Yin Yang XXI

Dry valley

Gaëtan raised his hand but the teacher didn’t see him. She never did. He had to live with someone else getting the answer right.

“Why don’t you confront her?” said Berta. “If you don’t, I will.”

They went together.

She saw them approaching her desk and put her pen down. She looked at Berta and saw her, and then she looked at Gaëtan and her vision was drawn up, just above his head, and then further up and into the distance.

“Mrs. D, you never call on me to answer a question. Why’s that?”

She looked down at her desk. “Gaëtan,” she said, “I’ve never told this to anyone because I don’t want them to think I’m mad, but I owe you an explanation. When I look at you, my vision is drawn to a light above your head, and then further up and into the distance where I see something. I’m not quite sure what, and it takes my mind away, you understand, trying to figure it out.”

“A light above my head?”

“Yes, it’s like a tiny lit arrow pointing up. Is there any other teacher who ignores you?”

“No, only you. But I don’t think you’re mad. I actually think there’s something strange about me-“

“There’s nothing strange about you!” said Berta.

“Berta’s right. I’m the one who sees it and-  There are just some things that are inexplicable.  (pause) Tell you what, sit together next class and I’ll call on you but I’ll look at Berta, alright?”

That’s what she did, she looked at Berta, but the moment he began to talk, her eyes automatically sought him out, and there was the light guiding her away.

Mrs. D! Mrs. D! Mrs. D!

Their calls brought her back. All the students were standing around her.

“Did you see it?”

“Did you figure it out?”

“How long-” she asked.

Long enough for Berta to explain the strange phenomenon and to make them promise not to tell anyone.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. I needed more time,” she said, walking to her desk to get her water bottle.

“Mrs. D, have you heard of the radio program called Friends?”

“No, I don’t think so, Toshi.”

“People call in about their strange experiences and the radio hosts analyze them and tell them what they mean.”

“Why is it called Friends?”

“It’s not Friends, it’s Phens,” said Reej. “Like phen for phenomena and s for strange, Phens. You should call them.”

“I would but- it’s so public.”

“It’s anonymous. Nobody would know it’s you.”

“Somebody could recognize my voice, my manner of speaking.”

“It’s on while we’re in class tomorrow. You could call them from here, with us.”

She hesitated.

“Mrs. D, don’t you wish you could see Gaëtan?”

“Where is he?”

Berta held her shoulders and said, “Don’t turn around. He’s behind you, afraid to come into your line of vision, afraid to talk. This is really affecting him.”

“I’ll call tomorrow,” she said.

In the staff meeting the next day, she said that her students were going to watch a documentary and she needed the shades down.

The shades were down and they locked the door, and she made the call.

“What are their names?”

“Clarke and Wells.”

She put the phone on speaker and told Clarke and Wells her story. She described how she lost all sense of where she was and all sense of time trying to name it, whatever it was that the light guided her to see.

There was silence in the room and on the phone when she finished. She had been told that there would be silence because a caller’s story could put one of the two radio hosts in a trance. She had to wait and see if they had a message for her.

They waited in suspense.

“Hair,” said Clarke. He awoke from his trance and said, “What you see Caller D is hair.”

“Hair! But-” She turned toward Gaëtan, held his arm and looked at him, at the light and the far distance to confirm that it was hair.

“Caller D?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” she said, returning more easily, and finding that she could look at Gaëtan and keep her vision below the light. “It isn’t normal hair,” she continued. “They are like strands that move-“

Reej gasped, “Medusa’s hair!”

“More benign,” said Clarke. “The kind of hair you find in India-“

“Dreadlocks!” said Toshi.

“Yes, dreadlocks, but hush,” whispered Clarke. “Wells has fallen into a trance.”

They waited in suspense.

“It’s a charm,” said Wells, waking up.

“What-“

“Do you speak the words of the great Op-Pollo?” interrupted Berta.

“Only the Pythia in the Temple of Op-Pollo speaks his words,” said Wells.

“Then whose words do you speak?”

“We’re not sure, actually. (to Clarke) I don’t think we’ve ever told our listeners how it all began, Clarke.”

“No, never.”

“Should we tell them, now?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“We used to clear snow, you see, in those snow clearing machines, and we became good friends. Sometimes I’d wait for him to finish his shift and sometimes he’d wait for me and we’d go for coffee. I once stood waiting for him, watching the two blue warning lights on the machine and I fell into a trance. I came out of the trance and said something. He was standing beside me, he’d just walked up to me, and what I said was key to solving a problem he was having.  (to Clarke) Right, Clarke? Am I remembering it correctly?”

“You are. Go on.”

Wells continued, “He wanted to know how I’d come up with the solution, and I told him about the blue lights hypnotising me. So we tried it again, and we began to practise. It worked on him as well. He told his wife and I told my wife, and they began testing us, telling us things going on in their lives and with the kids, and we found ourselves going into a trance without the blue lights, just with the stories.”

“But my wife still says I speak the words of the blue lights,” said Clarke.

“Mine calls them the words of St. Elmo’s fire.”

“That’s wicked,” said Berta.

“Wells, you said that what I see is a charm?”

“Yes, the man who rubs his nose will help the bearer of the charm.”

“Why does he rub his nose?”

“It’s how the lights decide, I think. They may have said, the person who yawns will be the bearer of the charm, and Gaëtan yawned.”

“How do you know his name!”

“I don’t. It just came to me.”

“This is so creepy,” said Toshi.

“The phones have been ringing Caller D,” said Clarke. “Lots of listeners with questions, but we only have room for one.”

“Hello, yes, what a bizarre story,” said a listener. “I was wondering, is the bearer of the charm aware of what’s happening? I mean, I can’t imagine telling someone there’s a light above their head that only I can see.”

“Hi, yes, he knows, and luckily, he doesn’t think I’m mad,” said Mrs. D.

“Caller D, thank you for calling Phens today,” said Clarke, ending the conversation. ”  (with emphasis) Phens, where strange phenomena happen every day.”

She thanked them and hung up.

“I didn’t yawn,” said Gaëtan. “I stole something.”

He looked at Mrs. D and waited for her to look at him, and she carefully laid her eyes on his face.

He continued, “I was having lunch at a mall. The tables were all joined and there were people around me. There was a woman next to me who offered everyone a piece of gum before leaving. She left her coat on the chair. When I saw it, I picked it up and looked for her. Someone said I should take it to the lost and found, but I didn’t. I brought it home.”

“Why?”

“I had noticed the ring she was wearing when she was handing out gum. It had a strange design.The coat had a brooch with the same design and I wanted to take a closer look. Now I know what they are, strands of hair coiling up.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. D, looking at the charm above his head. “I think they’re trying to grab something. They’re reaching up, but there’s nothing there, just empty space.”

“So what do we do next?” said Toshi.

The bell rang.

“Let’s go for a walk,” said Reej.

They went for a walk and there was a snow clearing machine, the kind with blue warning lights. The driver stopped when he saw them coming. They waved at him and he waved back and rubbed his nose.

“What’s that you’re wearing,” he called out.

“What?” they asked him.

“The lit arrow on the lad’s head.”

“You see it?”

“Of course I see it. I wouldn’t be driving this if I didn’t have 20/20.”

“Could we get a ride on your machine?”

“No passengers allowed. Besides, I’m in a hurry. I have to clear the road where the radio station is. They can’t get out.”

Berta took charge. She told Toshi and Reej to stand in front of the machine. “Block it,” she said. Then she pulled Gaëtan with her, as close as she could get to the driver’s window. “Look,” she said, rubbing Gaëtan’s head. “There’s nothing here. What you see is a supernatural phenomenon. Only our teacher can see it, and now you.”

The driver looked at Gaëtan, more carefully this time, and his eyes got lost in the distance.

“Hey! Hey!” Berta jumped up and down trying to get his attention back.

He slowly came back.

“Focus below the light so you can stay with us and I’ll explain,” said Gaëtan.

The driver wore a cap to protect him from the light and Gaëtan explained what they knew so far.

“I’ve seen the charm before,” said the driver. “My mother has it on a ring. She has it on a brooch as well, but she lost it. Actually, the brooch was pinned to her coat and she left her coat someplace. She sent me to the lost and found but they didn’t have it-“

“Small world,” whispered Berta.

“You said something?”

“No.”

“I’ve seen it engraved, but on your head it’s living and breathing. That’s something. And you said only your teacher and I can see it? That’s something.”

“I hope no one else will,” said Gaëtan.

“Why’s that?”

“It paralyzes me. When Mrs. D looks at it, or you just now, I can’t move.”

“I didn’t realize that,” said Berta.

“So you really are the bearer of the charm,” said the driver, shaking his head in amazement. “I thought it was all just one of my mom’s crazy ideas. She belongs to a club, you see, a secret society that plays with magic and magic symbols, and they make all kinds of talismans-“

“You mean the Kabbalah,” said Reej.

“Not exactly, but, you know, every belief system has a magical offshoot. Anyway, sometime around- hm- I’d say around the turn of the century-“

“Wait a second,” said Toshi. “How old’s your mom?”

“In her 60s. I meant around the year 2000, not 1900.”

“Oh yeah,” laughed Toshi. “Of course!”

“Around that time, people were complaining about our valley, how they wished we had a river, and one of the members who came from India told the society the story of how the River Ganges descended from heaven to earth. They decided that they would make it happen here, with our own pantheon of gods, and they wrote a story about the birth of the sacred river of the dry valley. They wrote prayers invoking the gods to send down a river. They came up with mantras to chant. And last of all, the charm, infused with magical powers to make it happen.”

“How do you do that?” .

“They carved it on a rock under the full moon, praying, chanting, sprinkling some kind of oil-“

“Patchouli?”

“That’s it, patchouli oil, and when they finished, they asked the gods to send them a sign when the river would come, a person who bore the symbol of the charm, the bearer of the charm.”

“This is insane,” said Gaëtan.

Someone honked and they looked up. .

“My supervisor,” said the driver.

“What’s keeping you, John! They’re waiting at the station!”

“Be right there!” said John.   (to Gaëtan) “Here’s my number. Call me when you get home. The society meets tonight.”

They all came to the meeting with their parents, and Mrs. D came too.

John’s mother, Kate, began by telling them the story of how a river would be born in the heavens and be brought down to earth, to their dry valley, and then Mrs. D told of the charm on Gaëtan’s head and the phone conversation with Phens, and Berta finished with their chance encounter with John.

“Kate,” said Gaëtan, “I don’t know if you remember, but we once sat next to each other at the food court in the mall. You offered me gum before leaving and forgot your coat on the chair. I have it.” He took the coat from his backpack and handed it to her. “I’m sorry I took it instead of leaving it at the lost and found. But I was drawn to the symbol on the brooch.”

She took the coat from him. “I left it on purpose,” she said. “We’ve been praying for a river for over two decades now, and that day at the mall, I thought, what if the person who bears the charm needs to find it. So I left it there to be found, and look, you found it. But John tells me that you carry a living and breathing charm on your head, and only he and Mrs. D can see it.  (pause) This is what I think we should do now, if you agree. Both of them should take a look at it, and then John can leave the room and Mrs. D can describe it first. We’ll bring John back after that and he can describe it as well. This way we rid ourselves of any skepticism.”

That’s what they did, and when John left the room, Mrs. D said that earlier that day the strands of hair were reaching up into empty space. Now they were reaching up and massaging a foot.

“A foot!”

John came back and said the same thing, “Earlier today the hairlocks were curling up, reaching for something, and now they are stroking a foot.”

“Whose foot!”

“I think it’s Op-Neptune’s foot because- I may have seen a trident.”

“Let me take a look,” said Mrs. D, and she approached Gaëtan again and let the arrow guide her to the charm. She stood there looking into the distance, and suddenly her eyes popped and she stepped back. “I saw it.”

“He’s the god of salt water and fresh water,” said Toshi. “Maybe the river will come from him.”

“In India there would be nothing unusual if a river was born from a god’s foot,” said Geeta, the woman who came from India.

“In your story, it says that when the river was born, the gods kept it in a pithos. I sure hope they do,” said Toshi’s dad. “We need time to prepare.”

“Yes,” said Toshi’s mom. “We need to map out the course of the river and get people out of the way.”

“Too bad we can’t call the valley council and tell them a river will be dropping from the sky soon-“

“But we can call Phens,” said Reej.

“They said they had lots of listeners with questions-“

“We’ll call them tomorrow-“

“Every day-“

“I think we have time,” said Gaëtan, looking out the window at the snow. “They’ll probably send it down during Spring Break.”

Kate came to stand beside him. “How about we meet every day, same place, same time, to check on the charm. I know it paralyzes you-“

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“I’ll bring a map I have of the valley,” said his dad. “It shows where the old river used to flow. Problem is, there’s been a lot of construction on the old river bed.”

“Mom,” said John. “Maybe you should get in touch with El Cristo Negro.”

There were gasps around the room.

“You know him?”

“He’s an old friend,” said Kate.

youtube.com/watch?v=ULcyLYD3o_M

The shades were down and they locked the door, and Mrs. D called Phens.

“Welcome back, Caller D,” said Clarke. “Did you find the man who rubs his nose? The man who will help the bearer of the charm?”

“Thank you,” she said. “We found him and he has links to a secret society that has been praying for a river, and the river is coming. It will be born in the heavens and pour down into our dry valley. I wanted to ask how much time do we have and how to prepare for it.”

There was silence and they waited in silence, until Clarke woke from his trance and said, “Mat.”

“Mat?”

“Mat with the matted hairlocks will guide the waters born from the foot of Op-Neptune.”

“A red shovel,” said Wells. “She shovels snow with a red shovel.”

“Won’t it be dangerous for her to guide a river coming down with full force?”

Silence.

“Her hairlocks are long,” said Wells.

“What do you mean?”

“They are long enough.”

“Any idea how much time we have?”

Silence.

“The charm will tell.”

“Caller D, the phones have been ringing,” said Clarke. “Lots of listeners with questions, but we only have room for one.”

“Hello, good morning. I first wanted to say how much I enjoy this program. I’ve always had an inclination for the paranormal,” said the listener.

“We’re glad you enjoy it,” said Clarke.

“Here to serve the hidden senses,” said Wells.

“The thought of a river coming down from heaven worries me because I have a house on the old river bed. There must be about a hundred of them. How real is this river? I mean, should I sell? Scratch that. What I mean is, what should I do?”

“Don’t panic,” said Mrs. D. “The key is to stay calm and find a place you can move to before Spring Break.”

“That’s it for today, listeners,” said Clarke. “Caller D, thank you for calling Phens today.  (with emphasis) Phens, where strange phenomena happen every day.”

Mrs. D hung up and looked at her students, the worry on their faces. “We have to look on the bright side,” she said. “A sacred river is going to flow in our valley-” The light above Gaëtan’s head took her away to see the charm, the hairlocks massaging the foot, and water dripping from the big toe, water collected in a pithos.

Mrs. D arrived early to the secret society’s meeting. It was held inside a room of a recreation centre. She walked up to the centre and saw a young woman breaking ice at the entrance with a red shovel. She came closer to check her hair, and her hair was very long.

“Mat?” she said.

“Yes? I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“Why would you be in trouble?”

“Because I was meant to do this like, six hours ago.”

“Why are you so late?”

“I wanted to be out here when members of the secret society arrive. They have a meeting scheduled tonight.”

“I’m actually here for the meeting.”

“Is this the secret society that prayed for a river? I heard about it in Phens.”

“It is.”

“They said my name today.  (pause) You’re not Caller D, are you?”

“I am. Will you be able to attend the meeting?”

“Yes, I’m done work in ten minutes.”

When Mat came into the room, everyone knew who she was. They had all tuned in to Phens that morning.

John took his cap off and looked at Gaëtan and the charm, and he confirmed what Mrs. D had seen, “There’s water-“

“Do you smell that?” said Reej, breathing in.

The scent of a sweet cigar drifted into the room.

“It’s him,” said Kate.

She went to open the door and there he was, El Cristo.

“Kate, my darling,” he said, embracing her. “So it’s finally coming true.”

“You smell good,” she said, and he said, “So do you.”

She introduced him to everyone, and then Gaëtan’s dad spread the map he brought of the valley and they studied it.

“Where was the source?” El Cristo wanted to know.

“The river came from a lake, the lake of the valley, over here,” pointed Gaëtan’s dad. “It now lies empty.”

“It is here where all prayers and sacrifices should be taking place,” said El Cristo.

“What do you mean by sacrifices?” said Berta. “We’re not killing any animals.”

“I was only teasing,” said El Cristo. “About the sacrifices, not the prayers. The charm should be moved to this location. Where is it now?”

“Here,” said Gaëtan.

El Cristo looked at him and his eyes were led into the distance, and he saw the sacred foot, the sacred toe, the sacred water. He came back to look at Gaëtan and said, “You, bearer of the charm, should go to the Temple of Op-Pollo with your friends. The members of the secret society should move the rock infused with magical powers to the source of the river. The parents and I have work to do here, on the old river bed.”

“I- I don’t agree,” said Gaëtan. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the great Op-Pollo or the Pythia, but I am indebted to oracles that come from the two blue lights.”

“Then send your friends to the Temple. Mat should go. She will need the help of the Op-Trinity to guide the waters that are coming.”

“Maybe you or Mrs. D could convince Clarke and Wells to accompany you to Embrun,” suggested Kate.

“We should finalize a plan of action tonight,” said El Cristo, “because the pithos is filling up.”

Vishnu and Lakshmi by Pieter Weltevrede

“When the river was born in India, she was full of mischief,” Geeta told Mat. “She just wanted to take a plunge and cause havoc. So when she took a plunge, the god with the matted hairlocks kept her in his hair until she was calm.”

“They’re not expecting me to do that, are they?” said Mat. “I don’t have any special powers, and my hair isn’t really matted.” She gathered her hair and held it up, “These are braid extensions.”

“Maybe your’re the wrong person.”

“Maybe. But when I heard them say my name on the radio, I was sure it was me. And I’ve been having the same dream over and over. A woman dancing in the clouds.”

“That’s why you should seek the advice of the Oracle.”

“Not me,” Gaëtan told John. “I think this happened to me only because I took your mother’s coat, and my role is simply to be the bearer.  (pause) You know, I used to think that I was strange, but now I think we all are.”

“Well, we’re the only valley with a radio station called Phens.  Listen, if you’re not going to see the Oracle, then I won’t either. I’ll stick around and help the society move the rock to the source.”

“You should put it where the mouth of the source is, where the river will flow out of the lake-“

“Sorry, Gaëtan, but the arrow above your head is burning bright and-

It led him to see the charm, despite his cap, and he saw the strands of hair and- They disappeared for a brief moment to show him something else.

“It showed me how,” he said. “Like you said, the rock should sit right at the mouth of the source, like this-” He looked around for a pen and drew it.

“Gaëtan,” said Berta, “Toshi and Reej are going with Mat, and I’m going to school so Mrs. D isn’t left alone.”

“Mrs. D,” said John. “Do you know what this means?” He showed her his drawing.

“It-” She looked around for Geeta and waved the drawing, and Geeta came to look at it.

“Yin,” she said, outlining the mouth of the source with her finger, “and Yang,” she said, outlining the rock sitting on top. “The female principle and the male principle. It’s how it all began, with the creative force of the two principles joined together. This is a most potent symbol.”

“Do you know if the old river bed has a residents’ association?” said El Cristo. “A president we can talk to?”

“No idea,” said Gaëtan’s dad, “but that would be the responsible way to go about things.”

“Yes,” said Kate. “I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow.”

Mrs. D’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Caller D?”

“Clarke?”

Everyone turned to her and she put the phone on speaker.

“Yes, it’s Clarke, Caller D. I hope you don’t mind me calling you.”

“No, no. Is everything okay? How’s Wells?”

“Right here, beside me.”

“Hello, Caller D,” said Wells. “We’re on a commercial break and thought we should let you know that the valley council is shutting us down.”

“It’s my fault,” said Mrs. D. “I shouldn’t have told the listener to move out.”

“Oh, we’re not worried,” said Clarke.

“Not at all,” said Wells. “We’ll be back. We still have a couple of hours on air and listeners want to hear from you-“

“Ten seconds,” said Clarke.

“Will you give them the latest?”

“Sure,” said Mrs. D.

“We’re on.”

Clarke told listeners that they had Caller D on the line with the latest update on the bearer of the charm. “Go ahead, Caller D.”

“We found Mat of the matted hairlocks, and the secret society has asked El Cristo Negro to assist.”

“The mercenary?”

“Yes- He would like to say a few words.”

“Put him on-“

“Hello Clarke and Wells,” said El Cristo.

“It’s an honour to have you in the dry valley, sir,” said Clarke.

“Soon to have a river,” said El Cristo. “This is a great opportunity for me to ask listeners if the dry river bed has a residents’ association. I would like to hold a meeting to explain the situation. This river isn’t a flood coming. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the birth of something new. With the participation of residents, and with strict discipline, we can guide the river from the mouth of the lake when it descends.”

There was silence and they waited in silence.

“Conch shell,” said Wells.

“A conch shell?”

“Yes, take the ladder to get the conch shell.”

“From where?”

“Clarke, I think they mean you and me. We have to take the ladder to get the conch shell.”

“But, from where?”

Silence.

“Temple,” said Wells. “With Caller D, Gaëtan and his friends, Mat as well, and the man who rubs his nose and his clearing machine. The pilgrim road is full of snow.”

Silence. This time Clarke had gone into a trance.

“Yin Yang,” he awoke. “First put the rock on the mouth of the lake, then head to Embrun.” He fell into a trance again.

“Shh,” said Wells.

“10 o’clock,” said Clarke.

“What’s happening at 10?”

“The meeting with El Cristo on the dry river bed.”

“Dress in layers,” said El Cristo.

youtube.com/watch?v=IFtwhMK64H8

Lord Bunn, Lord Schiller and Lord Gupta, heads of the valley council, were having a meeting to discuss the river situation.

They had instructed staff how to answer residents’ concerns about homes on the old river bed. The first thing they had to say to any question in regards to a river descending from heaven was, “What river?”  Chances were, residents would say “Never mind” and hung up. But for those who proceeded to explain, they had been instructed to recommend temporary accomodations, since this wasn’t based on a forecasted metereological phenomenon but a strange one.

The staff had updated the heads and told them that not one resident, not a single one, had said “Never mind” and hung up. They all wanted the assurance that the valley council would ensure they got a house equal to the one submerged by the river.

“No,” said Lord Bunn. “We can’t shut down Phens and then give assurance. That would give Phens credibility.”

“It would calm their fears,” said Lord Gupta.

“Leave it alone,” said Lord Schiller. “It will soon go away.”

“I disagree,” said Lord Gupta. “I would like to put the matter to a vote with all the valley councillors present.”

“You’re not serious, Gupta.” said Lord Bunn.

“I am,” said Lord Gupta. “You see, my mother is a member of the secret society that put a spell on a rock-“

“For heaven’s sake, Gupta!”

“Enough of this abracadabra!”

Lord Gupta stood up from his chair and took his robe off.

“What are you doing?”

He took his shoes off.

“What’s come into you?”

He sat cross legged on the floor. “Please listen,” he said.

“Go on-“

“I mean, do we have a choice?’

He told them what the secret society had wished for long ago, a sacred river like the Ganges, and they had put the wish inside a rock. In fact, they were taking the rock, as he spoke, to the mouth of the lake-

“They’re going to get stuck somewhere-“

No, he said, because they were driving on the old river bed, bypassing homes where there were homes, but staying on the pebbled surface and the packed snow that made it strong.

“Is it secure?” Mat called out.

“It’s secure!” said John, making sure the ropes were tight around the rock.

“Okay. We’ll follow behind. Everyone get inside!”

“I can’t believe they’re putting us inside pickup trucks,” said Kate. “Like cattle.”

“They’re sacred in India,” said Geeta, holding a bottle of organic milk.

“There’s a pile of blankets, guys,” said Toshi’s dad. “Bundle up!”

They left.

They were climbing up to the mouth, the female principle, said Lord Gupta, and placing the rock on the mouth, the male principle. To burn down passion. To destroy the poverty of a barren land and bring forth the river.

Geeta opened the bottle of milk and gently poured it on the rock while she and the members of the secret society chanted a sacred chant.

Lord Gupta cleared his throat and joined the chant, seated on the floor of the valley council.

youtube.com/watch?v=VxLvgIGlcI8

They voted 50-50.

“There’s a councillor missing.”

“Which one?”

“President of the dry river bed association.”

“Okay, everyone, listen up!” Eduarda said to the residents of the dry river bed. “We’re going to be guiding the river from the mouth of the lake to the ocean. So we’re going to be divided into groups. El Cristo Negro says that rivers are full of mischief, and if we’re not careful, she will choose her own course.”

“How does one guide a river?”

“He’s going to teach us. I suggested that he teach the association and we’ll teach you.”

“No!”

“I don’t like your suggestion!”

“Me neither! I want him to teach us! Not you!”

“Cristo! Cristo! Cristo!”

El Cristo stood next to Eduarda and calmed them with his hands. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll learn together, first the steps, then how to move forward rhythmically.”

youtube.com/watch?v=UDEQZgfcbLk

“Gaëtan,” said John. “Can I see?”

Gaëtan looked at him and John took his cap off.

When John broke the stillness that came looking at the charm, he said the pithos was almost half full. He’d heard that snow on the pilgrim road was slowing people down, so he would work overnight to clear it. Mat offered to follow behind, and she remembered the ladder that Clarke and Wells had to bring. She would put it in her pickup truck so they wouldn’t have to carry it. Vehicles weren’t allowed on the road, but they would take a chance, and they would wait for Gaëtan and the rest at the Temple Inn.

Gaëtan, Berta, Toshi, Reej and Mrs. D met Clarke and Wells early in the morning where the road began. They could hear people complaining about a snow clearing machine and a pickup truck driving on the road in the night.

“They made it easier for us,” said someone returning from the Temple,

and that quieted things down.

It was too quiet for Clarke. He tried to get a conversation going.

“Were you all in the classroom when Mrs. D called us?” he asked the students.

“Yes,” they said and fell quiet again.

To be left with his own thoughts wasn’t something he could take for too long. That’s why he had enjoyed clearing snow. The focus and the sound of the machine drowned all thought. Come to think of it, it had prepared him for Phens, not to have thoughts running through his head. It’s how he could give himself completely to the stories, to this story. He sure hoped it wasn’t the culmination of his career, what with the station being shut down. But like Wells said, they wouldn’t be walking the pilgrim road if they hadn’t been shut down. Caller D had really captured every listener’s attention. For the first time in Phens’ history, a caller had followed up. If they ran Phens again, he wanted to make it a policy to have callers follow up. Like the man who told them about the woodpecker-

“Wells, remember the caller who told us about the woodpecker?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Wells, pointing at a tree.

There was a woodpecker on the tree.

“They are so striking,” said Mrs. D.

“What did the man say?”

“He said that a woodpecker was stalking him,” said Clarke

“Did you give him a message?”

“Avert your eyes and kneel,” said Wells. “That’s what he had to do to make it stop.”

“Did it stop?”

“We don’t know because he never followed up,” said Clarke.

“Clarke! We forgot the ladder!” said Wells.

“Mat has one in her pickup,” said Gaëtan.

“That’s what I need,” said Clarke. “I need to carry a ladder.”

“There’s someone selling stuff up ahead,” said Toshi.

Berta and Gaëtan reached the makeshift market stand on the side of the road first. The seller was arranging his merchandise and had his back to them. Berta greeted him and when he turned around, she saw that his skin was pale blue.

“Wow,” she said, amazed. “How did you do that?” She realized that her fingers were about to touch his face and stopped herself. “May I?” she asked him. He nodded and she caressed him. “You look like an Indian god.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Tell me, what are you looking for?”

Gaëtan found that he couldn’t move, like when someone looked at the charm, but the seller wasn’t looking at him.

“A ladder, believe it or not.”

“I have a ladder that people borrow to pick fruit in the summer or fall. Why do you need one this time of year?”

“To keep hands busy and the mind quiet,” she said.

He smiled, and Gaëtan saw his hair break into strands, the strands of hair on the ring and the brooch, and in the charm. They curled up and swayed when he turned to get a ladder leaning on the side.

Clarke had reached the stand and took it from him.

“He’s lending it to us,” said Berta.

“You can return it on your way back,” said the seller.

“Will do,” said Clarke, thanking him. “Great skin, by the way.”

They left, without Gaëtan, until Berta realized he wasn’t beside her. She turned and saw the stand vanish in a twirl of snowflakes and Gaëtan fall to the ground. She ran to him, “Gaëtan! What happened!”

He raised his eyes and then closed them. He was able to move again.

“Who was he?” she whispered.

“Op-Shiva,” he said.

Tatpurusha by Pieter Weltevrede

El Cristo had said no children, and now the children were protesting.

“Too dangerous,” he said.

“But we want to participate!”

“I want to dance with my mommy!”

“Let them practice, at least,” said Gupta.

“We’ll only put them on the river bed if she flows gently,” said Bunn.

“Have them all wear life jackets,” said Schiller.

youtube.com/watch?v=JyeJb_43Chc

A man stood on the old river bank, arms crossed, watching El Cristo coordinate and synchronize.

Others joined him.

“I want to lead my own group,” he said.

“You should go talk to him, yaar. We support you.”

He did.

“The idea is to have an even rhythm,” El Cristo told him. “We don’t want her getting confused or agitated. We need to keep her organized.”

“He could lead a group at the bend of the river,” said Kate. “A change will help her turn.”

youtube.com/watch?v=mnTPe3SPWjA

Now he complained about how heavy the ladder was.

Toshi offered to help, “You hold the front, Clarke, and I’ll hold the back.”

They set the pace, and the woodpecker kept up with it flying from tree to tree.

“It’s making me nervous,” said Reej. “Maybe we should avert and kneel.”

“On the count of three,” said Wells. “One, two, three.”

They stayed on their knees for a minute or so, until Mrs. D looked up and said the bird was gone.

“It works,” said Reej. “It must have worked for your caller.”

“It must have.”

They continued on their way and reached the inn in time for supper.

“You brought a ladder!” said Mat. “Thank goodness because mine’s gone.”

“Were you able to get an appointment, John?”

“We’re first on the list tomorrow. The Keeper of the Temple is one of your listeners.”

They ate and went to bed, and set off in the morning.

“There it is,” said Mat when the Temple came into view. “That must be the Keeper.”

The Keeper welcomed them. “You can leave your shoes and the ladder outside,” he said.

They took their shoes off and noticed that Wells wasn’t moving. “Power,” he suddenly said, awaking from his trance. “Turn the power on.”

“I forgot,” said the Keeper. “The Pythia is nice and warm in the vapors of the sacred fire, but you will be cold. Please wait her.”

“I finally saw it happen,” said Gaëtan. “I was hoping I’d see it. You know, it could go unnoticed.”

“Like your charm,” said John.

The Keeper came back and led them inside.

When they stood around the Pythia, Mat looked at the Keeper and the Keeper nodded.

She took a step forward, “Greetings to the Pythia who speaks the words of the great Op-Pollo. My name is Mat. I have come here to ask if I am Mat of the matted hairlocks who will guide the waters born of the foot of Op-Neptune. If I am, how will I do that?  (pause) There’s something else I want to ask about, a recurring dream I have of a woman dancing in the clouds. Who is she?”

Mat stepped back and Wells stepped forward.

He said, “Greetings to the Pythia. Words that come from the two blue lights, also referred to as words that come from St. Elmo’s Fire, have brought us here. They told us to come to the Temple for a conch shell. Could you tell us where to find it and what we’re supposed to do with it?

He took a step back.

They waited.

The Pythia straightened up and said, “Meet to some up credence from whence there is found in any other way but forward pluck and pounce no less.”

She paused for a moment, and continued, “Belvedere deep is virtue that laid square from thence first the sides come yet.”

She closed her eyes, but opened them again, “Dribble spent it of the part.”

Then she closed her eyes again and sunk into the tripod.

The Keeper motioned them to thank the Pythia, and they thanked her.

They went to a sitting room where he would explain the oracles.

“It’s a long way from heaven to earth, and the earth is very big,” he began. “The sound of a conch shell and Mat’s hairlocks will guide the river. Mat, you are the woman dancing in the clouds. The river will recognize your feet and find reassurance when her waters touch them.

“Before you leave, I will show you the path that will take you to the Belvedere. It’s a small pavilion with a beautiful view. The ceiling is decorated with conch shells, six of them, found on the old river bed of the dry valley. There is a story that says that only one of them can summon a river. The others summon other entities.”

“What other entities? Good ones, bad ones?”

“We don’t know,” said the Keeper. “It’s the risk you take finding the right one.”

“How will we know it’s the right one?”

“It will drip water.”

John went up the ladder. The conch shells were arranged in a circle in the centre of the ceiling. He was describing each one to Clarke and Wells, hoping they would fall into a trance and tell him which one could summon a river.

He finished describing them and nothing happened.

“Why don’t we pretend I’m calling Phens?” said Mrs. D.

She pretended to call them to give them an update. She said they were in a pavilion where they had to choose a conch shell. There were six of them. Each one could summon an entity and only one could summon a river. Could they tell her which one could summon a river?

“The shells are up on the ceiling,” she said. “The man who rubs his nose will describe them.”

“Go ahead,” said Clarke and Wells.

John described them again, “I’m beginning with the one that has hues of pink. The next one is speckled with orange. Then there’s a plain one, of a natural shell colour. The one beside it is also plain, but bulkier and more textured-“

“That one,” said Wells.

“This one?” said John, plucking it from the ceiling.

He handed it to Toshi who played the horn. Toshi took it and blew into it. “It sounds like a battlecry,” he said.

“I wouldn’t touch that one,” said Wells.

“Too late,” said Toshi.

“Did it drip water?” said Reej.

“No. It’s dry.”

John continued, “The next one has rings of colour, every ring a different shade of pink and orange. The last one is smaller, smoother, it glistens like a pearl.”

“The pearl,” said Clarke. “The pearl will summon the river.”

John plucked it and handed it to Toshi, and Toshi blew into it. “Look,” he said, showing them his hand. “There’s water.”

“Screech!”

A bird flew into the pavilion. The woodpecker.

“It just occurred to me that the woodpecker is the bird of the mighty one,” said Berta, looking at the sky. “There’s something red and black flying toward us.”

They looked at the sky.

“It’s getting bigger and bigger,” said Berta.

Toshi averted his eyes and knelt, “Oh mighty one, I did not mean to summon you. I leave the bulky shell on the ground.” He left it on the ground of the pavilion and kept the pearly one in his pack.

“Screech!” screeched the bird again.

John rushed down the ladder and carried it, “Let’s go.”

“Drop the ladder, John! Run!”

“Run, everyone!”

They ran out of the pavilion, ran down the path, ran- but there was no running away from the mighty one.

“Haha! Haha!” said Op-Maul, scooping them up in his net.

“Ahhh!”

“What’s happening!”

“Avert and kneel! Avert and kneel!”

The mighty god flew back into the sky, high up, and swung his net, sending them flying.

“Ahhh!”

“Nooo!”

“Help! Help me!”

He caught them one by one, and forgot Clarke.

“Wells! I’m falling!”

“Op-Maul!” yelled Wells. “Clarke is falling!”

“Don’t let me fall!”

“Op-Maul! Mighty warrior! Don’t let Clarke fall!”

“Wells! Mom!”

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

The mighty one flew down to catch Clarke.

“Haha! Haha!”

Clarke collapsed on the net and Wells crawled to lay his head on Clarke’s chest. “You’re going to be okay, partner. You’re going to be okay.”

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

“Op-Pollo’s birds,” said Berta.

They came in the thousands to surround the net, and Op-Maul flew down and gently lay the net on the grounds of the Temple of Op-Pollo.

youtube.com/watch?v=A-8J9IzS6Wg

They waited for people on the pilgrim road to set up camp and for the sun to set.

“They should be back tonight,” said El Cristo. “We should all be on standby.”

John got inside his clearing machine. Everyone else would ride with Mat.

“The ladder’s here,” said Mrs. D when she got inside the truck. “Someone brought it back.”

“Someone,” whispered Gaëtan.

They drove back behind the flashing blue lights of John’s clearing machine.

“The pithos,” said Clarke. “It’s almost full.”

“Dawn,” said Wells. “The river begins her descent at dawn.”

When they arrived, they stopped to see Kate and El Cristo, and then continued to the mouth of the lake.

Reej was looking at her hands.

What are you doing, Mat asked her.

I’m waiting for Aurora. My hands tingle right before day breaks. My mom says they feel her coming.

I smell her, said Mat. The quality of the air changes right before day breaks, and even if I’m asleep, I’m aware of it.

Nothing tells me beforehand, said Toshi. So I’m relying on you to tell me when to start blowing the conch shell.

Will there be a need for Phens after this, Clarke?

More than ever, Wells. Did you see those guys with El Cristo?

Who were they?

Heads of the valley council.

I wonder if the charm will disappear when the river descends, said Gaëtan.

I never thought of that, said John.

Me neither, said Mrs. D.

Can you look at it and tell me what’s happening?

John and Mrs. D looked at him and let the arrow guide them.

Op-Shiva, said John. The hairlocks are his.

Yes, said Mrs. D.  Water is pouring out of the pithos and he is holding the water in his hairlocks.

Toshi blew the conch shell and they rose and looked at the sky.

Hairlocks filled the sky, like the hairlocks in the charm. They swayed and shook, and water poured from the sky into the lake, the source of the river. Toshi and Mat were standing by the rock on the mouth of the lake. Toshi began walking down the old river bed, blowing the conch shell, and Mat followed, her braids curled up and swaying, and the river followed her, reluctantly at first, until her waters touched Mat’s feet and recognized the feet of the woman dancing in the clouds.

The waters never flowed beyond her feet, so that Toshi’s stayed dry, but the waters were rising, and El Cristo came to lead Mat away, and they watched to make sure that the waters would stay behind Toshi, and they did. A wall of water followed behind him,

and then it followed the first group of dancers,

youtube.com/watch?v=UDEQZgfcbLk

and the second group wearing life jackets,

youtube.com/watch?v=JyeJb_43Chc

and when it got to the bend of the river, it followed Gurdeep’s group,

youtube.com/watch?v=mnTPe3SPWjA

and many more, until it reached the ocean.

Ganga follows Bhagirath blowing his conch shell by Pieter Weltevrede

The valley now had the residents of the old river bed to tend to. It had a river to tend to and much planning to do. People went back to work and students went back to school.

Mrs. D looked at Gaëtan when he walked into the classroom. It was still there, the tiny lit arrow pointing up, calling her.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?” said Gaëtan.

She nodded and her eyes were led into the distance.

“Mrs. D!” Berta called her back.

“It’s filling up again, the pithos is filling up,” she said.

“But there’s enough water in the lake.”

“Maybe it’s for another river.”

“Imagine having two rivers-“

“We need to stop it,” said Gaëtan.

“Call Phens,” said Toshi. “They’re back on the air.”

Mrs. D looked at the shades, too high for her to reach.

“They don’t matter,” said Reej, locking the door. “This is an emergency.”

She called.

“We have Caller D on the line with an update,” said Clarke. “Go ahead, Caller D.”

She told them that the bearer of the charm thought the charm would disappear after the birth of the river, but it had not disappeared. The pithos was filling up again. What should they do to make it stop?

There was silence and they waited in silence.

“Wash it,” said Wells.

“But it’s not on his skin-“

“Wash it in the river.”

“But-“

“Hold on, Caller D,” said Clarke. “We have a listener trying to get through and I think it’s important.”

“Hello, Clarke and Wells,” said the listener. “It’s Geeta from the secret society.”

“Geeta!” said Mrs. D. “The pithos is filling up again.”

“Because we haven’t thanked the gods properly,” she said. “We welcomed the river, but we haven’t thanked the gods for sending her to us, so they’re sending us another. They must think we’re dissatisfied with only one.

“In India, they have ceremonies every year to give thanks for the Ganges. I suggest we organize a ceremony to give thanks for our river, and it should include a ritual bath. The bearer of the charm should bathe in the river for the waters to wash away the charm.”

youtube.com/watch?v=wfgVwqfQIxs

The valley council was on it right away. They declared the next day a day to give thanks, and everyone gathered on the banks of the river to sing and to pray.

Gaëtan immersed his body in her waters, still cold in the spring. His friends wrapped him up in towels, and John, Mrs. D and El Cristo looked at him, at that place just above his forehead to see if the light was still there.

“Barely,”

“Just a trace.”

“The mark of the bearer of the charm.”

“It leaves the door open, doesn’t it?” said Reej. “For another charm.”

“Maybe you’ve been chosen to be a vehicle, Gaëtan,” said Berta.

“I’d like to know for sure.”

“I’m going back to Embrun,” said John. “Come with me and ask the Pythia”

“You’re going back?”

“I’ve asked him to replace the conch shell,” said Kate. “Toshi, did you bring it?”

“Yes,” said Toshi, taking it out of his pack and giving it to her. “What about the one he left on the ground?”

“He should replace it too,” said Kate. “What if a child finds it?”

“You don’t think he would-“

“Shh.”

“You shouldn’t be so scared,” said Geeta.

The earth shook.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I have displeased him. I have a terrible habit of putting my foot in my mouth. Time for me to go see Ethel.”

“Ethel?”

“Ethel,” said Wells, awaking from a trance.

Clarke and Wells had a caller who was facing temptation.

“What kind of temptation?”

“A woman.”

“That’s not a strange phenomenon, is it?” said Clarke.

“Well,” said the caller, “I did something foolish a few weeks ago, by the light of the full moon.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, my wife and I had a fight and I said I wanted out. I’m out, I said, and stormed out of the house, and outside was the moon, biggest I’ve ever seen, and I made a wish.  I said I wanted to find an old woman, a 95 year old wealthy woman, who’d leave me all her money so I could do whatever I want for the rest of my life.”

“Go on.”

“Well, turns out I love my wife, but now there’s a woman who comes in my dreams, a voice, really, that tells me to go find her. She pinches me awake and torments me. Come find me! she says.”

That’s when Wells awoke from his trance and said, “Ethel.”

“Is that her name?” the caller asked.

“Ethel the exorcist,” said Wells. “Clarke should go see her too.  (to Clarke) Why should you go see her, Clarke?”

“I’m not sure,” said Clarke. “But I wouldn’t mind meeting Ethel. Now, there are many listeners with questions, but we only have room for one.”

“Hi, yes,” said the listener. “I know Ethel personally. She’s a fine woman, noble as can be. I mean noble in character and noble as in nobility, very wealthy. She doesn’t exorcise for money. She does it to help people. It’s a talent she’s developed over the years through her yoga practice.”

“She does a cleansing with her yoga fire,” said Geeta.

“Why not do a cleansing here, Geeta?” said Kate. “Take a dip in the river.”

“Too cold,” said Geeta, “and it will spoil my hair.”

“I can’t believe you, Clarke!” said Wells.

They were off the air and Clarke confessed to Wells that he had wished for the same thing. “But as a joke! I was only joking,” insisted Clarke. “Now I have a voice tormenting me all night, and is she ever loud. Come find me! Come find me!”

“Let’s go,” said Wells

“Where?”

“Straight to Ethel’s, where else?”

“But shouldn’t we get an appointment first?”

“Didn’t you hear what the listener said? Ethel is old school, no phone, no radio. You just walk up to her front door and ring the door bell.”

They rang the door bell and a man answered the door.

“We’re here to see Ethel the exorcist.”

The man looked at Wells and then at Clarke. He looked at Clarke for a long time in silence. “I see you have the same affliction as the client before you and the client before him,” he said. “Come in. Ethel is in India for ten days and I am her apprentice. Take a seat and I will treat you with my yoga fire.”

“How does it work, exactly?”

“You have displeased the gods with your wishes and desires, and they put a voice inside you, correct?”

“I was only-“

“Correct,” said Wells.

“I will burn your wishes and desires with my yoga fire-“

“No, no, no,” said Clarke. “I just want you to burn the voice. Please leave my wishes and desires alone. Don’t censor me.”

“Okay,” said the yogi apprentice. “I will focus on burning the voice, but please don’t have the same wishes and desires again, especially not on a full moon.”

He instructed Clarke how to breathe and gave him a mantra to repeat in his head.

“Will it hurt?”

“It is not fire that comes from a matchstick. It is directed thought.”

Yoga agni by Pieter Weltevrede

“My biggest culture shock was finding out the moon is feminine in the dry valley,” said Geeta. “I grew up with a masculine moon, and when I came here, she was feminine. It took a while for my brain to morph around a feminine moon. Now of course, I couldn’t go back to her being masculine. I don’t want to either.”

“Is the moon on the amulet masculine or feminine?” Gaëtan asked her.

“That’s exactly what I asked the yogi apprentice. I told him, If you’re giving me a moon amulet to protect me from the one I displeased, you’re assuming the moon is masculine. A masculine moon to ward off a masculine god of war makes sense. But in the dry valley and in my brain the moon is feminine.”

“What did he say?” said John.

“He told me that a journey to Embrun would bring me clarity. Go walk on the pilgrim road, he said, so I joined you.”

“Is it bringing you clarity?”

“Not at all. There’s a tug of war going on inside me, because I want her to be masculine to protect me, but I believe that she is feminine-  Look!” she pointed at a tree.  “Look at the size of him. Magnificent bird.”

She walked closer to the tree and Gaëtan and John came to block her line of vision.

“Avert your eyes and kneel,” they told her, pulling her down. “The woodpecker is the sacred bird of the one you displeased.”

Kneeling down, she pulled out her necklace with the amulet. “Whether masculine or feminine, the moon makes silver,” she said. “What kind of silver do you think she makes with him?”

“Weapons?” said John.

“But in this sacred place, they wouldn’t be sharp,” said Gaëtan. “More likely to be soft, like a net.”

“What kind of silver do you think she makes to protect herself from him?”

“She runs.” said John.

“And she is swift,” added Gaëtan, looking at the sky.

Geeta tucked the amulet back under her t-shirt and ran, as swiftly as she could.

“Haha! Haha!”

The mighty god shook the earth and caught her in his net when she stumbled.

“I bet you he’s taking her to the river.” said John.

“He’s going to dip the net in the cold water and spoil her hair,” said Gaëtan.

They laughed, but their laughter was cut short by a sound that echoed around them.

“Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.”

Maha Kali by Pieter Weltevrede

“Any sign?”

“No.”

“Let’s check the Temple grounds.”

They found her lying on the Temple grounds, soaking wet.

“He has a sense of humour,” she said.

They helped her up and the Keeper of the Temple called them to come inside. He led Geeta to the washroom, “There are clean towels in the drawer and clothes in the cupboard, sweatpants and sweatshirts. You’ll find something. Take your time. I’ll boil some water for tea.”

“Thank you,” she said, closing the door.

He went to fill the kettle and asked John and Gaëtan what brought them back.

“I’ve come to replace the shells in the pavilion,” said John.

“It’s getting dark,” said the Keeper. “Best to do that in the morning. What about you, bearer of the charm?”

Gaëtan told him that he had bathed in the river to wash away the charm, but it had not washed away completely. He wanted to ask the Pythia if he would be the bearer of another charm in the future.

“You can ask her now,” said the Keeper. “After we have some tea.

Geeta joined them and he served tea, and then took them to see the Pythia. Gaëtan asked his question, and the Pythia spoke words that the Keeper said meant yes, he would bear another charm in the future.

Gaëtan and John stood still, absorbing the news. They asked Geeta if the secret society had wished a second wish, and she said no.

The Pythia rose from her chair.

“It’s time to go,” said the Keeper.

“But-“

“We have one more question.”

“There are things we know are coming, but we put them in the back of our minds and carry on,” said the Keeper.

“Like death,” said Geeta.

They left the Temple together. The Keeper was locking the door when John remembered he needed a ladder.

“There’s one leaning against the wall. You can take it in the morning,” said the Keeper. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

They spent the night at the inn, and in the morning, they picked up the ladder and went to the pavilion. Nobody dared speak a word. John climbed the ladder and clipped the shells back on the ceiling, first the pearly one and then the bulky one.

They walked back to the Temple to leave the ladder, and when they reached, they could hear the radio playing inside.

”  (with emphasis) Phens, where strange phenomena happen every day.”

Surya by Pieter Weltevrede

“He likes to listen to it on our day off.”

They turned to see who it was, and it was the Pythia.

“Why are you here on your day off?” Geeta asked her. “You should be sleeping in.”

“It’s the only day I get to visit the ruins, and its quiet early in the morning.”

“What ruins?”

“The ruins of the Old Temple. They’re behind the new one.”

“But this Temple isn’t new!” said Geeta.

“Compared to the old one, it’s new,” said the Pythia. “Come. I’ll show you.”

They followed her to the ruins of the Old Temple.

“I never knew,” said John in wonder. “This is so, so- What’s the word?”

“Romantic,” said Gaëtan.

“That’s it. Romantic.”

The Pythia walked to the centre of the old grounds. “Here,” she said, lying down and resting her head in a hollowed area. “The ancients considered this to be the navel of the world, the sacred centre, Gaia’s womb.”

“In India, there would be a rock resting on it,” said Geeta.

“There used to be,” said the Pythia. “The Omphalos. Stolen or destroyed a long time ago. A museum somewhere in Greece claims to have a copy.”

“They should bring it here,” said Geeta. “It’s not auspicious to have Gaia’s womb open like that.”

“That’s exactly what my mom said,” said the Pythia. “There was a ceremony out here when I became Pythia of the Temple, and my mom came, of course. When they asked me to rest my head like this, she objected. She said that I should rest my head beside it. The Omphalos should be resting on the navel and not her head, she said.  (pause) She made a wish that night by the light of the full moon-“

“What did she wish for?”

“The Omphalos. She’s in India right now, actually. She told me that she met someone who has contacts with the museum in Greece, but the museum said no way was the copy leaving.”

“Who’s your mom?”

“Ethel,” said the Pythia.

“I know your mom,” said Geeta. “I went to see her yogi apprentice.”

“Soma. He’s something else. I went to see him for a headache. There’s a simple technique to lift a headache out of the head using your hands. Of course, you have to be trained to know what you’re doing, but you repeat a mantra, and with your hands, you lift the headache out.”

“Did it work?”

“He lifted my entire body off the ground. It was just a couple of centimetres, but there I was suspended in the air-“

“No way!”

“Yes, and when I looked at him, he had a twinkle in his eyes. I realized he was playing with me.”

“He played with me too,” said Geeta.

“I’m going to tell my mom.”

“Tell us more about the Omphalos.”

“She wished for the original one. I mean, the original design. She told me that if the museum wasn’t letting the copy go, it probably didn’t have the original design-“

“It’s understandable, thought, that the museum wouldn’t want to give it up,” said John. “It’s part of its collection and probably a major attraction-“

“I meant, to make a copy. The museum won’t let us have it to test and make a copy.”

“Couldn’t you base it on photographs?”

“I guess we could-”  Movement drew her attention away. “What’s she doing?”

Geeta was trying to roll a rock. “While you decide what to do, let’s cover it with this,” she said.

They went to help her, but as they rolled the rock closer to the hollowed area, it grew heavier and heavier until they couldn’t move it at all.

“It won’t let us,” said the Pythia. “It’s happened before. That’s why we wanted the museum to send us the copy. To test if the navel would accept it. Then we could make a copy of the copy.”

“Should your mom be taking this into her own hands?” said Gaëtan.

“She’s dropped it, right? Left it to fate. If the museum won’t send it, it’s not meant to be.”

“She should talk to the dry valley museum,” Gaëtan continued. “I’m sure the museum could make arrangements with the one in Greece.”

“I’ll give her your suggestion.”

“I’m going to talk to my son, Lord Gupta of the valley council, the moment we get back,” said Geeta.

“Has the council decided on a new name for the dry valley?” the Pythia asked her.

“River valley,” she said. “I would have preferred valley of the sacred river, but the majority voted for a more secular name.”

Holy Cow by Pieter Weltevrede

“Gaëtan,” said John.

Gaëtan couldn’t respond. He felt the familiar paralysis come over him, and waited for John to lower his eyes.

When John lowered them, he looked for his cap and put it on.

“What did you see?”

“We can make it ourselves, the Omphalos. It’s the size of a pithos, more like a barrel than a pithos, with a hole running through it. The open sky has to concentrate to get through the hole and touch the earth. The Omphalos doesn’t touch it. It sits on a three legged stand, suspended in the air, like Soma suspended the Pythia in the air. It’s the sky that touches the navel of the world.”

“The drums of the old columns have a hole in the centre,” said the Pythia. “Maybe we could turn one into the Omphalos.”

“It’s smooth, but there is carving around it, a carved belt around it,” said John.

“It must be the zodiac,” said the Keeper who had joined them. “Timely. The March Equinox is today.”

They wandered around in the old temple grounds, checking the drums, when Gaëtan suddenly stumbled and fell.

“You alright?”

“There’s something buried here,” he said. His shoe had uncovered white marble. “Something’s carved on it.”

“Let’s see,” said the Keeper, brushing the earth off. “Chrysomallus, the golden fleeced ram, symbol of Aries.”

“It must be the Omphalos,” said the Pythia. “Not stolen or destroyed, but buried in time.”

“I’m sure it is,” said John. He touched Gaëtan’s forehead.

“Is it gone?”

“It’s just a dot.”

“Like a bindi,” said Geeta. “God’s blessing.”

Pieter Weltevrede

From Arthur’s Mystery Envelope by Marc Brown

Chart for November 25, 1946, the day Marc Brown was born

They were sitting together having lunch, when the loudspeaker suddenly broke into their space and asked Arthur to go to the principal’s office. Everyone turned to look at him,

“What did you do?”

Marc didn’t do anything wrong. The college where he taught was closing down and he was out of a job. He went home to his wife and children feeling-

“Tell us a story, daddy!”

We go to the Sun, lifegiver, when we are feeling down, and he went to his natal Sun in the first decan of Sagittarius ruled by Mercury. He wasn’t infected with the plague or propaganda, but with his children’s enthusiasm. They wanted a story about an aardvark called Arthur,

and he wove a story. Kids in school were making fun of Arthur’s nose, and Arthur decided to change it. He tried on different noses, an elephant’s nose, a rhino’s nose, a rabbit’s nose, and realized that he liked his own nose the best. He was an illustrator, so he drew as he told the story.

They say that enthusiasm, a vision, doesn’t always last or take hold in Sagittarius, the sign between Scorpio and what is familiar, and Capricorn and what is established. Sagittarius ruled by Jupiter with whom new stories can begin.

Mars, the will to live, beside the Sun can fuel enthusiasm and a vision.

Arete in Sagittarius where we can weave something new into society and fight opposition.

Arete in the second decan of Sagittarius ruled by the Moon.

The Moon brings social consciousness.

She can censor Mars, cut him off,

youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

tame him.

His natal Moon is in the third decan ruled by Saturn who can cut in half, who can ask for mastery, loyalty and endurance.

His lunar work was here, to be trusted, to earn trust as a children’s author.

“What did you do?”

Arthur wasn’t sure.

He was given a sealed envelope addressed to his mom. It was marked private and confidential.

Maybe he failed the history test. Maybe he had to do summer school while everyone played outside.

His guilt and fear grew, like the envelope that tore the roof off his house.

Uranus in Gemini in opposition to Mars and the Moon in Sagittarius, stirring the pot just enough to add some fun to a psychologically perceptive story.

Uranus is in the second decan of Gemini ruled by Mars, where opposing sides can co exist, love and war, internal contradictions, and where we can sense the internal contradictions in others, the point of weakness.

Marc says that everyday life brought him inspiration for the stories he wrote, lived experience and everyday life, inspiration in pedestrian air, the stories were always in front of him. Uranus in a quincunx to Scorpio.

Jupiter can bring a gift, and in Scorpio it can be the gift of seeing the invisible, and VenusR MercuryR can make visible the invisible with images and words.

There is relationship in the second decan of Scorpio ruled by the Sun, one that relies on trust and nakedness and truth, and in this case it is tied to responsibility of clan and tied to medicine.

Venus rules the third decan of Scorpio where there is medicine. Leto’s medicine, the kind that can turn people into frogs, and the kind that woke Arthur up from his nightmare. He went downstairs to give his mom the envelope, and there was nothing about him inside.  Inside were Mr. Haney’s tax documents. She was his accountant.

Marc wrote the story twenty, thirty times before he felt satisfied, and then came the editor’s suggestions. Jupiter can draw a teacher. He drew a good editor.

30:50

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He minds the gap in Scorpio where there can be betrayal.

Chiron is in the first decan ruled by Mars, where there can be hunger, hunger for the mysteries, for what is taboo, for experiences that bring death and transformation. He minds the gap with the rulers in Sagittarius and Leo.

There are children in Leo, the child in all of us, and there are reflections that can change over time. He says that the popularity of his books and the demand for more allowed him the time to add richness to his characters and to see them evolve.

Natural ruler of the fifth house of romance and our creations.

There is a spotlight in the first decan ruled by Saturn, to master the use of the spotlight. Saturn R in the first decan is in a trine to the Sun Mars in Sagittarius,  bringing discipline to his work, balancing the number of characters and their time in the spotlight.

Saturn R in Leo is in a square to Jupiter in Scorpio, bringing restraint, bringing in the experts to advice on what is age appropriate.

He says that he wanted every child to see themselves in the pages of his books, to relate to the stories and to be entertained.

There is hearthfire in Leo, a stage, and there are Labours, and Pluto digs in the sign, in the second decan ruled by Jupiter. There is victory here, a crown of laurel leaves and back to work. It’s not a place of ideals but authenticity.

His first book, Arthur’s nose, was published in 1976.

In 1976, transiting Jupiter and Uranus formed an exact opposition in the Taurus Scorpio polarity.

Chart for April 18, 1976

Transiting Uranus was also conjoining his natal Jupiter in Scorpio, fertilizing something new. The idea of becoming a full time author and illustrator in this polarity.

There is great responsibility in Taurus where a child too young was given wings to fly. And in the first decan ruled my Mercury, there is a plough.

Transiting Pluto was conjunct his natal Neptune in Libra where there is judgement in the first decan, and where there are contracts in the second, in opposition to Venus in Aries. Pluto can bring transformation where there were dreams before.  

Neptune paves the way and Pluto digs in this place of balance and arrangements, with the ruler in Aries, asking for leadership and originality in a competitive field.

Charts progress. He was born on November 25, 1946.

In a progressed chart, he would be one year old on November 26, 1946.

He would be two years old on November 27, 1946.

On December 25, 1946, he would be 30 years old.

Progressed chart for Marc Brown in 1976, the year of his 30th birthday

is a chart for December 25, 1946.

The Sun had changed signs in his progressed chart.

The Sun changing signs adds another dimension to the character of the chart holder.

His progressed Sun in Capricorn, sign of Enki.

He had found his place.

His progressed Sun in the first decan, ruled by Jupiter.

Exploring the territory of children’s literature.

Chart for Ted Bundy, born November 24, 1946, Burlington, VT, data from birth record

He stayed away from the spotlight. He mastered the reflection of the all American guy, mastered evading Saturn, ruler of Capricorn.

He made it his work to evade the police.

There is victory in the second decan of Leo, and it could be a military victory. The crown of laurel leaves given to the victorious, parading the spoils of war. There are moral crossroads in the sign, but in a war, we kill and we take.

He kept the spoils for himself, his trophies.

They say that he could easily change his appearance, combing his hair a certain way, wearing a beard. He never looked the same in a photograph.

He was surprised to know that people had noticed him, him wearing Pluto’s cape of invisibility.

They say that we do not do squares alone. Something or someone pushes us to do the work of a square.

In his chart, Saturn R in Leo is in a square to Chiron in Scorpio. The work of minding the gap in the first decan of Scorpio.

If he was pushed to do it, at some point, he stopped.

Scorpio is in the fourth house of home and homeland, place of dreams,

and the rulers are in the first house of what we come to offer, and in the fifth house of romance, parenting, and our creations.

He laboured to satiate his hunger, to satiate Mars split in two,

a tamed Mars, socially conscious,

and an untamed Mars.

Uranus in Gemini in opposition to Mars split the planet in two. He could live with the light and the shadow of Mars,

in a quincunx to his Midheaven in Taurus.

In Taurus there is the story of the Minotaur. It begins with King Minos and a bull that came from the sea to secure his throne. He did not sacrifice the bull back to the gods, and for this he was punished. His wife Pasiphaë fell in love with the bull, and Daedalus made it possible for her to mate with it. From this union the Minotaur was born, hidden away in a labyrinth beneath the palace.

His Midheaven is in the second decan of Taurus where there is procreation. The ruler with MercuryR and Jupiter, and Chiron, holding the lowest degree in Scorpio. The lowest degree in the chart, along with the Sun.

Careful not to leave evidence.

He was arrested in 1975 and stood trial in February 1976 for kidnapping and attempted criminal assault.

Synastry chart for Ted Bundy and April 18, 1976,

with Ted Bundy’s chart in the inner wheel, and aspects for April 18, 1976

His natal VenusR, ruler of Taurus and Libra, in Scorpio.

At 20 degrees 38 minutes, she is between the second decan, where there can be meaningful and detrimental bonds, and the third decan that she rules. The third decan that can bring us into confrontation with our desires, to feel satisfied, detach, dissolve, put to rest.

In a quincunx to Uranus between the second and third decan of Gemini, at 20 degrees 29 minutes. The third decan ruled by the Sun, where Pollux shared his immortality with Castor, and they could not be in the same place at once. Changeability, but the ability to hold one point of view, make a choice, make a judgement.

He did not.

He played with patterns.

There are dreams in the fourth house,

and Neptune too can carry a dream or a wish. Neptune in Libra paving the way, in a sextile to Leo and Sagittarius.

The first self conscious sign in the zodiac, where we see ourselves in the eyes of others.

People he had worked for had only decent things to say about him.

With transiting Pluto conjoining his natal Neptune, he was singled out in a line up and went to jail.

He would defend himself. Become the lawyer he may have once wished to be.

But first he would escape.

A new stage in his life was beginning, with transiting Uranus and Jupiter forming an exact opposition in the Scorpio Taurus polarity.

He became the responsibility of the state, under the care and control of his homeland.

But he escaped, committed more murders, was caught, and then defended himself. With his progressed Sun in Capricorn, he explored the territory of law.

The mark of a bite on one of his victims brought him the death penalty, the evidence of his hunger.

He never showed remorse, never blamed himself. Instead he blamed pornography, television, society. He painted himself the victim.  

Chart for Sonia Gandhi, born December 9, 1946, Lusiana, Italy, data from birth record

Her parents held her chart when she was young. Her grandmother too. She loved listening to her grandmother tell stories about Jesus and his miracles.

“First finish your homework and then I’ll tell you a story.”

The Moon in a trine to Chiron.

Her father fought in the war, in a battalion that was almost entirely killed or captured by the Russians. He survived and escaped with a few others, and they were given shelter and hospitality by a Russian family in the steppes.

When his daughters were born, they were baptised with traditional Italian names, but at home he called them Anushka, Sonia and Nadia, and their dog was Stalin.

He had a private tutor teach them Russian at home, and French as well. The ruler of Sagittarius in Scorpio, he brought the foreign into family life, and the foreign had a forbidden nature to it, anti patriotic.

His disillusionment with Mussolini, and his indebtedness to a Russian family.

She grew up with a mixture of her Italian roots and what was foreign.

Her father put the girls in a private school run by nuns, and here she read stories about missionaries.

“I want to be a missionary, dad.”

“No,” said her dad. “I won’t have any of my daughters wandering off on their own, spreading anyone’s word.”

When she grew older, she wanted to be an air hostess.

“No,” said her dad. “I won’t have any of my daughters wandering from one place to another, living in hotels.”

Her first summer job was as a translator in the Turin fair and she was praised for her work.

She settled for becoming a translator and wanted to go to England to study English, get a proper certification. Mars pulling her away from home.

“No need for that,” said her dad. “I’ll hire a tutor and you can learn English at home.”

Her mom convinced her dad to let her go, and he chose Cambridge, only the very best for her.

Her mother in the twelfth house that rules behind the scenes and faraway places, in a square to Neptune in Libra, helping her make a wish come true.

Neptune in a quincunx to Taurus where there is a plough.

But Venus, ruler of Libra and Taurus, is conjunct Jupiter, and they say that Jupiter in a woman’s chart tells of the husband.

She was 18 years old when she went to Cambridge for a two year program. When she completed the first year and came back for the holidays, she didn’t know how to tell her parents that she was in love, and that he wanted to marry her. Then his letters began to arrive. Every day, il postino delivered letters for Sonia, and she had to tell them who they were from.

“India!” cried his dad. “He’ll make you his slave!”

“No, dad, no. Let me explain.”

She hadn’t known anything about India before she met him, but she had learned, and now she told them about India’s history, the fight for independence, Nehru, the first prime minister, and Nehru’s daughter Indira. He was her son.

“You’re not going back to England,” her dad told her.

“I am! I am! I won’t do anything wrong!”

“Let her go,” said her mom. “This will pass.”

But it didn’t. When she returned with her certification, the letters followed her, and one of them was addressed to her mom and dad. He wanted to marry their daughter. His idea was for her to visit India and live with his mother for a while, to make sure she could adapt. He wouldn’t be there, of course. He was still studying in England.

Indira wrote a letter too, inviting Sonia. She had met Sonia on a trip to England.

Her dad bought her a return ticket. “If you don’t like it, get on a plane and come back.”

The Moon in Cancer in the twelfth house allowed Indira to enter, without displacing her mother in Italy. To be the one who nurtures.

She too helped Sonia fulfill the wish of holding a plough. Sonia took charge of running the household, an extraordinary one, as Indira became prime minister.

At every meal, a full table that gathered different points of view.

To hold the memories.

They say that Mercury in Scorpio makes a good detective. She could feel the undercurrents in people, in conversations. She had learned to hush, to navigate the undercurrents.

Indira trusted her perceptions, shared in privacy.

A household where the pillar that held it asked for privacy and loyalty,

and secularism.

There are customs in Virgo, the customs of a culture, and Mercury in the third decan of Scorpio doesn’t hold to them, but he can adapt.

There is a temple in Virgo, and with the ruler in Scorpio in the fourth house, it is a temple to family and clan.

With the Sun in the second decan of Sagittarius, her father had avoided conflict with the priest, and had resolved conflict inside himself by baptising her with a catholic name, Edvige Antonia Albina Maino, and calling her Sonia at home. Freedom within, in the privacy of home, and with the loyalty of his wife.

Indira went further. She did not have Sonia and Rajiv walk around the fire as was the religious custom. They had a civil marriage.

India made up of localities with a secular government was her belief, and Sonia has carried it with her. Minding the gap.

They say that  Jupiter in a woman’s chart tells of the husband, and the seventh house tells of the marriage, the contract.

Aquarius is in the seventh house where there is social service, and the ruler in Leo in the first house with Pluto. It was a marriage that would transform her, and a marriage that would make her a woman of influence, with Pluto in a square to Jupiter.

He can draw intensity Pluto, death and transformation.

Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius in the fifth house, and ruler of Pisces in the eighth house of crisis and and healing.

It was Sonia who held Indira when she was shot. She held her inside the car that fought traffic to reach the hospital. Indira died in her arms.

Then her husband became prime minister. Saturn in Leo and the battle between what she wanted and what he felt was his social obligation.

When her husband was assassinated, her mother told her to come back to Italy. She didn’t. Instead, she held her Moon and occupied the twelfth house.

She spent the following years writing a book about her husband, compiling and editing the correspondence between Nehru and Indira for publication, and establishing the Rajiv Gandhi foundation.

The congress party asked her time and time again to lead the party, but she refused, until she stopped refusing. Some say because she depended on the party for her and her children’s security, and since her husband’s death, the party had been deteriorating. She couldn’t recognize it anymore. It had become a party that played for religious votes, against the ideals of the founders.

She had been in the media criticizing the justice system for delaying the trial of her husband’s assassins. She was now in the media criticizing the congress party for the actions it was taking.

On December 28, 1997, with her progressed Sun in Aquarius, she made a public announcement that she would run for elections.

Chart for December 28, 1997, timed to match her rising sign

On January 28, 1997, the people accused of Rajiv’s assassination were found guilty.

On February 16, 1997, Jupiter and Uranus formed an exact conjunction at 5 degrees Aquarius.

An end and a beginning

for the outsider.

Mars and Venus R would not conjoin in Aquarius. They would conjoin at 19 degrees Cancer on August 4, 1998.

Barring her from being an outsider.

Saturn was transiting her ninth house in Aries, Saturn in opposition to her natal Neptune in Libra, making room for something new.

She began a period of instruction to participate in politics, in parliament. Her tutors were old party members with knowledge in different fields.

The work was in Pisces, in her eighth house of emergencies and other people’s resources, the clan that she belongs to.

She would be ridiculed and she would stumble, but she picked herself up and walked straighter each time.

In 2004, the congress party, led by Sonia, won the number of seats that allowed it to form a government.

theguardian.com/world/2004/may/14/india.randeepramesh

A foreigner becoming prime minister. A statement that began to create divisiveness in the country.

She decided not to. She kept her position as party leader, and appointed the economist Manmohan Singh as prime minister. She gave him the spotlight.

The fifth house tells of romance, children and parenting, and in a parent’s chart, it tells of the firstborn.

The Sun and Mars in Sagittarius in opposition to Uranus in Gemini,

and Mars in opposition to the Moon in Cancer.

15:46

27:23

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The fifth from the fifth tells of the secondborn, Aries.

19:10

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The golden throne

Hellenistic astrology begins here, when the Greek, Babylonian and Egyptian celestial stories were brought together.

Alexander brought them together.

Chart for December 22, 1924, the day the classical historian Peter Green was born

He wrote a historical biography of Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 BC.

With the Sun Jupiter in that place between Sagittarius and Capricorn, and Mercury R in Capricorn, he tries to separate fact from fiction, fact from propaganda.

He goes to the source, how far removed, motivation.

His is not an overview.

With Saturn in Scorpio, he goes in depth, military maneuvers, the battles, strategy. How many died.

He updated his work, learned more and updated. Mars in the first decan of Aries and Venus in between Scorpio and Sagittarius, he didn’t consider himself the authority. Careful not to mislead.

Digging in a lake to give an audience the zeitgeist of a period in time, an audience that has come to trust his research.

A grand trine in water. He must have heard whispers of the dead.

If Neptune speaks of wishes, personal or the universe’s wish for us, his may have been to give as accurate a portrait as possible.

His lunar work in Aquarius, context, before we can know the man.

He says that Alexander lived in a time when people and the gods were not so far apart. His father claimed to be a descendant of Hercules. This wasn’t uncommon among kings, to claim descent from a demi god.

The exact date of Alexander’s birth is not known, but probably either 20 or 26 July.

In the Julian Calendar, either date would make him a solar Cancer.

The Sun was at 0 degrees Leo on July 29 and 30, and 1 degree Leo on July 31.

He was born with Pluto in the second decan of Aries.

He was brought up as heir to the throne, and in an inexplicable moment, when plans were being made to invade Persia, his father took away his right. On the grounds that he suspected his mother of adultery and him to be illegitimate.

He was nineteen years old when this happened.

He’d been jealous of his dad’s feats, and on occasion had complained that his dad was leaving him no chance for glory. But he’d lately had an opportunity to prove himself in battle and earned admiration.

He’d thought about Persia. If his dad took him along, his dad would lead, not him, and there was a chance he’d be left behind to mind the kingdom.

Persia should have been his, he thought. And then his dad disowned him.

Peter Green tried to figure this out for a long time, the reason why King Philip II of Macedon could commit such a blunder.

Fear, perhaps, that the mother and son were plotting against him.

Rivalry with a son who wanted to be king when he wasn’t finished yet.

He was twenty seven when Alexander was born, forty six when Alexander was nineteen. He was born with Pluto in Pisces and Uranus in Virgo, and although he was past his exact Uranus opposition Uranus, transiting Uranus was still in Pisces when this happened, and Pisces has a sudden way of turning things topsy turvy.

He tried to repair his mistake, and found a go between to bring his son back to him, to join him in festivities he had planned. When he was walking beside his son, a king’s bodyguard murdered him.

And Alexander became king.

Born with Pluto in Aries and Uranus in the first decan of Capricorn.

What he had been taught and what he experienced and saw were totally different. He had expected to see Ocean when he reached the Hindu Kush, and instead he saw mountains in the far distance, the Himalayas. A conquest that became his higher education.

He’d left part of the army to protect Macedonia and took the rest with him. He didn’t conquer and impose a structure. He worked with what was already in place. It’s how a Greek general became pharaoh in Egypt, the Ptolemy line.

Conquest to resolve the immediate need for cash. To pay the army and fill the coffers back home.

Saturn began his transit through Taurus the year he was born, and was in the second decan in July.

He would grow disciplined in the art of war. War to reap the fruits of others, and not to spoil.

War for glory, to prove that he was worthy.

His lunar work was in Leo.

He had modeled himself after Achilles, and even had his own Patroclus, his friend Hephaestion.

Achilles was his measure, and he kept a well thumbed copy of the Iliad under his pillow.

The army played along, or played their roles around a king who wore the pelt of Achilles, and was a descendant of Hercules, in a time when the gods were not so far away.

They followed him all the way to India, and when instead of Ocean they saw a vastness that led to a mountain range higher than they had ever seen before, they held his natal Chiron in that place between Sagittarius and Capricorn, and said, No more.

It is here where Peter Green met him, where his natal Sun Jupiter touched Alexander’s Chiron.

“They told me there was Ocean here,” said Alexander, rubbing his eyes.

“Evidently there isn’t,” said Peter. “But on the other side, across the desert, lies the Ganges-“

“We will go there,” said Alexander.

“I heard your men say no more. They may mutiny.”

“I will threaten to go on a hunger strike and they’ll cave, you’ll see.”

“But-“

“Do you know that I’m unconquerable?”

“I don’t- I didn’t-“

“It’s true,” he said, and he told Peter that before embarking on this grand conquest, he’d gone to see the Oracle of Delphi for reassurance. He went on a day when it was forbidden to give oracles, but impatient and desperate as he was, he went to the Pythia’s house and carried her protesting to the Temple. Before they reached it, she said, Unconquerable. The god Apollo had blessed him with an oracle even on a forbidden day.

“Still, you shouldn’t push it,” said Peter. “You need those men more than they need you to get back home.”

“How dare you. Don’t you know who I am?”

“I know that you’re the descendant of-“

“Yes, Hercules. But there’s more. A secret my mother told me before I left. A dream she had the night before her wedding. She was penetrated by a thunderbolt, so that fire gushed out of her womb, spreading far and wide before it was extinguished.”

Zeitgeist.

Truths.

It wasn’t just that he was neutralized, thought Peter. Oracles and dreams made up his reality. They were real, like the pen he was holding, they carried weight. They were openly discussed and they participated in the actions people took. He wasn’t going to be able to leave them out if he was going to write the history of Alexander. So help me-

Jupiter.

On July 20, 356 BC, Venus was conjunct the Sun in Cancer, with the Moon in Virgo or Libra, or in between,

On July 26, Venus was in Leo, conjunct the Sun in Cancer, with the Moon in Sagittarius.

Chart for July 20, 356 BC

Arete in Gemini, sign of the Dioscuri.

Aristotle believed that a man could only be king if his arete surpassed everyone’s else, if he was superior to everyone in his abilities, virtue and excellence. Only this could justify kingship.

With Mars in a square to Neptune in Virgo, Alexander worked on making a wish come to true, he woke up every morning to perfect his skills.

With the ruler of the two signs in Cancer, he was nurtured to take his place as King of Macedon. To mind the gap in authority, become his own authority in a time when the gods were not so far away.

There is exploration in the first decan of Capricorn, and Mercury in opposition to Uranus must have awakened great curiosity about the natural world.

Or a teacher came to awaken it. Jupiter can draw a teacher.

His father sent for Aristotle to be his teacher, and for three years, a small group of princely youth that included Hephaestion, studied under him.

The art of debate, the pros and cons, the ability to see different points of view, hold them.

An interest in biology and medicine that would serve him on the battlefield, to cure and prolong life.

Green says that Alexander took with him, at Aristotle’s behest, zoologists, botanists and surveyors to collect information. He says that the material collected became the foundation for scientific works of the time.

Culture, a conquest that influenced culture.

If he was so bewildered and confused at not meeting Ocean when he reached the Indian Kush, it may not have been the discrepancy between the geography that he had been taught and what his eyes told him. It may have been that he needed a reason to stop, a place to give an offering and stop, to sacrifice to the god Neptune and

be extinguished.

The Moon suspended in that place between Virgo and Libra, apprenticeship and the beginning of the social world,

non judgement,

and the ruler of places in between in the first decan of Cancer, where there is the one who nurtures and the one who is nurtured,

free to roam,

with the ruler of Capricorn in Taurus where there is heritage and there are roots, and the great responsibility of loyalty and providing for others.

He had spoken to his father about all the children his father was having, children who could potentially contest him for the throne, an experience his father had with his own siblings,

patterns of the past,

and his father told him that he would have to prove himself to be the strongest.

Jupiter and Uranus can begin a new stage when they meet.

Here they can break an old pattern.

They say he wasn’t interested in women, he abstained. Saturn in the second decan of Taurus can abstain.

And he walked the peripheries.

In the peripheries, downtown was far away, downtown and all the intrigues and rivalries of court life.

In the peripheries, he was home to the men he led.

With Venus, ruler of Taurus, conjunct the Sun in the third decan of Cancer, he carried roots with him and a spring, Kanathos.

His work was in Leo and his destination Aquarius,

with the gods.

Chart for July 26, 356 BC

Arete in Gemini to fulfill a social obligation.

Words can take shape in Pisces.

Will can bring into being in Sagittarius.

Blame the mother. “She was, among other things, passionately devoted to the orgiastic rites of Dionysus, and her Maenadic frenzies can scarcely have been conductive to peaceful domestic life.” From Epirus in the north, she was eighteen when Philip married her, more than he could handle, and she kept tame snakes as pets.

Probably because of his eccentric mother, Alexander didn’t have too many friends among the nobility. His father wrote him a letter telling him to make an effort to mingle with his own social group, and to stop bribing people. From his personal experience, bribing didn’t secure loyalty.

We can blame the mother or we can see her playing a part in securing her son’s place in the kingdom.

When Philip was murdered, she detracted attention from her son by pouring libations over the murderer’s resting place. She was ready to take the blame. She the aggrieved wife, and the murderer an aggrieved lover of the king.

It is around age 14, the beginning of the first Saturn opposition Saturn, that Aristotle entered Alexander’s life.

The Saturn check, reality check, in the Taurus Scorpio polarity.

His natal Saturn in Taurus asked for rootedness to administer the golden throne, his inheritance. There are blueprints in the second decan of Capricorn, and a golden throne in the third decan, and it comes with the responsibility of administration.

But Aristotle’s teachings awakened in him a curiosity about what lay beyond his realm. They awakened the Mars in Gemini and Uranus in Capricorn opposition, the freedom to roam. He must have realized around this time that he didn’t want the job expected of an established king.

At around age 16, his studies came to an abrupt end when his father had urgent business to attend to. He was named regent and asked to preside over the kingdom. During his father’s absence, there was a rebellion in a city up north and he took an expedition to quench it. After he captured the city, he turned it into a military outpost and renamed it Alexandropolis. His father had done something similar, re naming the city Philippopolis.

He got to experience the spotlight.

Later on, when plans were being made to conquer Persia, he considered the plans for conquest his inheritance.

Before Aristotle, Leonidas was his tutor. Green tells the story of how Leonidas rebuked Alexander when he took two fistfuls of incense to throw into the altar fire. Only after he conquered the spice bearing regions could he do that, he said. In the meantime, don’t waste it.

When Alexander took Gaza, the spice warehouse of the middle east, he sent his old teacher tons  of frankincense and myrrh. Eighteen tons, they say. Enough to open his own warehouse.

Green finds it terrifying. He sees it as Alexander having held a grudge for all those years and taking a form of revenge.

But with the incense came a note that said, ‘In remembrance of the hope with which that teacher had inspired his boyhood.’ And along with it, an admonition not to be so parsimonious with the gods.

Venus in Leo.

Three times, Leo.

They say that if Rahu, the dragon’s head, touches the chart holder, he can give sharp teeth.

They say that Alexander’s teeth were sharply pointed, and that his eyes weren’t of the same colour. One was grey blue and the other dark brown.

Uranus too can give an unusual appearance, but Rahu is mentioned as giving sharp teeth.

Chart for July 26, 356 BC, timed

Chart for July 26, 356 BC, timed and with AS and MC aspects

Scorpio is in his house of reputation. His MC in Scorpio in a sextile to Jupiter in Virgo in the eighth house.

There is medicine in Scorpio, sign of Asclepius, and Jupiter in the third decan of Virgo drew a teacher who taught Alexander about biology and medicine. To cure and prolong life.

He also brought along learned men. He had the resources of learned men during his campaigns.

He had the resources of Pisces where words can take shape.

He had the resources of Sagittarius where will can bring into being.

There is medicine in Scorpio, poison that can heal and poison that can kill.

Sign of Artemis, chaste and wild, protector of animals and huntress.

Sign of Apollo, protector of clan.

Leto lives here too.

He had good instincts to dilute the enemy.

In an age of barbarians and slaves, kings could be ruthless, and Alexander could be ruthless.

War as an initiatory experience, death and transformation.

He sent home the spoils of war and gave away to his men. He practiced detachment, self control, abstention.

There are scorched landscapes in the third decan of Taurus, warnings of manmade and natural disasters, empty coffers. Conquest a way to fill the coffers, and to win, he had the seasoned generals of his father’s army, men who learned to trust his instincts.

He trained his army, spoke of warfare and strategy. Mars in Gemini, where war can be a sport.

He was the centre that carried roots and Kanathos.

He could lead and unite in the battlefield.

He entertained Greece with the army’s progress, and opened doors to foreign lands. He changed culture, brought the Greek language, Hellenised.

His clan, his friends, the people he worked with, countrymen who would do whatever it took to see him fulfill his inheritance. Countrymen who told him when it was time to stop. Stop and unite the conquered lands.

There can be friction with Mars in opposition to the Moon. His will and the will of others.

He stopped to unite the army, an integrated army made of Greeks and Persians that he put through rigorous training exercises in Babylon. Competitive races up and down the Euphrates.

A banquet followed on May 29, 323 BC. He would soon turn 33, his progressed Sun at 24 degrees Leo. In a square to his Midheaven.

They say that in Greece they drank wine diluted with water, but at the banquet they gave him a cup of unmixed wine. They say it was easy to disguise poison in unmixed wine.

He fell ill and died on June 10, 323 BC.

Chart for July 26, 356 BC and Chart for June 10, 323 BC, untimed

Wish fulfillment, a sense of having reached his maximum output, with transiting Mars conjoining his natal Neptune in Virgo.

When Jupiter and Uranus transit a sign, they compel us to do the work of a sign. In his chart, they are in a wide square, in Virgo and Capricorn.

Pushed by others, pushed by circumstances to end a stage, jumpstart a new one.

There is hygiene in Virgo, practices that bring good health, and in Capricorn there is nature and the laws of the natural world. Portable chemical toilets could have begun here.

There are patterns of the past in Capricorn, and when Virgo gets involved, cultural patterns of the past, like children inheriting the father’s throne, the eldest child, legitimate.

When he died, transiting Pluto Uranus in Taurus opposed Neptune in Scorpio,

and this may have been his revenge, the fulfillment of his revenge on his father, or simply his way of ending a pattern that caused so much pain and so much trouble.

He did not leave an heir.

He dug it out of Taurus and left the kingdom to the strongest. Those were his last words.

Transiting Venus in Aries and transiting Saturn in Gemini. Fingers of god pointing at Neptune in Scorpio.

He left it to the one who had Eros, good judgement and military skill, like he did.

Morality in the Sun, to be included in the lake. He would not let his father leave him out. He had the potential to do whatever it took to claim his inheritance.

The Sun conjunct Venus on the point of Ketu, where his work was. He carried out his work in the house of relationships, brilliantly in the beginning and not so brilliantly toward the end, when his men were battle weary and wanted him to stop. Green says that paranoia and suspicion overtook him, the fear of his men conspiring against him.

His destiny in Aquarius, to be extinguished, the completion of a dream that proved he was like Hercules, a son of Jupiter.

Doubt may have overtaken him toward the end.

He played, dressed in Persian clothes, the Macedonian king, infuriating his men.

Green does not believe he set out to integrate people and become a league of nations king, like some biographers have written.

He may have found a taste for what was foreign. The integration, an unintended consequence.

With transiting Jupiter in Cancer, and a Mercury return, opposing his natal Uranus, a stage ended and a new one began for him and his kingdom.

For Green, “Alexander’s true genius was as a field commander: perhaps, taken all in all, the most incomparable general the world has ever seen.” Mastery of terrain, the ability to penetrate the enemy’s intention, strategy, speed and improvisation.

He offered an archetype, the archetype of the Great Captain. To be emulated. Like Achilles, like Alexander the Great.

They say Rahu can give a voracious appetite. Rahu Ketu, the dragon that drank the elixir of immortality. The gods punished him by cutting him in half, Ketu the tail and Rahu the head, the mouth with a voracious appetite. He can eat the sun, but the Sun slides out through the neck and makes him hungry again.

Wherever Rahu is we can skip a few steps up the ladder.

The Sun Venus in his chart kept the nodal axis activated.

Touch his chart, and he asks for more.

From Hieronymus Bosch. Visions and Nightmares by Nils Büttner

Chart for February 9, 1967, the day Nils Büttner was born

He unblinds.

He talks of purgatory. A belief that had become part of the fabric of society, part of people’s reality, a reality that gave them the ability to judge whether something was correct or wasn’t correct, reverent or irreverent.

In Sagittarius we have the choice to participate, not to participate.

In Aquarius it is the web we live in, so fine that we can’t see it, until someone like Pluto comes to visit or someone like Büttner unblinds.

The context of the time that Bosch lived, the social construct,

and the cultural practices that upheld it.

The Crucifixion with donor by Hieronymus Bosch, ca 1490

Practices that had their origin in the late medieval period, says Büttner.

Bosch lived in a culture that relied on memory and a culture focused on the afterlife.

To be remembered by the living. Prayers to ease the soul’s journey through purgatory. This donor had the means to leave a visual representation of himself and his piety. 

Ecce Homo by Hieronymus Bosch, ca 1495

Here the donors were painted over, as a restoration of the work revealed. They were painted over in the late sixteenth century when the donors were seen as obstructing the work of Bosch. During a time when cultural practices had changed, people’s mentality had changed, the reality of the late Renaissance.

Büttner begins his book with the most tame examples of Bosch’s work. To show that he participated in his culture and that his works reinforced the web.

He came from a family of artists, with an established workshop. It is here that Bosch trained as a painter and got his first commissions.

He wasn’t considered an anomaly in a negative sense when he began introducing creatures like this into his work. A messenger of the devil with an eye on St. John’s writing tools.

St John on Patmos by Hieronymus Bosch, ca. 1505

On the contrary, he was imitated and copied.

A creature like this belonged in the margins of books, the marginalia in the illustrated manuscripts of the middle ages.

He mentions them, but there is no proof that Bosch was inspired by marginalia, and he is careful not to say too much of anything that cannot be footnoted.

Academia.

He travels in Pisces, in this place of no boundaries, but is careful to bring back only what has documentation, if he is to earn his living in academia. The wish to belong carries this condition.

Mars in Libra, arete in Libra, in this world of contracts, in this world of arrangements, balance and claws. He is careful of the ripples he sends.  

He knows that Bosch faced this dilemma as well.  Arrangements considered irreverent would have labeled him a heretic. So what appears surreal or nonsensical to us must have held symbolic meaning.

The jar must have meant something to his public, lost to us now.

St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child. Before 1500

Because Bosch was a cleric, with a tonsure.

But there’s also a man hanging a bear on a tree, and in the far left, where the castle ruins are, there’s a naked person running away from a monster.

A cleric with a sense of humour, inventive and entertaining.

They called him the devil maker. Let’s go see what new devils he’s made.

Really, this is marginalia brought to the fore. A new arrangement.

youtube.com/watch?v=UCw1eIIxsMs

Detail of St. Anthony carried into the sky by demons from The Temptation of St. Anthony, ca. 1502

The world turned upside down of the margins.

Büttner reassures that everything he painted was acceptable. The inquisition wasn’t after him. His patrons were the church and the nobility. In fact he was part of both, not of the nobility, but he was wealthy. He married a wealthy woman and managed the properties that she inherited. His name appears in legal documents that have to do with managing her affairs.

“On 15 June 1481, for example, he sold Aleyt’s (his wife’s) inherited share in a country estate to his brother-in-law Godefridus, leading to an agreement three weeks later on 3 July, which resolved a dispute that had arisen in the interim.”

There is no record of his birth, but Büttner calculates between 1450 and 1455. He got married around age 25. She was a few years older than him.

Prosperous and famous, among the highest tax payers where he lived.

He lived in a time preoccupied with the afterlife, hell was real, but it wasn’t boring, all the action was there.

He says it is “highly significant” that in 1486-87 he became a member of the Brotherhood of Our Lady, and by 1488 he became a member of the inner circle, hence the tonsure. There is a record that shows he shared the cost of the meal to celebrate his elevated position. The only painter to occupy this position.

There are gaps in Bosch’s biography and he says that theological training may explain the gaps. His absence.

A book of fiction could fill in the absence. The impression that a manuscript could have made on a talented boy. A bestiary, perhaps.

Two Monsters, pen and brown ink, by Hieronymus Bosch, ca. 1505

But his Moon would criticize him if he ventured into fiction, his natal Moon in Aquarius in a square to Neptune caught in a grand trine in water.

He brings in new research, new suppositions, but he tests it on his Moon first to see her reaction. Like in this lecture where he posits that Rubens was the first follower of Caravaggio, a Caravaggisti.

youtube.com/watch?v=qRH_fJGVeBY

A wish in Neptune, despite ourselves, wish of the universe in this sign of clan. Fear too, the fear of dissolution, fear of abandonment in the third decan of Scorpio, how to prevent it.

In the grand trine is Chiron conjunct Saturn in Pisces, not letting him run wild with his imagination.

Be socially conscious and stick to the evidence.

Trines that can facilitate and trines that can chide.

Jupiter is at a lower degree than Saturn in the grand trine, Jupiter in Cancer where there is a lake, he can grow confident about belonging to the lake. And there could come a time when he takes a chance and posits something because he feels it to be true, his eyes tell him that it’s true. Like he almost does in this lecture.

He says that what has prevented scholars from studying the Italian artist Caravaggio’s possible influence over the Flemish artist Rubens is a sense of nationalism.

He talks of his deep mistrust of national prejudices.

On a different level, his grand trine in water can be a boundary breaker. Neptune and Saturn can make room for something new and Jupiter can free Saturn,

to study how Rubens’ business trip to Italy may have changed his style of painting, how he may have met Caravaggio.

Unhindered by the limitations of clan and nationalism,

a  lake that is global,

and the Sun in Aquarius where there is universality,

in a quincunx to Virgo, changing culture.

Still, reaching for as much documentation as he can find, like the record of Rubens’ trip to Italy, and still careful about the ripples he sends,

a subtle shift,

Libra can be subtle.

There were no records of where Bosch had been and he doesn’t speculate. What he says is that Bosch was part of the fabric of his society, and his works reinforced the reality of heaven, purgatory, and most of all, hell. He shares Bosch’s sense of humour when he points out that a mere five souls can be seen rising to heaven in the upper left corner of the central panel his Last Judgement, ca. 1505.

Upper left corner of the central panel. Last Judgement, ca. 1505

He published his book on Bosch in 2016, and gave his lecture on Rubens in 2018, when Pluto was transiting Capricorn and Uranus was in Aries. Digging in an old institution and finding where upgrades were needed, where he could find his place, a place to build, with Aries in mind, bringing a fresh perspective to old studies.

Subtle shifts that may have earned him a following.

Today Pluto is transiting Aquarius, the first decan, and Uranus is in Taurus.

There is out of the box thinking in Aquarius.

There are upgrades in Aquarius, careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially when Uranus is in the third decan of Taurus.

Unless it’s done on purpose.

A heritage house neglected on purpose so that there is no alternative than to bring it down and build something new.

Chart for February 9, 1967, the day Nils Büttner was born, and chart for today, April 10, 2025

He may have delved into Rubens since his lecture, to look for documentation that would support his thesis, documentation in Pisces, place of raw material.  

Today he is having his Saturn return, keeping him disciplined, in line with academia.

Transiting Saturn is at the point of Rahu in Pisces, he may have a find. With Saturn, hard work pays off. He doesn’t let us skip any steps up the ladder, but he rewards hard work.

Transiting Neptune has taken his first step into Aries, beginning to pave the way in Aries, and Saturn will soon join him in the dance back and forth between Pisces and Aries.

A conjunction in the works.

Their last conjunction, in Capricorn, was in the works during Canada’s federal election in 1988.

Chart for November 21, 1988

Uranus was involved, in the last degree of Sagittarius, where we can give it all for a cause.

They say it was an election fought on a single issue, the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement.

Venus in Libra in a sextile to Uranus Saturn,

the opportunity to sign an agreement that would break barriers and create new laws,

making room for something new in Capricorn where there are bones that hold us up.

Jupiter was beginning his transit in Gemini, where there is differentiation and undifferentiation, 

and Mars in Aries brought courage to push forward and begin a new quest.

From the Museum called Canada by Charlotte Gray

An agreement that became part of the fabric of society, part of people’s reality, a reality that has given them the ability to judge whether something is correct or isn’t correct. Social judgement.

In the Gemini Sagittarius polarity, Canadians had the choice to participate or not to participate, a choice to make at the ballot box.

In Aquarius is the web we live in, so fine that we can’t see it, until someone like Pluto comes to visit,

to unblind.

He can expose a social construct and the cultural practices that uphold it, the brotherhood it upholds.

Natural ruler of the eleventh house, the groups that we belong to, separate but together, Pluto can separate again, bring reasons to separate, digging in Aquarius with Uranus in Taurus, in the third decan that asks to ward off disasters, natural and manmade.

In Gemini there is movement and rescue, two brothers side by side, involved in every rescue mission, every battle, every quest. In the first decan there is no judgement. Filial loyalty. The second decan can pull apart, brothers standing in opposition, the beginning of judgement and the beginning of freedom, to choose which mission to participate in, which battle and which quest. To be whole again in the third decan, each one whole.

There is a monster in Pisces. Saturn conjured up a monster, father of all monsters, and lost control of him. The monster got out of hand, sending Venus and her child Eros into the Euphrates, a place of refuge, and Mercury and Pan to look for Jupiter’s sinews.

There is a war in the heavens in Pisces, a change of age.

Chart for February 20, 2026 

Chart for today, April 12, 2025

Today the lunar work is in Virgo, where there is the order of things, the order of the seasons and the tasks and rituals that accompany them, the foundation of culture. The ruler is in Pisces. He reached 9 degrees of Aries, the first decan, and retrograded into Pisces. He is now transiting direct in the third decan of Pisces.

The ruler of Libra is in Pisces. She reached 10 degrees of Aries, the first decan, and retrograded into Pisces. She turns direct tomorrow at 24 degrees Pisces, the third decan.

Libra, first social sign of the zodiac, where social consciousness begins, where the fabric of society begins, the reality we live in, the web so thin we cannot see it. It can begin with a new aesthetics, with a new relationship, with an agreement.

Jesus offered a new aesthetics, a new way to relate with others, a new agreement, to give to the poor and the needy, charity and sacrifice for salvation.

The rulers of Virgo and Libra can fight for survival in Aries, but Pisces pulled them back to a war in the heavens, with Jupiter in Gemini, tariff for tariff. Pisces pulled them back to a place where the order of things can be disordered and agreements can be undone, where they can turn into raw material again.

Saturn is with them, and Saturn can consolidate in Pisces, he can hold structure, anchor,

but Saturn is conjoining Neptune.

When they last formed an exact conjunction in Capricorn, a barrier was broken down by people, the Berlin Wall came down, and with it the bones of a centralized system. Saturn was in the sign he rules, and the spirit of the times was with him.

In Pisces, Saturn conjoining Neptune can make room for a new age, sink into it,

de neutralized and un blinded, and made whole again,

a country’s morality in holding its own chart.

youtube.com/watch?v=Kz9JRPugnmE

Unlike the planets, the nodes travel clockwise, from the third decan to the first, and in February 2026, they will be in the first decan of the Virgo Pisces polarity. Raw material and culture, the building blocks.

Mercury and Venus in the second decan of Pisces where there is a net, to sift and choose the raw material we will bring into culture.

The Saturn Neptune conjunction is in the place in between that Mercury rules.

Hellenistic astrology considers one minute after zero degrees zero minutes to be one degree of the sign that follows, one degree Aries.

Here we can think of the wall that separated Gaza from the world, a wall that was breached, people murdered and taken hostage, and more people murdered and broken, and all that came before for this to happen.

A war that began with Pluto in Capricorn and Jupiter conjoining Uranus in Taurus, with an orb of nine degrees, and Saturn beginning his transit in Pisces.

How does one save hostages carpet bombing the piece of land they’re kept in?

Unless they know exactly where they are and avoid those areas.

And if they don’t know, then they don’t care.

Both sides, the rulers of both sides, the thrones they occupy, no better than the other.

One Israeli hostage for one Palestinian prisoner. Equality to begin with an equal trade. To save children too young to fly.

There is a water passage in Taurus, a water passage to reach Gaza, a water passage to leave Gaza.

That kind of independence, or diaspora.

Pluto in Aquarius can dig out pooled resources that no longer serve us.

mondoweiss.net/2017/06/picnicking-israelis-palestinian/

Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, where Pluto was on October 7, 2023.

Hard to let go the seat of power. Hard to pluck out.

Saturn, ruler of Aquarius, where Pluto is today.

The chance to be separate but equal, one Israeli, one Palestinian, equal in dignity.

If the two sides cannot exist this way, the weaker side, weaker in resources and technology, weaker in power, will remain the same or not exist.

Pluto will transit Aquarius until 2043.

The even light of Aquarius,

canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/10/statement-from-the-department-of-national-defence-and-the-canadian-armed-forces-on-the-recent-strike-at-al-ahli-hospital-in-gaza.html

and Pisces that erases all differences between us. In shadow it can erase the differences between us and kill paramedics. The world turned upside down.

bbc.com/news/articles/c89g0yn5yv5o

Natural ruler of the twelfth house, house of the unremembered dead of all faiths, house of exile, prisons, sanatoriums, house behind the scenes and far away.

A wish for order,

to bring back order.

In the first decan of Aries there is a man in black and red, holding an axe, his barrier between life and death.

An axe to kill and to cut wood for fire.

If the war in the heavens is settled and over, and if the barrier between life and death is no longer needed,

there is room for new quests to begin,

with Mars in Aquarius.

Pluto in Aquarius and Mars in a square to Uranus in Taurus.

Mars, asked to rise above all that came before to guard prosperity. To focus on heritage. To focus on locality.

There is service in Aquarius and in Taurus there is old age.

There is technology and innovation in Aquarius, and in Taurus there is the body and the earth, resources and the containers of our resources.

The layers of Taurus.

The pooled resources of Aquarius, and the groups we belong to.

Mars, asked to rise above for reasons of security, to ensure security.

This kind of security as well.

The Moon in Aries and Jupiter in Cancer, in a square.

People involved in protecting their lakes of memories.

People competing for their lakes. The Winter Olympics will be going on in Italy.

Fifa will be something else, with Canada, the United States and Mexico hosting.

A peek at June 11, 2026

Competitive times ahead of us

in the stadiums.

Nils Büttner and Hieronymus Bosch.

He says that Bosch was born between 1450 and 1455. He died in 1516.

Someone has imagined his chart online, born October 2, 1453, ‘s-Hertogenbosch

During this period in time, Saturn transited Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and in December 1455, he entered Sagittarius.

Saturn in Virgo could potentially keep the order of things, marginalia where it belongs. When Saturn was in Virgo, Jupiter was in Sagittarius, and the rules of the Renaissance were being laid out in Italy. A new order was coming into being, where man was the measure, the centre of the universe.

With Saturn in Libra and Jupiter in Capricorn and then Aquarius, the Renaissance style became established in Italy, and it brought heaven to earth. Linear perspective became a mathematical science, and aerial perspective was studied to give the illusion of looking through a window.

To make painting as true to life as possible and the subject believable.

The Virgin seated on the lap of Saint Anne, holding the infant Jesus who plays with a lamb. Unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci, ca 1501-13

Leonardo was born when Saturn was in Libra and Jupiter was beginning his transit in Pisces.

Chart for Leonardo da Vinci, born April 14, 1452,  Vinci, Italy, data from birth record

He took the pyramidal composition of the Renaissance and added embellishment, juxtaposing a figure seated upright with a figure leaning down to hold the child.

The more embellishment, juxtaposing contrasting lines or contrasting colours, the more skilled and inventive the artist.

This was in line with the laws of the Renaissance.

They say that before planets were given rulership of the signs, there was the theory of exaltation, the dignity of exaltation.

A sign that allowed a planet to express itself fully, a sign that strengthened a planet and made it dignified, was the planet’s exalted sign.

Saturn is exalted in Libra.

Leonardo’s paintings and his journals.

He offered blueprints, not in the final stages, but in the planning stages, one invention after another. Sketches and notes.

Jupiter in Pisces can wander into frightening places to expand the mind, unlawful places too, for the sake of knowledge,

to bring knowledge to others. His worth in the eyes of others.

With Venus in Taurus he was tied to locus, to the here and now, in his body and the earth, exploration, observation and dissection. He studied the parts that made up the whole, the layers of the body, the mechanics of the body, the mechanics of flight, the laws that made it possible. The laws of physics.

The abstract thought of air, Saturn can give it anchor, make it useful, and he sketched a machine that would take flight with the laws he had deduced would make flight possible.

A parallel universe, he gave his public a vision of the future.

They say that Saturn’s solitary nature isn’t easy in the sign of relationship, but he thrived in it, was born with it, part of his nature.

His inventions triggered admiration in his circle, the Saturn and Mercury opposition, and it fulfilled a wish, to be left alone, to be given the space, without judgement, to explore relationship.

There are contracts in the second decan of Libra, crafted relationships, the relationship of shapes, words, rhythms, the harmonious sounds they can produce and the discordant sounds they can produce, to find the perfect balance, or to disturb it, sideways and gracefully, with a whisper.

His inventions in the making and his paintings unfinished, never satisfied. His ongoing quest, experimenting with paint and with technique, keeping the psychopomp at bay.

His fear of death, finality. To put the paintbrush down and say the work was completed could open the last-

Fear can take shape in Pisces.

There is Persephone, Demeter’s daughter in Virgo, and there is Persephone, wife of Hades, queen of the underworld.

He wasn’t the first artist to dissect, but he didn’t do it in secret. He did it as an apprentice, under the direction of a professor of anatomy.

If the Renaissance asked for life like, then he wanted to take a look inside, shine a light inside and not just the surface.

He brought his drawing skills to the study of anatomy.

Personal interests that keep him in high regard even today, all over the world, in the eighth house of the remembered dead.

The Renaissance style spread across Europe and flourished in the Netherlands.

This is the kind of work Bosch would have been familiar with.

Saint Jerome extracting a thorn from the lion’s foot by Rogier van der Weyden or his studio, ca. 1450-65

The saint discards his robe and prays in a separate scene, on the upper left.

This is how Bosch painted him, the red robe discarded on a dead tree trunk, the companion lion very small on the lower left.

Saint Jerome at prayer by Hieronymus Bosch, ca. 1495

detail

He draws us in to examine the bizarre and menacing landscape surrounding the saint.

And instead of Temptation, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and Judgement, he painted Adam and Eve with God in the Garden, on the left, the Garden of Lusts or Earthly Delights in the central panel, and Hell on the right. Like no one before.

ca. 1503

detail

To see our morality in the eyes of another.

The dignity of exaltation says that Saturn is exalted in Libra, and the Sun has its fall in Libra, at least until the holder relies on themselves to judge their own morality.

But if Bosch’s natal Sun is in Libra, we see it differently. He shows us how immoral Original Sin has made us all.

With his sense of humour, the humour that comes with marginalia.

When the Church read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and saw itself through Pullman’s eyes, the power of the Magisterium, and the Oblation Board touching children’s daemons, an act that was forbidden, to sever children from their daemons, the Church wanted his books banned.

Chart for October 19, 1946, the day Philip Pullman was born

The Sun conjunct Chiron, minding the ripples, in the third decan of Libra, where Libra Claws resides.

He shook the Church establishment with his work of fiction.

For children, the child in all of us, for the victims of the Church. To de neutralize us from the Church, man made, and make us whole again.

A wish for justice.

With Venus in Sagittarius, there is desire to bring something new into the world.

And the stellium in Scorpio, place of mysteries, hunger for the mysteries. The ability of the secret senses to know, before we see, hear and touch. He explores this side of us in his books, this side that allows Lyra to decipher the symbols of the alethiometer, what they are trying to tell her.

Place of mysteries.

Büttner writes that to avoid paying a fine, “he had to take part in the Sunday services and the Tuesday and Wednesday Vespers, and to take part in Vespers and Mass on the nearly twenty religious feast days, as well as in the three annually staged processions.” He attended communal meals and participated in passion plays.

Clan.

His paintings weren’t undermining the fabric of society.

He introduced what the learned recognized as marginalia, and it was accepted, and they asked him for more.

arthive.com/publications/1927~Animal_passion_what_does_bosch_have_in_common_with_weird_pictures_from_medieval_manuscripts

Pullman on the other hand punctures, and he transforms Original Sin to become the cure of the world he creates. Love that restores and brings back life. Mercury Mars in the second decan of Scorpio.

Bosch was a man of faith and high social standing. He managed his wife’s inheritance, dealt with contracts, selling properties, selling wood from one of the estates, and we know that at least once, he had to settle a dispute.

Lucy Maud Montgomery was involved in legal disputes with her first publisher, L.C. Page in Boston, for a decade.

From L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals. The Ontario Years 1918-1921

Chart for November 30, 1874, the day Lucy Maud Montgomery was born

Medea

with a justice system in place.

They published Anne of Green Gables, and under obligation of contract, she had to write two sequels, which she did. Still under contract, she wrote four more books. They had the rights to all those books.

She trusted them, sent them everything she wrote. She had sent them her short stories, and in 1920, without having renewed the contract, they published a collection of her short stories.

1920 began like this.

Chart for January 1, 1920

A Mars return, Mars in the second decan of contracts, where Libra balance resides, the side of her that measured words to please. She could have accepted the publication, renewed the contract, kept the peace.

But transiting Uranus was at 29 degrees Aquarius, most critical degree. They had nurtured her, accepted Anne when nobody would, but she had nurtured them as well, with her potions. Something rose in her, someone-

Medea.

Her natal Sun in Sagittarius, morality in the guidance she gave, in her books, in her personal life.

She would stand up for the rights and royalties of her work, for the rights of the author.

Jupiter was transiting Leo, conjoining her natal Uranus, compelling her to do the work of Leo,

shattering the sense of alienation she had felt since she was a child,

building a new reflection.

The Moon in Virgo does not draw a large audience. A small audience, a cult following, a marginal audience, a specialized audience.

People in the field of law paid attention. Women too.

If she was a Cancer rising,

Leo would be in the second house of personal resources, and with Neptune’s transit came the wish to win a victory over her creations.

The ruler of Cancer would be in Virgo, in the third house of the village that raised her. An audience that paid attention to the producer of the most beloved character, the orphan child Anne.

Libra in the soil of her homeland, and Aries in the house of reputation.

The battle for her property has continued after her death, and the ripples of her book live on,  fulfilling the wish that the universe had for her. To unite on the battlefield, literature that unites a country, esprit de corps.

Churchill shares her birthday.

This wasn’t Bosch’s situation.

He dealt with contracts and at least one dispute, but never with a court battle.

He was more the administrator of his wife’s inheritance, and this could bring Capricorn into the picture, the third decan.

He became a sworn member of the Brotherhood, part of the inner circle, but there were thousands of members, religious and secular. Priests, merchants, doctors, craftsmen. A brotherhood that extended into German territory, says Büttner.

What intrigues Büttner is that he was the only painter in the inner circle, among bishops and members of the nobility, one who may have commissioned the Garden of Earthly Delights.

Clan

and the establishment.

He was a painter in the service of the Church, he had knowledge of theology, and he was a property owner. He and his wife lived in a large house on the marketplace, they had servants, the house was large enough for him to set up his own workshop and have assistants.

In 1450, Jupiter was in the second decan of Sagittarius, and in December 1455, he was retrograding in the second decan of Gemini.

When he was in Capricorn, in 1451, Rahu, the north node, was in Capricorn too.

Bosch joined the Brotherhood in 1486-7, and in 1488 he was invited into the inner circle.

In May 1488, the lunar nodes began their transit in the Cancer Capricorn polarity, with Rahu at 29 degrees Capricorn.

Saturn and Uranus were also transiting Capricorn. They formed an exact conjunction April 1, 1489. They can break barriers in what has been established, and could let marginalia come in.

If he was born in 1451, his natal Uranus would have been in Cancer, and the Saturn Uranus conjunction in Capricorn would have happened during the time of his Uranus opposition Uranus.

Chart for April 1, 1489

There are blueprints in the second decan of Capricorn, blueprints that can change the way we think, free us to explore new territory, change the bones that hold us up.

Here begins the mindset that would allow a society to erase the donors in Ecce Homo by Hieronymus Bosch.

It would play differently in every locality, the High Renaissance, when artistic individuality took unprecedented importance, individual embellishment and invention recognised, when an individual’s contribution to society was put on a pedestal, or censored.

In Italy, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael led the way. Leonardo born in 1452, Michelangelo born in 1475, Raphael born in 1483.

In his book, Lives of the artists, Giorgio Vasari writes that Raphael was born on Good Friday, 1483, and that he died on Good Friday in 1520.

Some calculate Good Friday, 1483, to be March 27, others March 28.

Good Friday in 1520 was on April 6.

Some say he was born on April 6 1483 and died on April 6 1520.

Chart for March 27, 1483

They say that he asked to be buried in the Pantheon and his request was granted.
In the nineteenth century, Pope Gregory XVI wanted to verify that his remains were in the tomb and had it opened.

The opening of Raphael’s tomb by Francesco Diofebi, 1833

The pope had the remains transferred to a sarcophagus of his choice with the epitaph, Here lies Raphael by whom nature feared to be outdone, and when he lay dying, feared to die with him.

We can be sure that in 1483 Saturn was in Scorpio, in the first decan until the end of October.

Mastery in Scorpio where Asclepius brought back to life.

Raphael died young, age 37.

He became a painter, like his father. Apprenticed to Perugino.

Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter by Pietro Perugino, ca. 1481

The marriage of the Virgin by Raphael,  1504

He admired Leonardo,

Madonna del Prato by Raphael, 1506

and studied his Last Supper.

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1495-98

He studied Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo, 1512

And he came up with this,

The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509-11

with Leonardo pointing a finger, Michelangelo brooding on the steps, and him.

A tribute to his teachers.

It had been a personal challenge to understand their technique, and he had understood it and applied it, paying tribute to them.

But he eliminated signature and replaced it with sprezzatura, making something difficult look easy and natural,

as if you could walk into the scene.

The epitome of the Renaissance.

We can puncture him as a plagiarist or a synthesis of Leonardo and Michelangelo, until we see what he achieved. He had to puncture himself to achieve it, contain his hunger, soften his hand.

Distance himself.

Judge for himself.

Too much embellishment, too much signature, made a scene unnatural.

He studied the masters of his place and time, and went back to the root of the Renaissance. The more life like the better, to bring to life.

Chart for February 9, 1967, the day Nils Büttner was born

He could have been the monk who in the 9th, 11th or 13th century rewrote liturgical texts. He could have been the monk who took a break from the monotonous activity, and drew a curious figure in the margins of a manuscript.  

Pluto Uranus in Virgo with the ruler conjunct Venus in Pisces.

Changing culture, at least the culture of the monastery, with distractions. Never meant for the general public to know about, cloistered as they were.

Imagined chart for Bosch, October 2, 1453

He may have first seen marginalia when he was twelve, during his first Jupiter return. His natal Jupiter in Aries in a quincunx to Mercury in Scorpio, revealing something to him. The hunger of monks. It must have come as a shock at that age, with Mars, the Moon and the Sun conjoined in Libra. First social sign of the zodiac.

Made to hush, or hushed by instinct. Venus in Libra conjunct Saturn in Scorpio.

Apprenticed in his own father’s workshop, he would learn the conventional style of painting religious subjects. A style that was changing with ideas coming from Italy.

The age of humanism, changing the reflection of man. The birth of individuality and the encouragement of embellishment and invention. In his chart and in the air he breathed.

Perhaps around the time of his second Jupiter return, he was allowed to go on a cultural trip, allowed entrance into the library of a monastery.

Chart for October 3, 1477

“We used to have contests to see who could make the most benign animal wicked. The bunnies are mine.”

“They’re delightful.”

“These hybrid creatures are Father John’s. I see you have a taste for the little beasts, and a hand for them too. The key is not to let them escape the pages. They may cause trouble.”

“Mine escape. I can’t help it.”

“Where do they escape to?”

“They perch on the windowsills of our workshop. It’s in the marketplace and people come to see them. They call me the devil maker.”

“Good. That’s good. Make them scary. It will keep them from sin.”

“Sometimes I find one or two in my paintings-“

The monk gasps

“But I catch them and blot them out.”

“Rightly so, rightly so. One must keep the order of things.”

“The order of things can change.”

“Don’t harm your standing. Any change that a painter introduces must have the backing of a patron, and the patron must have the backing of the Church.”

“Are you affianced yet? You must be coming of age?”

“Another year.”

The monk takes a look at the imagined chart

“I wouldn’t hurry if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“She comes with a lot of baggage.”

“I’ll finally have good reason to move out of the family home. Will she be a good housekeeper?”

“She won’t manage alone. You’ll have to hire servants.”

“She won’t be a troublemaker, will she?”

“A woman of faith and a woman of the establishment, with an undercurrent running through her, yes. She might just be your ticket.”

“My ticket to what?”

“Breaking the windows.”

“You mean, letting the devils run loose?”

“Giving them roots with your profession. But mark my words, with adequate permission.”

“Good to have met you.”

“Good to have met you too, the one who will bring us out of anonymity.”

Chart for December 6, 1478

The wish for justice, to bring medieval scribes out of anonymity, would bring him out of anonymity too, unique in the story of Renaissance art, difficult to classify.

Leonardo too, in his own way.

There are collections in Taurus, and there is preservation. Leonardo’s secular inventions were not the property of the Church to judge. Manuscripts were the property of the Church, and somehow, the art of Bosch made the preservation of these manuscripts and their marginalia possible. Never burnt as heresy in the ages to come.

“Could you draw one of your beastly monsters for my nephew?” Aleyt asked him.

She came to know him during this time, when Uranus and Neptune danced in the last degrees of Scorpio and early degrees of Sagittarius.

She had a property in the marketplace, much bigger than his, four stories high, rented out. There were no family or social connections between them, but she knew he was the one. She knew he wouldn’t do as he pleased with her inheritance, that he would let her have her say.

They were married sometime in 1479-80.

In 1480 he sold his share of his family home to his brother, and moved with Aleyt into her house in the marketplace.

Chart for October 3, 1480

The first seven years of their marriage, Neptune paved the way in Sagittarius and the spirit of the times was in Sagittarius.

He established his own workshop, and in this sense, separated from his family.

She introduced him to her society and his patrons changed, church going and political, worldly.

Büttner dates his Adoration of the Magi, 1485-1500.

A man, partly naked, stands at the entrance of the stable, mocking Christ, with a wound on his leg and wearing a crown of thorns that don’t hurt him, the Antichrist. He holds a mock crown with monkeys on their heads, the pattern echoed on the belt that hangs loose with a bell.

In the background of the right panel, people attacked by wolves. Later on, the animals would become monsters.

Far from Italy, his embellishment and invention came from a different source of inspiration, a source that opened his imagination.

The Renaissance of marginalia.

Patron   Paint me Hell filled with all your devils and inventions. Hell would be the perfect stage to give them the spotlight.

Bosch   You’ll get me in trouble.

Patron   Join the Brotherhood and I’ll see that you don’t.

Bosch joined the Brotherhood in 1486-7, when Uranus was ending his transit in Sagittarius.

Patron (to the inner circle)   I’m inviting the painter and landowner Bosch to join the inner circle. He knows the scriptures well.

Bosch was invited into the inner circle at the start of 1488, with Uranus and Saturn transiting the first decan of Capricorn, with an orb of less than ten degrees.

26 August 1488, transiting Mars at 1 degree Cancer

Patron began to discuss his idea of a painting of the Original Sin, Temptations and Hell with the inner circle. There was much opposition. To dedicate the entire central panel to temptations would send the wrong message.

“Not when they see themselves through my eyes,” said Bosch.

“Religious paintings shouldn’t have scenes of frolic,” said the Bishop.

“Religious works have always had scenes of frolic,” said the Patron.

“Prove it,” said the Bishop who’d forgotten all about the manuscripts.

26 October 1488, Mars at 1 degree Leo

Patron calls a meeting of the inner circle. He has brought manuscripts with him. He lays them out on the table and invites the circle to turn the pages.

The Bishop arrives late. When he enters, he sees the manuscripts and he remembers, he remembers the rabbits, his delight at seeing sword bearing rabbits and a knight that was a donkey. He remembers other things and chuckles.

14 December 1488, Mars reaches 6 degrees Leo and begins his retrogradation

“They didn’t corrupt you, did they?” the Patron asks the Bishop.

“No, but they could corrupt the hoi polloi, give them ideas.”

“The ideas are already out there, Bishop, in the brothels and so on.”

“Bosch, why don’t you paint us a sample?”

3 January 1498, Mars R at 29 degrees Cancer

“What’s this?”

“The entrance to a brothel.”

“It’s more than that, Bosch.”

“You’re reading too much into it.”

“And all these people crawling into a broken egg?”

“Mending.”

“As if. You’ll have to balance all this revelry in Hell, Bosch. Bring us a sample of that.

17 February 1489, Mars at 18 degrees Cancer turns direct

“Ah, yes. The deadly sins of vanity and gluttony.”

“We’d like a private viewing when it’s done.”

Chart for April 1, 1489, and the imagined chart

Capricorn, sign of Enki-Ea, lover of mankind. He has a sense of humour.

The Saturn Uranus conjunction in Capricorn allowed his blueprints entrance. The conjunction squared the Aries Libra polarity, his natal Jupiter in Aries and his stellium in Libra, freeing him to make his own arrangements.

Chart for October 2, 1453, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, timed

The dignity of exaltation says that Saturn is exalted in Libra and the Sun has his fall in Libra. The Sun is exalted in Aries and Saturn has his fall in Aries.

Chart for November 7, 1879, the day Leon Trotsky was born

Mastery in Aries.

I am. He became Trotsky, built himself a name.

His theory of permanent revolution, with Mercury in the first decan of Sagittarius, always in the making.

Mercury in a t square to Jupiter and Uranus in the Pisces Virgo polarity.

He was sent into exile and imprisoned several times, and it became a part of becoming Trotsky, formulating his theory and spreading it, writing for newspapers abroad, and infecting prisoners with marxism.

He always managed to escape or was given passage to return.

Mars in Taurus, with Pluto.

There is Theseus in Taurus. He won the bull games with his skill and strength, and enamoured Ariadne.

She gave him the clue.

He had promised to take her to Athens, make her his queen, but left her in Naxos. They stopped in Naxos to make repairs, and she fell asleep on the beach, and when she woke up, she was alone, and his ship was sailing over the horizon.

Eager for the next challenge, Ariadne slipped his mind and he left her hanging.

Trotsky didn’t leave women hanging. Women played a part in his life, helping him escape, securing his passage to bring transformation in this place of locality and resources.

Mastery in Aries and Venus in Libra.

He built and organized the red army. There is no barrier in Aries between life and death, and the red army was the barrier he gave Russia.

It was headless at first, but he brought in experienced generals of the old guard to give it direction. Marxism was the cement that would hold it together, but to make sure it held during a time of transition, family members of the old guard were held hostage.

His organization of the party, trying to bring different factions together.

He worked with Lenin, side by side, Lenin and Trotsky. He would not work under him. He rejected becoming his deputy, Lenin’s designation as the next in line.

People have come up with reasons as to why he rejected what could have secured his seat of power.

Jason never occupied the seat of power. He betrayed Medea and married another, and Medea’s revenge ruined him.

The quest above all, not permanence, but impermanence.

Saturn asks for permanence and mastery.

Trotsky found permanence in the quest, mastery in the quest.

To secure the seat of power in Aries could involve betrayal.

Trotsky did not betray the essence of the sign. He did not betray the essence of marxism and permanent revolution.

He did not let Saturn fall in Aries.

He gave his public a series of victories.

He put fires out when needed, brought unity on the battlefield when needed.

Task oriented, he needed a challenge, a monster to kill.

Chart for Alberto Fujimori, data from birth record

He killed a monster and brought prosperity to his country, and tried to make his seat of power permanent. He let Saturn fall.

Trotsky’s name was first for party leader, and Lenin, and Lenin accepted becoming party leader.

Trotsky’s lunar work was in Cancer, whatever it took to change people’s minds, break the chains of servitude, join his quest for a just society.

Lenin tied it in.

Chart for April 22, 1870, the day Lenin was born

His lunar work in the third decan of Capricorn, he administered, turned policy into law.

Saturn R in the third decan of Sagittarius, with his whole body he pushed Saturn forward and implemented a new economic structure. Theory into practice.

The beginning.

The wish to lead in his chart. First party leader, founder.

The wish to plough in Trotsky’s chart. Make fertile.

He led in many capacities. A moveable leadership.

To retain his independence within a team, the right to his own opinion. He said that whether he agreed or not with a final decision, it was his country and his party and he would go along with it.

With Lenin dead and Stalin on the rise, he criticized a government apparatus that shut the right to have an opinion. The suppression of dissent.

He was exiled but unstoppable in his critique.

Child of the golden ram.

Saturn in Libra,

and the Sun in Aries.

The dignity of exaltation says that Mars falls in Cancer and is exalted in Capricorn.

The Grandmother by David Lynch

facebook.com/brazilianspaceprogram/videos/brazilian-space-program-the-grandmother-by-david-lynch/1310067645761408/

Chart for David Lynch, born January 20, 1946, Missoula, MT, data from birth record

In late 1945, Mars transited Cancer and was transiting Leo when it turned retrograde. He was retrograding in Cancer when he bumped into Saturn and David Lynch was born.

Cancer and the search for Eros carried by the Moon. The labours dictated by Venus.

Before the search begins, to make sure the search takes place on this earth our home, there is nurture and neutralization.

Lynch found out one day that not everybody had a good mom and dad. He couldn’t just sit with this knowledge, he wrote a script about it.

A nightmare.

The child finds a bag of seeds, takes one and waters it. From it grows a tree and from the tree a grandmother.

A comforting presence.

She dies and he falls through a hole and ends up where he was in the beginning.

The beginning of knowing how it should be. The beginning of finding authority in himself.

There is something too soon about a natal Mars in Cancer in the birth chart.

Seeing too soon, becoming de neutralized too soon.

Wanting to strike on their own before the societal norm.

Mars can disturb the dream.

There is a chart for Walt Disney drawn from memory or autobiography. Born December 5, 1901, Chicago.

He woke up in Capricorn to fulfill a wish that required long term planning. It asked for roots, to be passed on from one generation to the next. An establishment. An institution. A golden throne that would outlive him but carry his name, his legacy.

Neptune in that place between Gemini and Cancer,

Gemini where there is movement, many points of view, experimentation, toddlers at heart and rescue,

Cancer where there is a lake of memories, the stories of a lake, childhood, dreams and nurture.

Neptune between wholeness and nurture,

and Mars in the sign of the father, the figure of authority that protects wholeness and nurture with structure.

To dig in Gemini and create something new with Sagittarius in mind, problem solving that breaks boundaries, many examples of differentiation and going to a place that isn’t familiar, a house in the woods with seven dwarfs, a castle with a beast, the surface of the ocean.

A company tied to the village that raised him, clan, a company that participated in culture, and a company that has opened its doors to artists with surnames from around the world.

4:30

youtube.com/watch?v=VyQf2OJQQvI

It all started with a line, his romance with drawing. Capricorn in the house of romance and children.

The Moon in Libra, in this place of aesthetics and arrangements, interdisciplinary.

The dignity of exaltation says that Jupiter has its fall in Capricorn, exalted in Cancer and falls in Capricorn.

youtube.com/watch?v=H9067mpZ090

Dreamers. It begins with Enki whispering to a wall of reeds that there’s a flood coming, whispers that reached Atrahasis in a dream.

Jupiter may have dreams in Capricorn beyond what is possible, in this sign that builds. But Saturn Jupiter can keep a check on dreams, find the tools to make them come true.

Transiting Pluto settled in Capricorn in 2010. He began his transit through the third decan when Harry married Meghan.

Chart for Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, born September 15, 1984, UK, data from news report, and Chart for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, born August 4, 1981, USA, data from birth record

Jupiter in Capricorn, Mars in Cancer.

They left the golden throne behind to seek independence.

He says that she helped him see, she rescued him, de neutralized him to the prejudices and jealousies of his family, to his family’s relationship with the press, never making corrections, never defending her, letting her fall.

There are patterns of the past in Capricorn, and Capricorn studies patterns of the past to plan for the future.

Jupiter in Capricorn can bring new patterns.

Disney changed the pattern of how fathers relate to their children. Fathers taking children to their place of work in Mary Poppins. He opened a space where fathers could take their children to play. Commerce, family, culture.

Prince Harry says that he stepped back to try to create a different working relationship with the institution he was born into, to create a different pattern, for the sake of his wife, his own mental health and his child.

But he’s been punished for it.

14:30

26:11

bbc.com/news/videos/c1mevvrll27o

Today Jupiter is transiting Gemini, 21 degrees, opposing his natal planets in Sagittarius, planets that could help him establish a new pattern.

But his family blocks it, and they won’t allow him the freedom to come and go.

Jupiter’s gifts don’t come easy. In the sign of the Dioscuri, undifferentiated, differentiated, and each one becoming whole.

He talks of reconciliation in his interview.

His appeal is to the public and to the government to do a review of Ravec.

Today Uranus is transiting Taurus, 26 degrees, touching his point of Rahu. His lunar work is at 29 degrees Scorpio, most potent degree, in the eleventh house of the group that he belongs to.

Chart for Pope Francis, data from birth record

He brought new patterns to his papacy, in his living arrangements and funeral arrangements. In breaking the silence and apologising on Canadian soil.

Jupiter in Capricorn and the ruler in Pisces, in the sign where the boundaries between the living and the dead are thin, in opposition to Neptune in Virgo. He admitted to the imperfection of the Church, its faults.

It may have shaken the structure but it’s still standing. It added a new dimension to the structure.

Prince Harry’s natal Jupiter is in Capricorn and the ruler in Scorpio, in the second decan that can take us under, seven doors to confront Ereshkigal, in opposition to the Moon in Taurus, ruler of his seventh house, house of the contracts he had with his country, the contract he has with his wife.

He asks for protection whenever he chooses to come to his country, not just for royal duties.

Chart for Prince Harry and Chart for Meghan

There is no proof of Prince Harry and Meghan’s allegations. A remark, perhaps said in jest, about the second child being a spare. A conversation about their child’s colour of skin in the intimacy of family, home. The things we overlook, resolve, forgive, within the walls of Cancer.

Said  out loud, in public, can feel like betrayal.

The feeling about some secret accord the royal family has with the press.

Unproven.

But Meghan has Mars in a square to her natal planets in Libra, pushed to act.

To defend her true image.

And he stands in defence of marginality.

Chart for Louis Pasteur, data from birth record

He played with patterns and established a natural law, with unrefutable evidence.

To prevent aged wine from turning sour and making us sick, heat it while young to about 50-60 degrees for a short time to kill microbes. Beer too.

It would be applied to milk, 60 degrees, 20 minutes.

A law that carries his name. It wasn’t a discovery and it isn’t intrinsic. He arrived at it with purpose.

There is no higher virtue among the Olympic gods, no higher virtue for the high god of Olympus, than hospitality.

And it is Themis who presides over rules of hospitality, conduct of assemblies, and good governance.

ourcommons.ca/procedure/overview/index-e.html?modal=video-how-decisions-are-made-in-the-house

Themis, prophetess. Her oracles are oracles of the ages, the consequences of our decisions today rippled through time.

Libra her sign.

23:47

youtube.com/watch?v=w8u7Ntic5fo

He wasn’t going to change a great deal, but, he could see, although a great believer in tradition and in the ceremonial, which is part of the monarchy, he could see that there were some ceremonials that could be dispensed with.  In other words, all he wanted to do was to open the windows a little and let in some fresh air.

But he was only king for ten months and a few more days.

Chart for Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, born June 23 1894, data from birth record

The dignity of exaltation says that Saturn is exalted in Libra, Saturn who asks for mastery.

In the ninth house of knowledge, going beyond what is familiar.

His contract with the monarchy was familiar.

Abdication was unfamiliar.

A romance that made him choose between a familiar contract and an unfamiliar one.

The wish for him to oppose and be taken under, make a new arrangement, go on a quest.

Mars was transiting Libra the day he abdicated.

Chart for Edward VIII and Chart for December 10, 1936, timed to match his rising sign

His natal Mars between Pisces and Aries, that place in between where transiting Saturn and Neptune will form an exact conjunction in February 2026.

That place where we can fall back or move forward, make room for something new.

Transiting Mars bringing focus where he needed to act.

We now know that he participated in adding a new dimension to the institution of marriage and to the monarchy, by renouncing the throne, leaving his homeland behind to live abroad.

Of influence. Jupiter Pluto can be of influence, and in his chart they are in Gemini, in the fifth house, with Neptune.

A wish in Gemini.

He was called the people’s king. He said that one thing the war had taught him was to mix with all manner of people, war is no respecter of rank or birth.

He married a divorced woman whose previous spouses were still alive. Not allowed in the Church of England.

He married her anyway.

His planets in Gemini in a trine to Saturn in Libra.

Freeing himself to marry her, having an influence on the structure of marriage.

Setting an example.

46:31

His AC in the first decan of Aquarius, where Pluto is transiting today. He broke away from his society, intentionally, to be with the one he loved. The outsider.

Chart for King Charles III, born November 14, 1948, data from news report

Neptune paves the way in Libra. The wish of the universe in Libra in the third house of the village that raised him, conjunct Venus.

He knew of his uncle and they met in 1970.

His uncle’s natal Saturn would have touched his planets in Libra and asked him to make room for the likes of him.

His uncle’s stellium in Gemini would have occupied his eleventh house of the groups that he belongs to, the more mixing types,

and they would have activated his natal Mars and Jupiter in Sagittarius.

Guide.

Charles fled.

All he wanted was to make right decisions.

His first decision when he reached the age of maturity was to go to university instead of the navy. He became the first royal to get a Bachelor of Arts.

Across from Libra is Aries, his Midheaven in Aries in the ninth house of the unfamiliar.

His Midheaven tied to a grand trine in fire, Pluto in Leo in the first house of what we come to offer,  and Mars in Sagittarius in the fifth house of romance and children.

Leo where the Sun always shines. Shining a light in his most intimate house in Scorpio.

Mercury, ruler of Gemini, opened a door,

and a phone conversation made public transformed his image, turned him into an ordinary man.

Scorpio that can deflate and humble us.

For a long time it overshadowed his accomplishments. His environmentalism and sustainability before it was popular. His house of work in Capricorn with the ruler in Virgo, sign of the seasons.

But in Capricorn too are the bones that hold us up, and in Virgo there are margins. All those people in their forties who broke with tradition and went against the Church of England.

Saturn in a trine to Jupiter in Sagittarius and Uranus in Gemini.

Fertilising in the fifth house of individuality and the eleventh house of his society.

His mother got involved, head of the Church of England, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Moon in that place between fighting for survival and ensuring survival. Bringing the unfamiliar into what is familiar in Taurus, where there are roots, heritage and lineage.

Leo holds a club, the branch of a tree that can be planted and grow roots.

churchofengland.org/life-events/your-church-wedding/just-engaged/marriage-after-divorce#:~:text=But%20we%20recognise%20that%20some,been%20the%20case%20since%202002.

Chart for November 14, 2002, his 54th birthday, timed to match his rising sign

Chart for Charles III and November 14, 2002

Saturn Uranus can break a wall. In Gemini they can break walls that prevent us from being whole and making our own decisions.

The decision of the Church to allow divorced people to marry while their previous spouses were still alive was under exceptional circumstances.

Venus Mars can seed.

He was the exceptional circumstance. His romance.

A romance that would complete what Edward VIII started.

He brought into Capricorn, into the institution of marriage and the monarchy that other dimension. Established the seasonal change in people.

Transiting Pluto was in Sagittarius, conjunct his natal Mars. He said that his relationship with Camilla was non-negotiable.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/212324.stm

He told his mother and the Archbishop.

His first marriage was to a woman who had all the requisites to be wife of a king, and now in his middle years, he would not be tamed. She was the right woman for him.

Transiting Pluto was in Sagittarius where there are weavers, weaving with Aquarius in mind, this place where the fabric of society is invisible, they wove an exceptional circumstance.

Venus Mars can seed and they can block.

He could now marry her, but he didn’t have the public’s approval.

Transiting Pluto was in Sagittarius where there are weavers, employed to improve an image, give direction and paint a favourable picture, with Aquarius in mind, this place of service.

Transiting Neptune in Aquarius. Edward’s wish to make room for him.

The first child is in the fifth house. How we experience them.

The second child is fifth from the fifth, in Aries, in ninth house of what is unfamiliar. His natal Mars and Jupiter in Sagittarius, natural ruler of the ninth, with a taste of the unfamiliar, the foreign.

Chart for Charles III and Chart for May 27, 2025

There can be delay in Leo.

When Jupiter boasted that Alcmene would soon bear him a son, the son he would call Hercules, and when he boasted that his next descendant would rule over all his neighbours, Hera delayed Hercules’ birth.

She made sure that Eurystheus, also a descendant of Jupiter, a great grandson, was born first. King Eurystheus ruled over all his neighbours, and he dictated Hercules’ Labours.

Made to labour under Eurystheus.

There can be delay in Leo, and there can be atonement.

It can take time for the club, the branch, to take root.

He is at ease now with the sunlight that pours into his fourth house. Home and homeland in Scorpio.

Compelled to do the work of Gemini, with transiting Jupiter conjoining his natal Uranus. The people’s king, pedestrian.

The conjunction in a square to transiting Saturn Neptune in Pisces Aries, his eighth and ninth house, house of crisis and healing and house of wisdom.

Making room for him to defend Canada’s sovereignty, to be the defence mechanism in trying times, the barrier between life and death.

Making room for his moveable leaders.

Pluto is digging in Aquarius where we are careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, where we can move forward while preserving heritage.

Transiting Venus in Aries, across from his natal Neptune Venus in Libra. Perhaps there is wish fulfillment here, in the approval of his leadership.

There are children in Leo, the story of Hercules, a child persecuted because of his father’s infidelity.

There are victims of de neutralization in Leo.

The child in all of us.

There are mirrors in Leo, sign of reflections, and Pluto in Leo can dig for an authentic reflection. He can transform a reflection.

There are the moral crossroads in Leo, Hercules at the moral crossroads, ruled by the Sun that carries the moral crossroads.

There is a club to Labour with and a club to plant, set standards.

Aquarius, sign of ideas, ideals. archetypes. Sign of  ideologies and utopias, the dream of perfection.

Sign of universality, universal rights, separate but together,

sign of service.

In Aquarius there is the invisible web we live in.

The symbols we learn and understand.

Reality.

And there is the one who separates themselves from reality.

The one who stole the fire for mankind, awakened mankind.

Challenged the gods.

Perhaps the ancients saw them as self sufficient signs, one ruled by the Sun, the other by Saturn and Uranus, rotating on its side.

In the dignity of exaltation there are no exaltations or falls in the Leo Aquarius polarity.

The dignity of exaltation says that Saturn falls in Aries and is exalted in Libra, the Sun falls in Libra and is exalted in Aries.

Aries Libra

Saturn Sun

Saturn falls in Aries because it will not be tied.

Saturn is exalted in Libra because even in an abdication it is tied to society.

Social planet that it is.

The dignity of exaltation gives eminence to the planets. The sign that allows a planet to best express itself. The sign that does not allow a planet to best express itself.

Aries sends Saturn roaming.

Aries ruled by Mars, the personal planet that can travel farthest from the Sun.

The Sun is the centre of the solar system, holds it together.

Holds the birth chart together.

The Sun falls is Libra, conscious of the other,

and is exalted in Aries.

youtube.com/watch?v=CgGQZuKxYB0

Some have painted Helen born of an egg alone.

Helen of Gemini.

She learns that everyone finds her beautiful.

A model.

She learns that anything she does, touches, can become a model.

Nothing remains original for too long,

and so a door keep opening for yet another mold.

In Aries there is a quest for an original,

the golden fleece of the divine ram Chrysomallus.

youtube.com/watch?v=lNhv-aFp7pI&t=19s

Lady Gaga admitted each time that Madonna was an influence. Madonna, the queen. Madonna a wonderful person.

youtube.com/watch?v=4SKBtpA422c

In 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011.

In 2013 she defends herself and says that she’s not competing for a throne, she’s not a threat to the throne, she doesn’t even want a throne, she doesn’t even see herself as a queen.

In 2016, she asserts herself and says that Madonna and her are very different. She’s a nice lady and she’s had a fantastic huge career, she’s the biggest pop star of all time. But there are major difference between them. She will not be compared to anyone anymore.

In 2017, 2017, they talk about the Madonna situation, not telling her to her face that her music is reductive, a question of morality.

Transiting Uranus was at 4 degrees Aries on January first 2013. He was at 20 degrees Aries on January first 2017.

Uranus awakens. Breaks

Chart for March 28, 1986, the day Lady Gaga was born

7:10

The good news is that she got an email from Madonna and her people sending her their love and complete support on behalf of the single, and if the queen says that it shall be then it shall be.

The approval of another.

Uranus can break the need.

There is in Libra the intermediary. There is in Aries direct confrontation. They are medicine for each other.

Both measure.

She is now her own measure. She does not let the media measure her.

youtube.com/watch?v=kzJkVSnZEGk

It takes time for an artist to mature, for planets to mature.

There is an imagined chart for her that makes her a Gemini rising.

Helen.

She began looking for models, she could be Sparta and she could be Troy, the process of becoming her own model. Making her own molds.

With the Sun in Aries. One mold. Gaga. Holding the chart together.

Mars falls in Cancer and is exalted in Capricorn, Jupiter falls in Capricorn and is exalted in Cancer

Cancer Capricorn

Mars Jupiter

There is the story of Baucis and Philemon, the story of hospitality, highest virtue for the Olympian gods, for Jupiter. Social planet that he is.

Planet of expansion, he can expand what he touches.

Protector of the earth with his gravitational pull.

With his natal Jupiter in Capricorn, Prince Harry wants high level security, paid by the public, whenever he enters the UK, to visit friends, for example. It would set a precedent, allow any member of the royal family to remove themselves from royal duties and live abroad, add a dimension that could dilute the structure of the monarchy.

To expand without endangering.

Like Nelson Mandela did.

Chart for July 18, 1918, the day Nelson Mandela was born

Pushed to make an agreement between the clans of a lake.

Within.

Expansion within. Through his studies, looking for mentors in other lakes, Gandhi was one. Seeing the results of countries in Africa that had expelled clans. Through reflection. The moral crossroads, inclusion.

He underwent a transformation before he could bring it to others, transform the clans to accept an agreement.

The lunar work was in Gemini, the process of becoming whole led to the agreement he made.

To live side by side.

The Moon in Scorpio. Each clan with its memories.

With the truth, truth and reconciliation. He left us the model.

Jupiter returned to Cancer in 1989. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and in December, the president of South Africa called his cabinet together to debate legalising the ANC and freeing Mandela.

Chart for December 6, 1989, the day of the École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal

His transit didn’t prevent something bad from happening. He didn’t act like a shield.

His gravitational pull in Cancer brought the world together, a country together, all generations.

Men and women had been separated and fourteen women killed.

Evidence. The topic of discussion was violence against women.

Evidence. The gun. The topic of discussion was gun control, a gun registry.

To make room in Capricorn, in the bones that hold us up.

To expand without endangering, a lake, within.

Chart for July 1 1867, the day Canada was born

A Jupiter transit in Cancer conjoins the country’s natal Moon Uranus Sun and can fertilize. Compel the lake to do the work of Cancer, sign of Hera who breast fed every child born, queen of the bed, queen of heaven. Her bird the peacock.

She brings down the hero, asks us to work with others.

Natural ruler of the nadir, this place of dreams.

Place of home and homeland.

Early childhood.

Soul.

The wish of the universe to lead in this place of family and nurture.

In a trine to Jupiter in Pisces, place of raw material, and in a sextile to Mars in Virgo, place of culture.

To make corrections, weed.

In 1989, Mars Pluto were in Scorpio, rulers of Scorpio, digging where there are the mysteries, mysteries of the mind, to create something new with Capricorn in mind.

The geography of the world was changing.

Schools and how we bring up children.

Chart for December 13, 1989, the day Taylor Swift was born

youtube.com/watch?v=Sl6en1NPTYM

Scorpio where there are initiations, every stage of life, every experience, an initiation.

She rises and gives it structure in a song.

Makes room for the next.

For the public in her lake.

On December 6, Venus held the mes in Capricorn, where we look at the patterns of the past,

the opportunity to block them.

A day to remember.

Jupiter returned to Cancer in 2001.

Chart for September 11, 2001

Chart for July 1, 1867, and Chart for September 11, 2001

Venus in Gemini, at the bending of the nodes, the day Canada was born.

Gemini where we mix with all manner of people, build bridges.

This place that can see the contradictions in others and in themselves, that learns to reconcile dualities.

This place of exchange.

The Hudson’s Bay Company. With the Hudson’s Bay closure, temporarily, a chapter has ended in the country’s life. With Uranus’ transit through Taurus and Jupiter’s transit through Gemini.

Natural ruler of the third house of siblings and neighbours.

On this day that Saturn conjoined natal Venus, the country had one sibling, one neighbour, one goal. Saturn in Gemini and Pluto in Sagittarius, Sagittarius that can split into black and white, with us or against us.

Venus, ruler of Taurus and Libra. She joins Gemini and Libra with an oath, and an oath was triggered on this day.

Canada received all flights headed to the United States that could not turn back to their point of departure. Canadians were asked to open their doors to stranded passengers.

The tariffs imposed on the country today can feel more than what they are, they can feel like betrayal.

But Gemini Sagittarius can operate outside of history. The president of the United States a solar Gemini and lunar Sagittarius, his lunar nodes in this polarity, with Rahu in Gemini.

Untying us, to become whole again.

Provoking us, to become whole again.

Giving us back our freedom, after 9/11.

There are no exaltations or falls in the Leo Aquarius polarity, and there are no exaltations or falls in the Gemini Sagittarius polarity.

Unweaving and weaving into the fabric of society, with the choice to participate or not. The freedom to choose.

The ballot. Authority that takes it away, tampers with it, takes people’s freedom away.

Gemini ruled by Mercury and Sagittarius ruled by Jupiter.

In 2001, with Jupiter exalted in Cancer and Mars exalted in Capricorn, we prepared for war, the world prepared for war against terror.

Jupiter returned to Cancer in 2013

Chart for July 6, 2013, the day of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

They say at approximately 1:14 am

Taurus rising,

and the lunar nodes in the Taurus Scorpio polarity.

There is locality in this polarity.

Chart for July 1, 1867 and Chart for July 6, 2013

In 2013, Canada was having a Saturn return, precipitated by the lunar nodes.

The laws of every clan, and the laws that join all the clans together. Saturn, ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius, in Scorpio.

A change in the laws can begin here, with Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto digging in Taurus, and a change in the laws can add to the land’s identity.

Cancer, natural ruler of the fourth house. Uranus in the fourth house can reinvent itself, and Canada has reinvented itself over time, added to its identity.

Jupiter was not transiting Cancer back in 2000, when Walkertown had an E. coli contamination. Jupiter was transiting Taurus.

In 2013, Saturn was returning and transiting Jupiter was at 2 degrees Cancer when the rail disaster occurred.

The results of the investigation brought a change in the laws, the rules for operating hazardous materials trains.

tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/2013/r13d0054/r13d0054-r-es.html

Saturn asks for mastery in the sign where there is poison that can kill and poison that can be diluted to heal. Where Ereshkigal stripped Inanna bare to take responsibility. Where a chase gave Apollo the laurel tree. Where there are mysteries. Where there is an underworld with all that is criminal and taboo. Where there is clan. Sign of the remembered dead.

Saturn brings structure and Pluto can change the structure.

Saturn can put barriers and Pluto can change these too.

Transits can free Saturn, stretch him.

Out of necessity.

When it is time.

Pluto in Taurus where there is the body, the earth, resources and the containers of our resources. Sex, food and shelter. A water passage. Security. Old age. The ages, layered sign. Sign of genealogy and roots.

The ruler in Gemini,  where she can contain all the contradictions, reconcile them, with truth and reconciliation, and free us to move forward.

Ruler of Libra, balance and the claws.

Medicine in Aries. Neptune in Aries. The wish of the universe here.

Neptune that takes 165 years to return.

This year, Jupiter begins his entry into Cancer on June 10, 2025, and reaches 1 degree Cancer on June 15, 2025

The country begins its Neptune return, exact in seven years. Bringing a new wish. Making room for a new quest.

The country’s natal Mars in Virgo.

The dignity of exaltation says that Venus falls in Virgo and is exalted in Pisces.

Chart for July 28, 1958, the day Terry Fox was born

Demeter’s grief.

Her compromise.

Her grief and joy gave us the seasons.

She spread her teachings.

The rituals of every season, the customs that become the foundation of a culture.

His marathon of hope brought him out of anonymity and cancer out into the open.  Not for personal ambition, but to find a cure for a disease that can affect anyone.

A taboo subject was brought into the culture, normalized, and a quest began.

Chart for August 29, 1959, the day Chris Hadfield was born

He has blocked Canada from falling into the margins. His Venus Sun Pluto conjoins the country’s natal Mars in Virgo, seeding and blocking.

youtube.com/watch?v=o4tCYF3zUns

5:11

Virgo, natural ruler of the sixth house, below the horizon, unlit, place of the apprentice, place of flaws, sign of Dikê, sign of corrections.

6:07

Venus can battle with ego in Virgo.

youtube.com/watch?v=vNSAWu2Msj4

Persephone was about to pick a narcissus, to fall in love with her own reflection, when Pluto brought her down.

Such a stellium can put pressure on the holder of the chart, and the holder of the chart can put pressure on others, to correct, put in order, improve.

2:29

5:44

He says 1991 was the hardest year. He tested 37 aircraft and had to write a report on each of them.

In 1992 he was selected to become an astronaut.

The ruler of Virgo conjunct Uranus in Leo where there is a stage. His son made him aware of it when he was ready. When he had done the work, learnt a trade. When he had something to share with others, the mysteries to share with all generations. His natal Jupiter in Scorpio. The country’s natal Jupiter in Pisces.

He took command of the ISS on March 13, 2013.

6:28

youtube.com/watch?v=dWX9awdzYjw

Venus was transiting Pisces. 

Chart for March 13, 2013

Jupiter ruler of Pisces and Mercury ruler of Virgo.

Beggars on the road.

He gave them hospitality.

In return they played him a song and gave him the keys to the temple.

Chart for October 18, 1919, the day Pierre Trudeau was born

He proceeded without Quebec’s signature.

Any province that would not share its resources with the rest of the country, he brought down, when they were about to pick a narcissus.

When Quebec kept putting the brakes on  patriating the constitution, he brought it down and proceeded without Quebec’s signature.

Mastery in Virgo where Persephone holds a pot of beauty on her lap. In lieu of the narcissus.

Mastery that may have started trying to bring down Capitalism, with his visits to Cuba and China. Wearing a rose on his lapel.

But he must have seen what power could do when someone held it.

Because he put the charter first.

He put his mastery to good use in his own land. Seeding in Virgo a cultural foundation. Trying to block Parliament and the legislatures from picking the wrong flower.

Sketch for the painting entitled ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’ Or sketch for the painting entitled ‘Narcissus.’ By  John William Waterhouse

Chart for April 17, 1982, the day the Constitution Act was signed

Chart for the day Pierre Trudeau was born and Chart for the day the Constitution Act was signed

Transiting Jupiter in Scorpio conjoined his natal Mercury

in a square to his natal Neptune Jupiter in Leo.

Power to the people in a democracy like never seen before.

The wish of the universe in his chart fulfilled.

Venus was transiting Pisces, like she would be on March 13, 2013.

A transfer of power.

A ceremony.

Symbols bigger than any one person.

A moment made sacred

in its imperfection.

Chart for the day Canada was born and Chart for the day the Constitution Act was signed

Venus joins Jupiter in Pisces, in opposition to Mars in Virgo at a lower degree. He can ask for perfection, but she blocks it.

Exalted in Pisces as she is.

Next to Jupiter’s expansive qualities.

Quebec upholds the constitution. It has used the notwithstanding clause in the charter.

Without its signature.

Perhaps it is this missing piece that maintains Canada’s cultural foundation. The tension between Venus in Pisces and Mars in Virgo, imperfection and perfection.

They can seed in their polarity,

and Jupiter Venus in Pisces in a square to Uranus in Sagittarius can fertilize,

without touching the foundation.

The Queen was having a Venus return on the day of the Constitution Act.  

Chart for Elizabeth II, born April 21, 1926, UK, data from birth record

The wish of the universe in Leo, to wear a pelt, secure it for her family, the monarchy.

For this she fought a war in the heavens, a war that would make room for imperfection.

Venus, goddess of love and beauty.

In Pisces she is the mother of Eros, caught in a change of ages.

Venus in Pisces and Uranus. In the third house of the village that raised her. Natural ruler of the twelfth house of the exiled, the prisoner, the refugee. Place of charity.

An uncle cast away made her father king.

In this third house of siblings, a sister who did not marry the man she loved, a divorced man, to remain by her side.

Sacrifice.

And then came 1992, her annus horribilis.

6:04

youtube.com/watch?v=ehASvMvrf5U

With Jupiter, ruler of Pisces, in Aquarius, conjunct Mars in the third decan, she says,

He who has never failed to reach perfection has the right to be the harshest critic.

She continues to say that criticism is good, scrutiny is understandable, but it can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humour and understanding. To become an engine of change. Change incorporated into the stability and continuity of a great institution.

The changes and chances of this mortal life. Without losing style and character.

There is completion when a planet returns, and the start of something new. She had followed the proceedings that led to the Constitution Act closely. Over the years, she watched the difficulties, differences and the compromise, and the acceptance of imperfection.

Most forgiving sign.

youtube.com/watch?v=PDPj4P6wn2Q

Chart for Drew Barrymore, born February 22, 1975, United States, data from birth record

She says that she observed people to figure out who she wanted to be, her AC in the second decan of Gemini,

a disembodied experience,

with the ruler in Aquarius.

The exploration of who to be, perhaps triggered by people telling her what to do on a set, how to act from an early age.

Evolution, the Queen of Canada observed the country’s evolution, from a colony to an independent self, who it would model itself after, until it found its own mold, its own reflection.

Mutable, changeable.

In Drew Barrymore’s chart, the wish of the universe to oppose others, oppose the norm.

To do her lunar work of rescue.

She drew enough negative attention with her touchy feely manners on her talk show for her audience to grow. She drew curiosity.

She says that she loves all people, she loves humanity.

She loves people like herself, cast away, put into a psychiatric institution when she was a child, exiled. But even there she revved up the inmates and rebelled, opposed.

To emancipate herself.

Hold her chart.

Pisces where the walls and boundaries are thin.

She invited Meghan, ensured safe surroundings, a warm welcome, and spoke of Meghan’s romance with a prince.

She focused on love and hospitality, Meghan’s strength in Libra, where there are arrangements and a wedding banquet. Meghan’s Venus in Virgo.

youtube.com/watch?v=KNg_Tn9prEI

instagram.com/reel/DHCIVd2xdDO/?hl=en

tiktok.com/@tastyuk/video/7486169456574516502

Participating in changing her image, giving her a second chance.

Forgiving imperfection.

The dignity of exaltation says that Mercury falls in Pisces and is exalted in Virgo.

Ruler of Virgo and ruler of Gemini.

There was a New Moon in Gemini on May 26, 2025, 23:02, Ottawa, Canada

The rising sign Capricorn, where we study the past to make plans for the future, where we make good use of what we have, where there are bones that hold us up.

The ruler conjoining Neptune in Pisces Aries, where we can make room for a new quest to begin.

The ruler of Aries in Leo, in this place of de neutralization.

The new Moon conjunct Mercury in the first decan of Gemini, where there are many points of view, where there is exchange, where doors open, where there is rescue.

Jupiter in Gemini too, bringing a gift, and his gifts don’t come easy. In the third decan where the Dioscuri are together but each one whole.

Pluto digging in Aquarius, in this place of archetypes, dreams and ideals, this place of pooled resources, creating something new with Taurus in mind. The spirit of the times in Taurus, to put safeguards against lands made barren by natural forces and the forces of humanity.

Venus in Aries, where there is leadership, where there is esprit de corps, in a trine to Mars where there can be victory, and back to work.

At 11 am, on May 27, the prime minister of Canada witnessed his majesty the king deliver the speech from the throne.

He said that federal barriers between the clans of the land will be dismantled by Canada Day.

They can seed Mars and Venus, new reflections, new forms of leadership and strategies on the battlefield, and they can block. Opportunities to seed, and opposition that can block.

But there is a square between Jupiter in Gemini and Saturn Neptune in Pisces Aries. Making whole, beginning a new quest whole. Preparing us for Jupiter’s entry into Cancer.

Jupiter at the bending of the nodes in the Virgo Pisces polarity. Virgo, where there are the rituals and customs of a culture, and Pisces that can bring all generations together.

In Pisces Typhon severed the sinews of Jupiter and hid them in his cave.

Mercury and Pan retrieved them and gave them back to Jupiter so that he could once again hold his thunderbolts.

youtube.com/watch?v=LH8_p61pjgQ

Chart for Brigitte Macron, born April 13, 1953, France, data from birth record

Today transiting Uranus is on her MC conjunct Jupiter in Taurus. Compelled to do the work of Taurus, fertilizing new arrangements.

lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/05/25/emmanuel-macron-arrives-in-vietnam-for-the-first-leg-of-southeast-asia-tour_6741654_4.html

She is not the president, but she is of influence in his life, behind the scenes.

A woman who brought disorder.

Mischief in the seventh house. She married a man from the wrong generation. Too old to bear him children.

A woman who holds the keys to 25 degrees 54 minutes of Pisces. This place of raw material.

She was a language teacher, and the teacher for the after school theatre club.

dailymotion.com/video/x53c4d3

Molding.

In this place where the sirens’ call must be powerful, powerful enough for her to bear the brunt of moqueries.

gala.fr/l_actu/news_de_stars/musculation_etirements_gym_comment_brigitte_macron_lutte_contre_le_temps_qui_passe_393435

She takes care of him, won’t let him eat chocolate. Takes it away from his hand.

gala.fr/l_actu/news_de_stars/video_quand_emmanuel_macron_se_fait_taper_sur_les_doigts_par_sa_femme_brigitte_393440

Today Venus is returning in her chart, Mars is conjunct her natal Pluto in Leo,

and the lunar nodes are in the Virgo Pisces polarity, the work in Virgo and the destination Pisces.

Pressure to mold.

The point of Rahu is conjunct her natal Mercury, and she skipped a few steps trying to mold him.

youtube.com/watch?v=H2bbJ0FM7gM

Synastry chart with Brigitte Macron’s chart in the inner wheel, and the chart for May 27, 2025 in the outer wheel.  The aspects shown are for the outer wheel, May 27.

On May 27, the transiting stellium in Gemini was in a trine to Pluto in Aquarius. Transiting Pluto conjoining Brigitte Macron’s point of Rahu.

In Aquarius, where there is an invisible web, the reality we live in.

Laws that become the reality we live in.

Love that subverts them,

and the people who rise to repair, to uphold.

youtube.com/watch?v=i22uoGQabGc

youtube.com/watch?v=xvdpyAN66GU

youtube.com/watch?v=2r9X8J1jnsc

Mercury in Gemini.

Mercury and his caduceus.

If a conversation stagnates, he can bring it back to life.

Mercury who is Hermes who is Thoth.

Messenger of the gods, herald, liminal god, mischief maker and problem solver, he can travel the three dimensions at will. Can turn into smoke and go through key holes. It’s how he rescued Mars trapped in a jar by the giants Ephialtes and Otos.

He has his joy in the first house, and Aries is the natural ruler of the first house.

Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus by Jacob Jordaens, 1630

Queen Elizabeth II

Mercury in Aries in the fourth house.

She held the keys to the survival of the monarchy.

Where he is in the chart is where we forge keys.

Elizabeth II and her sister the Princess Margaret

One.

Oneness.

The oneness that existed before language.

Mercury who is Hermes who is Thoth, who created language.

Language that brought order.

You. Me. The trees. The sky.

Chart for October 4, 1957, 7:29 pm, Russia. The day, time and place Sputnik 1 was launched.

The day we began to order space, give it order.

The density of the upper atmosphere. Data about the ionosphere.

It was Russia’s triumph, and a universal one.

It changed culture, how we see ourselves, our planet, our place in the universe.

A satellite that broke through the gates of Troy and sent back radio signals.

Beep-beep.

To master foreign territory.

It triggered a competition that evolved into cooperation.

The wish of the universe to satisfy hunger for the mysteries.

It began with Mercury in the third decan of Virgo and is ongoing.

Forging the keys to bring order to space.

Princess Margaret too brought order,

born August 21, 1930, UK, data from birth record

She did not marry her first love, and divorced her second.

Her AC in the first decan of Aries, Uranus in the second, and the north node in the third,

ruler of her own kingdom,

she gave her sister courage to be the ruler of her kingdom.

Mars in Gemini in the third house of siblings, together with her sister, but whole. She mingled the way her sister did not. She gave her opinion and told her the opinion of others, her point of view and the point of view of others. She problem solved with her sister, found solutions, and together they mastered Capricorn, sign of Enki who made the laws.

She helped her sister master authority.

They say she came to age in the time of the zoom lens, and that her wedding was the first royal wedding televised.

The camera in Libra, zooming into her, waving at the crowds, the wedding dress she wore.

An image

that fertilized something new in Cancer,

a public for the image,

a public that craved more images,

to look through the key hole and interpret, draw conclusions.

Of influence,

a public that would exert its influence on the royal family.

When the public was given an image of the married princess with another man,

the public demanded an answer.

It forced the royal family to introduce a new order.

The royal family responded through the proper channels that the princess was separating from her husband.

Her house of romance in Leo, and the Sun in Leo in a sextile to Mars in Gemini and Saturn in Capricorn.

The moral crossroads here.

She gave up her first love because it would not allow her to carry out her public duty. It would not allow her to remain loyal to her sister.

In Libra there can be mediated experience

and in Aries direct experience.

An image can blur the lines between the two,

Gemini can blur the lines between the two.

Multiple realities at the pedestrian level.

Reality based on an image, reputation based on an image.

The moral crossroads here too for the public of the image,

to verify.

Capricorn asks for verification, evidence, proof.

The wish of the universe for the princess to serve her sister and the village that raised her.

1:38

youtube.com/watch?v=JJrMabOF0To

The public’s princess,

disciplined by an image.

The princess who introduced dialogue

that gives answers, makes corrections, takes action.

Synastry chart for Elizabeth II in the inner wheel and chart for Princess Margaret in the outer wheel, with interaspects

Forging keys to know, in the house of knowledge, when to respond and when to abstain.

When to lower the flag, even if the queen wasn’t in the castle.

When to break with tradition to allow continuity.

The dignity of exaltation says that the Moon falls in Scorpio and is exalted in Taurus.

Eros.

There is Eros, son of Aphrodite, and his arrows.

Love on earth.

Love that keeps us engaged, here, on earth.

And there is the Eros we come from

In the beginning

Eros

and the Moon that receives us.

Mother in the sky.

Where the Moon is in the chart is where we are born,

where we seal our stay on this planet.

The sign, the house, the degrees and minutes of the Moon, where we draw sustenance.

Where alchemy begins,

the process of making silver.

youtube.com/watch?v=vIrJqAwdlsg

Chart for Miley Cyrus, born November 23, 1992, United States, data from birth record

youtube.com/watch?v=1mGo9KXT8Ps

4:32

The Moon in Scorpio.

She’s mothering herself now, now that she’s 33, her mom doesn’t travel with her anymore.

What was it about her mother that made everything better?

Safety. She made things safer.

11:27

To reclaim and re imagine the word beautiful and what it means to her.

Being born, the first person she saw was her grandma.

Joy.

Her mom was adopted and put into her grandma’s arms, and when her mom gave birth to her, she was put into her grandma’s arms first.

When grandma passed away.

Pain.

She remembers both moments. The joy and the pain.

Birth and death are both beautiful.

16:00

Her mom went on a vacation to Italy without her for a week, and it felt like the end of the world for both of them.

The lyric, You’ve been thinking about the future like it’s already yours.

Her thinking of a future without her mom breaks her heart.

The lyric gets her every time.

youtube.com/watch?v=Hbn1mFQ1Y9I

Scorpio,

place of Delos, the floating island

where Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis,

and the island grew roots.

The Moon returns every month,

and in Scorpio she can ask for roots,

root me,

seal me

tighter

so that we never break loose.

In Pisces she can ask for a place of refuge,

the Moon that returns twelve times a year.

The Moons that binds us together,

sets the tone of day.

Even Gemini experiences the Scorpio Moon.

Two Scorpio Moons in conversation.

youtube.com/watch?v=u0dTmpzI0XY

Chart for November 8, 1847, the day Bram Stoker was born

The little death, it’s how they called sex, when Eros and Eros got entangled, the arrow and the egg.

Unity, a union that would take him there, and keep him here. The ideal union. To experience the infinite, the eternal, but never to leave the earth.

“Hmm,” said his friend. “There are no guarantees. You take the risk of the soul’s escape. It’s a floating island, you know.”

“Indeed,” said his other friend. “What if you come back without a soul?”

instagram.com/reel/DJhsFSNyuw_/?hl=en

“You mean, like a revenant?”

“Revenant, chupacabra, vampire, call him what you may.”

“I think I’ll call mine Dracula. Count Dracula.   (pause) My impression was that you came back without a soul if a dog jumped over your grave.”

“Mine too. That’s why they buried the dead with a sickle. Because the first thing that happens to the undead is to bloat. The reasoning was that the sickle would puncture the skin and stop the process.”

“No, no. It’s the little death that does it. The rest is soul recovery, the attempt at soul recovery, nourishment for the soul to return.”

Nourishment for the empty place.

The ancients used to call the eighth house the empty place.

Scorpio the natural ruler.

Miley Cyrus looks at her mom but already sees the empty place.

House of the remembered dead.

House of crisis. They say that every seventh house relationship, every fifth house friendship  ends up here, the test that will bring wisdom or separation.

The separation after birth

The separation after sex

A Moon that can feel the empty place.

The floating island

the separation

the need to possess.

It inspires her music.

There are containers in Taurus, the containers of our resources, libraries. He researched.

He gave it a name. Consolidated a myth with an arrangement of letters, diary entries and newspaper articles.

Then he killed it with garlic and a stake.

youtube.com/watch?v=jEMTOFOfJH0

Chart for August 14, 1998, the day Doechii was born

youtube.com/watch?v=qQI9zoqmcqM

She says that she has learned so much about herself through the industry.

She learned that the industry has formulas. There’s a formula for radio, for TikTok, even for hip-hop, and she went along

until depression set in, and her ex crashed her place and destroyed all she owned.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ggg45-e4oj0

To master working the plough.

To seed without falling into formulas.

To be herself.

She’s from Tampa, and she says that it’s small and also big. A big city, but the music community is small and warm, artists supporting artists.

22:37  

There’s a passage in Taurus.

She left

and took her city with her

her dark skin

her heritage.

17:41

youtube.com/watch?v=-91vymvIH0c

11:46

youtube.com/watch?v=5tm2wjXD-7U

Her plate full.

Kierkegaard said that anxiety rises from original sin.

It is the tension between freedom of choice and responsibility.

There is original sin in Taurus

A bull not sacrificed back to the gods

Lust

and a child born

the Minotaur called Asterion.

There is original sin in Leo

A madness that came upon Hercules

In his madness he killed his wife and children

and sought atonement

The Labours of Hercules.

youtube.com/watch?v=riCP9x31Kuk

Chart for Frida Kahlo, born July 6, 1907, Mexico, data from birth record

Today the spirit of the times is in Taurus, 28 degrees 41 minutes.

Israel and Palestine.

October 7 and the mentality that Israel does not have the right to exist, Palestine from the river to the sea. An invisible resource.

Israel’s right to exist founded on the Holocaust, discarded shoes preserved on concentration camps, memories of the Holocaust, Memorials to the Holocaust. A visible resource.

Israel bombing a mentality

invisible

A genocide that comes with the cost of depleting its own visible resource.

Resources that are visible and invisible in the second house. Taurus the natural ruler.

Frida.

One of the most difficult things to describe is pain.

With Saturn in Pisces in the eighth house, she described pain, gave it form.

The rulers of Pisces in Cancer, natural ruler of the nadir. A door to the world of dreams.

André Breton described her work as surreal, making the invisible world visible.

She made invisible pain visible.

Saturn in Pisces in a square to Pluto Venus in Gemini.

Digging in Gemini, sign of the Dioscuri, taking turns, occupying the underworld and Olympus, and in between the earth.

There is exploration in Gemini, different from Capricorn.

After the accident, at the hospital, she kept complaining of back pain, but the doctors kept telling her there was nothing wrong with her back. It was referred pain, they said.  

A month later, a new doctor diagnosed her with spinal and pelvic fractures, fractures in the right leg, dislocation of the elbow, and the wound in the stomach had not yet healed, the wound caused by the iron rod.

There is experimentation in Gemini.

After the Trojan War, the men gathered in the house of Menelaus to tell their stories, stories of loss and pain. Helen mixed a potion in their drinks so they could tell their stories without emotion, a potion that numbed.

She experimented with medicines to take the pain away, more as she grew older.

Not in the beginning.

In the beginning she screamed with pain, wearing a body cast, immobile on her bed.

Her mom came up with the idea of giving her bed a roof with a mirror. Her dad designed an easel so that she could paint lying down.

She looked up and hated her reflection.

She looked up and painted her reflection.

Self taught

teacher of her own school.

When she could walk again, she showed her work to Diego Rivera.

They fell in love.

They got married and he expanded her eleventh house. They were considered a power couple in the artistic world.

He expanded her twelfth house.

She was no longer confined to a bed at home, behind the scenes, but came to represent her homeland, Mexico, when she travelled with him.

Expansion

and the same.

She remained a patient.

A self portrait for Dr. Eloesser who treated her and became her best friend

A self portrait with Dr. Juan Farill who performed seven surgeries on her spine and saved her life

Pluto in Gemini and Uranus in Capricorn.

Digging in Gemini to create something new with Capricorn in mind

Born in a time when doctors were acknowledging that x rays machines could be used for patient care, to diagnose fractures and foreign bodies.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5216491/

She complained of back pain. She said that she could draw a picture of where the pain was. Her mind travelled there, felt it there, the source of her pain in the spine.

An image that showed proof of a fracture.

The reality of an x ray image.

Her lunar work in Capricorn, mending bones that kept breaking. Mars in Capricorn, ruler of the fourth house, the familiar, and ruler of the ninth house, the unfamiliar.

She woke up here, every morning, a revolutionary.

Her father encouraged it. He encouraged her higher education. He helped fulfill a wish of the universe. Her husband too.

She proved the value of the x ray machine,

helped it enter the lake of medicine.

She left a mark that is unique.

A record of her pain.

Her body, her pain, the people who eased her pain.

Invisible the medicines, her knowledge of medicines, the cocktail that could kill her when the pain became unbearable.

Nourishment in Taurus

Her last painting

Chart for May 28, 2025, 10 am, Ottawa

youtube.com/watch?v=WC49cqtHYfY

15:29

Gemini

amoral sign

it’s what allows us to hide enemies of the state, help them escape, rescue their children

The Dioscuri involved in every battle, every quest.

It wasn’t a question of morality, right or wrong.

It was hands on experience, a test of their skills.

Until the day Castor died,

mortal brother of Pollux,

and Pollux asked Jupiter if he could share his immortality with his brother

to keep him by his side.

It is the beginning of the mortal body and the immortal soul, side by side, not yet sealed.

Gemini doesn’t seal.

It opens

Orestes pursued by the furies by John Singer Sargent

They came back and let the furies loose in the eleventh house, the group that they belong to.

The furies don’t go after a country.

They go after people, make people confront themselves, have a conversation with themselves, interior, personal, between mortal and immortal.

They can make people feel guilty, people who make up a country.

To take action,

hide enemies of the state, help them escape, rescue their children.

They came back

eye witnesses

images

the truth

the Moon conjunct Jupiter in Gemini at the bending of the nodes

29:33

Information specific to a place in time

information that disorders

tears an invisible web

exposes destruction brought on purpose

Solutions

They left a list of prescriptions

How to end a genocide

Healthcare workers, doctors under oath

providing a service

a universal right

to ensure survival

The power of pooled resources to bring destruction, to ensure survival

They came on stage,

heroes for a moment,

to ask the village that raised them to lead the way,

put a barrier between life and death

Both ways

In Gemini there is reciprocity

Mars in Leo in a trine to Venus in Aries.

They can seed,

and they can block

until there is

a change of leadership

until there is

surrender.

Chart for April 28, 1908, the day Oskar Schindler was born

youtube.com/watch?v=aZG6K6swP-M

theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/individual-responses/oskar-schindler/

One survivor made it his mission to find someone to write Schindler’s story

It all began when Schindler was looking for work, and came upon Germany’s set up in Czechoslovakia, to collect military intelligence

Neptune in Cancer

The wish of the universe in the decan where we’ll do anything to defend the home, the homeland

Cancer, natural ruler of the fourth house

They say that Neptune in the fourth house can make the holder of the chart feel like an alien, like he doesn’t really belong in the place he was born, and a search begins to find it, not necessarily to move there

He became a spy

The Moon in Aries,

first sign of the zodiac,

un rooted

Mastery in un rootedness

Arete in working for opposing sides

He could be Czech, he could be German. He could change the mask he wore

Imagined chart for Oskar Schindler

The sextile between the Moon Saturn in Aries and Mars in Gemini is still there, with an orb of nine degrees

The Moon Saturn at the bending of the nodes, rulers of the nodal polarity

He spied for the Germans in Czechoslovakia and in Poland, and then bought a factory that employed locals, including Jews.

Ensuring survival, his own and his family’s, he did his duty, took care of his moral obligation the best way he could

He grew wealthy

Something came over him during the war, said his wife

He had an epiphany in 1943-

Synastry chart for the day Schindler was born in the inner wheel, and chart for April 28, 1943 in the outer wheel

In 1943 he witnessed a massacre of Jews in his neighbourhood

Mars was transiting his first house and Mars can enflame, propel the chart holder to act

His Moon in Aries, first sign of the zodiac, unselfconscious in its expression

Reactive

Everything around it a potential threat

It’s all body in this sign, the body divine, a Moon that protects the body, feels with the body

Impulsive

But Saturn can withhold expression, hide, play a part

He would play the most important part of his life. He’d had practice. He would play it seamlessly

His Moon in Aries where there is fight for survival

and the ruler in Gemini

Uranus was beginning his transit in Gemini, spirit of the times in the sign of rescue, where we find solutions, write a list of prescriptions

Jupiter was transiting Cancer, conjoining his natal Neptune

to fulfill the wish of the universe in his chart

A sense of belonging

The mother rose in him

in the sign where there’s no barrier between life and death

He became the barrier

His factory a place of refuge

His factory

Digging in Gemini with Uranus in Capricorn, he made lists of those who would embark

Venus was involved, Venus giving him a potion to help him in his task

Venus, ruler of Libra, in the eighth house of crisis, signing contracts with the Germans, contracts with the enemy

Venus, ruler of Taurus in the third house

There is judgement in Gemini, people’s judgement, judgement that can undergo transformation

He spent all his wealth on his rescue mission

His instincts guiding him what to say, how to befriend, what gifts to offer

His wife on board, helping him

She usually picked on his flaws, but during this period in time, they were united

And so the survivor found a writer.

The book was published after Schindler died, and his story came to form part of a people’s quest for a homeland

Still ongoing, eating up the West Bank, reaching for the sea, creating an extremism to defend, an extremism that doesn’t care if children die

A mentality that has to change

and a quest that must come to an end.

Chart for April 29, 2025, 12:06 pm, Ottawa

facebook.com/OttawaPoliceService/videos/have-you-registered-for-camsafelet-ottawa-police-know-you-have-footage-on-your-p/2806033646251016/

An appeal to the individual to register security cameras with the police

An appeal to pool resources to help solve crime

Pluto digging in Aquarius. He can dig in the riches, and he can dig up what is no longer useful, what has become putrid

In Capricorn he dug up institutional abuse and the abuse of people in power

On November 22, 2024, the day Wicked was released in theatres, he was making his entry into Aquarius

Pluto in that place in between, with Mercury in Sagittarius

People in power who wanted to wing monkeys, turn them into flying spies, surveilling from above, reporting back

But they couldn’t read the book of spells, the grimmerie

They searched for the one who could, the chosen one.

Enter Elphaba who’s dreamed of meeting the wizard since birth. He wouldn’t be blinded by her looks, she knows. He’d see who she truly was, someone he could rely on, someone superior, and he’d offer her a matching exterior. He’d offer to degreenify her, her biggest wish, only wish.

She runs through a field of reeds

crows fly out

and she imagines the team they’d make, the wizard and her.

Enter Glinda, her roommate

They don’t like each other’s reflection

Glass shatters

But each one wants something the other has

Because of her sister, Elphaba arranges for Glinda to be taught sorcery, what Glinda wanted, and in return Glinda offers her friendship. She looks at Elphaba in the mirror and tells her that she’s beautiful. Seen through the eyes of a friend. It nourishes the soul, seats the soul.

Friendship

not love.

Why is it that so many of us get a crush on a friend’s boyfriend, a friend’s girlfriend?

A Moon can bind us together in the theatre with common experiences

There is competition in Leo, natural ruler of the fifth house of friendship, sign where the Olympic Games began.

They went together to the Emerald City

She’d lived with the hope of transformation all her life, but she gave it up to save the animals, she who’d been cared for by a bear.

She didn’t know the truth about the wizard or about Madame Morrible yet

They showed her the grimmerie

It opened for Elphaba.

In Capricorn the waters of the abzu rise to the surface of the land, land that can reach great heights, the gravity of the earth

In Aquarius there are parallel universes

Pluto in between, with Mercury in Sagittarius, place of the galactic centre

Mercury in Sagittarius opening a portal, and Jupiter in Gemini connecting the dots

Saturn in Pisces where the boundaries are thin

She deciphered

The Sun in Leto’s sign, the magic of Leto, the Sun in the sign of the centaur where civilization and the instinctual meet

She cast a spell

She could feel the pain of the monkeys growing wings

She wanted to reverse the spell but was told that she couldn’t, and more was revealed

The wizard was behind people turning against the animals

He told her that when he first came to Oz, there was discord and  discontent, and back where he came from, everybody knew that the best way to bring folks together was to give them a real good enemy.

Hearthfire

Mars, warrior of the Sun

She would take the place of the animals as the enemy

The hearthfire of an enemy bringing folks together,

an enemy local and foreign.

It all began with a wish from the universe, in Pisces that can erase all differences between us. Granted when the most popular girl at Shiz mirrored her dance

Natural ruler of the twelfth house, house of big animals, and surely animals that can talk belong here too. The sixth house rules little animals and pets, so anthropomorphic animals must be in the twelfth.

She would not betray them

She would protect them

Be her own guide.

She stole the grimmerie

Come with me, she said to Glinda.

But Glinda stayed. She had given Elphaba the pointed hat, and now she completed the pelt by tying a cape around her.

On a broomstick, Elphaba flew away to a place that was unlimited.

Chart for August 25, 1939, the day The Wizard of Oz was released in theatres

There’s no place like home

There’s no place like somewhere over the rainbow

Idyllic

Capricorn’s dilemma, on a personal level. Pluto is a transpersonal planet. The Moon is as personal as we can get

In the sign of Pan, old god, Arcadian god of the wild, companion of nymphs

Sign of Enki-Ea who rose from the fertile waters of the abzu and brought order with the laws, his priests spreading the laws

What is integrated in Sagittarius, the instinctual and the civilized, splits in Capricorn,

and there’s tension between the two,

friction

resistance.

To go back to nature, escape the laws

To go back to the past, escape the present

She lets her dog run free and the dog keeps getting into the neighbour’s yard and chases the cat

She talks but nobody listens

She talks but doesn’t listen

in panic mode.

She runs away

but turns back because of Auntie Em

the tension

friction

resistance

The weather

drops her and her house somewhere over the rainbow

In Munchkinland.

youtube.com/watch?v=RQWSh7Db-_E

Recognised

because the house dropped on the wicked witch of the east

but the wicked witch of the west is still alive and after the slippers

the ruby slippers that now protect Dorothy.

The wish of the universe in Virgo where we can protect pets, where we can protect from ill health and disease, from the dark forces of nature and why not from a wicked witch, like she just protected the munchkins

by accident.

There are troubles in Munchkinland

It isn’t the idyllic place she was looking for

It’s not Kansas, familiar

Not of this earth, the sea goat, tied to the earth, the waters beneath the earth

She needs to go back home. Auntie Em, she’s been told, has fallen sick looking for her.

Perhaps the wizard can help you, says Glinda

Where would I find him, Dorothy asks

Just follow the yellow brick road.

A quest begins and she follows the yellow brick road until she gets to a crossroads

There are moral crossroads in Leo, but this is a children’s movie, a movie for the child in all of us, and the Moon is in Capricorn

At the crossroads, she begins to take charge

She becomes hearthfire for a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion, all looking for a missing part of themselves

Pluto at the bending of the nodes, the lunar work in Taurus

This time a field of poppies

and this time a wizard who sends them straight into danger to prove themselves worthy

Bring me the broomstick of the wicked witch, he says.

youtube.com/watch?v=TLAW4lWC86U

A chance victory

Recognised again

by accident

by accidentally finding the Achilles’ heel of the wicked witch

who melted.

What she couldn’t do in Kansas, she did in the Land of Oz

Removed the threat

Deflated the wizard

They found the resources in themselves, the power within, the missing parts

Empowered

and they empowered the audience with them.

Now to return home

Convincing herself there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home

until the soul grows restless again.

youtube.com/watch?v=DmaM1jFk8pM

Chart for June 5, 1998, the day The Truman Show was released in theatres

There is raw material in Pisces

to mold

They quashed his desire to be an explorer and put fear of water into him

Never to leave the island

A prisoner

unsuspecting.

June 5 began with the Moon at 18 degrees Libra and ended with the Moon at 29 degrees Libra

The day began with a grand trine in air

A studio spotlight fell from the sky

and the radio announcer quickly repaired the invisible web Truman lived in

An aircraft in trouble shedding parts, he said

The audience slowly introduced to the code of conduct on the island

the chef’s pal

beer

an elk rotary

Sylvia

She didn’t follow the code of conduct

She tried to bring enlightenment

tear down the invisible web

rescue him

with a whisper

Get out of here. Come and find me.

He tried

but they blocked him at every turn

Told him he wasn’t well

Lied to him

And the audience in the theatre unites against the injustice

in Libra where there are principles that guide a society and good governance

Sign of Themis, prophetess. She holds the balance, goddess of divine justice

To profit at the expense of Truman

The corporation that adopted him

The actors. His mother, his father, his friend, his wife

and the viewing public inside the movie

all in on it

everyone except Truman

Don’t you ever feel guilty, Sylvia asks Christof.

He didn’t. His next goal was to have the first on air conception

He didn’t understand that Truman was infected with love

with the look in her eyes, the kiss, the smell of her perfume

and that more than anything, love can undermine the laws and the realities we create

utopias that can turn into dystopias.

The wish of the universe in Aquarius, to escape, in this place of voluntary exile, where Prometheus stole the fire of the gods to give to us

in this place where Uranus can destroy his creations because of their imperfection

Truman overcame his fear of water and set sail

and Christof tried to kill him.

The Sun in Gemini

the furies set loose

the people who worked for him turned against him

They joined the audience.

There’s a ladder in Gemini

a ladder within, to climb up and to climb down, the workings of the mind

In Libra there’s the realm of the gods and there’s the realm of people

what is of the gods

what is of people

right and wrong

the gods who gave us life, the gods who can take it away

In between there is Aquarius

where the gods share their nectar with us

where we can intervene

like Prometheus intervened

to make life better, ease the suffering

Not for profit.

They say that Jupiter in the twelfth house is a guardian angel, Pisces the natural ruler of the twelfth

Pisces that can dissolve the boundaries between us

Truman

everybody was Truman

everybody a prisoner.

The boat reached the limit and tore the invisible web

A ladder appeared

and an exit door

His hand reached for it.

Freedom

freedom for all

Victory

victory for all

Justice

justice for all

It settles the soul.

Chart for July 12, 1996, the day Courage Under Fire was released in the theatres

To build an army

patriotism

begins with one soldier not leaving a soldier behind,

brothers

The glue that holds it together

In the story of the Dioscuri

One soldier a brother

a clan of soldiers and its captain

an army

He killed his brother

Right and wrong nuanced in war

a broken heart

a cup to forget

a nightmare that won’t let him.

The wish of the universe in Capricorn, where there is legacy, legacy in a medal

The first woman to be awarded the medal

Did she go beyond the call of duty?

Was she an exceptional soldier?

There is something he knows about war, about soldiers surrounded by enemy fire

the thought that crosses the mind

Surrender

arms raised

a white flag

Was there any thought of surrender?

No. She grew calmer the tenser it got, said one

the one who tapped his fingers on the table

like his brother had tapped his fingers on the tank

The nightmare driving him to question them again

about the M16

trusting the ones who heard it

trusting the ones who admitted having considered surrender

Venus attracts

In Gemini, she can recruit

and Mars can train

Look behind you. Did you just leave your brother behind?

He can train the audience

to understand

how crucial the bond

how great the crime

It must have been worse, he thought, when he saw a soldier drive head-on into a train

to kill himself

It must have been worse

As bad as what he’d done

Because he’d wanted to kill himself when he killed a brother.

They can fertilize multiple versions of a story, Venus and Mars

They can block the ending

until one soldier is ready to confess

ready to face the consequences

Like he was.

The Moon conjoining Mars, the Moon cazimi Mars, in the heart of Mars

The audience watches the captain

cover the rescue with the M16

courage under fire

left behind

burnt alive

United with the horror of it.

Justice already served

outside the courtroom

by the furies.

The cup breaks

when the child receives the medal.

Chart for February 7, 1997, the day Dante’s Peak was released in theatres

Marianne sets the stage, her personal choice. She wanted to stay longer and monitor the machines, the machines monitoring the volcano

Like Paris, prince of Troy, and his personal choice, when he chose Venus

The distance between Marianne and the audience

what she signed up for in Libra.

On this day Mars R in Libra was in a trine to the stellium in Aquarius

where there are others, the groups we belong to, social responsibility

Mars retrograde bringing Harry back, bringing Paul back, compelled to do the work of Aquarius

Harry wanted to put Dante’s Peak on alert

Paul didn’t want to rush, delicate politics, not to mention economics

To put a town on alert was to doom it.

The traditional ruler in Aries where we can put a barrier between life and death

do anything for love

Harry fell in love with the mayor

The spirit of the times asking for new archetypes

Pluto in Sagittarius and Uranus in Aquarius, infecting us with new archetypes

and new technology

to monitor and intervene.

The forces of nature

where the gods begin

gods of wrath

to be appeased through prayer and sacrifice

The lunar work in Pisces

where the gods can put on a show

where Jupiter trapped Typhon under Mount Etna

to witness him break free

uncontrollable, like the panic of a crowd.

To break free, the odd one out in Aquarius

Most socialized sign and the odd one out

Harry was sent on vacation

but he stayed, submitted to working with the team

He was the best man Paul had

Paul in charge

We will monitor every hiccup the mountain makes, said Paul

with all the machines the team brought, including spider legs.

The tremor on the mountain

Terry’s accident

I can’t believe the camera is still working after taking a hit like that, said Greg

The quake was shallow, not tectonic but magmatic, Harry insisted. They had to put the town on alert

But the team did not agree, because the machines weren’t recording enough seismic activity.

The audience already knows that Harry is right

They have seen the evidence, fire underwater

and the theme is one they are familiar with. People and their inventions, their machines

To see the world through the machine

through an ideology, like Marxism or democracy

through a system, like astrology

To do the right thing

in the sign where Prometheus stole the fire of the gods to give to us

in the sign where Hephaestus crafted the gods’ attributes

this place of invention

Harry knew the value of machines. He had upgraded to an ’87 chevy suburban

He knew the value of science, the pH of the lake water

He understood that people’s livelihoods were at stake if the town was put on alert

He was a volcanologist and could differentiate between tremors

no matter what the machines said

People versus their inventions, their machines

Then there was fire in the glass of water and people’s lives were at stake

and the machine made a comeback

If it weren’t for Harry’s choice of vehicle, his knowledge of machines, how to start a car without a key, they would not have survived-

Yes, there was grandma Ruth bridging the gap between the boat and the dock, jumping into the acid lake,

but ultimately, it was E.L.F that saved them

They didn’t thank the grandmother. They thanked NASA

NASA getting ready to launch its first module for the International Space Station.

Playing with patterns

in the disaster genre

Rahu in Virgo asks for continuity

The wish of the universe in Capricorn where there are patterns of the past, where there is legacy

The stellium in Aquarius bringing in something new

The audience united in its critique

Can a machine outrun a volcano’s shock wave? They say a jaguar outrun a shock wave from Mt. St. Helens

They should have been lower in the mine shaft to survive

Have they made low frequency transportable? No, only in the movie

Distance

The balloons at the beginning of the movie giving us the cue

to rise above.

Chart for April 16 2010, the day Death at a Funeral was released in theatres

Unlike the first version, they weren’t thinking of moving out

To stay, settlement

The family home, the responsibility of parents, fulfilling a father’s wish

She was taking her temperature, the cycles of the body, having a child, continuity

The spectator in for ride, the knowledge that things would turn out alright somehow, that someone would do the right thing for preservation

Like paying Peter for the pictures

He wasn’t going to pay, not after the comments about his writing

Venus in Taurus doesn’t take criticism lightly, she doesn’t take rejection lightly

The Moon in Taurus where there is a labyrinth, its own logic, own way of resolving things, internal matters, internal solutions

In this place below the horizon

Put him in the coffin

Confessions

A confessional, the soul in another’s hands, each other’s

Acceptance

To live with the bellows coming from the labyrinth, layered sign, no escape

A split in Capricorn

and in Pisces forgiveness.

In Taurus acceptance of the whole, the good and the faults, and the secrets in the closet, living with the whole man

The only friends allowed are friends who will hold the soul of the whole man

Like Gilgamesh and Enkidu held each other’s soul

The eulogy that sees the best in the deceased saw pictures of a hidden life, his imperfection

He made room for his father’s imperfection

Love rose in him and with love the Bull of Heaven

youtube.com/watch?v=yXDgPREBssw

It rose in him too.

vimeo.com/14822748

Chart for September 27, 1991, the day Necessary Roughness was released in theatres

Things can spoil in the third decan of Taurus. Here is where we salt fish, where we refrigerate

or throw away to avoid ill health.

In this sign of resources, he gathered talent

to build a team

Without offering scholarships, without exchange, without accepting free jackets. Straight Arrow guarding against strings attached

Without breaking the rules

he gathered talent below the horizon

There is an intimacy in Taurus that comes from people holding each other

Holding Paul

Charlie’s confession and Paul holding him, the experience uniting the public

Holding each other

to form a clan, together one pelt

There is hybridity in Taurus

In Aries a chase, predator and prey

In Taurus man and bull working the land

amity

In that place between Capricorn and Aquarius,  he stepped outside of history and brought a woman in, a woman who could kick

He weeded and trained, and in the end, the Bull of Heaven rose in him to energize, bring out their strengths, the necessary roughness to win the game

youtube.com/watch?v=ilrpqagxBf4

Today Ketu is in Virgo and Rahu in Pisces

The lunar work in Vigo where we can make corrections

to end a cycle

Chart for March 13 2025, the day Adolescence was released on Netflix

Demeter walked the margins of the earth looking for her daughter

that part of herself that was eternal Spring, innocent and pure

and Hekate came to guide her

Hekate came to help her hold herself whole.

There are parallel universes in Aquarius

Children too young to fly in a parallel universe

Children that need to be held asking a parallel universe to like them, hold them

The girl did not hold him and the boy killed her

The detective could not see it and his son came to teach him, to teach the public

the ideas and the language of a subculture, and of a younger generation

It took courage to rise above his father’s skepticism, even mockery

to break away from being held

become the authority that opens the door to understanding another

Without judgement, with discussion

Art that has the potential to become a teaching tool

make us better guardians of the home, the nadir

The psychologist would not say the things the boy expected her to say

She would not undifferentiate

She would not hold him

He could not break her authority, seep into her nadir

sometimes calm, sometimes typhonic, shapeshifting, mimicking

She armed herself each time

There would be no intimacy in a confession, not with Venus in Aries, retrograding

To confess would be to admit

to himself

that the boy on the screen was him

mend the split

meet the Furies

Admittance into carrying himself whole, carrying his fault, changing his plea to guilty

Mercury ready for the journey to begin, to bring him back from the underworld and face the consequences

Not easy to watch

Unity in a memory of avoidance and admission, the faults we carry, the corrections we’ve made

This an extreme example

Art with a purpose

to prevent

to end a cycle of violence.

The relief when the boy calls his dad to tell him

What if he hadn’t?

Chart for March 9, 2001, the day 15 minutes was released

Critical of a system that skips admission, skips a step in taking responsibility

From confession to carrying a bag of faults to carrying out the laws

The public watches him go through customs, kill and learn the language, self esteem, low self esteem

How to use the laws to hold him

How to stop him.