CAN RELATE TO AT ALL?

Black hole energy does seem to be present in certain people. Frequently, they are people that others are drawn to without understanding why. They are very likely to be leaders of their social circles. People with the power of black holes do seem to get energy from those around them. Often they have a small “orbit” of dedicated friends who seem to hover on their edges – the same way that some objects will orbit a black hole for a long time before finally being overcome by the awesome gravitational force.

Substitute the word “vampire” for the expression “black hole energy”. Friends of such an individual don’t report feeling drained by the vampire; most seem to benefit from his or her company. Friends of the vampire may only feel the black hole energy when they fall out of friendship (or love) with the vampire, and start to resist his or her orbit. Black holes are said to be very hard to detect in the visible universe. People with black hole energy can be subtle customers, too.

When it manifests negatively, people with “black hole energy” are very likely to be at the center of cults. Since many people have difficulty perceiving the nature of this energy in a group leader, there tends to be a very “fine line” between an insular spiritual community and a true cult. Those who feel victimized by a tightly-knit spiritual group are often the first to defend its leader by saying that it is not a cult. Most of the time, they are right. Yet it may still “look and feel” a little bit like a cult to the victim, particularly if leaving is traumatic.

THE SHORTEST CHAPTER IN THE BOOK, “THE ASTROLOGICAL VAMPIRE”

It is almost as if the chapter was a bit of an afterthought. Kaldera sketches his impressions, and it only takes him four slim pages to do it.

Born vampires have a strongly aspected Pluto. He doesn’t elaborate, so I will. If Pluto is the most heavily aspected planet in your horoscope, you may not be a “born” vampire, but perhaps some milder vampire tendencies are a part of your personality.

A well-aspected Saturn is a boon to vampires – it gives them the discipline to stay ethical. Kaldera has a way of expressing wisdom unrelated to the topic at hand, and he does it here when he writes, “It is not uncommon for Saturn to deliver someone into Pluto’s hands.” Any observer of the current Pluto-in-Capricorn era will be aware of the pithy wisdom behind this observation.

By contrast, Neptune is the nemesis of an ethical vampire because it doesn’t like to respect boundaries. A vampire with a Saturn that has not caught up with his or her Neptune needs to be warded off with garlic, to say the least!

He then takes a look at black holes, and mentions that Philip Sedgwick is one of the few mainstream astrologers who emphasize their meaning in chart interpretation, although he does it “with such variable concepts as time travel, karmic flashbacks, and higher wisdom”.

Finally, he explains his theory that planetary conjunction with black holes in a natal chart infuse the subject with a large dose of black hole energy. This allows the native to personify the magnetic or terrible energy of a black hole, usually with regard to people he or she knows intimately, but sometimes on a wider scale. Those conscious of the power may develop it ethically by using healing modalities that encourage them to recycle it to the “donor” for his or her benefit.

He includes personal data, his own and his daughter’s. “I have three of the sixteen possible black holes in a cluster within a couple of degrees of my Sun, and one directly on my ascendant; my daughter has black holes conjunct her Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Uranus”, he writes.

Among all of the folks whose charts I follow, there was one person with his Mercury, Venus, Neptune, and Pluto tightly conjunct black holes. Like Raven Kaldera, he is the leader of a small spiritual community.

TABLE OF BLACK HOLE POSITIONS

1950 1980 2000
Cygnus X-1 12 Aquarius 56 13 Aquarius 21 13 Aquarius 38
Cas A 26 Aries 42 27 Aries 07 27 Aries 24
Virga A 1 Libra 05 1 Libra 30 1 Libra 47
M-82 28 Can 17 28 Can 42 28 Can 59
Vela XR-1 2 Leo 43 3 Leo 08 3 Leo 25
3UO900-40 6 Virgo 22 6 Virgo 47 7 Virgo 09
Cen 3-X 28 Libra 31 28 Libra 56 29 Libra 13
Cen-A 6 Sco 56 7 Sco 21 7 Sco 38
Circinius X-1 3 Sag 25 3 Sag 50 4 Sag 12
Hercules X-1 4 Sag 11 4 Sag 36 4 Sag 53
Sco X-1 5 Sag 09 5 Sag 34 5 Sag 51
3U1700-37 17 Sag 52 18 Sag 17 18 Sag 34
GX339-4 18 Sag 53 19 Sag 18 19 Sag 35
SGR X-4 4 Cap 26 4 Cap 51 5 Cap 08
SMC X-1 11 Aqu 39 12 Aqu 04 12 Aqu 31
Cygnus X-3 27 Aqu 53 28 Aqu 18 28 Aqu 35

MY NOTES: Note the “Black Hole Belt” in Sagittarius. People with focal planets in Sagittarius should check to see if those planets are conjunct a black hole. This “Black Hole Heaven” is associated with very specific range of degrees – Sagittarius 3 through Sagittarius 6, and Sagittarius 17 through Sagittarius 19. By contrast, no black holes of note in Taurus, Gemini, or Pisces, apparently.

Black holes are like fixed stars. I usually use an orb of one degree with fixed stars. At first, the skeptic in me only wanted to allow a one-half to three-quarter degree orb. Then I flip-flopped, and decided to use a one degree orb. Despite this, my sample size remains miniscule, because almost everyone gets excluded. Others who have come to their own conclusions after comparing this data against the horoscopes of those they know well should feel free to comment on my method.

Note the red pointer on the constellation of Scorpio, where a series of malefic fixed stars known as the Via Dolorosa is located. If Kaldera and Philip Sedgwick are correct, there is a cluster of power-suckers right next door in Sagittarius. Of course, black holes are located throughout the constellations - those in the table above are probably a fraction of what is actually out there. But it does seem to imply some sinister powers for some of the Sagittarian people we know - they may have more personality traits in common with Scorpios than we once realized.

SOURCE
Kaldera, Raven. The Ethical Psychic Vampire, Xlibris Corporation, 2005.

Woefully Misunderstood Capricorn (Drum Roll, Please)

2010-03-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

A demon baby - how cute! How Capricorn!

People born under this western zodiac sign are the hardest to characterize. I ought to know, because I am one.

Keywords used to describe us on cafeastrology.com are tenacious, conservative, resourceful, disciplined, ambitious and prudent, for what it is worth.

The stereotype is that we are all ambitious. I would say that’s half true – like a lot of stereotypes. When I was teaching myself astrology a decade ago, I read about Capricorn having three archetypes – the mountain goat, the Pan goat, and the scapegoat. The mountain goat is the ambitious one in terms of what they want to get out of life. The Pan goat is a lot more laid back and fun-loving. He or she may be a nature-lover, a country gardener and home-crafting type, or simply a partier. The scapegoat archetype seemed to show up most in childhood. Capricorn kids tend to feel victimized by their parents, and girls in particular tend to be victimized by their mothers. Capricorn children grow out of this archetype as they get older, but some of the psychological damage tends to stay with them through adulthood.

(Pan was the goat-footed god of erotic ecstasy who was worshipped in ancient Greece. He was said to love nature and country life and strongly distrust civilized ways and cities. Later Christians may have associated Pan with the Devil.)

Pan was known more for his promiscuity than for anything else. This is key to understanding those who subconsciously personify this god. Tiger Woods has his Sun and Mercury in Capricorn. Brad Pitt falls back on his old love, Jennifer Aniston, when he needs to put wife Angelina Jolie in her place. Brad Pitt has his Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars in Capricorn.

A lot of Capricorn men are said to manifest the Pan goat (which may or may not mean acting out the promiscuity), while women are thought to manifest the mountain goat more often, but I have always suspected that could go "either way".

The men work to achieve a certain status at their job or in terms of career, and then they sit back and relax. They are said to be not all that concerned about reaching the top. They may want to focus more on extra-curricular activities, and just maintain the job at a level that pays the bills. Despite stereotypical wisdom, this may be true of a lot of Capricorn women, too. Results of a salary survey that tracked respondents by birth date often report more people working for $35,000 or less born under Capricorn and Aquarius (the Saturn-ruled signs) than other any other zodiac sign.

The ambitious Capricorn archetype is a fairly old one. Caesar Augustus was said to have minted coins which depicted him as having been born a Capricorn because he wanted to send an ambitious, aggressive message. In fact, Augustus was a Libra. (He may have been tapping his unconscious Saturn, because Saturn is exalted in Libra.)

The other stereotype has to do with the dry wit that Capricorn is said to be famous for. A lot of us do have it, in one way or another. Sometimes it’s a quiet or soft wit, and it may only manifest from time to time. Other times it is a distinct talent for sarcasm or bon mots – these are the charismatic Capricorns that tend to have lots of friends, and are often associated with the Pan archetype.

Astrologically, the dry wit is associated with having both the Sun and Mercury in Capricorn (since Mercury is fairly close to the Sun in most nativities, many Capricorn Sun-signs will also have Mercury placed here). One famous Roman Capricorn whose terse wit and wisdom is still widely quoted today was Cicero.

In a modern context, the raunchy Howard Stern has his Sun, Mercury and Venus in Capricorn (this dude is a modern-day Pan if there ever was one), and Michelle Obama, whose mouth has gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion, has a Capricorn Sun and Mercury.

If I was to sum up my Capricorn compatriots quickly, I would say that we are always sizing up people (this makes some of us “natural” astrologers). Defensive. A lot like Scorpio, really. We lighten it up by being funny, and we use that sarcastic, dry, cynical wit if we have it. A Capricorn Sun and Mercury may sound bossy even if the owner isn’t, much like the author of this post.

One shrewd observer remarked that Capricorn women could be bodybuilders if they stayed in shape as they got older. There has to be some truth to this – a lot of Capricorn women are overweight as they get older. Those who do stay in shape often have a noticeable bone structure. Even if they are very thin, they are often medium or large-boned, and able to carry their weight easily. The taller Capricorn women with full breasts look amazing if they can battle the bulge, but a lot of us do end up looking like a Modigliani painting. The effect shows up sometimes with Aquarius women as well – think of Oprah.

One trend I see with many Capricorns that is too common to ignore has to do with how their personality changes over time (Saturn himself was the Greek and Roman god associated with time). When we are young, a lot of us are serious, responsible, sensible types – we understand implicitly that if you give a dance, you’ve got to pay the band. But once we hit forty (or even before then), a lot of us mellow out and become more relaxed. Liberal or conservative, we start to ponder the shades of gray a little more, even if things did seem very black or white to us when we were younger.

Astrologically, this may have to do with the Capricorn Sun progressing into Pisces (something that happens to Capricorns as early as their mid-thirties or as late as their early sixties). Pisces has a watery sensitivity and creative receptivity that feels very foreign to a pure Capricorn type, but we do incorporate the Piscean energy somehow because we don’t have a choice. The ancients may have recognized this by associating Capricorn with the Babylonian god Ea, who is depicted with the tail of a fish!

Weirdly opposite to Aquarius - who are rebellious and free-spirited and “visionary” when younger, but once they hit their thirties, they slowly become quite conservative and traditionalist! Aquarius folks have suns which progress into Aries as they get older, and the blended energy of Saturn (the co-ruler of both Aquarius and Capricorn) and aggressive, leadership-oriented, Mars-like Aries produces a far different outcome.

SOURCES
Everitt, Anthony.Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, Random House, 2003.

Everitt, Anthony.Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor,Random House, 2007.

A summary of the salary survey was published in a recent issue ofThe Mountain Astrologer Magazine. When I lay my hands on it, I will update.

Good Idea Not Forgotten: What the House Cusps are Saying

2010-02-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

These are the house cusps for the time of publication of this article. Click on image if you wish to enlarge it.

How many of you remember Debbi Kempton Smith’s famous astrology cookbook from the 1980’s, Secrets of a Stargazer’s Notebook? Her book was packed full of information for the novice, and the hip, funny writing style kept the reader going. One of her best ideas was a guide to the house cusps, but the information was never organized in one place in the book. Instead, it got buried under loads of information in various chapters, and today is largely forgotten.

Here are Kempton-Smith’s unique interpretations of the house cusps – I haven’t seen anything like it in “how-to” astrology books published in the last couple of decades. It’s a quick “house at glance” technique that helps the consultant keep the house cusps simple, and a handy little trick up an astrologer’s sleeve when one is too tired to remember anything else about the house cusps.

ARIES
The house cusp with Aries on it shows where we are boss.

Here's a picture of Bruce Springsteen, the original Boss.

TAURUS
The house with Taurus on the cusp shows what we want more than anything else in the world when you are young. Around the age of 40 or so, we may finally start to get the things of this house, although many discover that they no longer want those things the way they did when they were younger.

GEMINI
Here is where we “can do one only if it’s good enough”.

CANCER
We need to nurture and be nurtured by the people or things of the house that has Cancer on the cusp, and we get rather moody and depressed if we don’t get nurtured here.

LEO
This is where we are proud. Kempton-Smith connects the pride associated with the house that has Leo on the cusp with where we should work for a living, but in my experience, this doesn’t happen very often.

VIRGO
This is where we are either insightful and analytical, or picky and critical.

LIBRA
This is where we see-saw back and forth. Some years we work very hard on the things of this house, and other years we just don’t care. This is where we are lazy, basically.

SCORPIO
Kempton-Smith writes that we have a choice “between the scorpion or the eagle” regarding the people or things of the house with Scorpio on the cusp.

SAGITTARIUS
This is where we have fun - pretty uncomplicated.

CAPRICORN
There are limitations associated with this house. Some overcome them; others don’t.

AQUARIUS
Here is where we keep others at arm’s length. We stay detached in the house with Aquarius on the cusp, often for our own sanity. Another meaning that shows up for many people has to do with getting something singular, unique, or one-of-a-kind related to the things of this house.

PISCES
This is where we are kind, and it comes back to us.

***

When I used this interpretation framework on my own horoscope, I noticed that some of the meanings “clicked” right away, and others didn’t. Planets placed in the various houses did not appear to negate the interpretations of the house cusps, however. As I continued to work with this framework, I started to see how all of Kempton-Smith’s interpretations fit my house cusps, but the relevant associations were pretty obscure at times (in other words, I had to really dig). Yet the meanings were accurate – I didn’t have to “stretch” my experience to fit the interpretations.

Using these interpretations to consult for others had some surprising results. A number of people said that one or two of these interpretations fit their own personal experience of the astrological houses perfectly. These people “believed” in the framework because they got some very strong “hits”. A few people I talked to said every one fit – I think these folks may have been exceptionally self-aware.

Other people said it was hogwash – they didn’t see where any of the descriptions were relevant to their own lives. With these folks, I wonder if they even spent a decent bit of time trying to find the “fit”. Because I work with four different astrological systems (western, Vedic, Mayan, and the Sabian Symbols) on a regular basis, I encounter this attitude more often than I would like, even among open-minded folks who believe in astrology. If they are unfamiliar with the system, they have to be “sold” on it. Until they are “sold” on it or have heard a lot about it from respected astrological authorities, the system isn’t personally relevant or “doesn’t work” for them. In some cases, their internal bias toward one particular astrological system prevents acceptance of a new one.

Yet Kempton-Smith’s interpretations do appear to work, and the genius of these simple observations is worth another look. Here’s an example from my own horoscope, which has a Virgo Ascendant, with no intercepted houses.

START WITH THE HOUSE THAT HAS TAURUS ON IT
When I consult using this system, this is the first piece of advice that I give. The house with Taurus on it represents strong yearning and desire, and the unfamiliar often sense the “fit” here immediately – it “jumps out” at them.
In my western natal chart, Taurus is on the 9th House cusp. Long distance travel and higher education are the two main themes of this house. I had a very strong desire to pursue education beyond the undergraduate level, even though I did not obtain actual advanced degrees, but I did this well before age 40.

It was with the other theme of long distance travel that Kempton-Smith’s description really “resonated” for me. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I dreamed of seeing the world, but never had enough money to really just take off and travel lots of places. In my twenties, all of my savings from low-income jobs went toward trips that I carefully saved pennies towards – the time I drove across the U.S. for the first time after graduating college, or the time I worked a paid internship that I had little interest in so that I could buy a plane ticket and a Euro-rail Pass. My yearning was channeled into Peace Corps service, so I could live and work in Africa, but even then I only got to see a tiny fraction of what I wanted to see in Africa.

As I reached 40, I finally had the experience to get the overseas contracts that paid enough for me to be able to really travel, only to discover that the desire was no longer there. There’s a very bittersweet quality to the house cusp with Taurus as one gets older – some of us get the thing we always wanted, only to discover that it is no longer what we want, or perhaps we don’t want it in the same way.

***

Here are the interpretations for my remaining house cusps. Readers with a Virgo Ascendant and similar house cusps will find this section a bonus. Readers with other Ascendants may be able to apply the insights of this section to their own individual house cusps, so resist the urge to skip it entirely. Examples of Kempton-Smith’s descriptions as they apply to other house cusps will be included in a later section of this article.

GEMINI on the MC (Mid-heaven)
Here is where one does “one” only “if it is good enough”. Definitely true – I found the career that was going to be “good enough” for me, but I wasn’t able to complete the training. Instead, I ended up doing a lot of different jobs – working as a personal assistant, doing administrative gigs, consulting in astrology, substitute teaching, teaching overseas, etc…

Most people seems to experience the “multiple” quality of this house – striving for “The ONE” doesn’t seem to get fulfilled all that often with Gemini. Every once in a while there is an exception to this, and these people always seem aware of their exceptional luck and blessing.

CANCER on the 11TH HOUSE CUSP
This is a nice placement on the house of friends. Since the 11th House also rules long-distance friends or friends on the Internet, I get a lot of nurturing from my Facebook account and my astrology blog and my interaction with online forums. Plus I have a real need to nurture here as well, which is why I have made so many quality astrology articles available on the Internet for free.

LEO on the 12TH HOUSE CUSP
The 12th House represents places of confinement, like hospitals and prisons. It is said to represent large institutions in general. Kempton-Smith calls it the “God Box”, because of its association with spirituality and suffering.

On a personal level, I wanted to be a doctor, so the “pride” associated with this house cusp placement was relevant. But I didn’t end up as one, although I have spent a lot of time on contracts with large institutions.

NOTE: This house cusp may have manifested more obviously if events in my life had worked out a little differently. In other words, the instinct was there, but the energy wasn’t. Of those I have consulted with, a number have mentioned this possibility with several of Kempton-Smith’s interpretations.

VIRGO on the 1ST HOUSE CUSP
As a consultant, I advise people that it can frequently be hard “to see yourself” when you are trying to understand how well the Ascendant sign fits your life. The same is often true of Kempton-Smith’s interpretations – we don’t always see how the description relates to our view of ourselves. Use it if it works. Don’t worry if it doesn’t.

In my case, this article is all about self-analysis, although I do want to make it relevant for others, and not turn it into “all about me”. Virgo gets a clear channel here.

LIBRA on the 2ND HOUSE CUSP
This one made immediate sense. 2nd House is earnings or salaried income, and it is very true that I work very hard some years when I know I am going to have the opportunity to earn well, and “sit back” during years where the economic environment appears to be stacked against me. It also made sense to me that I am always in the process of trying to strike a balance in this area of my life. When I have the energy to work hard and earn well, I do it. But there are other years when it is just as easy to stare at my navel, or pick my nose, if you know what I mean.

SCORPIO on the 3RD HOUSE CUSP
The description for Scorpio is one of the more obscure ones. I had a client ask me, “Don’t we all have a choice ‘between the scorpion and the eagle’ on pretty much everything?” She has a point.

Still, it may be worth considering if you have more of a struggle than usual with taking the high road, the path of the eagle, versus scuttling along the low road, like the scorpion, when it comes to the things of this house.

Suffice to say, my siblings and I are not close as adults. To some extent, I don’t take this personally – a number of my siblings are not close with each other either. But I do notice that I have to really focus on the eagle’s path during the infrequent occasions when we get together, and they have definitely pulled some stunts as adults that have fired every last nerve of my inner scorpion.

SAGITTARIUS on the 4TH HOUSE CUSP
In fact, I do have a lot of fun at home. I love just curling up on a couch, or puttering around the garden. But who doesn’t?

Nonetheless, I have noticed that having Sag on the cusp of a house can alleviate the impact of some pretty heavy planetary influence in the house. One of my good friends has a fallen Jupiter in the 4th house of her Vedic chart, and she has always had to live in crappy, sub-standard housing, but she has Sagittarius on the 4th house cusp of her western chart (the way I do), and she always seems to have fun in her far-from-posh accommodations. Having a cup of tea in her shack, I always feel as if I would love to stay longer. There could be some synergy operating here – she has the Sag energy for fun in her home, and the same Sag energy allows me to enjoy the qualities of other people’s homes, including hers.

Another important meaning of the 4th House is that it represents conditions at the end of life. Having Sagittarius here gives me something to look forward to.

CAPRICORN on the 5TH HOUSE CUSP
Although it is a bit of a downer, this is the house cusp I would check second after looking first at the one with Taurus. Do you see obvious limitations here?

Keep in mind that not all aspects of a house are ruined when Capricorn sits on the cusp. Some people with this placement will have great relationships with their children, even though they’ve never been all that happy with lovers.

In my case, the major themes of this house are real limitations for me. I don’t have children, even though I teach and enjoy them, and would love to have had my own. As far as lovers go, I am increasingly weary of single life, and would much rather be married. This makes sense when one considers the likelihood that a 5th House Capricorn cusp will have Pisces on the 7th House cusp – marriage is where I am kind “and it comes back to me”. Lovers are where I tend to feel I am wasting my time.

AQUARIUS on the 6TH HOUSE CUSP
This one really resonated for me, even though my sixth house is empty. The sixth house represents day-to-day jobs rather than careers, co-workers, servants (or those who are lower status than you are at work), health in general, and pets. I definitely have a detached, “arms length” attitude toward many of the things in this house. I don’t socialize with co-workers outside of work if I can help it. I don’t go to the doctor very often because I don’t have health insurance. I make quick distinctions between career opportunities and jobs that will pay the bills, and I don’t get emotionally vested in the latter – my motto is “see the job, do the job, stay out of the misery”.

The “silver lining” is also true for me – I have been blessed with some singular, wonderfully individual, one-of a kind pets. My dear cat Maui, now deceased, used to be able to “follow like a dog” for miles when we lived in the country – in her next life, I just know she is someone’s favorite dog now.

PISCES on the 7TH HOUSE CUSP
Because I’m not married, it’s hard for me to judge this house. But the 7th House is also said to represent intimate friendships and even “open enemies” in some cases, which may be why the 7th House is also linked to lawsuits. I have never sued anyone, or ever been sued either, so “kindness” could be said to be manifesting in this sense.

I have always been lucky with close friends though, and have had more useful things given to me by close friends, things that I could not have gotten along without.

My advice is to those I counsel is to be generous to those represented by the house with Pisces on the cusp, because it always comes back around here. This typically isn’t a house where you are going to feel “used”. Freedom from this fear makes many people naturally generous in the area of life represented by this house.

ARIES on the 8TH HOUSE CUSP
It took me forever to understand the meaning of this house cusp. Aries is where Kempton-Smith says you are boss. The 8th House represents legacies, inheritances, the spouse’s money, other people’s money, taxes, insurance policies, etc… None of it seemed to fit. I wasn’t married. I don’t have inherited money or property, or anything more than a mandatory car insurance policy. I don’t work with other people’s money. I don’t even have a will. For a long time, I just wrote this one off.

Then a couple of years ago, someone on an astrology forum posted a link to a great little article that David Roell wrote about the 8th House on his website at www.astroamerica.com. The link to this article, which talks about Alan Leo’s partial understanding of the occult nature of this house, is provided below.

http://www.astroamerica.com/howto.html
(After clicking on the link above, scroll down to the article “How Did Sex Get Into the 8th House?)

***

After reading the above, I started working with magic, and discovered intuitive talent in this area, which was aided by a “magical” Sabian symbol for the degree of my Jupiter, 4 Scorpio, “A Youth Holding a Lighted Candle In a Devotional Ritual Gains a Sense of the Great ‘Other World’” (see my earlier January, 2010 article “Sabian Symbols in Action” for further explanation of this concept).

In a way, it was almost as if I was “boss” – this was something I had a good deal of talent for, and the other world responds easily to me, for better or for worse. I had the power to get results here.

However, as with Pisces, there is a recycling current of energy frequently operating in the house with Aries on the cusp. You may be boss here, but you are also bossed or controlled by the things in this house, sometimes more than you might like to admit.

***

Now for some topics that will be relevant to readers with an Ascendant other than Virgo.

DOES KEMPTON-SMITH’S INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK FIT THE OBSERVATIONS OF OTHER ASTROLOGERS?
Yes, it does. As an experiment, I selected a Sagittarius Ascendant, and used Isabel Hickey’s seminal work, Astrology: a Cosmic Science, as a basis for comparison.

Hickey mentions that Sagittarius Ascendant very often feels that they are never paid what they are worth, and this dovetails with the possible limitations of a 2nd House Capricorn cusp. With Gemini on the 7th House cusp, she notes the likelihood of more than one marriage. With lazy Libra on the 11th House cusp, she remarks that “too much socializing…may take one down the primrose path…and away from the goals and objectives that were meant to be attained.”

Hickey notes that a 5th House Aries cusp will tend to dominate their kids. She doesn’t note the Aries tendency to “recycle”, a more recent observation made by this author. A dominating Aries parent may have a tendency to see it go both ways as the children get older – I know a lady whose landlord is now her daughter.

Having Cancer on the 8th House cusp gives a nurture and be-nurtured quality to both soul-mate sex and contact with the spirits – this can give a psychic nature, as Hickey notes, but also a susceptibility to negative “other worldly” energy – it gets spooky when the spirits are moody!

Comparisons between the two authors weren’t remarkable – Hickey brings up a lot that Kempton-Smith doesn’t. Kempton-Smith’s house cusp interpretations were meant to be used at a glance, so hers is more of a “one-sentence wonder” approach. Yet there are enough similarities to demonstrate that Kempton-Smith’s underlying paradigm is recognized by other astrologers.

WHAT HOUSE CUSPS SHOW THE CAREER?
Kempton-Smith predicted it would be the house cusp with Leo on it – but she does say that this is where you should be working for a living, and not necessarily where you ARE working for one.

In my experience, a number of people have it on the house cusp associated with Taurus. This is where they focus a tremendous amount of energy until middle age (around 40), and then find that their goals have changed, or that the career doesn’t mean as much to them as it used to.

In Kempton-Smith’s model, the house cusps with Sagittarius, Pisces, and Cancer tend to bring one good things, so it’s nice seeing people working in areas associated with these houses. They tend to be satisfied customers.

COULD YOU INCLUDE ONE MORE ASCENDANT AS AN EXAMPLE?
Let’s take a look at a Scorpio Ascendant – these folks will have a choice between “the scorpio and the eagle” in terms of themselves and their actions.

Many of these people with have Sagittarius on the 2nd House cusp – they need to have fun at work. Wage earning has to be fun, amusing, or personally satisfying, or they won’t want to do it. This gets even more interesting when you notice that proud Leo is on the Mid Heaven, and lazy Libra is in the 12th House of suffering and large institutions. Put all this cusp information together, and you often have a profile of someone who is self-employed, or employed at a large institution but paid as a contractor or consultant, with somewhat more freedom to pick and choose work tasks. With Leo on the MC, women with this Ascendant may make a career out of marriage, even if they continue to hold paid employment.

Marriage is very important to this Ascendant. They may spend a tremendous amount of time trying to find the One, or they may really want “perfection” as they define it from a spouse. Taurus is on the 7th House cusp, stamping it with tremendous desire and yearning. Scorpio Ascendants who marry early may change their mind around age 40. Those who marry later tend to see the scope of the marriage change significantly around this age.

Since the 7th House represents intimate friends, this aspect of life is also influenced by the Taurus Ascendant. Expect these people to have at least a few life-long intimates with whom they have been friends since childhood.

Capricorn is on the 3rd House cusp, meaning that these people tend to have significant limitations in relationships with one or more of their siblings.

Aquarius is on the 4th House – there will be a sense of detachment regarding the home. Those with Aquarius on the 4th House tend to hire housekeepers or home-office managers. With the exceptional, one-of-a-kind quality that sometimes shows up on the house with the Aquarius cusp, these folks may at some point in their life own a unique, out-of-the-ordinary home. They also tend to be detached from the idea of old age in themselves, or they may enjoy some unusual or remarkable experiences in old age.

Pisces is a nice one to have on the 5th House, according to Kempton-Smith’s model. Lovers and children are the ones to whom these people are kind, and the generosity and love is returned in some way from these people as well.

With Aries on the 6th House cusp, they will want to be the boss of their daily activities – more evidence of a tendency to be self-employed or “in control” of the work environment. They may also exert firm control over diet or exercise, so they may experience how diet and exercise controls them. Recall that there is a “recycling” quality to the energy of both Pisces and Aries, perhaps because these two signs govern the ending and the beginning of the zodiac.

With Gemini on the 8th House cusp, these folks are likely to be determined materialists. They rarely do only one life insurance policy or tax shelter. Having Cancer on the 9th House cusp suggests a strong desire to nurture or be nurtured through higher education or long distance travel. This association is open to a number on interpretations, anything from the person who takes a vacation to attend cooking school, to the professor who is well-liked by his graduate student assistants or interns.

With Virgo on the 11th House cusp, the Scorpio Ascendant can offer invaluable counsel, because their talent for analytical insight is directed at colleagues, acquaintances, and the Internet community (all represented by the 11th House). Their knack for criticism is directed to the same place, making these people talented observers of the social scene – friends and colleagues who benefit from the Scorpio’s wisdom may also need to be alert to the Scorpio Ascendant for other reasons.

***

Now that you have seen a couple of profiles using Kempton-Smith’s approach to the house cusps, it should be fairly easy for you to scan your own horoscope and determine its validity. Personal notes from readers on their observations would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think.

SOURCE
Kempton-Smith, Debbi,Secrets of a Stargazer's Notebook,Topquark Press, 1999.

Astrology Secrets of the Fashion Industry

2010-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how the fashion industry seems to pick the same new “in” colors every couple of seasons? The industry does it based on the upcoming sign that Jupiter will be in, and they’re amazingly consistent about it from year to year, because major retailers are conformist by nature, and the “Jupiter color” sells really well.

WHAT’S NEYTERI FROM AVATAR DOING HERE?

Neyteri is a cool blue girl-kitty, but check out the green on her necklace. A lot of cool shades of green, everything from Irish green to sea green, has been in style during Jupiter’s very brief transit of Pisces in the winter and spring of 2010.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

A lot of people in the fashion industry do follow astrology fairly closely, and are aware of what colors are associated with a particular Jupiter sign. But a lot of other people just have an intuitive sense of what colors are going to be popular. The consumer makes the final decision, and certain colors seem to “resonate well” with a majority of buyers at certain times. What is interesting is that these colors can be predicted astrologically.

In the fashion industry, this is known as "color forecasting". This article shows the entire cycle, so that you can always be aware of what colors are going to be "in season".

SO TELL ME, WHAT COLOR WILL BE “IN” THIS SUMMER?

Jupiter will be in Aries this summer, and it is going to stay in this sign for about eighteen months, so every shade of red is going to be popular, everything from orange-y, pomegranate red to waitress-y, nail polish scarlet. The Mars-like Aries is all about red, and you may even see some of the burgundy and wine red shades associated with Jupiter in Scorpio several years ago come back “in” now. Since Jupiter will be in Aries for a while, those of you who love red will be in for a treat. Knitters and crafters should snap up that red yarn or fabric, because Jupiter will be in Aries long enough for them to craft a garment and actually get some wear out of it before the sign shifts out of Aries at the end of 2011.

WHY DID WE SEE SO MUCH ELECTRIC BLUE AND ORANGE RECENTLY?

Think back over the past year and a half. All the fashion magazines were showcasing these vivid blues and neon gold-oranges in everything from coats to accessories. Very “electric” colors – they either looked great on you, or you got sick of them and couldn’t wait for something else. On the color wheel, I’m an “autumn”, so I was snapping up the various shades of orange at Target (lots of peachy oranges, in my case). Jupiter was in Aquarius for a while with its retrograde activity, so the fashion industry invested strongly in these colors because they knew they could count on several consecutive seasons.

DOES THE FASHION INDUSTRY RECYCLE CERTAIN COLORS EVERY FEW YEARS OR SO?

It does in some cases. Jupiter in Pisces is associated with watery greens, but a lot of blue shades also predominate, which may be one subconscious reason why the movie Avatar did so well. Just a couple of years from now, Jupiter in Taurus will also be identified with blue, robin’s egg blue and baby blue, in particular. And roughly seven years from now, all sorts of pastels are associated with Jupiter in Libra, but cornflower blue and lavender tints are said to predominate.

The astrology behind it is fairly easy to understand. Venus is associated with blue, which may be one reason why some feel the Virgin Mary is often depicted wearing a blue robe. Venus is exalted in Pisces, and a co-ruler of Taurus and Libra, so her color has a very strong impact on our collective subconscious at least three different times during a twelve year Jupiter cycle. This happens even more often if one takes variations like the “electric blue” of Jupiter in Aquarius into account.

WHY DOES IT ALL HINGE ON JUPITER?

Not sure, but Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and it does show where we like to spend our money.

***

WHAT DOES THE ASTROLOGICAL COLOR ZODIAC LOOK LIKE?

When Jupiter is in Mars-ruled signs, red predominates. Jupiter’s location in signs that Venus rules or is exalted in brings in the blues. Jupiter’s location in its own sign of Pisces or in its exaltation sign of Cancer puts the focus on green, while yellow and gold show up in Aquarius, Gemini, and Leo. All of the colors of the rainbow are represented, but an attempt to link corresponding colors with signs ruled by a particular planet is only partially successful. There are quirky exceptions, as will be shown below.

ARIES

Every shade of red, from orange-red to bright lipstick reds to reds that are almost magenta. I’m not sure if this is going to include the stronger shades of pink as well, but we’ll find out soon enough, because Jupiter hits Aries this June, and the fashion industry often has the “Jupiter color” on the shelves a month or two early.

TAURUS

With Jupiter in this sign, delicate shades of blue, like robin’s egg blue, do very well.

GEMINI

All the yellows come out to play. You’ll see it on sheets, towels, and underwear too, since a lot of white people don’t like to wear yellow too close to the face. Blacks and Asians have so many gorgeous shades to pick from during this phase, although inevitably, a number of them will also say that yellow doesn’t look good near the face. Gemini needs everyone to keep an open mind, though. True brunettes look great in bright yellow tops, as do black women with blonde highlights. The home decorating magazines have a field day with the “Jupiter color”, so look for yellow mixer to yellow wallpaper to entire interiors redone in yellow or yellow accents.

CANCER

A lot of the greens that we saw when Jupiter was in Pisces get recycled when Jupiter hits its sign of exaltation in Cancer. Look for the same sea greens that are popular right now while Jupiter is in Pisces, as well as teals and other cool greens like jade green.

LEO

Look for bursts of intense colors like orange, orange-gold, and every shade of gold from honey to tawny gold. Leo likes to stand out and draw attention. Jupiter is in a fire sign, and nobody ought to forget it. Once again, look for a lot of these colors in home décor and wall accents, because some consumers balk at wearing these colors.

Retailers also know that a lot of consumers can’t drape themselves in these colors at work, so you will see a lot of the “Jupiter color” in accessories when Jupiter is in a fire sign. You will also see a lot of neutral gray suits showcasing the “Jupiter color” in a tie or chemise, or winter outfits that use a bright scarf in the “Jupiter color”.

VIRGO

Virgo is one of those interesting signs that does not have a particular color family associated with it. You will see a lot of earth tones, like browns and dark greens (forest greens and evergreens). But you will also see a lot of pure whites and contrasting blacks and classy grays, because Virgo is associated with a “clean, pure” look. Soft greens and blues also seem to show back up in Virgo and do well. This is a great time to recycle the stuff you have in these colors that you haven’t worn for years. It’s also a great time for the folks who never seem to do anything but earth tones and grays, and the crowd that wears black can let their credit cards recover for a while.

LIBRA

This sign is all about pastels. Notice that even folks who don’t like pastels will buy them now, and then wonder why they got stuck with them once Jupiter has left this sign. In her book on Jupiter signs, Madalyn Alsan mentions cornflower blue and lavender in particular. Look for pastel pinks and flowered pink dresses to bring out Venus at her most feminine when Jupiter hits this sign.

SCOPRIO

Anyone who knows anything about astrology can guess the colors that are going to do well in Scorpio. Look for lots of black, blood reds, wine reds, and burgundies.

SAGITTARIUS

The fire signs are associated with fiery colors, but Jupiter takes a bit of a color detour in the sign that it rules. Jupiter is known for royalty (Zeus was the king of the gods). So it should be no surprise that the “royal purple” dominates this period. This is THE phase to buy that deep purple anything that you have always wanted, or to dye your hair black to complement all these rich purples that you would never otherwise wear. Be aware that deep purples are very susceptible to being “last year’s color” once Jupiter has left this sign, though.

CAPRICORN

Solid, conservative blacks and grays rule this sign. Every shade of gray on the color palette is snapped up by the fashion industry now, from granite gray to charcoal to silver. This is appropriate in the sign of Jupiter’s debilitation, since black, white, and the resulting blend which is gray are not technically considered colors.

One of the nice things about Jupiter in this phase is that quality gray pieces you buy now will last for years, and you can accessorize them with the crazy neon blues and oranges of upcoming Jupiter in Aquarius. The author still has the beautiful gray coat she snapped up at Target while Jupiter was in this phase a few years ago, and she still gets complements on it.

AQUARIUS

The colors of electricity and fire show up in this air sign because of its strong link to Uranus and electricity. Electric blue, electric orange, and orange-gold dominate the scene now, particularly in accessories. Amber jewelry does very well now – the etymology of amber may be associated with electricity because the word for amber in Greek is “elektron”.

In the photo to the left, Malia and Sasha Obama are pictured with their aunt, Maya Soetoro-Ng.

According to news reports, Michelle Obama allowed her daughters to pick out the colors they would wear to their father’s inauguration. Malia unconsciously opted for a brilliant blue J Crew coat that epitomized Jupiter-in-Aquarius fashion sense. Sasha chose a pink coat, and accessorized with a vivid orange scarf, which just happens to be the other color in the Jupiter-in-Aquarius duo. Both girls were a hit, and J Crew in Georgetown sold out of both coats the day after the Inauguration.

PISCES

Watery blues and greens predominate, but look for a range of greens now. The people I know who love green often remark that they haven’t been able to find a green they like for so long, and these folks will often shell out for a big ticket item like a green coat or jacket now. These folks are right – green gets overlooked by the fashion industry between Jupiter in Virgo and Jupiter in Pisces, in my experience.

***

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

Madalyn Aslan mentions that the color associated with one’s natal Jupiter often has a special resonance for some people. My own experience suggests there is something to this, particularly in a sign where Jupiter is strong. Among the people I know with a number of focal planets in Sagittarius, there seems to be more than a bit of the need to lead, a propensity for the red hair, and a strange attraction to the color purple, even if they don’t wear it very often. One guy I know is a red-headed, Renaissance fair type who has his favorite purple robe – not too many people I know would chose to wear it in their primary profile photo on Facebook, but this guy does.

QUICK RECAP OF THE COLOR CYCLE

Beginning with Jupiter in Aries, the cycle seems to follow the colors of the rainbow until the Big J gets to Virgo, where it becomes associated with a bouquet of different colors. Why Jupiter goes AWOL in Virgo is beyond me - perhaps consumers are so picky under Virgo that retailers give up!

The rainbow theme is picked back up once Jupiter enters Libra, but it skips a beat with its entrance into Scorpio. The rainbow theme is resumed and finally completed when Jupiter enters Sagittarius.

JUPITER IN ARIES
All shades of red. (Starts summer of 2010, and these colors are already in the stores.)

JUPITER IN TAURUS
Delicate shades of blue (Starts in 2012, if you knitters and sewers want to get a "leg up".)

JUPITER IN GEMINI
Every shade of yellow.

JUPITER IN CANCER
Mellow greens.

JUPITER IN LEO
Oranges and gold-oranges.

JUPITER IN VIRGO
Deep greens and browns (and other earth tones), soft blues and greens, crisp blacks and whites.

JUPITER IN LIBRA
All the pastels, but violets and lavenders in particular.

JUPITER IN SCORPIO
Burgundies and rich wine reds.

JUPITER IN SAGITTARIUS
True purples.

JUPITER IN CAPRICORN
Every shade of gray.

JUPITER IN AQUARIUS
Electric blue and bright orange or gold (the flame colors).

JUPITER IN PISCES
Watery greens and blues. (Occuring right now in Spring 2010, and you see a lot of these colors in the store).

SOURCE
Aslan, Madalyn.Jupiter Sign: How to Improve your Luck, Career, Health, Finances, Appearance and Relationships Through the New Astrology, Plume, 2004.

Sabian Symbols in Action: A Profile of Barack Obama

2010-01-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Most people know what the Sabian Symbols are – a trance revelation channeled by Elsie Wheeler, an early twentieth century spiritualist and clairvoyant, during one remarkable eight hour period at Balboa Park in San Diego, and recorded with the help of astrologer Marc Edmund Jones. Yet it still seems I get a lot of questions like, “What does this mean for me?” or “How DO you use them, anyway?”

One of the easiest ways to use the symbols is to match them up with the degrees of the planets for a given birthday, and use them to develop a profile. This turns out to be another way of looking at the natal chart – it gives you a “picture” of your subject that may be hinted at in the horoscope, but is often plain as day in the emerging Sabian profile. It takes a little practice at first, because some of the degree symbols are trickier to decode than others. But once you get the hang of it, you have a quick thumbnail that can be very handy in a flash – let’s say you’re dating a new love, and you have his or her birthdate from a Facebook page – check the Sabian degrees of his or her Jupiter and Saturn, and you will get quick insight into the major strength of their personality, and their most significant character flaw as well.

Let’s take a look at how this works. Each of the planets represents an important aspect of the personality in a Sabian Symbol context. Some of the planets are more useful than others, so let’s start there.

WHAT PLANETS CAN I SKIP?
I don’t use the Moon, because I’ve never been able to figure out what it means. Experienced readers who disagree on this should feel free to post a comment. The Moon’s placement is also tricky if you don’t have an accurate birth time (see below).

I also don’t look at Pluto or Neptune, because these are generational markers. Most people born in a given year share the same Pluto degree, and when everyone on earth partakes of the same Symbol, it becomes pretty worthless from an interpretive standpoint. The same is true for Neptune – everyone born in a given year will share one of two symbols, and few of us are exceptional enough to tap the unique energy of a symbol shared by so many others.

WHAT PLANET IS ONLY OCCASIONALLY RELEVANT?
I will look at Uranus for people who have been involved in spiritual communities of one form or another because experience tells me that the Sabian degree of Uranus is more relevant for these folks than it is for the average Joe. Uranus is a “higher level” planet relating to the collective, and many people access that “higher level” energy through spirituality, so those involved in spiritual collectives of many kinds may tap the Uranian energy of their age cohort. Dedicated members of churches, cults, covens, activist groups like PETA, or certain tight-knit political organizations with a spiritual or religious agenda should check this degree. Somebody who merely goes to church on Sunday or watches Glenn Beck on Fox News should skip it.

GREAT, SO WHAT PLANETS ARE LEFT, AND WHAT DO THEY MEAN?
Sun – Tells you something fundamental about the person. It may describe their profession, or their nature. This symbol may be a strength or a challenge, depending on other factors.

Mercury – Tells you something about their ability to communicate, or what they hope to communicate with others during their time in this incarnation.

Venus – Tells you something about this individual’s style of loving, or spotlights an issue that recurs for them repeatedly in intimate relationships.

Mars – Tells you something about motivation and drive, and what the person is working toward in this lifetime. Many people don’t express this symbol distinctly, because they are “working toward it” rather than firmly manifesting it.

Jupiter – Tells you something about what comes easiest for this person, their special gift or talent. All of the Sabian Symbols have a dual energy, which means their expression ranges from positive to negative, but Jupiter almost always leans towards a positive expression.

Saturn - Tells you something about this person’s lifelong weakness or highlights an area of particular challenge. This may be a character flaw, a catastrophic personal event, or occasionally, a problem with the way the individual is perceived by their peers or by the public. A few rare lucky people will actualize Saturn as a strength, but most of us must face up to the negative expression of this symbol.

***
One of the nice things about doing a Sabian profile is that the time of birth is relatively unimportant – this is another reason why I don’t use the degree of the Moon, which moves up to eight degrees a day. Unless you are very certain of the birth time, the degree of the Moon on a public figure or celebrity can be more confusing than it’s worth. Mercury also moves quickly enough so that it can change degrees depending on the time of day on a given birth date. If you aren’t certain of your subject’s birth time, you may need to try out a couple of degrees for Mercury, and find the best fit.

This astrological technique works even without a confirmed location of birth, which is important if your subject was born to nomads on a moving camel in the middle of the Sahara, or if his place of birth is called into question by naysayers looking for a technicality that could deny him the Presidency.

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961. His Sun is at 12 degrees Leo, and the relevant symbol is “An Evening Garden Party of Adults”. This symbol is his foundation symbol, since the Sun was on this degree at the time of his birth. “An Evening Garden Party” is all about networking, getting to meet new people, develop new ideas, and “bringing new depths to relationships and community”, according to Lynda Hill, one of my favorite Aussie astrologers. It so happens that Barack Obama started out as a “community organizer”, a term which means different things to people who support or oppose him politically, so this degree is a very close “fit” for who he was at the beginning of his career.

Lynda Hill puts an emphasis on progressing the Sun, which means looking at the degree that follows the birth symbol. Obama’s Sun progresses to Leo 13, “An Old Sea Captain Rocking on the Porch of His Cottage”. One of the keywords which Hill suggests for this symbol is memoirs. The old sea captain is looking back over his life, and figuring out how he fits into the big picture, perhaps by jotting down his memoirs. It is striking how literal a depiction this is of Obama, who first came to national public attention for publishing two memoirs that aimed to explain to people why a black man would seek the Presidency.

OBAMA’S MERCURY
Obama’s Mercury is Leo 2, “An Epidemic of Mumps”. This symbol talks about something racing through a population, or raging through a chain of friends, like an epidemic that is spreading farther and farther afield. Obama was able to harness the power of this symbol very shrewdly in terms of using the Internet during his campaign to further his “message”, or the ideas he wanted most to convey to his public. Obama was very lucky to get his Mercury on a Sabian degree associated with rapid-fire communication – the word-of-mouth on his books and his Internet presence are what cinched the Presidency, in large part.

OBAMA’S VENUS
His Venus is on 1 Cancer, “On a Ship Sailors Lower An Old Flag and Raise A New One”. This symbol talks about a changing of the guard. It talks about making really big changes in one’s personal life, and about taking a public stand about one’s change in loyalties (literally raising the flag and letting everyone know).

My interpretation of the meaning is speculative – I am not privy to Obama’s private life. But I suspect this has something to do with leaving the white grandparents who raised him behind, and embracing a black identity in college and in law school, as well as his decision to marry an African-American woman.

OBAMA’S MARS
His Mars is on 22 Virgo, “A Royal Coat of Arms Enriched With Precious Stones”. This symbol is all about becoming a king, and joining the elite. Its about getting aristocratic status, an Ivy League education, and wealth no matter what your origins were. Although many of us don’t manage to access the full scope of power inherent in our Mars symbol, Obama did.

The downside to this symbol is class consciousness, elite school snobbery, and having “servants” who do everything. Interestingly, Obama’s wife, Michelle, has taken more public flak for this than the President has. Her own horoscope shows a very strong drive to become a member of the American black elite, but her Sabian profile shows greater challenges with handling the public’s perception of her ambition.

OBAMA’S JUPITER
His Jupiter is on 0 Aquarius, which is read as 30 Capricorn in Lynda Hill’s wonderful book, 360 Degrees of Wisdom. The symbol is “Directors of a Large Firm Meet in Secret Conference”.

This was the very first symbol that I checked for Obama when I was looking at his candidacy, and chills went through my spine when I saw it, because it is a fairly sinister symbol. This symbol is all about deliberately withholding information in order to maintain power by secrecy, and about the ability to make successful backroom deals.

It is a strong symbol for Obama, and we have seen it in action when it came to getting an extremely overdue health care package for the American people. Obama managed to “buy off” the AMA and the pharmaceutical bad boys, which left only the insurance industry as a huge obstacle. He also had the sense to move fast in his first term – witness the power of his Mercury degree in synergy with this degree. He will almost certainly use the power of this symbol to as much damage-control as he can on the upcoming Republican backlash to his policies.

OBAMA’S SATURN
His Saturn is on 25 Capricorn, “An Oriental Rug Dealer in a Store Filled With Precious Ornamental Rugs”. A rug merchant is a canny dealer, who always gets the best deal for himself. People can and do react negatively to the “used car salesman” quality of this symbol, but a rug merchant knows how to think on his feet. Republicans have felt the energy of Obama’s Saturn strongly – nearly every editorial about Obama in Republican newspapers I have read focuses on this theme.

***

A FEW OTHER OBSERVATIONS ABOUT OBAMA’S PROFILE
His symbols are strongly grounded in material ambition – there are no overtly spiritual or otherworldly symbols in his profile, except perhaps for the final progressed symbol for his Sun, a symbol I did not address earlier. This final symbol is Leo 14, “Cherub-Like, A Human Soul Whispers Into Every Receptive Ear, Seeking to Manifest”. Obama will mesh strongly with the energy of this symbol as he grows older. Expect to see it once he has retired from the Presidency.

Obama’s symbols mesh well together. The foundation symbol of his
Sun, Leo 12, “An Evening Garden Party of Adults” is reinforced by the Jupiter symbol, Capricorn 30, “Directors of a Large Firm Meet in Secret Conference”. Both represent adroit communicators. These two symbols get a boost from a powerful third symbol with similar associations, his Mercury at Leo 2, “An Epidemic of Mumps”, effectively giving him a triple whammy, which likely confers an advantage in terms of professional success.

***

TIPS FOR WORKING WITH THE SABIAN SYMBOLS
If you don’t know the person well, but have a birth date, checking out the degrees of their Jupiter and Saturn can give you some quick, useful insight. Let’s say you have a passion for astrology, but start dating someone who has a Saturn symbol on Pisces 28, “A Fertile Garden Under a Full Moon”. This degree is all about New Age beliefs symbolized by the “Full Moon”. It can also refer to gardening, earth conservation, and vegetarianism symbolized by the “Garden”. Unless this person has a highly spiritual Jupiter symbol, he or she isn’t going to be such a great match, and if you see it quickly, it can help you to detach graciously.

Another thing I have noticed is that gender matters on the foundation symbol of the Sun, in some cases. If the symbol references a woman, for example, it will often affect women who have their natal Sun on this degree more strongly than it will affect men. A woman with her foundation symbol on 24 Capricorn, “A Woman Entering a Convent”, is going to be more introverted and more likely to withdraw from society than a man with a foundation symbol on the same degree.

When working with adolescents and young adults, keep in mind that the Sabian symbols for their Jupiter and Saturn may not be immediately apparent to you or to them, in some cases. These symbols become more obvious over time, and by the time a young person has reached his or her mid-twenties, you will usually be able to interpret the symbols in a personal context. In my experience, Saturn is the hardest to interpret for a young person, because Saturn is associated with age. With some children, though, all the symbols seem to show up early.

The foundation symbol of the Sun, and the degrees for Mercury and Venus will be apparent from the time the child is young, and adolescents normally relate well to interpretation of these degrees. The degree of the progressed Sun often does not show up until the native is in his or her mid-thirties, and the degree of the final progressed Sun typically only reveals itself in late middle-age.

***

If this article has given you a better understanding of the Sabian Symbols and how they can be used to develop a natal profile, I would totally appreciate feedback in the form of your comments.

SOURCE
Lynda Hill.360 Degrees of Wisdom: Charting Your Destiny With the Sabian Oracle, Penguin Group, 2004.

The Real Meaning of Immortality

2010-01-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

Ode to Immortality
William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home
Heaven lies about us in our infancy,
Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy
But he beholds the light and whence it flows
He sees in its joy;
The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the common light of day.

Whether or not Wordsworth intended it, this poem lends itself to astrological interpretation. It seems to suggest that fate is determined in the 12th house, also known as the prison-house, before birth. That house closes in early childhood, but an imaginative child may still perceive it. The youth who travels “daily farther from the east” suggests a progression away from the Ascendant, which is established at birth, and sets fate into motion. The “vision splendid” is the promise of early adulthood that is delineated in a western horoscope, and also in the Vedic rasi and navamsa, or marriage chart. The idea that many people have lived out much of the fate by the onset of middle age (early forties) is expressed in the two final lines – at length, the events dictated by fate are used up as a less predetermined energy, or “common light” influenced by the karma of actions in this life, becomes more important.

Wedding Dates Made Simple - No Astrology Smarts Necessary!

2010-01-04T06:20:00.000-08:00

Try choosing a wedding date astrologically, and you quickly find out how convoluted and variable-ridden astrology can be. You’re supposed to consider the Moon’s position, and maybe you should be checking transits on your composite chart, or an evil eclipse may spike its heel in an otherwise perfect date. Love and marriage is supposed to go together like a horse and carriage, you might be thinking, so what is all this?

Or you could just throw out everything you’ve ever read or heard about finding the “right” date, and get the most accessible book on Sabian symbols, which is probably Lynda Hill’s 360 Degrees of Wisdom. Pick a date that feels right to you, and enter that date onto any free Internet website (try typing “free birth chart” in Google) to get the degree of the Sun for that date. Then look at the Sabian symbol for that degree. If it feels like this symbol embodies everything leading up to your marriage, this is the right date.

Don’t shy away from a date with a Sabian symbol that appears negative at first glance. Be honest with yourselves – this may accurately describe the background events in the air during the months preceding your wedding. At least one partner should have an “a-ha” moment with regard to the symbol, and it will frequently resonate for both of you. Voila! The simplest and easiest way to pick a wedding date.

Then take a look at the following two degrees – this represents events or qualities that will take shape in the month or months after the wedding. Here you can pick and choose a little, for some futures will undoubtedly seem more attractive than others, but you should still select a foundation date that matches your circumstances most closely. The point of getting married is to be true to yourselves. On occasion, the subsequent degrees may carry some obvious hints for the correct foundation degree. If the second image is describing the Tulieries Garden, and you have already planned a honeymoon in Paris, pay attention.

Here are a couple of true-life examples to get you started. One of my friends selected a wedding date that corresponded with Gemini 6. As soon as I read her the Sabian symbol and interpreted the “fit”, she recognized her own situation instantly. Gemini 6 (Workmen Drilling For Oil) is about the drive to plumb the depths in order to come up with a reward. All of the Sabian symbols have dual energy, something that is also true of planets, asteroids, numbers, you name it. The dark side of this symbol is immediately obvious. It speaks of gold-digging, and making a fortune through the resources of others. She was marrying a wealthy older man. In the months leading up to the wedding, it didn’t matter how the couple perceived themselves. The point was that so many people around her perceived the gold-digging appearance of her marriage.

But the subsequent degrees held out a lot of hope. The next image, Gemini 7 (An Old-Fashioned Well with the Purest and Coldest of Waters) speaks of drawing on deep and sustaining resources, and links to the past. It infers an old-fashioned marriage that both partners might see as a refreshing oasis - a tall, cool glass of something rejuvenating. The last image, Gemini 8 (Strikers Surrounding A Factory), suggests what they would learn from the marriage - negotiation and plenty of give-and-take.

And this is, in fact, what happened. They’re both strong communicators who take turns being a “striker” or being “management”, shoring up wisdom as they seek common ground. Now this friend offers ME relationship advice.

Sometimes the Sabian symbols will be more apparent to a couple’s friends or family, even if the couple doesn’t perceive the “fit”. Married folks who are reading this article and looking up their date only to think, “This sure wasn’t us,” ought to get a second opinion from the “mom-law” or close friend. In my own experience, one former friend who was getting married had Sagittarius 22 (A Chinese Laundry) as the next symbol after her foundation symbol. Sure enough, she cleaned house and cleared out all her friends who weren’t “good enough” once she was married, a tactic that hurt her former Musketeers more than she would ever know or care.

If you’re picking a date, keep in mind that it is rare to find three consecutive Sabian images whose positive connotations will seem immediately apparent. If two of them seem positive and relevant, that’s a good sign. The last one may be a little secret for after the wedding (why get married if there are no surprises?). Also remember that you will likely deal with the positives and negatives of all three symbols. Life is like that. It’s why the traditional marriage vow is “for better or for worse”.