June 14, 2004

• 
  Still open for questions…

  Rachel, just because an occasional blog is about something besides you,
  you mustn’t assume I’m ignoring you.  I will get back to your
  questions, but now and then I do have my own concerns to blog
  about.  You want me to teach you something, and I’d prefer that
  you try learning from me instead.  Many things cannot be taught
  but must be learned for oneself.  Independence of thought
  (thinking, investigating and exploring for yourself) is the first
  lesson I’d like you to learn, and
  delayed gratification (patience) is the next.  Have you checked
  out all the links I’ve given you and read all those web pages? 
  When you’ve finished, go back through them again to see if you missed
  anything the first time, then Google any subject you’re not entirely clear on and read more.

  morriganshadow
  asked for my thoughts on adding Ophiuchus to the zodiac.   I
  recall some buzz about this years ago, at which time I gave it some
  superficial thought based on what I was reading in the pagan
  newsletters that Greyfox and I were getting as exchange subscriptions
  with his newsletter, The Shaman Papers.  I didn’t have internet
  access yet then, or a computer.  I was calculating charts “by
  hand” with an ephemeris and table of houses.  I thought of what a
  headache it
  would be to divide a 360-degree circle into 13 parts.  I read
  several
  marginally literate, semi-hysterical, incoherent arguments for changing the system, and
  went on doing things as I’d been doing them, the easy way, thinking “If it works, don’t fix it.”

  Since you asked your question, Shadow, I’ve been investigating, and thinking.  One of the web pages I found, Dancing Through the End of Time, brought up 2012, Timewave Zero, one of my favorite “fringe” topics.  It also
  asked the question, “Do you ever get the feeling that there is a
  missing piece to the puzzle?”  Frankly, I never had.  I
  suspect that if there were such a huge piece missing, it would have
  thrown off the accuracy of horoscopes to a noticeable degree.  Sun
  sign astrology isn’t and never has been accurate to any noticeable
  degree, but I have found continuous and consistent correspondence
  between my detailed natal chart and my personality, and between my own transits and the events in my life.  On
  the other hand, I’ve never expected astrology to completely encompass
  my life, and I know that one is unlikely to find something one is not
  looking for.

  When I look at transits, I usually focus on aspects, the angular
  relationships between points (ascendant, midheaven, eclipse point,
  fortuna, etc.), planets,  asteroids and “lights” (the sun and
  moon), before I even look at their sign placement, and my experience
  suggests that the aspects have more “weight”.  Also, the classical
  12
  signs of the zodiac are only loosely associated with the constellations
  after which they are named (or perhaps the star patterns were named
  after a set of “signs” originally–who knows?).  Precession of the
  equinoxes has carried the astrological zodiac more than one full sign out
  of sync with the astronomical constellations since the Chaldean
  astronomers gave us our oldest known written records.  Ophiuchus
  is an astronomical constellation like the Pleiades, Orion, etc., not an
  astrological sign.  Part of it crosses the plane of the ecliptic,
  the circle through the sky that defines the Zodiac, which is why this
  issue came up.

  It seems evident to me that observations of the skies and comparisons
  with earthly events must have been going on for a long time before the
  Babylonian tablets were made, in order for them to have codified their
  system in such detail (unless of course some Deus ex Machina just
  handed the map to some old guy way back when).  My theory is and
  has long been that the “Divine Map”,  the chart of twelve
  divisions whose angles and angular relationships tend to display
  correspondences in connection with celestial mechanics, exists
  independently of the star map.  Note that this is a theory, and one I have found no adequate way to test.

  The area of the starfield spanned by Ophiuchus covers almost all of the
  sign of Sagittarius, plus the first few degrees of Capricorn, but most of that is north of the ecliptic, and the part on
  the ecliptic is only the first few degrees of Sagittarius.  So,
  if we “add” it without balancing it with other additions, how do we
  rearrange everything else to make it fit, or what do we leave
  out?  What does its symbol look like–the little shorthand
  squiggle to go with Aries’s stylized ram, Leo’s lion, etc., those
  things I miss so much as I have to type out Sagittarius and Capricorn
  in full, and delete the second ‘g’ I contiually put in
  Sagittarius?  On my machine, I have a font that includes
  astrological
  symbols, but it’s useless unless everyone has it, and when I use it I
  have to spend too much time with the character map.  As it is, I’m
  the only person I know who types words such as mañana, lamé, and
  naíve.  Still, if I’m going to use Ophiuchus, I want a symbol for
  it, and a stylized caduceus would be a pretty complex squiggle.

  The classical zodiacal signs are neatly divided into four
  elements (earth, air, fire and water) and three cadences (cardinal,
  fixed, mutable)–four times three=twelve.   Does Ophiuchus
  fit into one of the existing elements and a cadence (replacing
  Sagittarius,
  perhaps), or do we add a whole new one of either or both to balance
  things out?  I personally like the idea of my Ascendant being in
  the sign of the centaur aiming his arrow at the stars, and I’m not sure
  how I’d adapt to moving my physical persona over into the sign of the
  serpent bearer, although I can see some rationale for associating my
  physical self with the caduceus.

  If we
  add a new element (a concept I’ve long thought the Tarot needed, a fifth
  element:  Plasma, Void or Chaos) and/or a new cadence (which would
  be what?)
  we then have
  fifteen, sixteen, or twenty signs and need to find two or three or
  seven new constellations to fill them out.  Not that all this
  isn’t
  doable, but it has taken millennia to develop the system we have–thank
  the gods we now have computers to work out the math, eh?  Can you
  imagine the Conclave of Astrologers that would convene to work it
  out?  I don’t want to think about it.  I suggest leaving such
  shit where it belongs, in the Mediaeval Church.

  The only arguments I have read in favor of the change seem to be
  based upon the fact that our moon, Luna, makes thirteen trips around
  the Zodiac in the time it takes our sun, Sol, to make one.  The
  arguments I have read have all been made by Moon-worshippers, most if
  not all of whom appear to be neo-pagans whose religion is based on a
  rejection of mainstream monotheistic patriarchal theology.  I
  reject both the religion they are rejecting and the one they have
  manufactured to replace it.

  None of the published professional astrologers I most respect, including but not limited to  Michael Lerner, Rob Brezsny, Noel Tyl, Rich Humbert, and Patrick Arundell
  (that last link goes directly to Arundell’s “facts” on Ophiuchus) has
  endorsed rearranging the Zodiac to include Ophiuchus.  As for my
  thoughts on the matter, I think I summed them up when I said I don’t
  want to think about it.    Of all the web pages I found
  today on Ophiuchus, I like this one the best.

  Marian: 
  “…Jesus action figures…” ??  Does Archie McPhee sell them,
  along with the punching nuns?  Thanks for the offer (and the giggle),
  but no thanks.  I don’t feel right now as if I’ll need any more help,
  but if I do I always have the living Christ in my soul.  And yes, maggie_mcfrenzie,
  I’m having tons o’ fun.  The mental intensity of the past week or
  so has managed to keep my mind off the physical debility most of the
  time.  I noticethe pain and sensorimotor deficits most at bedtime, and when I have to correct all
  my typos.  Another plus of this time has been all the time I’m
  spending at the keyboard answering Rachel‘s
  questions.  It has shifted most of my pain from my shoulder to the
  back of my neck.   I don’t know how to articulate why
  having pain in a different place helps, but it does.

  Aaand, speaking of Rachel, here’s the latest installment:

  —

  …but no, that will have to wait.  Greyfox just phoned and clued
  me to a new bear story which happened nearby in Willow this time, not
  in Anchorage.  I’m going post what I have here now, then go to ADN.com to read it, and I’ll be back later with a link to it, and probably also with the daily dose of reality SuSu-style,
  for Rachel.  The story is on today’s front page, so if you can’t
  wait to read about the bears, click the ADN link and read it along with
  me.
  

  • 3:52 pm
  • 2 Comments