Yin Yang III

The closest we get to a centaur in ancient Mesopotamia is Pabilsag, forefather or chief ancestor of the nomads. They say he shepherded us into our nomadic existence and then back into the milky way when we died. He was fierce and we paid attention and allowed him to shepherd us.

He was a winged centaur holding a bow and arrow, and he had the tail and stinger of the scorpion. He was both Scorpio and Sagittarius, like the Sagittarius A-Star that lies between the two constellations in the sky, in the place they call the galactic centre of the milky way.

In the birth chart, the star and the galactic centre are in Sag, and over time, Pabilsag lost his wings and his scorpion tail and became more familiar to us. In ancient Greece, he was the wildness we all try to suppress,

and the wisdom that comes when we join rational thought with our animal instincts.
Sag in the chart is the part that holds memories of our nomadic ancestry, of being travellers, of being

unsettled

but going somewhere, pointing the arrow in that direction and being shepherded by something greater than ourselves

to a place that will not bind us. In Sag, the biggest danger is to be bound.

We express ourselves freely here, love freely, speak our minds freely, unafraid to displease and upset others, because back in the days, we’d pick up and leave and get back on our journey.

It’s the unsettler mentality, the traveller mentality, and it can get on the rowdy side,

 

image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

but then again, every sign in the chart matures over an arc of time.

In the beginning, we were an unruly bunch. There we are in Sag, in the house of community, third from the Sun.

 

Solar chart for Bytown, time unknown, September 26, 1826

Merc     Look at them dad, they’re totally inebriated-

Sun     Intemperate, son.

Merc     They’re clearly inebriated, dad.

Sun     I’m in Libra, and in Libra, it’s all about temperance and intemperance.

Mars     I seem to agitate them. When the day’s done, they’re all about asserting their beliefs; mine’s truer than yours! And Venus doesn’t help. She’s in Scorpio dividing them into clans, and they end up doing crazy things, like challenging themselves to a swim across the river-

Venus     May the best clan win.

Merc     Hope no one drowns and dies of intemperance.

Mars     What this town needs is some form of peace preservation.

Sun (looks at the drunken men jumping into the river and nods in agreement. He then looks at Merc and says)     Why don’t you help your brother with that.

Chart for the Bytown Association for the Preservation of the Public Peace, time unknown, January 1, 1847
Mars (something catches his attention)     Merc, what’s that police watchman doing?

Merc     Where?

Mars (pointing)     Over there.

Merc     He’s making inquiries; looking for an individual.

Mars     What did the individual do?

Merc     Nothing; he’s just some politician’s opponent. The politician wants him out of the way, so he’s paid the watchman to arrest him.

Mars     Merc! That’s illegal!

Merc (shrugs)     That’s how they make extra money. They’re only paying the watchmen a dollar for every culprit they bring in.

Mars     Dad!

Sun     The Association needs oversight; Mars tells me there’s been political interference.

Saturn     If you put them in uniform, I’ll oversee them myself. Right now, they all look like outlaws.

Venus     They need someone to shepherd them; they’re used to being shepherded.

Uranus     Find them a chief; someone fierce looking like Pabilsag.

Neptune     Have you considered giving them a proper salary? They’ll take policing more seriously if you pay them well.

Jupiter     We should train them first.

Pluto     Hear, hear.

 

Chart for January 1, 1865, the year a fully salaried and uniformed police force came into being in the town once known as Bytown

Jupiter     Sun! I didn’t say that I was going to train them! I said, We should train them!

Sun     You’re stuck with them for a year, Jupiter; let’s see what you can do.

Saturn     Let’s see if all the things they say about you are true.

Jupiter     What do they say?

Saturn     That you’re a teacher-

Pluto     A preacher-

Neptune     A wise leader.

Uranus     Show us if you can be chief!

He showed them.

He stood with Mercury in Capricorn and gave lectures on the principles of policing. With Mercury retrograde, he took his time and his lectures were long.

In Aquarius, he introduced them to the technologies and firearms available to the police at the time.

In Pisces, he spoke about protecting the vulnerable, and the use of force to bring order to disorder.

He measured their ability to control impulsivity and fear in Aries, and anger in Taurus.

He showed them how to gather information in Gemini, and in Libra, he spoke about good relations, and he made them tidy up.

By the time he was back in Sag, everyone stood in formation, taming their wildness.

Then cars were introduced.

There’s nothing like cars to bring the wildness back into men standing in formation.

Chart for January 1, 1912, the year the first Model T Fords were introduced
Jupiter returned to Sag when Pluto was digging in Gemini; he was perfecting a machine for short distance travel.

Jupiter     Say Pluto, the police force could use one of those.

Pluto     Why don’t you send Merc to pick one up.

Jupiter (to Merc)     Go pick one up, Merc, and make sure you stay on the road.

Merc stayed on the road, and when he reached Pluto, he got in the car and got distracted. He first went to visit Venus in Scorpio,

and then joined Uranus on his mid morning break from work.
Jupiter    Where is he!

Neptune     Mayday, mayday, Merc’s missing.

Mars     He’s probably just wandering around; it’s in his nature.

Jupiter     I thought I fixed that.

Sun     You’re going to have to fix it again, now that you’ve given him a set of wheels.

Moon     If I may-

Sun     Go ahead, Moon.

Moon     We don’t fix natures and tame wildness in Sag. We teach them to have a dialogue between human and horse.

Jupiter     You’re so wise, Moon. Thank you.

Pluto     I’d better install a radio in that car; that way we’ll know where he is at all times.

Neptune     Make sure it’s high frequency.

Saturn     Make sure it works.

Moon     There he is! Coming round that bend.

Uranus (back from his break)     If he doesn’t slow down, he’s going to collide with that horse coming round the other bend.

Sun     When cars become popular, we’ll need traffic police.

Saturn     If everyone drives the way Merc’s driving, we’ll need a department that investigates collisions.

Mars     There could be injuries.

Venus     And fire! We’ll have to coordinate police with medics and firefighters.

Neptune     We should distinguish their cars with sirens.

All the planets except Neptune     No!

Uranus     That would draw traffic to them!

Pluto     Cars would pile up!

Merc parks the car and hands the keys to Jupiter

Merc     Are you brainstorming?

Jupiter     We are.

Merc     Because of the car?

Jupiter     The car has opened a door to the future.   (turns to look at the car) Who do you have in there?

Merc     Some drunken men I picked up along the way.

Chart for January 1, 1995, the official date for the police service in the town once known as Bytown
Uranus     Jupiter, are you sure you want this chart? I bend rules in Capricorn-

Neptune     I reach for the waters of the Abzu to open the imagination-

Mercury     I write fiction-

Jupiter     You’re the part that will allow them to be creative; we can’t have an inflexible police force. Can’t always go by the book.

Moon (pointing at herself and the Sun)     What about us?

Jupiter     If they have a little fun, you’ll hold their secrets.

 

POLICE OFFICER #1 (elbows police officer #2 and whispers)     Did you hear that?

POLICE OFFICER #2     What?

 

Moon     Are you allowing them room to have a dialogue between human and horse?

Jupiter     Yes; in the polarity of service. Mars is in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces.

Mars     They will use rational thought to find practical solutions with me; sometimes all it takes is a glass of water to calm someone down. They will speak clearly and write their reports concisely.

Saturn     They will master their animal side with me and learn to trust their instincts and intuition.

 

POLICE OFFICER #2 (elbows police officer #1 and whispers)     Did you hear that?

POLICE OFFICER #1     What?

 

Jupiter     With Pluto and Venus in Scorpio, our mission is clear; to protect our community and our own.

Pluto     The city’s growing-

Venus     We should recruit more people.

Jupiter     I’ll send Eros; he has a way of capturing the imagination.

Mercury     They’re centaurs, so he should use the word, Adventure. Tell him to start by asking them, Are you ready for adventure?

Jupiter is our protector in the sky; the catcher’s mitt. His gravity catches asteroids and comets that could hurt the Earth.
He rules the natal chart of the police force, there, in Sag, where it all began.

Every time Jupiter in the sky aspects Jupiter in the natal chart, he throws him a ball.

Sometimes the ball’s easy to catch, and sometimes it’s hard. But the best way to break in the catcher’s mitt

is to play catch.

Catch, he said, from across the sky in 2001.

 

Chart for the amalgamation of the town once known as Bytown, January 1, 2001

Synastry chart with the police chart in the inner wheel, and the amalgamation chart in the outer wheel, noon
Jupiter in the sky, in Gemini     Catch!

Jupiter in the natal chart, in Sag (catches the ball, reads the text written on it and says)     The town’s amalgamating and changing our name.

Venus (looks at Jupiter in the sky and says)     Why is he standing still?

Pluto     He’s going to be the town’s natal Jupiter.

Jupiter in the natal chart, in Sag     They’ve split us!

Saturn     You can now throw balls at each other.

Moon     Be nice, Sat.

Sun     Yeah; be nice, Sat. They can now play catch together.

 

The synastry chart activates the Gemini Sag polarity, the polarity of the traveller, in search of knowledge, and most vigilant of freedom. It defines the character of the city and her police force.

Meanwhile, Jupiter in the sky continues his transit around the zodiac, and every twelve years, he returns to Sag.

 

Chart for Jupiter return, December 12, 2006

Chart for Jupiter return, November 26, 2018
His returns bring synthesis and introspection, new opportunities and new direction.

Ready to play catch again.

myth

 

They say Uranus was discovered unexpectedly. William Herschel was at his telescope looking at fixed stars of magnitude 8, stars barely visible to the naked eye, when an object moved in front of them.

That object was Uranus

Is Uranus

He has a way of showing up unexpectedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvMUkjgIDmA

Future astronomers noted that he rotates on his side-

That’s Uranus too; he likes doing things his own way.

and when they followed his path around the Sun, they saw irregularities. He didn’t follow Newton’s law of universal gravitation.

They figured there must be a major planet somewhere out there perturbing his path, and using Newton’s laws, they made mathematical calculations and predicted where that planet was

Is

and that’s when Neptune entered our consciousness and was discovered.

He was known to be there before he was seen.

With Neptune, we just know.

We don’t know like we do with Mars, with our primordial instincts and hidden senses,

we know with our soul.

Neptune is the receptor that allows us to believe in god, to believe that there is no god,

to have a belief,

a myth.

His story is the story of the seagull that dissolved the boundary between here and there, this side and the other.

Planet of inspiration.

The story of Uranus is the story of Prometheus and Hephaestus; rebel, inventor, outcast, fringe.

Planet of individuality.

When they come together every 171 years, all those layers come together and new myths are born.

They must have come together when Prometheus defied the gods and brought us divine fire. Fire gave us security, and we let go of old fears and old patterns of behaviour, and our minds soared. With fire, we distinguished ourselves from the rest of the animals and became

human.

That was the first myth to enter our reality.

Some myths begin with an unexpected gift or a new discovery, a new invention. Some myths begin in the margins of society, among people we deem unimportant and not worth our time.

When the Prophet Muhammad began to preach in Mecca in 613, most Meccans ignored and mocked him.

 

Chart for January 1, 613, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

But with time, he began to gain a following and his popularity threatened the people in power in Mecca.

In 622, he and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina. The migration marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, when Uranus and Neptune were conjunct with a 4 degree orb in Virgo.

 

Chart for January 1, 622, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

In 624, he received revelations to pray facing Mecca. This was the same year he led a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The raid triggered a series of battles between Muslims and Meccans.

Mars joined the conjunction.

 

Chart for January 1, 624, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The city was conquered in 630, and most people adopted the new faith and their new reality.
Christianity too came from the margins, from the desert, and made its way into the Roman Empire. The emperors didn’t pay much attention, as long as the sect made sacrifices to the Roman gods.

Then Diocletian came to power, to restore Rome’s past glory, the glory of the Olympian gods, and he fed Christians to the lions.

 

Chart for November 20, 284, Split, Croatia

But it was too late. The conjunction had already happened in Leo, and Uranus and Neptune were beginning to separate.

With Constantine, the Roman Empire converted to Christianity.

Sometimes a new myth begins when we look at the past, when we’re inspired by the ideas of the past. That’s what happened during the Renaissance, when Plato’s manuscripts were translated from Greek into Latin. The humanistic views of Greece were revived, and her old gods, her astronomy and astrology along with them. But scholars had to be careful with the Church, not to be accused of heresy.

Under Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Renaissance had her golden age. In 1469, he and his brother Giuliano became rulers of Florence.

 

Chart for December 2, 1469, Florence

He was patron to the scholars and the artists of the time, a time when two myths began to exist parallel to each other; the myth that god was at the centre of all, and the myth that man was at the centre

and the measure of all things.

The humanism of the Renaissance was more individualistic than the humanism of ancient times.

1478 was a turning point for Lorenzo. His brother was killed, the Holy See excommunicated him, yet he managed to restore his place and emerge more powerful than before.

 

Chart for April 26, 1478, Florence

He played his cards well and secured the culture of the Renaissance.

The best was yet to come.

Some myths show defiance to be allowed in.

When England wanted constitutional monarchism to replace absolute monarchy, Charles I was king. He resisted change, governed without the advice and consent of parliament, and was beheaded.

Uranus Neptune were conjunct in Sagittarius the day it happened, and Pluto Saturn were in Gemini. The people wanted structural change; they wanted a myth that would give them a voice.

 

Chart for January 30, 1649, London

Uranus Neptune travelled together with an orb of less than five degrees from 1818 t0 1822. The conjunction began in Sagittarius and ended in Capricorn. Revolutions and inventions created new realities all over the world. We would soon have electricity to turn night into day,

security all day long for our minds to soar higher.

We became modern.

But the myth of the modern age came with a warning. On January 1, 1818, with a stellium dancing in Sag,

 

Chart for January 1, 1818, London

Mary Shelley published
There is a new myth, a new reality making its presence felt in the times we’re living, and it had its beginnings during the last Uranus Neptune conjunction.

The planets started coming together in the late 80s in Capricorn. They were conjunct within a 5 degree orb from 1990 to 1996, with Uranus in Aquarius and Neptune in Capricorn in 1996.

They began to separate in 1997, but they were still very close. Neptune joined Uranus in Aquarius in 1998, and the planets stayed within a 10 degree orb in Aquarius until the turn of the century.

The digital revolution began during this time, and the world wide web was developed, a place for sharing information.

We now swim in its waters. We don’t just police our neighbourhoods anymore; we police cyberspace as well.

At the same time that the first website was being activated, the kuiper belt entered our reality.

The internet and the kuiper belt.

When Pluto was discovered in 1930, astronomers had speculated about more objects existing beyond Neptune; trans Neptunian objects.

Many papers were written about this possibility in the 40s and 50s; one of them by the astronomer Gerard Kuiper.

On August 30, 1992, the first kuiper belt object was discovered.

 

Chart for the discovery of QB1 by astronomers Dave Jewitt and Jane Luu, August 30, 1992, 10: 56:11 am, Mauna Kea, Hilo, Hawaii

It is the only timed chart we have of all the developments of the early 90s, timed to the second. If it foretells of a future myth or reality, then this is what it says.

The Uranus Neptune conjunction on the cusp of the third house trines Jupiter in Virgo in the eleventh. The third house is the house of community, early education, communications and skills, and the eleventh house is the house of the large social groups we belong to. The chart would hint at a reality that joins the third house to a large social network, for an earthy purpose, practical and of service.

With Jupiter in Virgo, the large social network is bound to grow and be inclusive.

An intense search for more trans Neptunian objects began with the discovery of QB1, and many have been discovered since; small objects orbiting in a circumstellar disc in the outer solar system.

Echoing the kuiper belt, an intense amount of websites have been created since the first one on the world wide web, and they now orbit the earth.

Both belts originated in Capricorn, at CERN and at the MKO, too far away to seem important.
Until Eris was discovered by a team of astronomers on October 21, 2003, when the first TNO was having a Jupiter return.

 

Chart for the discovery of Eris, October 21, 2003, time unknown, Palomar Observatory, California

She was thought to be bigger than Pluto, but she isn’t. She’s a bit smaller with more mass, more rock than ice.

But she was thought to be bigger and announced as the tenth planet. Then the International Astronomical Society changed its mind and said that she’s a dwarf planet, like Pluto. They are the two largest objects in the kuiper belt, they said.

She is three times farther from the Sun than Pluto, takes 557 years to go around the Sun, and she doesn’t follow the path of the zodiac.

They called her Eris because her discovery and the subsequent demotion of Pluto caused so much strife and discord among astrologers and astronomers.

There were revolutions when Uranus was discovered in 1781, the rise of spiritualism and utopias when Neptune was discovered in 1846, the age of psychology when Pluto was discovered in 1930. Eris was discovered two years after 9/11, in the age of the internet and the kuiper belt.

There is power in a name, and the name ‘Eris’ brings a whole story alive in the sky; the story of the golden apple with the words ‘to the most beautiful’ written on it.

She was the uninvited guest who tossed the apple into a wedding party, unseen and unsuspected, and provoked a war.

She provokes.

She likes to keep a low profile, but the past president of the United States brought her to light by throwing apples everywhere.

He showed us the power of our new reality to provoke strife and discord.

The pandemic too has shown us the power of our new reality, in a different way, closer to the chart of 1992 and the original intention of the web.

We’ll see where it takes us; we’re only 30 years into the conjunction; we have 140 more to go.

Léa     It got us into trouble, that’s for sure.

Mary     I thought it was our yin eyes.

Léa     Our yin eyes compounded by the new reality.

Rose     Look at the timed chart; Pluto in Scorpio guards the entrance. It’s like he’s warning us to know our own psychology before we enter.

Léa      So we don’t react when someone throws an apple.

Mary     So we don’t go around throwing them ourselves.

Pluto     More than that; be ready to face your shadows when you enter the new reality. No one there has a public, private or secret life. Hit send and it’s all public.

Léa     We need to learn to govern ourselves better; Rose more than anyone.  (to Rose) You’re the most impulsive, Rose.

Rose     It wouldn’t be so bad if Pluto weren’t digging up all our information and handing it over to Mars in the eighth. Mars is in Gemini and Gemini keeps everything.

Pluto     That’s not where the problem lies. It’s when Mars hands it over to Merc in Leo that you’re in trouble. That’s when you’re in the spotlight.

Merc     That’s when the crisis begins.

the empty place

 

The ancients said that the eighth house is an empty place, a place we can fall into to heal emptiness.

Rational thought comes with the shadow of emptiness; the need to know the mysteries of life; reaching to know and never really knowing; falling into emptiness.

That’s what the gods feared when Prometheus stole their fire to give to us, that our minds would soar and we would reach for divine knowledge, knowledge that belongs only to them.

Planets in the eighth can keep us there, turning the need to heal the emptiness into an obsession.

That’s Victor Frankenstein reaching for divine knowledge through science, and Aquarius rules science. The man must have had Aquarius in the eighth, with Pluto. He reached for the gods digging in science.

 

Frankenstein by Pablo Marcos, 1974

He dug with Pluto and created a monster, and then Pluto took him under and stripped him of all pretensions. It’s the way of the shaman. He likes to get a good story out of the eighth house, and Frankenstein left us a good story, with a warning not to play god.

If Pluto in the eighth takes us under, Mars in the eighth helps us rise.

He is our will to live, the sperm’s drive to ignite life, the blood that flows through our veins, and for blood to flow, we need food.

Dracula had Pluto in Aries and Mars in Taurus in the eighth house. He was obsessed with immortality and healed his emptiness searching for the elixir of life.

Jupiter dropped the story of Frankenstein on his lap, but he wouldn’t read it, so Pluto led him into a castle with bats

and a coffin.

Dracula turned into a vampire. He rose at night hungry for food, and Mars directed him to drink the blood of cows and bulls and oxen. But Dracula didn’t want cows and bulls and oxen. He wanted

the neck of a beautiful woman. Taurus rules natural beauty and healthy food, and Taurus rules the neck.

When he tasted her blood, he couldn’t get enough; it’s that whole obsessive quality of the eighth house. He began to lead a harem that kept growing, until his planets drew a person of courage who

put an end to him.

 

Chart for Dracula, November 8, 1847, 3 am, Transylvania

He has Venus at 5 degrees Libra; he had sex appeal.

Rahu in the first house can give us an exotic appearance, and lying across from Uranus in Aries, it may be a pair of something unusual that draws attention to the face. Dracula had those pointy sharp canines, remember?  Rahu after all is the head of a snake.

Scorpio is the natural sign of the eighth house; if the zodiac begins with Aries, Scorpio is in the eighth house. There is a natural inclination in Scorpio to find solace reaching for the divine wherever the sign is in the birth chart. It’s in the second house in Dracula’s chart, with the Moon cazimi the Sun, quincunx Uranus in Aries.

The second house is where he ended up after his experience with all those bats in the eighth. During a crisis, we fall into the eighth and emerge in the second, and there he was in his second house with an incredible desire for

kinky sex.

The new Moon in Scorpio trines Jupiter in Cancer, and Cancer is an embrace, an abode, a church, a harem. Jupiter brings growth, protection, meaning, and puts us in formation.

Pope Francis has his MC in Taurus. He graduated with a chemical technician’s diploma, and his first job was in a food lab; Uranus in Taurus makes a good food lab chemist.

One day he heard a priest give a sermon that made him join a seminary. He found healing in the mysteries of his faith and in the host.

Aquarius and Saturn in Pisces are in his eighth house.

 

Chart for Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, December 17, 1936, 9 pm, Buenos Aires (astrotheme.com)

There is something called a chart progression, and the most important planet in a chart progression is the Sun. The Sun progresses 1 degree every year.

Pope Francis has his natal Sun at 25 degrees Sagittarius.

He was 5 years old when his Sun progressed into Capricorn.

He was 35 years old when his Sun progressed into Aquarius.

He was 65 years old when his Sun progressed into Pisces.

We feel our Sun’s ingress into a new sign energetically.

Francis was 76 years old when he became pope, and his progressed Sun was at 11 degrees Pisces and five degrees from reaching Saturn. He must have felt mastery of his faith and healing when he became pope.

Obsessions can turn into mastery in the eighth house.

 

Detail of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini, 1647-52

Bernini has Pisces and the Pluto Moon in Aries in his eighth. Pisces and Aries. He found healing in sacred love, in the spiritual guidance of priests. But his obsession was with Pluto in Aries, in that other kind of love we call profane, the love of a woman, the love of a woman’s face. He mastered a woman’s expression in ecstasy and took it to church.

The gods didn’t mind; they didn’t mind at all. It’s why they sometimes come to earth.

 

Chart for Gian Lorenzo Bernini, born December 7, 1598, 10:30 pm, Napoli

His chart ties him to ancestry. He left Rome once to go to Paris and hurried back; he never left Rome again.

From his father in the fourth house, he learnt his craft, the craft that became his life force. From his mother’s lineage in the eighth, he got his eroticism and his daring. From his unremembered dead in the twelfth, coming through Neptune in Leo, he got his theatricality.

That’s Pluto taking Persephone under, in Virgo.

People forget that part of the story when they consider Virgo. Virgo in the eighth heals the emptiness with rituals, they say. It is a sign of the seasons and a sign of service, tending to the earth and the needs of others.

They forget that when Pluto took Persephone under, he made her queen of the underworld, a place of mystery and secrets, where no god other than Pluto and Mercury can enter.

Mercury, messenger of the gods. He rules Gemini and he rules Virgo differently. He gathers information with Gemini, investigates, makes connections. With Virgo, he dives deeper. Virgo can be drawn to the occult, to secrets and secret organizations; she can find healing there.

 

Chart for a secret organization, founded on July 2, 1997, 9:30 pm, Los Angeles

With Uranus and Jupiter in Aquarius, the secret organization relies on technology that’s out of this world. Its latest innovation is the eyewear that protects members from getting neuralyzed. The Moon in Gemini finds pleasure in communications technology, and the organization relies on her skills for the survival of- classified information. The Sun and Mercury in Cancer speak of work that is top secret. There is great camaraderie among members; their mission is with Scorpio and Pluto in Sag; it has to do with protection and the cosmos.

Rahu in Virgo and Mars in Libra are in the eighth house. Virgo is the direction the organization has to travel, and here’s where Virgo as a sign of service has its role. There’s sacrifice involved, like there’s sacrifice in Demeter’s story; all members have to cut ties with their former lives and guard anonymity and silence to serve. But there’s healing in knowing the secrets the organization reveals, and there’s healing in Mars in Libra, in the deep bonds they form working together, relying on each other.

They are the Men in Black.

That’s a Venus in Leo moment, in the seventh house.

In Gemini, we’re curious; we go exploring and check out these guys,

and this little fellow,
and this mean one.
They’re all aliens in Gemini, equally valuable; size doesn’t matter. We categorize them in Virgo, but only after we find out where they come from in Cancer, and what their distinguishing features are in Leo.

We distinguish ourselves in Leo, especially when Venus is there. When she’s there, she says, I know we all have to wear anti-neuralyzing sunglasses, but do they have to be of the same design?

We grow to have confidence wherever Leo is in the chart, and attract people with confidence, unafraid to express

their inner child.

There’s performance in Leo, but there’s also leadership and cohesion. Leo is king, ruled by the Sun.

If we’re told to follow a star at night, we ask, Which one?

But if we’re told to follow a star in the day, we know which star to follow.
In a crisis, Leos keep their head, and crises usually happen in the multiplicity of night, so it’s good to have a Leo around when the Sun goes down. Plus they have a reputation for being
lions in bed.

Chief Zed, by the way, gave his agents their choice of frame, for the anti neuralyzing sunglasses. He’s one of the founders of MIB and has Leo in the eighth; top dog of a secret organization.

 

Chart for Chief Zed,  no data available

We stand out and make a difference in Leo.

Chief Zed’s destiny is to heal the emptiness he feels and the emptiness others feel by making a difference. Uranus in Leo has a sudden way of pulling people into the eighth, and having them emerge in the second house, in Aquarius, with a humanitarian profession.

There’s no real training.

Uranus in Leo also has a sudden way of making people forget the journey; that’s what the neuralyzer is for.

With his MC and Neptune in Scorpio, the Chief knows something about psychology. He knows what the memory of the profession can do to agents who retire and rejoin ordinary life. How does one live an ordinary life with all that secret knowledge.

Isabel Allende     It could inspire books of science fiction. I’ve been inspired to write books of magic realism; keeps me from meddling with the gods.

The eighth is the house of healing emptiness and grief. Isabel Allende has Cancer and Leo in the eighth. Her daughter Paula died young, at the age of 29.

 

Chart for Isabel Allende, born August 2, 1942, 2:19 pm, Lima, Peru

Cancer is a sign of memory, family, tradition. When Paula was in a coma, Isabel Allende remembered her daughter’s life. She gave her memories cohesion writing a story. She told of her grief and shared it with her audience. Now, whenever she feels herself falling, she goes to the beach, soaks up the sun, watches crabs scurrying around.

 

Chart for Agent L, no data available

She’s an eighth house person.

Pluto Venus     We dig in the eighth house

With Pluto Venus in Scorpio, she’s comfortable with the multiplicity of the night and reaches for the mysteries, unafraid.

Pluto Venus     We wouldn’t ask which star to follow at night; we’d choose one and see where it takes us.

Sun Mars     You’d be lost if it weren’t for us. We’re the ones with a sense of direction.

The Sun Mars in Sag make her forward and bold.

Sun Mars     We have sexual energy.

She’s strong and has good reflexes; she’s an excellent archer.

Pluto Venus and Sun Mars (in unison)     Because of us.

Her stellium in the eighth draws eighth house situations and people to her; people with secrets, people in a crisis. She’s unfazed when the head of the dead body she’s been examining opens to reveal an injured alien.

Uranus Neptune in Capricorn     She’s open to new realities.

When she notices the galaxy hanging on Orion’s belt, the galaxy responds to her gaze, trusts it. She’s the kind of person who is satisfied in knowing; she bows to the gods for knowledge; promises not to tell.
She will one day change the MIB law that says agents have to be neuralyzed when they retire. She will want to remember; the Moon in Gemini equips her emotionally to handle multiple realities.

Gemini is a sign of rescue. The ancients prayed to the Dioscuri when they needed rescue; the divinities were known to succor people in difficult situations, battles and tempests.

Agent K is a Gemini. He was taking a shortcut one day, carrying flowers for his date, when he ran into a group of men dressed in black. They were welcoming the first aliens to land on earth, and there was Kay, holding exactly what they needed.

Across from Gemini is Sag in the seventh, and Sag attracts higher minded beings, global and even cosmic. Sag is ruled by Jupiter, the god who takes a different form every time he falls in love with a mortal woman; he comes as a cow, a cloud, a shower of gold. Like Jupiter, Sag enjoys disguises and costumes, and aliens too.

That’s why K gave up his date to join MIB; his seventh house couldn’t resist the partnership.

 

Chart for Agent K, no data available

He masters rescue in the twelfth house, behind the scenes, and he faces many crises in Capricorn in the eighth;

alien related crises.

He heals the empty place diving into the waters of the abzu with a little Enki humour,

deeper,
into the depths,
until he finds the answer he’s looking for.
The ancients said there can be unintended consequences to Gemini’s rescue missions; they are the result of the magic of the Dioscuri to keep stories moving along.

There is sacrifice in Gemini; the magic of the Dioscuri comes with grief and sacrifice.

When Castor died, Pollux could not bear it and he shared his immortality with his brother. One twin spends a day on Mount Olympus, while the other spends it in the underworld, and they switch places every day.

The magic happens when they meet briefly in the sky before switching places; it’s only a brief moment and the magic isn’t easy.

Kay has to sacrifice knowledge before he can go back to the woman he loves, and when he does, the first female agent is hired by MIB. The stories keep moving.

 

Chart for Agent J, no data available

J has Gemini and Cancer in the eighth house, like the QB1 chart.

In a crisis, J’s brain works to connect the dots; he figures out that Orion is Rosenberg’s cat, and that the bug is heading to the spaceships at the World Expo.

The bug takes off in one, and J and K shoot it down. It crashes to the ground and comes toward them,

closer every time.
J wants to move out of the way,
but he looks at Kay and Kay’s not moving. That’s when the Cancer side of the eighth house kicks in for J. Trust and loyalty keep him standing where he is, next to his partner.

There’s healing when we find someone we can trust.

J’s first house has such vibrancy, including a playful fashion sense. But that’s something he’s asked to put aside when he joins MIB. There are parts of him the organization will suppress and other parts it will bring out.

Pluto Saturn in Libra ask for transformation through relationships, and that’s something MIB fulfills from the start; meeting Kay changed his life.

Then there’s Edgar, and Edgar shaming his wife. It’s not a question of male or female; we can all shame; we can all play god; the birth chart is filled with them.

Jupiter threw the stories of Dracula and Frankenstein at him, but Edgar wasn’t a reader.

That’s a cow directing air traffic and gettng out of the way of a landing.
That’s the cow making sure Edgar the bug rolls his spaceship away and leaves the wife intact.
Mission accomplished.
Ed Solomon wrote the script for MIB. He didn’t write the line, It just be raining black people in New York. He wouldn’t have dared; he’s white and he’s Jewish and he has Libra in the eighth house.

 

Chart for Ed Solomon, born September 15, 1960. Saratoga, CA

The line is Will Smith’s; spontaneous words spoken when he jumped on the tourist bus.
Ed had to allow the actors to make changes to his script. Sometimes they added and sometimes they took lines away, and it hurt when they took lines away. But there’s healing in the act of collaboration in Libra, in letting others have their say, and at the end of it,

he’s in Aries, with more script offers coming his way.

He has Venus and Mercury in Libra, and there’s healing in aesthetics too, in words carefully chosen, careful not to offend. This is Libra holding the scales and there’s politeness here.

That’s why the bug asks Edgar politely to put his weapon down. He only shows his claws when Edgar gives him permission to pry the gun from his cold dead fingers.

He shows his claws to people who kill bugs; Libra in the eighth can take matters of justice into their own hands,

artistically.

If the bug shows his claws to anyone else, it’s sideways and unexpected. He’s the bad guy after all, on a mission to steal the galaxy.
Neptune in Scorpio     We’re making a movie.

Aquarius     I hope it’s a Sci-Fi.

Neptune in Scorpio     It is, and the earth’s in danger.

Moon in Cancer     Who will save her?

Uranus in Leo     The men in black.

Pluto in Virgo     They dig in secrets.

Saturn in Capricorn     They belong to a secret organization.

Mars in Gemini     I’ve drawn all the aliens.

Jupiter in Sag (to Mars)     Hand them over; I’ll colour them in.

Sun in Virgo (to Jupiter)     When you’re done, hand them over to me. I’ll categorize them.

Pisces     There has to be one real bad guy, with claws-

Venus and Merc in Libra     The claws!

Saturn in Capricorn     Make sure he’s polite; this movie’s PG-13.

Venus and Merc in Libra (glancing at each other)     Sure, we’ll make him polite-

Neptune in Scorpio     You can make him as polite as you want, but claws have a sudden way of striking.

Taurus     Will there be blood?

Aries (nodding)     Lots of slimy alien blood.

Ode to Apollo and to his brother two steps behind him

Apollo, Apollo, I ode you first, sing to you first, acknowledge your beauty and luminescence first,
because of what you did to Cassandra.
You gave her the gift of prophecy, and when she didn’t ode your first, nobody would believe her. She warned Troy that the Greek heroes were hiding inside the Trojan horse, and nobody believed her.
Apollo, Apollo, I ode your first,
because of what you did to Coronis.
You loved her, and when she didn’t ode you first, you put an arrow through her.
Apollo, Apollo, I ode you first. And now I ode your brother two steps behind you,
his chariot not so golden,
splattered by twilight,
turning left and disappearing.
Swift and unseen
is the mover of stories.

Gemini, Gemini, where have you been?
To the marketplace of course.
In search of a dream?
Not a dream, but a book, a conversation, information, to satisfy me here, on the surface, in the light, and to satisfy my twin, in the depths, in the dark.
To run across the surface and touch the depths is hard to find.
Yes, hard to find.
What will it bring?
Perfection for a moment, before I leave.
Wait, Gemini, where are you going?
To the marketplace of course.
In search of ?
People, high principled and moral, to reveal their inconsistencies, the split off parts they hide.
But why? What for?
Everyone needs a younger naughty sibling-
Like Mercury was to Apollo; he stole Apollo’s cattle-
Tricked him and brought him down a notch.
He then charmed him with a lyre. Wait! Gemini!

Gemini, Gemini, where have you been?

I saw the twins at the end of the line, and then I saw them being escorted inside, ahead of everyone else.
Connections, they later explained.
Not in Aquarius! I exclaimed with indignation. Everyone should wait their turn in Aquarius.
They shrugged and poured me a drink. I relaxed. I told them I got front seats to an event; didn’t even have to pay.
Lucky you, they said. How come?
A friend of mine is on the Board that organized it.
How nice, they said. Was it in Aquarius?
I was so embarrassed.

Did you know that when Jupiter took Ganymede to be cup bearer to the gods, he compensated Ganymede’s father with a pair of horses that could walk on water.

The twins pulled me right off my high horse.

In Aquarius there are horses that can walk on water, and there’s a whole country club of gods drinking nectar.

I must have been playing god.

It’s a stressful role to play; even Jupiter finds it stressful. That’s why he relies on Themis to give him good counsel.

 

The retinue of Jupiter; Mercury, Athena and Themis (seated)

Aries     They say cardinal signs create, fixed signs establish what has been created, and mutable signs make improvements.

Leo     Does that apply to us?

Sagittarius     I don’t think that applies to us.

Aries     In the beginning fire was a dangerous and terrifying element.

Leo     It still is.

Sagittarius     It’s the kind of fire you’re made of, Aries.

Aries     It was dangerous and terrifying until we learned to contain it. One day, when the Sun and Mars were in Aries, we found the courage to take a flame from a wild fire. We learned to guard it so it wouldn’t escape, and to feed it so it wouldn’t go out.

Leo     When the Sun entered Leo, I felt like dancing. At sunset, I brought out the masks and the instruments, and we danced around the fire.
Sagittarius     While you danced, I fell into a trance and had a vision.
When we lose touch with fire,

when the images grow dull,

when we can’t find an outlet for our creativity, or fulfilment through action, or make sense of our lives,

the medicine is in the Sun,

central fire,

divine spark.

The Sun,

the sign he’s in, the house he’s in, the aspects he makes, and his progression

will tell us what will make us fall in love with life again,

drive us forward with Mars,

illuminate the possibilities with Jupiter.

We return to the Sun again and again.

https://vimeo.com/446268468

Pisces     Did that guy just say, Watch your heart, don’t watch your feet?

Cancer     He did, and the kid’s about to fall off the edge, and he’s not wearing a helmet.

Scorpio     Let him fall; that’s how they learn; that’s how Mars learns.

Back in Mesopotamia, Mars was Nergal and he was Erra.

They say that Erra woke up feeling bored one day and decided to destroy the city of Babylon. He first went to see Marduk, protector of Babylon, and told him that his clothes looked shabby for such a mighty god; why don’t you go see your tailor and I’ll watch over Babylon. Feeling self conscious, Marduk took up his offer and left, and Erra destroyed the city.

When Enki-Ea asked Erra what drove him to do that, Erra told him that his weapons had been complaining about gathering dust.

 

The Wrath of Erra, clay tablet, 7th century BCE

Enki-Ea looked at Erra for a moment, and then went to see about a banquet in the upperworld.

Whenever there was a banquet in the upperworld, Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld, would send her vizier Namtar to bring her portion of the feast; she could not leave the underworld.

When Namtar entered the banquet hall, the gods bowed to him as if he were Ereshkigal, and on this occasion, Erra refused to bow.

This infuriated Ereshkigal who demanded that Erra be sent to the underworld to apologize.

Enki-Ea had to concede to her demand.
He told Erra he had no choice, he had to go.
But he warned him, Do not eat or drink while you’re there; just apologize. He gave Erra fourteen demons, two for each of the seven gates that led to the underworld. They would hold the gates open for Erra to return. And off Erra went,

through the seven gates.

It was a hard descent and when he reached the last gate, all he wanted to do was kill Ereshkigal. He took his axe and went for her neck, but dropped it when he saw her.

It was love at first sight.

Ereshkigal took him in her arms and initiated him.

Some say that when she took him in her arms, Erra broke free and ran out of the underworld, delaying the inevitable change that was to come. But Ereshkigal howled and sent Namtar to find him and bring him back.

Seven days later, Enki-Ea called Erra to return and Ereshkigal wouldn’t let him go.

But he’s the god of war! cried Enki-Ea.

He’s now my king! she replied.

A deal was struck where Erra would spend six months of the year in the upperworld and six months of the year in the underworld.

There he is with the attributes of his underworld status; the three headed dog we would later call Cerberus, and the scorpion of the sign he and Pluto rule. And there’s Ereshkigal watching him, keeping a close eye on him from her throne. The only woman she would share him with is her sister Inanna in the upperworld.

They say that Mars uninitiated, pure instinct and reflex, ready to go forth and falling into initiatory journeys is Aries ruled.

Bring in the iron ore!

They say that Mars initiated, older and willful, going forth by choice is Scorpio ruled.

Reheat the furnace!

There is an underworld in Scorpio that came before the Greco Roman stories of Apollo, Artemis and Orion; there is an underworld and a journey of the night. It gives Scorpio a taste for what lies hidden beneath the surface, draws it to challenges that offer transformation, and gives it its incredible capacity for intimacy.

Unlike Scorpio, there is only a fragment of a story from the Greco Roman world for Cancer, and before that, just the image of the crab.

It is a sign accompanied by silence.

More than any other sign, Cancer knows not to reveal too much of what is sacred,

or it won’t be sacred anymore.

In Cancer, personal stories are sacred, stories are sacred, and telling a sacred story can make it ordinary.

Like the story of Pan. He fell in love with the nymph Syrinx who did not love him back. When he pursued her, she asked the gods to save her and the gods turned her into water reeds. Heartbroken, Pan took the reeds and made his pipes-

This is how the Moon in Cancer keeps Pan’s story sacred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFMDh2SzdY8

Cancer in the chart tells of sacred places, the places sacred to us, where we’re careful with knowledge, where we’re guarded. The placement of the Moon tells of secrets, the nature of our secrets and the knowledge we protect.

In Scorpio, we’re attracted to the mysteries.

In Cancer, we protect them.

In Pisces, we’re in touch with the mysteries; we’re shamans without even knowing it. We instinctively call someone and say something they need to hear. Our feet guide us to the right place, just in time, to help another. We’re porous in Pisces and our unremembered dead take advantage of this; we interact with each other and inadvertently transmit their messages. This is why Pisces is called the sign of the collective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilZuT7Gy0Qw

Before the story of the Minotaur, there was the story of Gilgamesh, ruler of Uruk, in search of immortality.

Inanna-Ishtar fell in love with him,
invited him to become her lover,
but Gilgamesh refused her;
he would not ode her first.

Inanna was enraged, engulfed with bitter fury. She went to see her father-god Anu.

You deserve it, said her father, because of what you’ve done to all your previous lovers when you’ve had enough of them.

I will ask my sister Ereshkigal to open the gates of the underworld, dad; I will ask her to release the souls of the dead if you refuse to help me, if you do not kill Gilgamesh.

Good heavens, daughter, compose yourself! We cannot have the living mixing with the dead!

Her father didn’t know about Pisces back then,
but we know,
we know.

Inanna insisted that her father do something. Send the Bull of Heaven to attack him, dad.

But, daughter, he’s my canal inspector!

This was the age of agriculture, the age of Taurus, and it relied on harnessing the power of the bull. Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, was in charge of irrigation.

Inanna didn’t care; she kept insisting, and her father-god Anu looked at her for a moment,

and reluctantly agreed to send the Bull.

They say that the earth shook when the Bull descended, that his snorts cracked the earth open, but when the Bull attacked Gilgamesh, the great warrior defeated the Bull.

This time the underworld shook and everyone heard Ereshkigal cry,

My Bull!

She was married to the Bull of Heaven; he was her first husband.

The gods put the Bull of Heaven in the sky to honour him, and Ereshkigal prepared the funeral rites.

Inanna dressed in her finest clothes to attend the rites, but the gatekeepers of the underworld made her remove one of her royal garments at each of the seven gates, so that when she finished her descent, she was stripped bare.

Why this indignity, she asked Ereshkigal, and Ereshkigal looked at her with the eye of death, spoke words of wrath against her and struck her dead. She then hung her sister’s corpse from a hook on the wall to rot.

Inanna was rescued by her attendants with the help of her father-god Enki. Enki revived her with the waters of life and she became Inanna who journeyed through the night, Inanna-Ereshkigal.

Her story is joined to the story of the Bull; it reveals how deeply the goddess of the underworld loves the Bull.

Hurt the Bull,

push the Bull around,

and we get to meet her.

 

Inanna-Ereshkigal by Pam England, 2019

They say Prometheus is like Enki, loves humanity like Enki.

In the early stories, Prometheus made people out of earth and water, and he asked Psyche to give them soul. He then stole divine fire from the gods and gave them mind and reason and taught them the arts.

He gave us dignity.

Enki too made people out of the clay found in the Abzu. He made people to serve the gods, to dig canals and plough the land and grow food for the gods.

He went out drinking one night with the goddess Ninmah and they got a little drunk. Ninmah said it was easy to decide the fate of people so perfectly made. What if they were not so perfect? What would Enki do? Enki said that he would counterbalance their imperfections by finding them the right fate.

The goddess stood up and walked unsteadily to find clay from the top of the Abzu, and Enki followed her. She fashioned people who were not so perfect, and for each one Enki found a fate, an occupation, dignity through work.

 

Prometheus by Otto Greiner, 1909, National Gallery of Canada

When Prometheus was punished and bound, he ranted and raved against the Olympians. He called out to the Titans, sons of Uranus, blood kinsmen of his, to look how he was being treated, fettered and clamped to these rough rocks. But the Olympians would fall one day, he said; Jupiter would be replaced.

When Jupiter heard these words, he sent Mercury to make a trade with Prometheus; the secret of who would replace him for his freedom.

Never, said Prometheus, and he insulted Mercury, called him a lackey and servant of the gods, undignified god.

You mean you prefer the indignity of having your liver eaten every day by an eagle than to make a trade, Mercury asked him.

That’s right, said Prometheus; I will never bow to the new gods.

You mean you would bow to the old ones?

Stop! Prometheus shouted; you’re confusing me! My role is to be the renegade, the outcast, the free will of humanity.

 

Prometheus at Rockefeller Center, NY

Themis told Jupiter who could potentially replace him; a child born of Thetis. The nereid Thetis was destined to bear a son mightier than his father.

You mean I can’t-

You shouldn’t, said Themis.

 

I can’t, he told her.

If we can’t,
we go to Virgo.
There are no imperfections, no indignities in Virgo.
She was treasured, perfect and dignified, untouched,
and the gods brought her down,
humbled.
If we can’t,
we go to Virgo.

Virgo will help us out.

Such amulets were worn by men and women of ancient times; apotropaic amulets, fertility amulets. The ram’s head as subject is age old.

 

pendant, Etruscan, 525 BC

The ram’s horns were recognized in the sky before the stories came.
The horns became a symbol of the leader and protector of a flock, head-butting strong and virile, a creative force.

Amun-Ra wore them.

 

Amun rams, Temple of Karnak

Jupiter sometimes wore them too, among Greeks living in Egypt, and they called him Jupiter Ammon.
Before the stories came in Greece, there was a cult practice of carrying a young ram around the city walls. It was believed that the ram would clean the air of miasma that could cause disease. The ram was then sacrificed to the gods; a propitiatory sacrifice.

 

Roman copy of a Greek kriophoros, a ram bearer, 5th century

They say stories begin as images that come from fire, and to translate images into words, fire needs air. There is language in air and the most accessible air to the ram is the air of the scales.
There is balance in the air of the scales, and in the beginning, the stories told about the ram were simple stories with a balancing act.
There is Phrixos holding the horns of Chrysomallus, the ram with the golden fleece. The gods sent the golden ram to rescue Phrixos and Helle from their wicked step mother. Helle lost her balance, but Phrixos figured out a way to hold on. When he made it to Colchis, he sacrificed the ram that saved him to the gods.
There is Odysseus holding on to the belly of a ram.

In the Odyssey, the story of the ram grew more complex, had more words, incorporated more characteristics of the ram, and always, the balancing act of the scales.

Odysseus and his men ventured into the cave of the cyclops Polyphemos who was not at all hospitable. The cyclops grabbed two of the men, rapped them dead on the ground and ate them, and then washed them down with milk.

He had a flock of sheep and rams.

When he took them out to pasture, he blocked the entrance of his cave with a giant rock to prevent the men from escaping. He had an appetite for human flesh.

While he was away, Odysseus, leader of the group, devised a plan. He and his men took the cyclops’ club and shaved the tip to a stabbing point.

When the cyclops returned with his flock, he ate two more men, and before he could wash them down with milk, Odysseus offered him some wine. The cyclops liked it.

What’s your name? the cyclops asked Odysseus.

Nobody, said Odysseus.

Nobody, because you offer me this wine, I will eat you last. Now give me more.

Odysseus gave him more, until the cyclops fell into a drunken stupor.

That’s when Odysseus and his men drove the stake into the cyclops’ eye. The cyclops cried in pain, and when his neighbours came to ask, Why are you making so much noise? Is somebody hurting you inside? The cyclops replied, Nobody is hurting me!

 

The Blinding of Polyphemos, a reconstruction from the Villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga, 1st century AD

The cyclops could no longer see and he cursed the men. When morning came, he rolled the giant rock away, ready to take his flock to pasture, and Odysseus got to work. He arranged the rams in threes, and under the belly of the ram in the middle was a man holding on for dear life.

The cyclops patted his flock as they left the cave without suspecting that the men were getting away.

The men got away and took the rams with them. When they reached their boat, Odysseus’ fighting spirit rose in him. He called out to the cyclops that he was a shameless cannibal who dared to eat his guests in his own house, and the gods had paid him back. He boasted, If anyone should ask who did this to you, tell them it was Odysseus!

The cyclops responded by throwing rocks at them and he asked his father Neptune to avenge him.

When they were far away, they beached to rest, and Odysseus took the ram that saved him to shore; the ram was the most splendid of all. He sacrificed the ram to the gods.

 

Scarab as ornament, Etruscan, 480 BCE (16cm tall,13cm wide,10cm deep, carmelian)

Some stories of the ram were left untold when Mars became ruler of the ram. Mars is Ares, Nergal, Erra, Erra of the underworld, an octave of Pluto. He can bring journeys of the night into the picture, journeys felt and not described, journeys that involve sacrifice. But with sacrifice comes arete, the gift of Mars.

 

Engraving on the back the scarab, Jason being swallowed by the dragon

When Venus became ruler of the scales, she brought  art, beauty and relationship to the air of the scales. Venus is also Aphrodite, Inanna-Ishtar, Inanna-Ereshkigal, and she brought their elements to the air as well.

Stories of the ram began to take many twists and turns.

The story of Jason and Medea wasn’t just a story of the ram told with the air of the scales.

It was a story where the scales got involved in the story of the ram, a balancing act in relationship.

 

The grove of Mars in Sochi, Russia

Emmanuel Pahud is beginning to look like a ram, distinguished. He is the flute player playing Debussy’s Syrinx.

Pahud has Mars in Aries.

His story is a story told with the balancing act in relationship. He learned to play the flute through others; he plays other people’s music; he plays with other musicians.

When he tells stories, they are about the arrangement of music, the art of music to express what cannot always be expressed with words.

There is untold sacrifice in his story, so much given up to perfect his craft. But with sacrifice comes excellence, arete,

the gift of Mars.

Jupiter’s stories begin with desire.

He fell in love with the mortal Alcmene and came to her disguised as her husband. A man points at Jupiter realizing who he is, and Mercury sends him away to write the story of Jupiter’s love for Alcmene, and all the trouble it would bring.

 

Jupiter and Alcmene by Nicolas Tardieu, 18th century

Alcmene gave birth to Hercules and Hera was furious. She tried to have him killed, but Hercules was strong. When he married and had a family, Hera brought a madness upon him and in his madness he killed his family. He went to the Oracle of Delphi to atone and Apollo told him to serve King Eurystheus for twelve years. Hera of course was behind all this, directing the twelve labours Hercules would carry out under Eurystheus.

The first labour was to slay the Nemean lion.

The Moon gave birth to the Nemean lion. She shuddered one day and dropped him in Nemea. He was three times the size of an ordinary lion, with a skin that was impenetrable; only his claw could penetrate his skin.

Hercules wrestled with the lion and killed him, and Athena guided him to use the claw to get his pelt. Hercules then brought the pelt to Eurystheus who did not applaud or praise him for it. On the contrary, the pelt frightened the king. The king  hid in a pithos and from the pithos gave Hercules his next labour.

But before this happened, before Hercules reached the palace and frightened the king, an image rose from the Nemean lion’s fiery pelt,

 

Hercules by Chris Ingram

an image of self expression. What if he wore the impenetrable pelt, Hercules asked himself; would the air of the public that lies across from the lion approve.

If his public was made of the likes of King Eurystheus, the answer was obvioulsy, No. He’d have to settle for just wearing a claw.

He didn’t settle. His atonement was between him and the gods. The gods were his public.

He wore the pelt and wrapped himself in the love and protection of the Moon, mother of the sky, and went on to frighten the king, labour

after labour.
Images of self expression rise from the fire of the lion and across from the lion is the air of the public. We test these images in the air of the public and create a public image.

Hercules became the Nemean lion.

Terry Bollea became Hulk Hogan. His public loved the image that he created; they reinforced it.

In the 1980s, tickets to wrestling shows increased because of him. He became the Make-a-Wish Foundation’s most requested celebrity. He never let a kid down.
The fire of the lion burns steady and images of self expression keep rising to be tested in the air of the public.

Hercules ignored them.

He kept his pelt on even after he finished his labours and married Deianeira. They were travelling together and came upon a river with many rapids. Nessus the centaur who was secretly in love with Deianeira approached them; he offered to carry Deianeira across the river on his back. Hercules accepted the offer and went ahead of them. When he turned around, Nessus was riding away with his wife. He called for him to stop, but Nessus wouldn’t stop, and Hercules shot an arrow through him. The centaur’s dying words to Deianeira were, Take my shirt, and if you ever suspect Hercules of being unfaithful, make him wear it; the shirt will keep him faithful.

Deianeira took the shirt and rejoined her husband.

There came a time when Deianeira suspected Hercules of loving another, and she asked him to wear the shirt. To please her, Hercules took his pelt off and wore the shirt, and the shirt burned him; it was poisoned and he couldn’t take it off.

The pain was so unbearable that he had his funeral pyre built.

Hera was finally going to have her way.

But when Hercules laid himself down on the fire, Jupiter carried him off to Mount Olympus.

 

The Apotheosis of Hercules by Noël Coypel, 1700

The story played out differently for Hogan. He was in a racism controversy in 2015 and the WWE took his pelt away and gave him the shirt of Nessus, the shirt that would bring him down.

He didn’t let it bring him down. He went back to his core self, to being Terry, the vulnerable guy in need of love. He ripped the shirt of Nessus off and said that one does not bring a man and his whole career down because of one mistake. He apologized and affirmed he is not a racist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr7n-68JWww

The WWE gave him his pelt back in 2018 and he now wears it occasionally. His fans call him the immortal Hulk Hogan.

They say the centaur in the sky is a dreamer because the fire of the centaur is subtle; images rise and disappear quickly.
It takes time for the fire to build and an image to grab the centaur by the tail and propel them forward.
To translate images into words, the centaur in the sky reaches for the air of the twins, and the air of the twins is the air of pedestrians.

 

Pedestrians by Iryna Petryk

That’s why Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer is unpretentious and easy to read.

Harrer is the Austrian who went to British India to climb Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. When the second world war broke out, he was detained as an enemy alien there, but he escaped and made his way to Tibet.

He says that he did not escape because he was mistreated in any way. He escaped because he felt the need to achieve something, and the image of Tibet rose in him; what if he made it to the forbidden land of Tibet.

He grabbed the image and trekked on foot over mountain passes and across the Tibetan plateau, until he reached Lhasa. It took him two years and there were times when he could have died.

In Lhasa, he befriended the Dalai Lama and became his tutor.

He unknowingly prepared the Dalai Lama for life in exile, because he himself was an exile. Lhasa gave him asylum.

It must have been an incredible journey of the soul, but that’s not what his book is about; it isn’t  a personal book.

 

Centaur in the sky running away from the Scorpion

His book is like a travel book, written in a conversational style, with the air of pedestrians.

“The staple food in this region is tsampa. This is how they prepare it. You heat sand to a high temperature in a iron pan and then pour barleycorns on to it. They burst with a slight pop, whereupon you put the corns and the sand in the fine-meshed sieve through which the sand runs; after this you grind the corn very small. The resulting meal is stirred up into a paste with butter-tea or milk or beer and then eaten. The Tibetans make a special cult of tsampa and have many ways of preparing it.”

It leaves an account of the rhythm  and rituals of the country the Dalai Lama and his people had to leave behind.

It’s a book that’s easy to pick up and put down and pick up again.

 

Extra curricular reading by DJ Lanzendorfer

Exactly what a fellow centaur needs when they’re driving a bus. I’m a bus driver; old fashioned. I  like carrying a book around for the long waits at the bus stops; educate myself some. I hear about books and movies from people stepping in and out of the bus. I like the old buses; don’t like those new double deckers the city introduced-

 

the tilt test

not because I don’t think they’re sure footed, but because of what happened-
Exactly. I must say the image caught on and became popular. I was in Halloween costumes,
even in donuts. But imagine if that were to happen with a double decker.
This in Heinrich Harrer. He has Jupiter in Sag. He was a child a Jupiter.
If Jupiter’s stories begin with desire, Harrer’s story begins with the desire to climb a mountain. He said there was no freedom like the freedom found in the mountains.

Jupiter has a way of helping us cross those inner lines so that we can have great adventures, broaden our horizons,  and ultimately, be of service to others-

Oh alright, I’ll drive one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-JUhrejZLg

Like I was saying, Harrer became a champion not only of Tibetans, but of people in other parts of the world whose way of life was in some way endangered. He was known for his humanism.

When news came out that he had been a member of the Nazi party, Harrer said that was the biggest aberration of his life, and a time when he was not thinking for himself. The Dalai Lama told him that if his conscience was clear, he had nothing to fear.

A man made up mostly of zodiacal air read his book, and while he read it, images rose in his mind’s eye from the fire that lies across from

his rising in the air of pedestrians,

his Sun in the air of the scales,

his MC in the air of the public.

They were images that told him the story that was not being told in the book; the story of leaving a pregnant wife to climb a mountain; the story of how his Nazi membership allowed him to participate in the expedition to the Himalayas; the story of how Tibet changed him d’arrache pied. He thought, There’s a story of redemption in these images.

He decided to make a movie based on the book, and Harrer allowed him poetic license.

https://charlierose.com/videos/29087

The ancients played on the sea shore and watched a crab going in and out of the salt waters, and they imagined a goat with the tail of a fish going in and out of the subterranean waters of the earth, sweet waters of life.

They played on the sea shore and watched the crab molt, pushed out of its home, defenceless and lying low, waiting for the new home to harden. They watched the laws of nature, the wisdom of nature,  and they made the goat fish wise, giver of the laws that govern every area of life.

Wherever the goat fish goes, they carry the ancestral memory of playing on the sea shore watching a crab.

 

the goat fish and the crab by Elena Khomutova-Miller

The goat fish saw what happened when people ate crab apples, but the goat fish did not expel them. He knew how painful it was to be expelled from watching the crab being pushed out of its home. What the goat fish did instead was write laws to regulate sexual intercourse, laws on marriage and laws on prostitution.

The goat fish then watched the rest of the crab apples fall to the ground, and each time one fell, he said, gravitas, gravitas. The Earth must have a force that pulls matter toward it. The goat fish looked up at the sky and wondered why the Moon didn’t crash into the Earth if this was true; the Moon is smaller than the Earth. Birds told the goat fish that the speed of the Moon kept it from falling; lightness and speed kept it orbiting round the earth.

The imagination of the goat fish soared higher to the Sun and the gravitas of the Sun, and the planets going round it made sense. The law of universal gravitation was based on observation and experience, and it all began watching a crab.

The crab carries with them the ancestral memory of having been a source of inspiration.

 

A Capricorn Dawn by Prodeep Mookerjee

The crab and the goat fish are of the waters and of the earth,

a place where instinct and what is seen and experienced work together,

a place where the laws of nature and the laws established touch each other.

 

 Temple of Enki-Ea in Eridu, imagined

The ancients watched the scorpion, the stealth of the scorpion, the use of poison to defend itself.

 

scorpion by Mario Brunet

The ancients watched the bull that was first the auroch, powerful, beautiful, so powerful and beautiful that they dedicated a hall to them.

 

the great black bull in the hall of the bulls, Lascaux

The horns of the bull were recognized in the sky, and across from the horns of the bull was the scorpion, with poison that can take us from life to death and poison that can bring us back to life. It depends on the dose. Isis knew this. She was known for her powers to heal the sick. She wore the horns of the bull to hold the sun that was the symbol of her divinity.
The horns were divine in their own right in Crete.
When the power and beauty of the bull and the waters of the scorpion come together, they sing songs of war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc

They can sing songs of war because we know who’s really behind the bull,

 

helmet with the Taurus constellation to protect from magpie attacks

we know who’s really behind the scorpion.
When Isaac Newton understood gravity by looking at the falling crab apples, he was standing on the earth and waters of the goat fish.

But when he went all abstract and worked on an equation to calculate the effects of gravity based on mass and distance, he stepped out of goat fish territory and into the waters of the fish.

He had the Sun in Capricorn,

the Moon in Cancer,

and Jupiter in Pisces.

Jupiter is a planet of knowledge, and Jupiter in Pisces is interested in knowledge that is universal. It is in the waters of the fish that Isaac Newton finalized the universal law of gravitation.

They say that the zodiac begins with the formation of ego, and by the time we get to Pisces, the ego dissolves. We’re permeable in the waters of the fish and can access knowledge that is theoretical and universal.

Across from the waters of the fish is the earth of the farmer, and the farmer asked the fish if they could borrow the book on gravity.

Sure, said the fish.

The farmer read the book

and decided it needed some pruning. The farmer came up with a simpler version of the equation and a more down to earth explanation of what’s going on in the universe.

 

Dream in classroom by Dr. B Kandar

When the waters of the fish and the earth of the farmer come together, they teach us culture.

 

Le tour du monde by Henri Dargelas

They say that the ego dissolves in the waters of Pisces and has a wider range. The molecules spread out, making the ego porous and permeable,  but they’re still held together by the force of gravity.

Until the ego falls in love. When the ego falls in love in Pisces, the molecules defy gravity to surround the loved one, no matter the distance.

Until the ego is hurt. When the ego is hurt in Pisces, the molecules defy gravity to surround the one who hurt them, no matter the distance.
Unbounded emotions are hard to put into words.

Pisces relies on molecules to express them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTsSk0r_Tq8

 

Artemis, goddess of the hunt, chaste and wild.

Before she met Orion, she killed anyone who set eyes on her; a gaze could blemish her chastity.

But she allowed Orion to gaze at her, and he did not understand the privilege.

He betrayed her,

or so they said.

Words don’t come easy for the scorpion either, and Artemis never asked Orion if what they said was true.

Regret.

She regretted the sting that took him from life to death, and she brought him back to life in the sky.

The waters of the scorpion are alchemical waters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05t5mbqNCuA

 

There are stories of separation in the sand and salty waters of the crab, stories of separation from home, the homeland, exile.

We dig in the shores of the crab to find ancestral melodies, rhythms, beats to tell these stories, to keep memories alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKtHl9nGEMo

It is in the waters of the fish that Aphrodite and Eros took refuge; loving waters, soothing waters. From the loving and soothing waters of the fish, the war fought between the Titans and the Olympians looked magical, like fireworks.

But it is also in the waters of the fish that the Titans created Typhon, their last resort to hold on to power.

He was a monster made up of all monsters, with a hundred snake heads emitting a cacophony of sounds, a hundred snake heads breathing fire.

Uranus     Sorry about that; my imagination got carried away in the waters of the fish.

He became a destructive force.

Saturn     We lost control of him-

Earth     His molecules came unbound.

 

some things are scary by Edward Gorey

It is this side of the fish that Neptune rules, the creative side, the side that defies gravity.

Before the story of the cord that tied Aphrodite to Eros in the waters of the fish, there was a confluence of two rivers in the sky. In Mesopotamia they were the Tigris and the Euphrates, loving soothing waters that supported life. Flooding made the land fertile, and over flooding brought destruction, like the Typhon brought destruction, and the people prayed to Enlil, to Marduk, to Jupiter.

They sacrificed a bull to him.

 

image: Nasa

They say that Typhon severed the sinews of Jupiter’s hands, kept them in a bear skin bag and hid them in a cave. Mercury retrieved them and gave them back to Jupiter, and Jupiter regained the use of his hands.

 

Mercury presenting thunderbolts to Jupiter by Giovanni Battista Langetti, 17th century

With his thunderbolt, Jupiter trapped Typhon under Mount Etna. He contained Etna’s lava flows, Typhon’s fury, to her uninhabited slopes, and the lava flows make the land fertile.

Fertile waters of the fish,

fertile with desire, ruled by the gods who fathered the most offspring.

Neptune and Jupiter both desired Thetis, but when Themis foretold that her child would be mightier than the father, they stopped pursuing her, jealous of their  power. Amorous gods, jealous gods.

Fertile waters of the fish,

fertile with ideas, with Neptune’s inspiration,

and Jupiter’s direction.
Loving soothing waters, with Neptune’s compassion and Jupiter’s hospitality.

Neptune and Jupiter have not been together in Pisces since 1855-56. The two rulers will be together again in Pisces in 2022.

Neptune entered Pisces in 2012 and will be there until 2025.

Jupiter will dip into Pisces this year between mid May and the end of July, and then retrograde back into Aquarius. He will settle down in Pisces at the end of this year.

John Singer Sargent was  born the last time the two rulers were together in Pisces; masterful painter.

 

Smoke of ambergris by John Singer Sargent, 1880

Then there is Saturn, old Titan, and before that, they say he was Ninurta. When a dragon stole the laws of the universe, Ninurta rescued them. He brought order and became keeper of the laws of the universe.

He wrote instructions on how to farm the land, how to get the most from the land, and he was worshipped as the god of agriculture.

 

The Greeks called him Kronos, born of Uranus and the Earth, and when he was born, he separated heaven and earth, male and female. He separated and made distinctions, and when it was his time to rule, it was his time.

 

The Romans called him Saturn and Saturn ate his children when it was prophesized that they would dethrone him. His wife Rhea who the Romans called Ops hid the last child born and gave him a stone to eat instead. This last child born was Jupiter, raised by the nanny goat Amalthea, and when Jupiter grew up, he led a rebellion against his father.

To thank Amalthea for her nurture, Jupiter put her in the sky, in the stars around Capella, so bright in our March skies. The horn he accidentally broke off when he played with her as a child became the cornucopia,

horn of abundance, and to honour Saturn, god of agriculture and god of abundance, the Greeks celebrated the harvest festival called the Kronia, and the Romans celebrated the Saturnalia.

 

Carlos Saura has the Sun, Mars and Saturn in Capricorn, Saturn in the sign he rules.

He made a movie based on the novel Carmen by Prosper Mérimée in the flamenco style.

Flamenco is not freestyle. We don’t do freestyle with Saturn; we don’t go about preparing the earth and planting seeds any which way. With Saturn there is order and a form of dance that requires discipline, hard work and mastery.

There is a scene in the movie where two women are vying for the role of Carmen. One is Cristina, an experienced dancer who’s been told that although she is the best in the field, she is too old for the role. The other is Carmen, a newcomer, inexperienced, but the director of the movie thinks that she is the right fit, and perhaps Cristina can train her.

The two women build an army and battle it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795oXwmylqY&list=RD795oXwmylqY&start_radio=1&t=10

The Sun and Mars side with Saturn, they blend with him and bring out his qualities, and Carlos Saura’s movie is passionate about whose time it is to rule.

 

This isn’t the case when Uranus is with Saturn, when Neptune is with Saturn.

Uranus was separated from the Earth and dethroned by Saturn, and he pushes Saturn to question the laws he keeps, the distinctions he makes, the throne he wants to occupy.

In Capricorn, Uranus brings out Enki humour and can be irreverent, and Saturn allows it as long as the irreverence isn’t freestyle; it should be mastered. Lil Dicky has Uranus conjunct Saturn, and Neptune in Capricorn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvuN_WvF1to

Neptune was one of the children Saturn swallowed, and he softens Saturn, makes him more romantic and sentimental, more fluid and imaginative. Pablo Alborán has Neptune conjunct Saturn, and Uranus in Capricorn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAx5nBdJqU

Uranus and Neptune influence Saturn to break the mold.

 

Saturn is in Aquarius now. Aquarius is about the group over the individual, and Saturn in Aquarius upholds the laws of the group.

90 degrees away and squaring Saturn is Uranus in Taurus.

Saturn and Uranus are squaring each other.

Uranus in Taurus awakens us to our body, the senses, the earth.

 

Saturn in Aquarius brings focus to the group.

 

There is tension in a square. Saturn upholds and Uranus questions. Saturn can discipline and Uranus can rebel.

 

But they can also inform each other and keep each other in check.

The square is on this whole year with an orb of less than 5 degrees, and it will continue into next year, maintaining an orb of less than 10 degrees. The planets will separate in February 2023.

 

Then there is Pluto.

When Jupiter rescued his brothers from Saturn’s belly, they divided the kingdoms between them, and Jupiter got the sky, Neptune the rivers and the ocean, and Pluto got the underworld.

Out of the three brothers. Pluto was the most faithful, faithful to Persephone and she to him.

 

The ancients said that Pluto took Persephone against her will,

 

and others re dream the story and turn it into a romance.

 

It’s easier to turn it into a romance, into loyalty that begins with attraction. The ancient version brings up psychological states like stockholm syndrome and loyalty that begins with capture.

Either way, love grew between them. They got entangled and acted as one.

The word was first used in quantum physics by Erwin Schrödinger. He proved that when two particles were entangled and then split and separated by a great distance, whatever happened to one would happen to the other instantaneously. If one spun faster, so would the other; there was instant communication between them. It was as if they were joined by a umbilical cord.

;

That’s why there are astrologers who tell us to be careful who we sleep with, because we can get entangled with them and their

 

unremembered dead.

But we don’t have to go that far to get entangled. Proximity can entangle us.

It happens in the sky,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4f_1_r80RY

it happens on the ground,

 

and it happens in the underworld.

The ancient stories that involve Pluto and Persephone have to do with the separation of entangled lovers.

 

There is the story of Eros and Psyche.

She never saw him but he saw her and saved her from a terrible marriage. He had the wind take her to his castle, and without showing himself told her to make herself comfortable.

He came to her every night on the condition that she would never ask to see him or attempt to see him, and he left before daybreak.

She lit a candle one night and when she saw how beautiful he was, she came closer, and a drop of candle wax fell on his body and woke him and he was gone.

She went everywhere searching for him, went to every temple asking for help, and Demeter helped her. She told her that Eros was her lover, and she should go to Venus for help.

She went to Venus and Venus had her prove her love for Eros her son with labours, and one of the labours was to go to the underworld to obtain Persephone’s elixir of beauty.

 

Psyche obtaining the elixir of beauty from Persephone by Charles-Joseph Natoire, 1735

Don’t open it, Persephone told her, knowing that she would; it wasn’t even sealed.

Psyche opened it and found nothing inside but fell into a deep sleep, until Eros found her and drew the sleep from her and married her.

Mercury heralded their wedding, remember?

 

There is also the story of Orpheus. When his wife Eurydice died he went looking for her in the underworld, and the music he played softened the hearts of the king and the queen.

We cannot go against the fates, Persephone said, but Orpheus insisted.

Pluto gave in and allowed him to take Eurydice with him.

Don’t turn around to look at her until you reach the surface, he told him, knowing how difficult it would be to resist.

 

There can be entanglement where Pluto is in the chart, and entanglement can take us on a journey to the underworld.

 

Pluto is many things.

He is where we dig, where we can get entangled, where we are faithful.

He is the shaman of the zodiac and sees us through every stage of our lives.

He is transiting Capricorn right now and will be there until 2024. Two shamans are together in the sky; Pluto and Enki seeing us through this stage of our lives.

 

entangled by Pascale Archambault

The air of the scales,

Libra.

Venus brought beauty, artistry and relationship to the sign.

Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive (official video)

Libra between his twin brothers, perfectly balanced.

Before Libra took his place, he was first part of the Virgo constellation and then the Scorpio constellation. He found that like light, he could be particle to blend with Virgo and he could be wave to blend with Scorpio.

Light does that. It adapts to how we want to see it. If we set up an experiment to see the particles of light, light will behave like particle. If we set up an experiment to see the waves of light, light will behave like wave. It harmonizes with us.

It is experimenting with light that quantum physics begins and differentiates itself from classical physics. Classical physics begins watching a crab apple fall to the ground; it always follows the law of gravitation. Quantum physics begins watching light adapt to the experiment we set up.

Schrödinger had a stellium in Libra and he took it further. He is the one who entangled photons and discovered that when they were split and separated, they stayed connected. They communicated faster than the speed of light, instantly in fact, and did not obey the laws of classical physics.

Gary Zukav wrote a book about it for people without a scientific background. He has a grand trine in air and a stellium in Libra.

Before Libra took his place, he experienced quantum physics firsthand. Quantum physics is air knowledge, Libra knowledge, knowledge of the mind. Adaptability, harmony, entanglement and connectivity, the basics of relationship.

 

relationship by Pascale Archambault

The basics of relationship happen organically; it’s how we get along and how we fall in love.

 

We can perfect them professionally, 

 

and like anything else, they can be misused.

Uranus entered Libra in 1968-69, while Jupiter was there, and Pluto followed in 1971-72. They brought forth Libra knowledge and tested relationships between people, between people in a country, between countries.

 

The planets transited Barry Gibb’s first house in Libra and he has a natal stellium there. The planets transited his first house and lit up his whole life.

The music he and his brothers created was Libra music. They adapted to each other and harmonized with each other, and they entangled and connected a whole generation of people

with disco music and disco lights.

Bee Gees – You Should Be Dancing 1976 (HQ Audio)