(dedicated to all my poetic sisters–Judith and Andrea in particular)
As Mercury and Mars moondance backwards (Retrograde) ————–and in the midst of rethinking everything it seems—we are blessed with the sight in the east of Lady of the Stars–VENUS. She shines brightly in the Eastern Sky in the 7 sisters—the Pleiades…Stars in the back of the Bull.
Quoting from Dr.Bernadette Brady on Facebook April 2nd, 2012
The above image is from NASA – A bright Venus entering, or I (Bernadette) would say, radiating, the Pleiades on the 31 March 2012. This is exact tonight – 2 April 2012. Lovely. Its meaning astrologically is an emphasis on the Pleiades which is symbolised by the fixed star Alcyone. All that is mysterious, visionary and mystical, a good night to dream those big dreams!
Bernadette writes (via Starlight program) of Venus and Alcyone:
A Love of theatre or the rituals of religion: the poetic soul
So if your skies are cloudy and you can’t see her or even if you can—I am thinking that this Venusian appearance radiating a particularly powerful constellation and brilliant star (Alcyone) honors and perhaps gives Adrienne Rich a marvelous memorial–for she too, is and will always be a fine woman and a poetic soul. My guess is Venus is holding a service for her tonight.
We have only to look up and perhaps light a candle or two.
Venus enters the Pleiades tonight, this is a image from NASA from the 31 March.
If people are interested here is a Visual Astrology Newsletter we wrote in June 2008 about retrograde Venus where she creates a far larger cycle then that of 8 years but rather of 243 years.
Well, folks, it’s finally here: that (in)famous year of many prophecies—ranging from the catastrophic
Charon whipping the damned into Hell
to the exalting. One of the most thoughtful little takes on the subject comes from a British contributor to the articles in my Astro Diary:
“Whatever the accuracy or relevance of the…predictions, I am nevertheless extremely impressed by the eagerness with which we have latched onto the whole idea. I believe it [the eagerness] is symptomatic of an awareness, resonating deep within the collective, that we cannot continue in accustomed ways.
“Western astrological methodologies are sufficient in themselves to indicate that we are currently living through revolutionary times, akin to the threshold of a new season.” (emphasis mine) –Tchenka
The threshold of a new season. The threshold of a new season! A threshold that will last for three years, because the main aspect between planets which has built this threshold is a 90-degree square between
UranusPluto in Capricorn
Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn.
And they will open this door seven times now and 2015! The door will be fully operational for the first time in June and again in September this year, at around 8 and 7 degrees of the respective signs.
Hans Baker (also writing in my Astro Diary) terms this “the revolutionary imperative”. Many of my friends’ conversations these days revolve around the hope that they won’t be completely destroyed in the upcoming upheavals.
And yet…
How many of you have walked out in late winter and suddenly sensed that the wind felt different, that it carried hints of warmth and moisture? Or noticed the flush on formerly ashen twigs at the tips of tree branches? Or noticed the first bits of vegetation poking through leaf mold on the forest floor? Or that it’s not pitch black in the morning when you go out to retrieve the paper from the slop in the driveway? Yes, it’s still wet and raw and soggy and frigid and there’s a long slog of crummy weather ahead, but you can feel the shift beginning to gather force. And you long for this shift, you hunger for it, for the new life that is stirring, readying to burst forth.
How can you ready yourself to receive the new life that could burst forth in you? Well, taking a clue from the planets of the revolutionary imperative, you can do something really game-changing (Uranus) that will help eliminate (Pluto) old crap you no longer need. Yeah, I know you’ve heard this line before and I can even feel myself stiffen up inside against the expected pain of deciding what to toss and what to keep.
But I propose that the truly revolutionary, Uranian, concept you can embody involves not a struggle to become conscious of all that might be tossed or kept and agonized over in the process, but in becoming conscious of the utterly magical, completely natural, Plutonic processes that already exist within you, constantly deciding what to toss and keep, purifying you, preserving your life by getting rid of the outworn, the toxic, the unneeded. And the only times—the only times!—they fail to do so is when you’ve done something to wreck their function, whether it’s taking in too many toxins or trying to interfere with their function because of social embarrassment.
How about…your lungs for example? “Every breath you take”—well, actually, every breath you let out—cleanses you. And it’s not just your lungs doing this job! Oh no—how about your…sinuses? Magical holes within your head (ruled by Aries, the sign currently inhabited by Uranus) that are in constant clean-up mode. Magical nose hairs, catching all kinds of crud to keep it out of your lungs. We blow our noses in the morning and think, “Yuck! Disgusting!” but the maligned body parts that produced our snot are utterly magical.
Or how about…your skin? What a beautiful, Capricornian thing, skin! It protects and defends you and flushes toxins out through its pores. The next time you cringe at the sight of a pimple or worry about how your sweat smells, or feel painfully embarrassed by being soaked in sweat, realize the magic taking place as it strives to purify you from within. When the first summer heat comes on, I’m often miserable for the first two days. Then, suddenly, it’s as if my body “remembers” how to clear itself via sweating. And suddenly I feel all better, covered in stinky dew but so much less clotted and congested.
Okay, the liver and the kidneys are naturals as well, no? Many medical traditions set great store by keeping these organs in top form. But did you ever stop to consider the miracle of the bladder? The kidneys are often considered the more “valuable” part of the system, but let’s not forget the part that labors day-in-and-day-out against the force of gravity. Which leads us, finally, to the organ most frequently associated with Plutonic elimination, the colon. Well no: not finally. Medical traditions also recognize the value of a healthy colon but think about the endpoint of the colon, the body part we use as a slang term for a really malignant idiot, a total jerk. We don’t refer to such a person as a sinus, a nose hair, a kidney, a bladder, a sweat gland. We call such a person an asshole.
Titania with Nick Bottom (whose head is now a donkey)
Here, then, is your revolutionary assignment to ready yourself for the new season: stop using the word “asshole” as an insult. To be more imaginatively insulting, try emulating, maybe, Hamlet who referred to his uncle, Claudius, as “a mildewed ear”. (Actually, Shakespeare has a wonderful catalogue of such body-part insults that could be redeployed to good effect; there’s even a website to help you create your own.)
Rodin's Thinker on the throne
Instead, bless your asshole (*BYA). Thank your asshole with heartfelt sincerity every time you sit down on the porcelain throne of the god (never realized you had divine thrones and altars to Pluto, the Lord of Elimination, so critical to your domiciles, did you?). Especially thank your asshole when you know you’ve ingested that which made its work that much harder. Because that which your asshole relieves you of is also Plutonically magical and, after transformation, can be used to help the new life of the new season—and your life—thrive.
Therefore, be not deaf, thou gleeking, tickle-brained, jolthead! BYA!!
I said that to my friend and colleague, Margaret Gray, yesterday while bemoaning the transits of our times and the fact that even though I’m doing all the right things, I haven’t lost a pound (and yes I’m working on that) in two months. Plus the economy is whako and…and… I said—out loud. Why me? I mean—I’ve been good. Actually I was impersonating Bill Cosby impersonating Noah and God.
–Call me intuitive or smart or in touch with the divine, but I just know Noah had to have been born near the constellation Capricornus carrying the story of the Sea Goat–that ever so practical animal in the night sky who would tell the people how to handle hard times like floods and such. Or maybe Noah had some planet in the mid degrees of Taurus and heard a voice from the deep. Maybe Noah was being stared at by the monster from the black lagoon—the leviathan—the whale who ate Jonah—that whale (not Free Willy). That whale called Cetus. Ahhhhhh maybe that is it.
Is that you, Cetus? Collage C.Johnson 2010
Bernadette Brady describes Cetus in the Starlight Program as:
According to the Greeks, Cetus is the sea monster who was sent to devour Andromeda. Perseus, however, saved her by using the severed head of Medusa which turned the sea monster to stone. But the stories of this whale in the sky seem to predate the Greek version. It has had various forms but it is always some aquatic beast that blows water from a blow hole. Cetus has been illustrated at times with a dog’s head and forelegs and with a mermaid-like tail. It would seem that this creature is more like the fresh water mythic creature the Loch Ness monster than a marine whale in that it represents an unknown beast from the depths rather than what we know as a gentle giant of the sea. Aratus in the 4th century B.C.E., referred to the constellation as: “the hateful Monster Cetus”. And Jobes referred to it as representing a monster “that rises from the dark nether sea with a ravenous appetite for humans”. Christian mythology saw this as the whale that swallowed Jonah, whereas the Arabs broke it into three separate constellations: The Hand, the Ostrich and the Necklace.
The Brightest star is Menkar, the nose or jaw of the whale.
Like all of us, I am trying to figure out how to maneuver through these times and how to assist my clients as the waters appear to be rising (think the new phrase referring to mortgages~ “my house is under water”.) And these times do indeed call for something akin to the building of an ark.
I mean when you look at the news or the transits — say Pluto squaring Uranus or Saturn squaring Uranus or Pluto opposing Saturn or…take your pick–I feel like Noah being given a job–build an ark! “Get the animals on board and stay on top of the waters and I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie sayeth the Lord!” (well I don’t know if that is biblical but it feels right)
I also identify with Noah’s disbelief that this could be happening–oh say with the economy or with riots or with the clear and present revolutions occurring–and I can feel as Noah did that he was being “put upon” — he was tired and frankly pissed that he has to “do something”. Remember this one?
Ri-i-ight–this isn’t a shower. It isn’t even personal. We are watching the earth and the structures that we might have thought stable tumble and wobble; people that we expected to bring wisdom and sanity scratch their heads in amazement at their inability to do so. And– Like Noah, I protest—hey I’m retired! I should be able to kick back and enjoy my golden years and not have to think about arks.
Ri-i-ight!
Noah says to God—and what about that mess down there in the ark?! Who’s gonna clean that up? awwwwwww man.
Heading to Starlight to see just what might be happening in the watery part of the heavens, I find Jupiter right smack dab in what Darrelyn Gunzberg has named: The Stare of Cetus. Hmmmmmm
Awhile ago, Bernadette Brady wrote in the Visual Astrology Newsletter a piece called “Saviors Need Not Apply” . The title alone caught my eye. (and that piece was about Jupiter in the sky stories). I was reminded then of that other eye –the eye of Cetus. Darrelyn Gunzberg has brought that one to the surface with her eloquent writing and fascinating inquiry into what that whale means for people and “the” people.
The ram of Aries shares his glory with no one and Cetus the Sea Monster is the unknown beast from the depths which can erupt bearing with it moments of great insight or chaos. When a planet/luminary passes through this area of the sky, then, depending on which planet/luminary that is, whilst it may imply independence or supremacy of an individual or a concept (in Aries, the Ram), it comes at a price, for it is trapped in the stare of the sea monster and there will be hidden issues which sit beneath it.
(does Bill Cosby have anything connected to that whale and were those riffs “messages” as only great comedians can impart?)
Well lookie here—Bill Cosby does have the brightest star in the whale in paran with Jupiter. Quoting from the report that Starlight can generate for one’s sky story:
Menkar-The Whale, with Jupiter in Foundation
Feast or famine, the fickleness of life
Menkar is the alpha star of Cetus the whale, and this whale represents the human collective unconscious, that can erupt like a beast from the deep bearing, with equal probability, moments of great collective insight, or chaos and mayhem. Symbolic of these unconscious forces, Menkar’s effect on your life, via its paran to Jupiter, can be difficult. However, the collective unconscious is not always evil or dark, it can also be great and glorious. Jupiter will soften the impact of this star, and indicates that if you follow your intuition and reach for the big picture your success can be based on popular support. This can result in many different expressions. The record breaking and successful sports person, the gifted teacher, or perhaps the lawyer who represents a large collective issue. This really is a stellar combination of feast or famine. If you aim high some of your ideas and plans will definitely become popular, but at other times you will fall from grace. Learn to ride the waves and the valleys.
And Cetus is staring at the wandering star Uranus in Bill Cosby’s sky story as well. As with many comedians — as with the Jester — the truth get told. Think the current Jon Stewart show where many of us now go for our news :)–and I’m not kidding.
There is revolution in the air. And Arks to be built. Yup. But as Noah says: um….what’s an ark?
Since I’m identifying with Noah today. This is getting interesting.
Another twist is that in the night sky story’s cast of characters — Jupiter is considered the Crown Prince. That is the part he plays on the silver screen. And as we said above, currently (like right now) Jupiter is “in the stare of Cetus”. So um…. Speaking of “crown princes” wonder who else in on “ark-duty”. Note to God: Call Barack. Tell him about the ark thing and that there is no compromise.
About an hour ago, I heard about a friend of ours who for the umpteenth time is in hospital–a broken bone–now needing Physical Therapy–(she is in good hands and will be ok)–and–She is Mega Taurus–with Cetus staring at her Moon, Uranus and Venus!!
This woman is amazing—she just takes the pain and inconvenience and suffering and transforms it into smiles and love for all–and I do mean ALL. She turns what is tough and chaotic into music and gratitude and courage. Frankly she is quite impressive and a grand example of how to manage that stare from the deep.
Plus she attracts the greats.
Recently we were all together at Teatro Zinzani’s celebrating Elaine’s 75th birthday and enjoying a grand evening
Elaine, Rhoberta, Claudia and Susan June2011
—seeing her chart, one is not surprised when Joan Baez picks her out of the crowd, walks over, takes her hand and sings to her. (now Elaine will be the first to tell you that that had happened before—with Joan herself at another event–yes–Joan Baez loves Elaine Levine. It is on a tree somewhere in the forrest.with a heart around it–carved. ).
Good work with that whale, girl. This song’s for you.
Ok…gang—-let’s go build some ark’s.
PS–Darrelyn recently wrote a very moving piece about Amy Winehouse and her life lived in the stare of Cetus in the July VAN (You can sign up to receive these newsletters at http://www.zyntara.com–well worth it!)
She writes: The eastern horizon
Additionally, rising in the east and lying above that eastern horizon and along it at the time of her birth was Cetus, the Sea Monster, carrying hidden issues from deep within the collective. Those issues found a ready voice in Winehouse. Lyrics that were intensely autobiographical, a voice that was suffused with gritty realism, the more complicated her personal life became, the more successful she became as an artist.[8]
It always feels, to me, as if the lunar eclipses are more conducive to feeling nutsoid than the solar eclipses. In solar eclipses a magical thing happens: at totality, one can look directly at the sun. In Egyptian and Hellenistic cultures, the Sun was associated with Divinity and Divine Purpose. Following this line of tradition the Sun, more than Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto or the Nodes, has to do with one’s spiritual purpose, the spark of divinity within. And when is the best time to get a glimpse of that? When the Moon, our nearest celestial neighbor, has protected us, when She has shielded our eyes sufficiently that we can gaze upon the Source of our magnificence without damage. Before the era of satellites and Hubble telescopes, astronomers eagerly awaited eclipses because it was then that they could learn the most about the sun. In the darkened sky during totality, one can get a visual handle on divine purpose.
It can be quite centering, as I learned when I witnessed my first eclipse in Hawaii in 1991. I had just abandoned Corporate America and was still quaking within, wondering what in heck I could possibly thinking of, to leave without the pension, the gold watch…but during the trip, gazing on the spectacle above I was spellbound. I could see solar prominences—93,000,000 miles away!—with my naked eye. And, upon returning from the trip, I suddenly found myself inwardly centered, still unsure how the rest of my life would unfold, but sure that I had done the right thing.
I married on a solar eclipse (one that occurred only 4 degrees away from where the sun will be when a lunar eclipse occurs on June 15!). Any electional astrologer would shudder with horror at such a thing, as I was to find out decades later. However, our marriage is now in its 37th year. Our first year together was extremely difficult, materially and emotionally, yet it never entered my head to abandon the course on which we had embarked. Again, I knew not what I was doing, really, or how it would turn out, only that I was somehow on the right path.
Ah, but lunar eclipses…may be very different animals altogether.
Even though Bernadette Brady’s first book to look at them extensively, The Eagle and the Lark, pairs lunar eclipses with the Saros Series numbers of nearby solar eclipses, she recently told me of an alternate measuring scheme for them. The first solar eclipse of any Saros series begins near either the north or south pole. However, while astronomers use this same method for organizing solar eclipse series that astrologers do, they treat lunar eclipses on their own terms. To astronomers, the first lunar eclipse of a given series begins with a lunar eclipse near the equator. Think about it: the initiation point of any solar eclipse series begins near an axis, a stable point, an anchor, as it were, around which the earth spins. But lunar eclipse series, under this definition, begin at a geophysical point of maximum centrifugal force, which, if not withstood by competing forces (Goddess bless gravity), will fling things far and wide into the great beyond.
Feel flung around a bit? Scattered to the four winds? Running in circles? Maybe the centrifugal force of an upcoming lunar eclipse is in play.
But wait—there’s more!
How many of you have watched a lunar eclipse?
You watch the moon slowly vanish from full to a tiny crescent to “new”, then to a waxing crescent and back to full. It’s as if a whole month had passed within a single night. Any month with a lunar eclipse in it has, symbolically, 60 days!
Feeling that your plate is a bit full? That all of a sudden there is far too much to accomplish in a standard 24-hour day? Well, no wonder! And you thought it was only because Uranus is in Aries…
As I write these words, I am preparing for an anniversary trip which will begin on the day of the lunar eclipse (in which the Sun is close to the degree of our marriage eclipse). And in the middle of typing this up, the phone rings. My spouse’s new boss demands that he be in Massachusetts for their first face-to-face the day after we are supposed to return from our vacation. Since we live in Washington state…okay, quick phone call to the ferry to reschedule our return sailing from Victoria, BC; mad dashing around on his part to get travel arrangements into place; I’ll have to drive him from Anacortes to SeaTac to hop a red-eye for Boston. Lunacy!
But! not everybody will be dashing to and fro. The reason this eclipse is affecting us is because the degree affects our marriage chart and both our birth charts. If you don’t have planets or chart angles in hard aspect to 24 Sagittarius/Gemini, sit back with your popcorn and giggle while you watch the rest of us fly around like bats out of wherever.
OH, BUT WAIT–THERE’S EVEN MORE
The Moon and Sun, in the eclipse chart, are both in paran to Ras Alhague, the head of the Great Healer, that infamous “13th Sign”, Ophiuchus. If you look at the Starlight map, you’ll see the Moon down near his foot.
And since these parans are Foundational (they are tied to the IC) a lasting effect of the eclipse may involve a breakthrough in mending things—what things to be mended? Whatever is relevant to the individual depending on where the eclipse falls in her/his chart. What houses do the signs Sagittarius and Gemini occupy? A balance point may be able to be struck that brings order back to one’s life, possibly not before things come apart, so to speak; after all, if you have too many things in the air, how long will it be before at least one goes crunch on the ground? The solution when the straw breaks the camel’s back is not to blame the camel, but to lighten its load—after you take the poor beast to the vet and get it well again.
Do you really need to have your own back broken before you say, “No more”?
Astrology is an ancient and intriguing discipline. I take it very seriously. One can learn about oneself, the cycles of one’s life, current events, history, cosmology, relationships. We can get all worked up over eclipses, transits and things that go bump in the night.
As an astrologer–it is my job to empower you as you explore possibilities, what to do at certain times or how to look forward and make responsible plans or look back at your life and make meaning out of the past. I think it is the astrologer’s job to offer assistance as you wander through life’s peaks and valleys. It is also my job (as I see it) to do my homework, work with integrity, study my craft, all the while weaving together the disciplines and research that allow us to experience aliveness, empowerment and an understanding of what it means to be human.
So–this week (upon returning from NORWAC–the Northwest Astrology Conference held in Seattle every year)—I am charged with the rather daunting task of sharing the wisdom I gained while studying my craft –
Question: What is the proper way to begin a conference and serious course of study?
Answer: by laughing your head off…
On Friday, Rick Tarnas conducted a seminar titled—The Comic Genius: An Archetypal Perspective
We spent the day watching various clips from Cleese’s Monty Python series and other comedians and entertainers. We looked at their charts–and frankly in this day and age of rather serious events and transits that indicate a momentous time in our history—-laughing and remembering the healing power of laughter was a gift from the Celestial Comedy Gods.
Tarnas pointed out Mercury and Marscontacts in Cleese’s chart speaking to the notion that the mind takes in information (I’m not quoting him exactly – just from my memory and notes) and then one must defend the ideas. Cleese thrives on the thrust and counter thrust—Tarnas noted that he generally begins his pieces with an argument—a contest.
Argument Clinic
Cleese also has a T-Square to Uranus and Tarnas points out that “best humorists—have a high Uranian component”—the trickster (Mercury ) saying that which is taboo (Uranus). Think about some of your Aquarian friends—they are often the ones who at some point in the meeting–point at the elephant in the room with an innocent expression—stopping us in our tracks, so to speak. Tricksters indeed.
John Cleese delivered a memorable memorial speech for Graham Chapman at a memorial service held two months later in the Great Hall at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Cleese delivered a humorous eulogy for his friend Chapman and took advantage of “this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf,” which he then went on to do.
Graham Chapman, co-author of the ‘Parrot Sketch,’ is no more.
He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky.
And I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, for such unusual intelligence, a man who could overcome his alcoholism with such truly admirable single-mindedness, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight before he’d achieved many of the things in which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.
Well, I feel that I should say, ‘Nonsense! Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard. I hope he fries.’ And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn’t. If I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. It’s not a funeral, I grant you, but a memorial service is still pretty good.
It is magnificent, isn’t it? You see, the thing about shock . . . is not that it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realized in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.
Well, Gray can’t do that for us anymore. He’s gone. He is an ex-Chapman. All we have of him now is our memories. But it will be some time before they fade.
Cheer up—you know what they say:
Tarnas pointed out that great comics have strong Sun / Saturn components in their charts. That is to say that the Sun and Saturn are in some aspect to each other or prominent by house or sign—they are, if you will, in ‘conversation’ and depending on the nature of the relationship it becomes apparent how the comedic archetype takes hold in their manner of delivery.
One example a classic Sun/Saturn comedian is Woody Allen who also has Jupiter in the mix such that even the expanding universe is cause for worry.
Colbert at Rally to restore sanity and/or fear 2010
Steven Colbert was born with the Saturn opposing Pluto conjoining Uranus era in 1964. This funny progressive liberal (Uranus) is a trickster cloaked as a conservative Fox News Commentator. He pretends to be the opposite of what he really thinks and says of himself. It is the only way he can stay sane—to laugh. He says if he didn’t – he’d cry. Did you see him at the Correspondent’s Dinner in 2006? Actually the clip watching Bush’s face is equally as interesting as the court jester speaks and shocks and gets away with it as only the court jester can do. (you can click on the chart for an enlarged image)
Only the best comics (Court Jesters) can pull it off. Tarnas played the clip of Colbert interviewing the head of Ploughshares (an anti-nuclear organization) — the interview itself is a poignant example of the current Saturn–Uranus-Pluto catastrophe. Colbert begins the interview and with a serious face asks if the head of Ploughshares will “at least admit that a nuclear explosion is awesome”
And I cannot forget my favorite Ernestine aka Lily Tomlin. Able to transform into character after character—the characters are real and have a structured presence as well as that Uranian shock effect. Tomlin was born under the 1939 Saturn Pluto square, has Mercury squaring Uranus and her Virgo Sun opposing Saturn. She can make us laugh at ourselves as she becomes aspects that we often want to hide, but never fail to recognize.
Here she is as Tommy Velour w/ Michael Jackson & Elizabeth Taylor 2009
Spent time today going off on my own for a while, looking at charts of people/friends I think are funny. I am seeing how Mercury and Uranus and Saturnine flavors are present in their charts. I see how those archetypes come alive when laughter just erupts around the dinner table.
Just think about when you are watching Jon Stewart (I don’t have his chart) or laughing with your friends as you or one of them says something that just has you almost on the floor. It is generally unexpected, taking you over and — then it begins to take hold and even if you wanted it to end…you just can’t stop——Laughing.
Laughter loosens up the body, the heart and the mind and I’ll bet we can find all kinds of medical reasons for it being a healthy thing to do – and do a lot. One of the people I laugh with on a regular basis is my sister, Peggy. We just think about each other and the jokes start coming. Sister jokes. My favorite kind! Best friend uncontrollable laughter often accompanied with trips down memory lane (Saturn) when something erupted and took over and we had to pull over to the side of the road if driving. Those times make life worth living, the comedic archetype and the astrological signatures worth looking at. A hell of a homework assignment for this student!
In honor of my Gemini sister and Gemini friends with whom I have shared a world of laughter here is a clip from Victor Borge. He was our grandmother Peggy’s favorite comedian—and since my funny sis, Peggy, has a birthday this month, I chose Borge to honor her and our Nanny Peggy. Borge was a Capricorn, a classical musician with his Sun conjoining Uranus, Mercury opposing Neptune.
Borge famously said: “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people”.
For thousands of years, we humans thought the Earth was the center of the universe — until we discovered we weren’t the center, and made the Sun our center, with our visible planets orbiting circularly around the Sun in a more or less flat plane.
Then we located the “outer planets”. Then we discovered that, in fact, we were one of a number of centers and satellites, or galaxies.
It took us a long time to discover all this, first by eye, then by telescope, but always by conjecture and theory.
As our understanding of the nature of our system took shape, our social structures evolved parallel to that understanding: centers with satellites translated into chiefs and subjects, popes and congregations, presidents and employees.
As our view expanded telescopically, we quested for the ultimate center, and we arrived at — emptiness, and the systems moving equidistantly from each other.
Pine Mountain Observatory Oregon
Robert Jastrow, space scientist and author of Until the Sun Dies notes:
“. . . if you were sitting on a planet in one of the other galaxies in the Universe, you would observe the galaxies around you receding in exactly the same way that an observer in our galaxy sees our neighbors moving away. Your galaxy would seem to be at the center of the expansion, and so would every other galaxy; but, in fact, there is no center.”
“To understand this statement more clearly, imagine a very large, unbaked loaf of raisin bread. Each raisin is a galaxy.
Now place the unbaked loaf in the oven; as the dough rises, the interior of the loaf expands uniformly, and all the raisins move apart from one another.
The loaf of bread is like our expanding Universe. Every raisin sees its neighbors receding from it; every raisin seems to be at the center of the expansion; but there is no center” (Jastrow 8-9).
Additionally, we have learned something else about the nature of centers and satellites.
When we think of the center of something, we often think of the dead center of it — e.g., that the center of the solar system is the center of the Sun.
But: “The mass of the planets is about 1/750th the mass of the Sun and the center of mass of the solar system can move from close to the center of the Sun to up to one solar radius outside the surface of the Sun! Where the solar system barycenter is at any given moment is determine by the configuration of planets as they revolve around the Sun” (Michelsen in Tables of Planetary Phenomena 16).
Motion of Barycenter of the solar system relative to the Sun
Watch:
This represents a paradigm shift in both scientific and social thinking — from universe as dependent functions of an ultimate center, to the universe as relational; from the atom to un-seeable space, everything is a center in relation to everything else, or omnicentricity. The internet is a concrete manifestation of the omnicentric principle — each a center connected to all centers, potentially, by volition and capability.
But our social systems have been slow to reflect our new understanding of the cosmos, and governance at all levels — nation, state and local — and social and family life continue to insist on a center around which everything satellites and from which the satellites derive their power.
In astrological symbolism, the planet Uranus represents the desire for freedom as an outcome of enlightenment: as such, it is associated archetypally with such mythic figures as Prometheus, the Greek titan who brought fire to humanity. Historically, Uranian cycles can be shown to indicate periods of human revolution, when the collective desire for freedom outweighs historically confining governance structures. Astrologer Lynn Bell, in her address to the astrological conference in Seattle in 2010, traced radical events when Uranus has previously entered and transited in the hot, fiery sign of Aries:
1258: the fall of Baghdad to Genghis Khan
1675: tax revolts in France against Louis XVI, Indian Wars in the colonies
1765: stamp tax revolt in the US
1848: revolutions across Europe
1927: Wall Street, mobsters, flappers, Gandhi and the Indian resistance
At the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami localized in Japan, 7 of our system’s 10 planets
were concentrated within 60 degrees of longitude of each other, with Uranus in Aries in the heart of the mass.
We are seeing in our time graphic expressions of our evolving consciousness about the relation of the mass to the center, and the power of the mass to move the center, with far reaching consequences for systems of governance and relationship.
Over 1 Million in Tahrir Square demanding the removal of the regime and for Mubarak to step down February 9, 2011 6 46 PM
In our own lives, expressed in the symbolism of the horoscope.
Looking for the house and planets in which these Pisces/Aries transits are moving will show us where we are experiencing our own paradigm shift away from an historical center to a radicalized, potentially more democratic, omnicentric inner system.
For thousands of years, we humans thought the Earth was the center of the universe — until we discovered we weren’t the center, and made the Sun our center, with our visible planets orbiting circularly around the Sun in a more or less flat plane.
Then we located the “outer planets”. Then we discovered that, in fact, we were one of a number of centers and satellites, or galaxies.
It took us a long time to discover all this, first by eye, then by telescope, but always by conjecture and theory.
As our understanding of the nature of our system took shape, our social structures evolved parallel to that understanding: centers with satellites translated into chiefs and subjects, popes and congregations, presidents and employees.
As our view expanded telescopically, we quested for the ultimate center, and we arrived at — emptiness, and the systems moving equidistantly from each other.
Pine Mountain Observatory Oregon
Robert Jastrow, space scientist and author of Until the Sun Dies notes:
“. . . if you were sitting on a planet in one of the other galaxies in the Universe, you would observe the galaxies around you receding in exactly the same way that an observer in our galaxy sees our neighbors moving away. Your galaxy would seem to be at the center of the expansion, and so would every other galaxy; but, in fact, there is no center.”
“To understand this statement more clearly, imagine a very large, unbaked loaf of raisin bread. Each raisin is a galaxy.
Now place the unbaked loaf in the oven; as the dough rises, the interior of the loaf expands uniformly, and all the raisins move apart from one another.
The loaf of bread is like our expanding Universe. Every raisin sees its neighbors receding from it; every raisin seems to be at the center of the expansion; but there is no center” (Jastrow 8-9).
Additionally, we have learned something else about the nature of centers and satellites.
When we think of the center of something, we often think of the dead center of it — e.g., that the center of the solar system is the center of the Sun.
But: “The mass of the planets is about 1/750th the mass of the Sun and the center of mass of the solar system can move from close to the center of the Sun to up to one solar radius outside the surface of the Sun! Where the solar system barycenter is at any given moment is determine by the configuration of planets as they revolve around the Sun” (Michelsen in Tables of Planetary Phenomena 16).
Motion of Barycenter of the solar system relative to the Sun
Watch:
This represents a paradigm shift in both scientific and social thinking — from universe as dependent functions of an ultimate center, to the universe as relational; from the atom to un-seeable space, everything is a center in relation to everything else, or omnicentricity. The internet is a concrete manifestation of the omnicentric principle — each a center connected to all centers, potentially, by volition and capability.
But our social systems have been slow to reflect our new understanding of the cosmos, and governance at all levels — nation, state and local — and social and family life continue to insist on a center around which everything satellites and from which the satellites derive their power.
In astrological symbolism, the planet Uranus represents the desire for freedom as an outcome of enlightenment: as such, it is associated archetypally with such mythic figures as Prometheus, the Greek titan who brought fire to humanity. Historically, Uranian cycles can be shown to indicate periods of human revolution, when the collective desire for freedom outweighs historically confining governance structures. Astrologer Lynn Bell, in her address to the astrological conference in Seattle in 2010, traced radical events when Uranus has previously entered and transited in the hot, fiery sign of Aries:
1258: the fall of Baghdad to Genghis Khan
1675: tax revolts in France against Louis XVI, Indian Wars in the colonies
1765: stamp tax revolt in the US
1848: revolutions across Europe
1927: Wall Street, mobsters, flappers, Gandhi and the Indian resistance
At the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami localized in Japan, 7 of our system’s 10 planets
were concentrated within 60 degrees of longitude of each other, with Uranus in Aries in the heart of the mass.
We are seeing in our time graphic expressions of our evolving consciousness about the relation of the mass to the center, and the power of the mass to move the center, with far reaching consequences for systems of governance and relationship.
Over 1 Million in Tahrir Square demanding the removal of the regime and for Mubarak to step down February 9, 2011 6 46 PM
In our own lives, expressed in the symbolism of the horoscope.
Looking for the house and planets in which these Pisces/Aries transits are moving will show us where we are experiencing our own paradigm shift away from an historical center to a radicalized, potentially more democratic, omnicentric inner system.
Skydog Institute 
You must be logged in to post a comment.