From the Narrow Desert: Astrology

Showing posts with label Astrology. Show all posts

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Year of the Tortoise and the Hare

Did you know that the Tortoise and the Hare are implicitly a pair in Chinese astrology as well as in Aesop? Compare this section of the Chinese zodiac:

Tiger (2022)
Rabbit or Hare (2023)
Dragon (2024)
Snake (2025)

with the Four Symbols:

White Tiger of the West (sunset, autumn)
Black Tortoise of the North (midnight, winter)
Azure Dragon of the East (sunrise, spring)
Vermillion Bird of the South (midday, summer)

The Tortoise holds the same position as the Hare -- after the Tiger and before the Dragon. After the Dragon comes the Snake or the Bird -- calling to mind recent syncs regarding the bird-serpent Quetzalcoatl.

I've posted before about the appropriateness of the last few Chinese zodiac signs. The birdemic began in 2020, the Year of the Rat, rats being associated with plagues. The year of the pecks (called by a name which means "of or pertaining to cows" in French) was 2021, the Year of the Ox. The Year of the Tiger, 2022, saw the focus change to starting World War III. The White Tiger of the West is particularly appropriate, since the West was the aggressor, and the ineffectiveness of its attacks called to mind the old Chinese term "paper tiger."

In Aesop's fable, the hare loses to the tortoise because he forgets that just "being fast" isn't enough if you don't actually run. The Year of the Tortoise and the Hare opens with the U.S., personified in Sleepy Joe, complacent in its role as "superpower" and "leader of the free world." By the end of the year, no one will any longer be able to take that pretense seriously. The Tortoise -- also known as the Mysterious Warrior of the North -- will have pulled off the victory that was supposed to have been impossible.

The Chinese zodiac is actually a 60-year cycle, going through the 12 signs and the 5 elements. The coming year (beginning on January 22, 2023) is a Water Rabbit year (Water also being the element of the Black Tortoise). The last Water Rabbit year ran from January 25, 1963, to February 12, 1964. It was during this year that Bob Dylan recorded (October 24, 1963) and released (January 13, 1964) "The Times They Are a-Changin'."

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

Monday, June 20, 2022

Recurring dream

I very rarely have recurring dreams, but I've had this one about a dozen times in the past year or so, most recently on the night of June 18-19.

I'm outside at night, looking up at the stars. Although I'm in the city, with considerable light pollution, I can clearly discern seven stars of the Pleiades, compared with the five or six I can usually make out under urban conditions. I mention this to my brother, who insists that he can see twelve.

I become aware of a huge wheel-like configuration of stars in the southwest, about 60 degrees of arc in diameter. Individual stars are continually winking in and out of visibility. At first I think the whole thing is rotating, but then I realize that there is a radial segment of greater visibility which is moving around the wheel clockwise like a radar display. When it passes the one o'clock region, it briefly lights up a group of stars that form the shape of a bull's head -- a bit like the Chicago Bulls logo, actually. I think, Oh, that's Taurus; I'm looking at the zodiac. Then I immediately correct myself: Of course you can't see the whole zodiac as a literal wheel in the sky.

As I continue looking at this wheel, what I had thought was a configuration of stars gradually resolves itself into a physical structure -- a gigantic ring, sort of like a "Stanford torus" spacecraft but with no hub or spokes; just a huge empty ring. (The "radar display" effect has ceased.) It appears to be a manmade structure but is impossibly huge, with the bottom nearly reaching the horizon and the top some 60 degrees up.

As I watch, a second craft sails through the center of the ring toward us. It looks exactly like the starship Enterprise except that the propulsion units are angled down rather than up, so that they look like the pontoons of a seaplane. My impression is that it has flown down to the ocean, bounced off its surface like a skipping stone, and then glided through the ring like Mr. J. Henderson through a hogshead of real fire.

"Something just came through that ring," I say to my brother. "I'm not sure if they're friends or enemies."

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Not until I typed this up did I realize that a Freud-style pun likely played a role in the dream's sequence of events. Just after I think Taurus, the zodiac resolves itself into a torus.

Monday, March 14, 2022

2020, 2021, 2022: Rat, Cow, Tiger

The Year of the Rat (or Mouse) began on January 25, 2020. This was the year of the birdemic. Rats and mice are plague vectors (as in the Black Death), and the bat was historically thought of as a sort of mouse (as in the dated term flittermouse). Mice are proverbially timid, and 2020 was marked by ridiculous extremes of caution.

The Year of the Cow (or Ox, or Bull) began on February 12, 2021. This was the year of the peck -- known, despite the medical inaccuracy of the term, by a word that originally meant "pertaining to cows, from cows" -- and people were "bull"-ied into taking it.

The Year of the Tiger began on February 1, 2022. Right on cue, the narrative switched from the peck to the urgent need to start World War III.

Monday, December 27, 2021

Monkey, Rat, and Dragon elections

Because U.S. presidential elections are held on a four-year cycle, each takes place in one of only three Chinese zodiac years: the Monkey, the Rat, and the Dragon.

The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, a Year of the Monkey. The Constitution was ratified in 1788, another Year of the Monkey. The War of 1812, often considered a "second war of independence," began in yet another Year of the Monkey.

Wikipedia's article on "Historical rankings of presidents of the United States" summarizes the results of 23 different surveys in which scholars ranked the presidents from best to worst. Only five presidents were ranked in the top quartile in every single survey and may thus be taken to be, by common consent, America's five greatest presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts. With the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, who assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination rather than being elected, every one of these was elected in a Year of the Monkey.

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These 15 presidents came to power in Monkey elections: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump. Monkey presidents were reelected 11 times.

These 9 presidents came to power in Rat elections: James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Rat presidents were reelected 4 times.

These 11 presidents came to power in Dragon elections: John Adams, James Madison, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Dragon presidents were reelected 4 times.

Monday, November 29, 2021

John, the Bear Witness

Certain biblical figures have their counterparts in the starry sky, though it sometimes takes some ingenuity to recognize them. John P. Pratt, for example, identifies Simon Peter with the constellation Cygnus because the pricipal stars of Cygnus form the Northern Cross asterism, with the Swan's head being the base of the Cross, and Simon Peter was crucified upside down, with his head at the base of the cross.

John the Baptist's asterism is, obviously, the Big Dipper -- baptize coming from the Greek word that means "to dip." In Britain, the Dipper is called the Plough, but this also fits. Jesus compared himself to a sower, and John prepared the way for him. The most important thing about this asterism, though, is the way it points to the North Star. Polaris, appearing from Earth as a central, unmoving star around which all the others revolve, makes for an apt symbol of Christ; and John, who said, "Behold the Lamb of God," is often represented in art as literally pointing to Christ or to a symbol of Christ.

Note that in the painting above, the cross is placed at the top of a circle. This is the familiar globus cruciger imagery, symbolizing Christ's dominion over the whole Earth -- imagery which places the cross at the North Pole and thus associates Christ with Polaris.

It is also appropriate that Polaris is part of the Little Dipper asterism. Luke represents John as being Jesus' elder cousin, i.e. related to Jesus but "bigger."

The Big Dipper asterism is part of the Great Bear constellation. Here is how the Fourth Gospel introduces John.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

This could be dismissed as nothing but a bit of meaningless homonymy in English, but consider how John is described in Matthew and Mark: as wearing a hairy garment and eating wild honey. Is this not ursine imagery?

I have noted before that when Jesus said that he would give no sign but the sign of Jonah, this could have had a double meaning, because Jonah means "dove." After writing my "John the Drowner" post, I realized that Jesus' baptism -- the occasion at which the sign of the dove appeared -- specifically echoed the story of Jonah. Just as Jonah asked to be thrown overboard into the sea, in the expectation that he would be drowned, so Jesus yielded (as Roger Hathaway put it) "to the flood of drowning water." Whether or not John literally held Jesus underwater until he almost died, as Rupert Sheldrake speculates, the symbolism is certainly there. The "sign of the prophet Jonas" was thus enacted in two different ways at Jesus' baptism.

I have also recently connected Jonah's whale with the bear, comparing Jonah to Little Red Riding Hood who was swallowed by the "big bad wolf" (bear) but came out alive. I also mentioned Darwin's much-ridiculed story about seeing a bear swimming around with its mouth open catching insects and speculating that whales may have originated in some such way. Darwin thus connects the whale not only with the bear but specifically with an insect-eating bear -- suggesting the insectivorous John, who supplemented his diet of wild honey with locusts.

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Note added: An old slave song refers to the Big Dipper as the "Drinking Gourd," so there's another Jonah connection.

And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered (Jonah 4:6-7).

Note that Jonah's gourd was "over his head" like the stars and disappeared "when the morning rose the next day," also like the stars. Not that I think the author of the Book of Jonah had stars in mind, of course; it's just another synchronistic link.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

The dragon and the subterranean swan

Back in December 2019, I posted about an allegorical picture of my sister Kat's -- a rather unconventional depiction of the Last Judgment, using a swan in an underground chamber as a symbol of Christ.

Then Cometh the End

I connected this with a drawing by Oswald Wirth which I had seen a few days earlier -- the Judgment card of the Tarot, with a huge swan replacing the angel who sounds the Last Trump. Just as Kat's swan is underground, Wirth's seems to be diving down into an open grave.

Wirth associates each of the Major Arcana with a constellation, and the constellation associated with the Judgment is Cygnus, the Swan. These correspondences are summarized in this diagram, taken from an English translation of Wirth's Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge.

Note that Cygnus is directly above Draco and oriented as if it were diving down towards the dragon. (These two constellations are not so oriented in the sky.) Notice also that Draco is labeled 13, meaning that it corresponds to the nameless 13th trump, which represents Death. Wirth's swan drawing also shows the swan diving down into a representation of death, while Kat's shows the swan already in a sort of "underworld."

In his 2006 article "Constellations Testify of Seven Angels," John P. Pratt connects the Swan with Simon Peter -- who was, famously, crucified upside down.

The constellation of the Cross is usually called the Southern Cross because another name for the Swan is the Northern Cross. Note how the stars in the Swan form a nearly perfect crucifix in the heavens. And also note that the Swan is upside-down on the cross, the head of the Swan being the foot of the cross. Could it be that Peter's upside-down crucifixion could have been represented in these heavenly figures thousands of years before it occurred? What do you think? There is no doubt in my mind that the answer is yes, because the symbolism is too clear and too perfect.

There is no dragon in the story of Peter's martyrdom, but it does feature the "swan" (Peter) being in an underground chamber. In the same article, Pratt quotes this account of the apostle's last days.

Maliciously condemned, Peter was cast into the horrible, fetid prison of the Mamertine. . . . described as a deep cell cut out of solid rock at the foot of the capitol, consisting of two chambers, one above the other. The only entrance is through an aperture in the ceiling. The lower chamber was the death cell. Light never entered it and it was never cleaned.

This deep cell, accessible only through an aperture in the ceiling, suggests the cavern in Kat's drawing, or the open grave in Wirth's. The use of the word "aperture" in this context also puts me in mind of one of the most laughably bad passages in the Bible translation used by Jehovah's Witnesses: "upon the light aperture of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand" (Isaiah 11:8; KJV "the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den") -- giving us an indirect link to the serpent or dragon.

Finally, the identification of the swan with the angel of Judgment, and its association with the dragon, ties in with the Rider-Waite version of the Judgment card, where the angel bears the banner of St. George the Dragon-slayer.

In a recent post, I saw the name George paired not just with the dragon, but with Draco -- the Dragon as constellation.

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Year of the Ox

Blackboard art by one of my employees

I've never really paid that much attention to the Chinese zodiac (which approximates the cycle of Jupiter in the same rough way that our calendar months approximate the cycle of the Moon), but this year it feels significant.

The year just ending (Jan. 25, 2020 - Feb. 11, 2021) is the Year of the Rat (or of the Mouse; Chinese doesn't distinguish between the two), which strikes me as a singularly appropriate designation for 2020. A rat is a quisling, an informer, or just generally an unpleasant person. A mouse is proverbially quiet and timid, often unfavorably contrasted with a man, and is also of course a computer input device. And let's not forget Mickey Mouse -- icon of the global mass media, and also a way of saying something is shoddy, substandard, or not to be taken seriously. Any of that sound familiar?

On 2/12 -- which, for those who notice such things, also happens to be the 212th birthday of both Abe Lincoln and ape-linkin' Charles Darwin -- we begin the Year of the Ox (or Bull, or Cow; the Chinese really aren't big on these fine zoological distinctions).

February 12 happens to fall on a Friday this year; 2/12 F = 212°F = the boiling point. Our word boil derives from the Latin root bull-, as in ebullient. This symbolism of reaching a boiling point is reinforced by the proverbial rage of bulls. What clearer contrast to quiet as a churchmouse than bull in a china shop?

The only point of agreement between the Chinese and Western zodiacs is that the second sign is the Bull. In the alphabet, however, the Bull comes first -- "bull/ox" being the literal meaning of the letter name aleph or alpha. I always think of aleph as being connected with the Greek elaphos, "deer," and elephas, "elephant," though the similarity has no known etymological basis.

The Bull is one of the Four Living Creatures of Ezekiel and Revelation -- the only one to figure in the Chinese zodiac -- and as such appears on the 21st Tarot trump, the World. (The Quenya word for "bull" is the Spanish word for "world," mundo.)

The two letters of the word ox represent, in East Asia, "yes" and "no." On TV talk shows in Taiwan, the members of the studio audience are often given a pair of signs marked O and X, which they can hold up to show agreement or disagreement with something.

This fits with the Western tradition of describing a dilemma as a beast with two horns. And of course in the famous Japanese koan, one un-asks an impossible question by saying mu -- or, to English the spelling, moo.

Most importantly for me, though, bovines symbolize slow, deep thinking (St. Thomas Aquinas was called "the dumb ox") and impassiveness. The cow ruminates -- chewing and swallowing the same food again and again to extract every bit of nutrition from it -- and this behavior is part of what qualifies it as a "clean" animal under the Mosaic code. In the Discordian Deck, each suit includes a Cow card, which "may symbolize someone in the midst of whatever [the suit represents], but not actually affected by it."

In the coming year, it will be necessary to slow down, think more deeply, and minimize our reliance on, and responsiveness to, external stimuli.

Monday, December 28, 2020

More details on the current Saturn-Pluto conjunction

This graph shows the motion of Saturn and Pluto through the zodiac from January 2019 to February 2021. I have plotted data only for the first day of each month (midnight GMT) because I'm just kind of lazy like that.

And this one shows the "orb" (angular distance) between those two planets over the same period. Planets (other than the Sun and Moon) are generally considered to be in conjunction when the orb is 8 degrees or less, though some astrologers are more generous. As before, I've only plotted one data point per month, which is why the curve isn't terribly smooth. As noted below, the orb actually reached zero in mid-January 2020.

Here are the most important times and dates (for Washington, D.C.).

The conjunction began (entered 8 degrees of orb) at 6:45 a.m. (EST) on January 15, 2019.
At 12:00 noon (EST) on January 12, 2020, there was perfect conjunction of the two planets at 22 Cap 46'34".
The conjunction will end (exceed 8 degrees of orb) at 3:05 p.m. (EST) on January 7, 2021.

Friday, December 25, 2020

Clarification on the end of the Saturn-Pluto conjuction

I have previously said that the current Saturn-Pluto conjunction will end on January 8. That turns out not to be precisely correct. Assuming an 8-degree maximum orb for a non-Sun, non-Moon conjunction, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction will end in Washington, D.C., at 3:05 p.m. on January 7, 2021. At that point, Saturn will be 2°24'46" Aquarius, and Pluto will be 24°24'46" Capricorn, for an orb of precisely 8 degrees.

Of course, this is a sort of false precision. The 8-degree standard is an arbitrary one, and some astrologers consider planets to be in conjunction even with an orb of 10 degrees. Nevertheless, by that one fairly widespread convention, the conjunction will end on the afternoon of January 7, and January 8 will then be the first full day on which Saturn and Pluto are no longer in conjunction.

This means that the license plate I saw -- 192 NYT -- is not a near miss after all but does code the precise date that the conjunction will end: 19 - 2 = 17, and 19 + 2 = 21; the numbers 17 and 21 correspond to the date 1/7/21. The significance of "NYT" remains to be seen.

It appears that we are looking at a roughly five-day period here:

Jan 6: birthday of Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans; Feast of Epiphany
Jan 7: Saturn-Pluto conjunction ends
Jan 8: anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans
Jan 9: anniversary of the beginning of Joan of Arc's trial
Jan 10: anniversary of Caesar's crossing the Rubicon

By the way, when did the Saturn-Pluto conjunction begin? I have a hunch about that; let's see if it checks out. Stay tuned.

Friday, December 18, 2020

Saturn-Pluto conjunction to end on January 8?

With reference to my recent post about January 8, my correspondent writes:

Also, in this post William Wildblood talked about a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto:

I will quote the relevant paragraph

On a totally different note, there was a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn in January. This lasts for about a year as Saturn moves forward then goes retrograde in May, going back to within a degree or so of Pluto in October, before moving forward again and going out of orb, as it is called, early next year. Saturn and Pluto are the two of the most difficult (in terms of the challenges they present to human consciousness) planets to deal with. Saturn represents restriction, limitation and what is hard and unyielding while Pluto symbolises forces of death, transformation and destruction. Put together and in Capricorn which is ruled by Saturn, meaning its effects are magnified because of a similarity of expression, they represent quite a package. What it means is that problems that have been suppressed or denied will be brought to a head. There will be no escaping them and they must be faced and dealt with. This will mean hard times but out of that may come, if one reacts with sense and really does face them, a new understanding. The potential for new life or death are both there.

From this paragraph it sounds like the conjunction is ending in January but I'm not sure because I haven't been able to find anything specific about when it ends, only that it's happening. But wouldn't that be amazing if it was ending on January 8?

So I checked an online ephemeris, giving the positions of the planets at 05:00 Eastern Standard Time (i.e., Washington, D.C.) for each day in 2021.

When neither the Sun nor the Moon is involved, conjunction is generally defined as an angle of 8° or less. At 05:00 EST January 8, Saturn will be 2°27' Aquarius, and Pluto will be 24°26' Capricorn. That's an angle of 8°1' -- just barely out of conjunction. At 05:00 EST January 7, the two planets will still be in conjunction, at an angle of 7°26'. I don't have access to hourly data, but it appears that the conjunction will end either on Jan 7 or Jan 8. Given a change of 5 degrees in 24 hours, we can estimate that the conjunction will end about four-fifths of the way from 05:00 on the 7th to 0:500 on the 8th -- in other words, almost precisely at midnight!

I also note that one of the symbols of Pluto (incorporated into that planet's astrological symbol) is the bident (like a trident with only two prongs) -- a word which has also been brought to my attention recently by Scott Alexander's novel Unsong, where it is the devil's weapon of choice.

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Update: I've checked with someone who knows more about astrology than I do, and he has confirmed that the Saturn-Pluto conjunction will indeed end on January 8.