The Sidhe-House Rules


German-French astronomer Hermann Mayer Salomen Goldschmidt discovered 14 asteroids, most of which bear names for potent archetypal signatures.

Symbolically I invited Eris to rock on down to visit the Southern Sibyl for Samhain and bugger me if the little minx didn't accept and she brought a friend: Atalante.  One of those 14 asteroids that Herr Goldfingerschmidt discovered.

He also discovered asteroid Harmonia.

For the sniggering hour, consider this: right now, up there, down below, over here, behind door number 5, heeeeere's Johnny!!

A shining Jack O' Lantern

Eris at 21 deg Taurus is quincunxing Atalante at 17 deg Virgo offers the seeding Hyperion Series Symbols of a toolbox full of precision instruments and mechanics tools.

Aaah....it is a poor craftsperson who blames his tools; the Shade of Hephaestus.

In numerological parlance, Atalante is 36 and Eris is 136199  gives the combination 9/11
The Mechanic

Mmmmpphhhh.....Charles Bronson....the archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features. What has Chuckie got to do with Eris and Atalante? Well, the mything link is that Charles was most often cast in the roles of police officer or gunfighter in movies with revenge-oriented plotlines.

Another cultural reference I scampered across referred to Charles as a Dark Buddha.  Now that is just too intriguing an archetype to not lick and nibble around the corners of....

For me, as a young girl, I just grokked the classic horror movie House of Wax with Vincent Price and Charles as his mute henchman sculptor Igor, who oozed deadly silent bad boy sex appeal (not that I'm into pain and having hot candlewax dripped over my sensitive bits).  Anyhow, that movie left an awfully big impression on this little muse - it is the apple pie byte in my memorex chip - as it for many others.

Like anyone would be
I am flattered by your fascination with me
Like any hot blooded woman
I have simply wanted an object to crave
But you're not allowed
You're uninvited
An unfortunate slight


Must be strangely exciting
To watch the stoic squirm
Must be somewhat heartening
To watch shepard meet shepard
But you're not allowed
You're uninvited
An unfortunate slight

Like any uncharted territory
I must seem greatly intriguing
You speak of my love like
You have experienced like mine before
But this is not allowed
You're uninvited
An unfortunate slight

I don't think you unworthy
I need a moment to deliberate

~  Alanis Morissette Uninvited lyrics

Charles Bronson and wife Jill Ireland were the celebrity couple of the 70s and 80s. I remember pre-Diana, pre-WAGs, pre-whothefuckcaresaboutKimKardashian, that the women's magazines published a lot of articles about Chuck and Jill, covering her battle with breast cancer in the 80s. Jill may have been one of the first 'celebrity faces' of breast cancer (don't quote me on that); certainly in Australia, her battle was headline news and we were all so in love with Charles devotion and support. The Beauty and the Ba-ba-ba-Beast.

There is something about the connection with Eris and Atalante on the archetypal level that segues into the physical manifestation of the disease process we call cancer. Perhaps a glimmer of an anecdotal antidote to bolster the immunity of the subtle energy bodies can be found betwixt and between the mythos of Atalante and Eris.....for the individual and the collective.

This quote by 17th century English non-conformist Puritan preacher and author,Thomas Brooks, comes straight as an arrow from Erisian Fields. In 1662 Thomas fell victim to the notorious Act of Uniformity, as did several of my ancestors who were clergy and refused to walk the company line. 

What has the 17th and 18th centuries got in common with the 21st Century, eh?  Silly hats perhaps...

Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the enginner of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and remedies into diseases. ~ TB

This post is dedicated to the grateful Augustus "Bear" Owsley Stanley III who was killed in March when the car he was driving swerved off a highway during a storm and down an embankment into a tree.  He haunts the bush of Far Northern Tropical Queensland.

The Berry Treasure Hunt

Tetra Versailles Red Cosmos

Our difficulty is that we have become autistic. We no longer listen to what the earth, its landscape, its atmospheric phenomena and all its living forms, its mountains and valleys, the rain, the wind, and all the flora and fauna of the planet are telling us. Since the Seventeenth Century we have not heard, we have not understood the inner world about us. We have experienced the external phenomena. We have had no entry into the world of interior meaning. We have not heard the voices. ~ Thomas Berry, 1996

1. The universe in its full extension in space and in its sequence of transformations in time is best understood as story: a story known in the twentieth century for the first time with scientific precision through empirical observation. The greatest single need for the survival of the Earth or of the human community in the twenty-first century is for the integral telling of the great story of the universe. This story must provide in our times what the mythic stories of earlier times provided as the guiding and energizing sources of the human venture.

2. The universe is a unity, an interacting and genetically related community of beings bound together in an inseparable relationship in space and time. The unity of the planet Earth is especially clear; each being of the planet is profoundly implicated in the existence and functioning of every other being of the planet.

3. The three basic tendencies of the universe at all levels of reality are differentiation, spontaneous self-organization, and bonding. These tendencies identify the reality, the values, and the directions in which the universe is proceeding.

4. The universe has a violent as well as a harmonious aspect, but it is consistently creative in the larger arc of its development.

5. Earth, within the solar system, is a self-emergent, self-propagating, self-nourishing, self-educating, self-governing, self-healing, and self-fulfilling community. All particular life systems must integrate their functioning within this larger complex of mutually dependent Earth systems.

6. The human emerges within the life systems of Earth as that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself in a special mode of conscious self-awareness. The human is genetically coded toward a further cultural coding invented by the human community with remarkable diversity in the various regions of Earth.

In memory of Angelica Goffman
27 April 1964

 7. The transition from a hunter-gatherer mode of life to the beginning of village life with control over the forces of Earth through agriculture and domestication of animals took place some twelve thousand years ago, This period, generally known as the Neolithic period, was also the beginning of pottery, weaving, and new ways of fashioning stone implements. The major shaping forces of human societies were manifest at this time in the intellectual, artistic, and emotional developments that ever since have characterized the various human communities.

8. The rise of cities with extensive populations: the advent of more elaborate religious expression in ritual and architecture; the extension of intellectual, religious, and moral reflection; the development of specialized social functioning; the increase of centralized government; the invention of writing and greater technological expertise; these achievements, developed some five thousand years ago, were centered in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Indus Valley and the Ganges Valley of India, and in the Yellow River valley in North China. Later they appeared in the Western Mediterranean and European areas and in the Americas.

9. Modern scientific achievements, based on empirical observational processes, originated in early-sixteenth-century Europe. They were further developed in Europe, in North America, and in other countries of the world in succeeding centuries.

10. Modern industrial exploitation of the resources of the Earth, factory manufacturing, scientific technologies, and capitalist economies all had their beginnings in Europe and in North America in the eighteenth century. In this period the violent plundering of the Earth took place. The functioning of the Earth in its chemical balance, in its geological structure, and in its biological systems has been profoundly and permanently altered by human agency. The atmosphere and water are extensively polluted. The soils of the Earth are wasted as a result of erosion, road building, industrial establishments, shopping malls, and waste disposal practices. The earlier mystique of the Earth seems to have vanished from human consciousness.

11. In the last half of the twentieth century, as a new period – of electronics and genetic engineering – was developed, a new intimacy was sought with the integral functioning of the natural world. Now the dominant anthropocentrism is being replaced with ecocentrism. New programs are being instituted for integrating human technologies with the technologies of the natural world. A sense of the larger interspecies social order is being developed.

12. The newly energizing Earth community needs a mystique that will provide the high exaltation appropriate to the existence of such a stupendous universe and such a glorious planet as that on which we live. This can be found in celebrating not simply the seasonal sequence but also the irreversible transformational sequence, as this has taken place in the evolutionary story of the universe.

Thomas Berry’s  Twelve Principles for Understanding the Universe, from his 2006 book Evening Thoughts (ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker, SF:Sierra Club Books), p. 145-147.

Also Known As

The German-born British astronomer, William Herschel, spotted a celestial body on March 13 1781. He thought at first it was a comet.

Back in 1690, another astronomer, John Flamsteed, observed the same celestial body on six separate occasions. He thought it was a star and catalogued it as 34 Tauri.

Between 1750 and 1769, French astronomer, Pierre Lemonnier would observe this celestial body no less than twelve times.

This elusive celestial pimpernel turned out to be the seventh big rock from the sun. Not scarlet, but a lovely shade of turquoise - or maybe pale cerulean - we know this cosmic body by the moniker of Uranus.

Uranus is just visible to the naked eye.  The five brightest planets: Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, have always been visible to the naked eye and it surprised me somewhat to learn that if you look roolly roolly hard, you can also see Uranus ~ albeit most of us will need the assistance of binoculars and that is still naked-eye viewing in my book.  Plus you have to know where to look.

A Rose by any Other Name

How this seventh big rock from our Sun got to be called Uranus makes for interesting trivia. The Finnish astronomer Anders Lexell suggested it be called 'George III's Neptune' or 'Great Britain's Neptune'. Herschel himself proposed the name 'Georgium Sidus' (The Georgian Star or The Georgian Planet) in honour of King George III, then King of England.  Mad King George as some historians would remember him.

Other suggested names included 'Hypercronius' and 'Transaturnis' (by Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli), 'Herschel' (by French astronomer Joseph Lalande) and 'Austraa' (by German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg). None of these names followed the traditional naming scheme, however, and it was the German astronomer Johann Bode who suggested that Uranus would be a more appropriate name for the planet. Although Bode suggested this name soon after its discovery, it took several decades to become accepted worldwide.

Astrologists do not appear to experience any difficulty in latching onto the names given to these latter-day astronomical discoveries, creating a whole astropathology, if you will, to further their particular hobby-horse and line their pockets with the royalties received from booksales, lectures and other such paraphrenalia.

Chiron's Apples

An asteroid first spotted in 1895 was paid more attention in 1977, was named Chiron after that noble Centaur mentor of Greek mythology. When you consider how much Chiron's Wounded Healer archetype has been milked, I feel that the name of a divine bovine-goddess of Hindu mythology, Surabhi, - she who provides her owner whatever he desires - may perhaps have been a wryer moniker. This astrogullibility, this hypochondria of the almost-Hypercronius of Uranus. This neon tetra-like following of the name up in bright lights outside our fishbowl perceptions....the power we place in verb and noun.

Mars' Kid Sister

Astronomer Mike Brown, a homo noeticus of some renown, in 2005 (with his team) spotted a large object in the Kuiper Belt (rhymes with viper).  ....

This large object in the Kuiper Belt was categorized as 2003 UB313 and was given the codename of Xena. Mike Brown favoured Lila for the name of this...uh... most massive known dwarf planet.  Now Lila is a concept from Hinduism that explains the universe as a cosmic puppet theater or playground for the gods and I totally grok, resonate, vibrate, boogie, jive, and moon that concept. All the heyoka blokes and sheilas do.

Now your common garden-variety astrologist may not know that Eris was almost Lila and so they are going to snapdragon onto the mythology of Eris - Goddess of Strife and Discord.  How bloody boring is that!

Keiron Le Grice (rhymes with Chiron?) will be publishing in 2012 his book, Discovering Eris: The Symbolism and Significance of a new Planetary Archetype. Be interesting to see just what planetary archetype he is peddling: the strife and discord or the cosmic puppet theatre.  Le Grice has some impressive credentials.  Homo sapiens are an impressionable species.

Hula Hands

Haumea spotted on 28 December 2004 by Mike Brown and his team was given the codename of  Santa for the obvious reason. Haumea was the first of all the current dwarf planets to have been discovered since 1930 when Pluto was found. However, the original official name suggested for this dwarf planet was Ataecina, an Iberian goddess of the underworld, her Roman equivalent being Proserpina. But following guidelines established by the IAU that classical Kuiper belt objects be given names of mythological beings associated with creation, in September 2006 the Caltech team submitted formal names from Hawaiian mythology, and so we have Haumea.

There was a controversy over the naming of this dwarf planet. Accusations of political bias with the rejection of the name Ataecina, the rejection of another name, Dagda - a name from Irish mythology. The Spanish astronomers were, in a nutshell,  Not. Happy. Jan.

So when we consider Haumea's archetype astropoetically, do we focus on the creation aspect because of its feel-good fuzzyness, or do we also consider the perpetuation of spatial prejudices and political correctnesses evidenced by the storm-in-the-teacup in astronomical circles over the - shall we say - christening of this distant rock.

The Frozen Frontier

The Kuiper Belt is now known to be home to millions of objects, which have become the cutting edge of astrology and of planetary astronomy. This new classification of dwarf planets in which objects such as Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, Orcus, Quaoar are included - with all their mythos-baggage: the stories that ancient windbags, drolltellers, bards and bullshit artists have spun. 

As of Fri Oct 28 2011
there are:
8 objects which are nearly certainly dwarf planets,
31 objects which are highly likely to be dwarf planets,
59 objects which are likely to be dwarf planets,
102 objects which are probably dwarf planets, and
388 objects which are possibly dwarf planets.

(spirited from Mike Brown's Planets)

Yup, that should keep all of us out of mischief for a rooly rooly rooly long time!

Trans Neptunian Objections

The Kuiper Belt is yielding in my humble opinion, the physical proof for the hypothetical Transneptunian energies that son-of-a-baker, German astrologer, Alfred Witte, grokked whilst getting his ass shot at during WWI whilst serving on the Russian front.  A circumstance that can either refines your suprasenses or breaks your concentration.

Astronomically, the largest known Trans-Neptunians are Pluto and Eris followed by Makemake and Haumea. (Makemake by the way was given the codename of Easterbunny - that hypothetical creature). Entities such as Varuna, Ixion, Typhon, Sedna and Orcus have been added to the TNO to-do list and astrologers are out there mulling over the mythologies -

As for me....well.....ask a good question, get a good answer.

What's it all about Alfie?

Will a man ahead of his time be found just in time.....

His approach to astrology was to verify assumptions by current reality checks rather than historical validation. He sought to approach astrology as a science, and the controversy over his assertion of the existence of Trans-Neptunian objects other than Pluto led to widespread ridicule and rejection during his later years...

The Buzz on the Fuzz

In 1800 the astronomer Baron Franz Xaver von Zach recruited 24 of his fellows into a club, the Vereinigte Astronomische Gesellschaft (United Astronomical Society) which he informally dubbed the "Lilienthal Society" for its meetings in Lilienthal near Bremen.

Determined to bring the Solar System to order, the group became known as the Himmelspolizei or Celestial Police.

Whilst looking for Kepler's missing planet between Jupiter and Mars, on September 1 1804, a member of the Celestial Police, Karl Harding did find an asteroid: the third asteroid to have been spotted and named in the main-belt.

Juno.

The burning and sacking of Lilienthal during the Napoleonic Wars brought this first period of discovery to a close.

A period during with the four main-belt asteroids of Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta - the God'dess archetypal forces - reentered the realm of human consciousness in a new form.

Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.  He wanted to call it George.

What I have noticed, and I have no idea if anybody else has, is that George and the God'desses were found after not being lost during the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte.  He whom they called The Bee.

What does Napoleon have to do with astronomy?

Consider that the Napoleonic Wars changed for all time the manner in which humankind would wage war upon each other.  Many many things changed irrevocably in the late 18th Century. We are heirs to all that.

Consider the reflective surface of the guillotine's blade......

the bee and the blade
the chalice in the glade.

Napoleon and the Sphinx, by Jean Gerome, 1862

Of his many impressive feats, Napoleon is probably best remembered for a campaign he led prior to his coronation; his 1798 invasion of Egypt, a country that was a province of the Ottoman Empire at the time. One can only muse at the irony of the man they called The Bee riding horsebackin the land of the Bee, staring at an image that may have been named after the Minoans word for Bee; ‘Sphex’

Reference:
Andrew Gough's Arcadia

The Getting of Wisdom

The Kiss of the Sphinx by Franz von Stuck

Thou hast entered the immeasurable region. I am the Dweller of the
Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? Silent? Dost thou fear me?
Am I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou hast rendered up
The delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the
wisdom of the countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover.

—Bulwer-Lytton, 1842

Juno Sospita: World Mental Health Day

Curious that Juno's temple was dedicated on 10 October and in our modern world, this same date is World Mental Health Day. One treads on shaky ground when trying to discern potentials for mental illness from the natal chart, yet many have noticed enough patterns, aspects between planets, to have reached some conclusions.

I wonder about the asteroid God'dess Juno in her emanation as Juno Sospita - the Preserver - and whether or not her placement in the natal chart is indicative of a potential to develop what is called 'mental illness'. I base my ponderments on the ancient Roman belief that the juno represented the soul of a woman; that bit of the God'dess that a woman embodies.

For centuries, cultural institutions in the West, for example, branches of science and our major religions have emphatically taught us to:

• mistrust our inner world of meanings as unreliable sources;
• to discount the value of our own thinking;
• to dismiss the significance of our feelings, and avoid the painful ones.

We're also told who to trust instead. We're conditioned to think we 'must' follow expert authorities, and not queston their methods for truth discover, the doctrines they produce and the cultural stories they teach - crafted intentionally with mind-crippling ideas, by the way - to persuade us to wait for idols or superheroes to rescue and save us from our problems.
~ Dr Athena Staik from Human Nature and the Power of Our Stories.

Psychcentral has hosted a blog carnival with some excellent articles having been submitted by health professionals and stories told by people who are living with 'mental illness'.

There Was and There Was Not....

I am a Daughter of Madness; my mother was diagnosed with Manic-Depression a few years before I was born.  My father, a strange and enigmatic man, fits the profile of a Borderline Personality, yet he was possibly just a man of his times: a controlling and domineering patriarch who had been raised and conditioned by the mores of another culture. A quintessential Englishman who had emigrated to Australia and struggled with the subtle cultural differences.  He never quite got used to being called a "Pommy Bastard", which is considered a term of endearment.  In England, such an epithet is considered a great insult - Australia has a social culture that does encourage vulgarity - and my mother being raised in a parochial small country town was conditioned to accept these insults.

My mother was estranged from her family because of her 'mental illness'; my father from his family through the tyranny of distance.  I can only assume that my father's relationship with his family had broken down irretrievably, otherwise why put 12,000 miles between him and them if relationships were cordial?

It was into this background I was born.  Not a planned child nor a wanted child, as far as my mother was concerned. I suspect my conception came about as a byproduct of a failure in a contraceptive device. My father was reported to have said, years later, that he believed my mother had deliberately gotten pregnant to ensnare him.  I wouldn't put that past her. Nevertheless, my father being an honourable man, accepted his responsibility and my parents married when my mother was three months pregnant.

I grew up believing I was born prematurely.  A noble lie to cover up the truth that my parents had engaged in pre-marital sex, which is something they didn't want to condone. I was 22-and-a-half when I first noticed the mathematical discrepancy between the September date on the back of my parent's wedding photo, and the date of my birth the following March.

Not premature at all.  I was in my bedroom writing a letter to my father's sister - my English aunt - and when the penny dropped, I felt like going into the loungeroom where my parents were plugged into the opium-numbness of TV, waving the photo and declaring: Guess what I've just found out?!!

After the Eureka! surge of discovery ebbed away, I thought that maybe I had better not embarrass my parents. That that if they hadn't made a big deal out of it for all these years, then maybe I better not either. Such was the power of the conditioning I had received to maintain the Cone of Silence, I didn't even know that I had the right to ask my parents why they had maintained this deception. After all: this was MY life as well as theirs.

I regret that I didn't open that line of dialogue then. The next day my father died, suddenly and unexpectedly of a dissecting aneurism of the aorta. He was at work, which was fortunate, because my mother later benefited from a sizeable Worker's Compensation payout.  That my father died intestate was proof of just how deeply fear and superstition ruled his life. He believed that if he wrote a Will, he would die - like it would be a jinx.  However, a man with a 'mentally ill' wife and an only child, who will be placed in the role of Caregiver upon his death, really needed to be less myopic and fear-filled.

For a long time, decades, I believed that my father was the 'well' parent. As a result of his sudden and unexepcted death at the relatively young age of 63, he became enshrined on the mantelpiece of my memory as the 'well' parent.  A protector. The Reliable One.

That father was a figment of my imagination. He was never any of those things

I was a vulnerable and defenceless three-year-old when in 1964 my psychotic suicidal mother, decided to take an overdose and lay down on the bed to die.  She gave no thought to the trauma she was inflicting on me.  I was locked in the house with her - all day - until my father came home after a hard day's work, to find me unbathed, unfed, and with a dirty loaded nappy curled up asleep on the bed next to my comatose mother.

Cornflakes in the Underworld

Decades later, I would hear the full story. Not from my parents, who were long dead; not from any relatives, who were long dead, but from a friend of the family - a courtesy Aunt.  In 2009, she told me that when my mother was found, she had Cornflake crumbs around her mouth, from where I had tried to feed her. Cornflakes were sprinkled all throughout the house. Unable to get a response from my mother, being hungry, I had found the packet of Cornflakes and helped myself.

I used to wonder if my mother had also given me tablets. If in her distorted thinking, she had decided to not only kill herself but to kill me as well.  I never asked that question: I didn't want to consider that my mother could be that dark.  That disturbed.  The Cornflake story told by my courtesy aunt provided me with a lot of answers; was the catalyst for a profound healing process.

Finally, I could connect the dots as to the underlying causative root factor in my having developed Panic Disorder with severe Agoraphobia in 1989.  With the family background I have, the sheer emotional, psychic and mental abuse that went on, it's a bloody miracle I am not a psychopath. It's a miracle I am still alive and haven't commited suicide myself, or self-destructed through substance abuse or a reckless lifestyle. I have beaten those odds. 

In 1993, I made a full recovery from the external symptoms of Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia and returned to the hectic crazymaking pace of my former life. I had just scraped the surface of the core issues, yet with my widowed Bipolar mother still alive, meeting her narcissistic needs pretty much kept me distracted from engaging in a full excavation of these chthonic issues.

She died in 1994.  Less than six weeks after I had had major surgery with post-operative complications and was running on fumes, I was so exhausted and traumatized.  She died from massive heart failure and in the midst of a manic episode. After three decades of constantly visiting her in psychiatric hospitals, of being worn-down by her endless health problems, and frustrated by her irresponsibility in taking care of herself: I was glad she was finally dead. A week or so before, my mother had revealed that she didn't consider that she had much of a life worth staying alive for.

In 1994 she still felt the same way that she did in 1963.  The message was still the same: I don't consider you to be of any value. I don't consider being a mother, or being a mother to you, a good enough reason to continue living. 

It will forever remain an unanswered question as to why my father, in 1963, thought that this woman would ever be a fit mother to me or a decent wife to him. It is a mystery as to where the Child Welfare Services were in those days. My parents emotional and mental incompetency as parents was compounded by the incompetency and failure of the authorities and others to accurately perceive that I was a child-at-risk and needed to be removed.

Saint Albert

We wonder as to how and why people develop 'mental illness'? 

It's not that hard.

As the maverick American psychologist Albert Ellis - Saint Albert - once said:

I think that practically the whole human race is out of its goddammed mind and could use therapy. All are biologically prone to think crookedly. All humans are somewhat nutty because they refuse pigheadedly to accept reality and therefore make themselves depressed, anxious and enraged.

These last 25 years, I have practiced in the holistic arena of the psychospiritual, bodymind, soul-centered healing arts. Now called psychoneuroimmunology - a five-buck word! I no longer view people as having 'mental illnesses'; I see all people as souls on Earth confronting (or avoiding), dealing with (or denying), accepting (or rejecting) the consequences of a reality they have less control over than what certain "New-Age" philosophies would have them believe.

We do not create our reality. We can only create the story we tell ourselves. Most people prefer their tale of woe, to peddle out the same tired old litany of wounds for reasons they may be dimly aware of.  It garners them sympathy, attention, maybe even a 'hall pass' from having to be more response-able in their lives.

The foundations of the reality in which we live, were created centuries ago. When you gain an appreciation of the importance of your own insignificance in the broader perspective of the collective history of humankind, you realise that you are a spiritual heir to all of this, and that developing a 'mental illness' is quite a rational and normal response.

Collectively we are all 'suffering' from Post-Christianity Stress Disorder.

And you won't find that in the DSM-V. 

Socrates daimon and the archetype of the Advocate

Ultimately, beyond the psychiatrists, the pharmaceutical companies, the neuroscience, the cacophony of philosophies and theories: you have a human being with a family, with a life - with a Soul - having a very personal and confusing experience.  There is no one-size-fits-all technique or strategy, there is no quick-fix magic pill, and nobody holds the answers that you need to uncover for yourself.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates said that at his trial for heresy. He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves.

In our 21st Century, we are encouraged to think for ourselves as long as what we think is in alignment to the status quo. If what we think is too different, we are suspected of having an 'abnormal psychology'. Unless you are wealthy and well-connected, in which case you are an 'eccentric genius'.

Whether or not you have what is called 'mental illness', as a human being it is intrinsic to your mental health to know what your rights are and to have the skills to advocate for yourself.  The Catch-22 is when you become skilled in advocating for yourself, in asserting your rights, in maintaining your personal boundaries, it places you up against the wall of that conditioning we all received about trusting expert authorities and not questioning their methods.  While you may have liberated yourself from such conditioning, you will still have to learn how to deal with other people, groups, government entities that are still 'conditioned' and comfortably so.

...........and the beat goes on!

In regards to the life and times that I shared with my father and mother, I am reminded of the movie "Running with Scissors" and this one line that resonated within me so deeply it was worth exploring:

"Where would we be without our painful childhoods?"

- Dr Finch

Asteroid Goddess Juno: the Golden Goose

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets compiled by Barbara G. Walker contains a vital piece of information about Juno which for the most part, seems to have been overlooked in the common interpretations offered of Juno within astrology. Barbara writes:

Juno, the Roman Great Mother had dozens of attributes or emanations:
Juno Fortuna - Goddess of Fate
Juno Sospita - The Preserver
Juno Regina - Queen of Heaven
Juno Martialis - the 'virgin' mother of Mars
Juno Populonia - Mother of the People

and so on.  You get the idea. Then there is this tasty morsel:

Every Roman woman embodied a bit of God'desses spirit, her own soul, a juno, corresponding to the genius of a man. Later patriarchal vocabularies dropped the word juno but retained genius, thus depriving women of their souls

This is important for re-interpreting the Asteroid Goddess Juno in we are to reclaim the Sacred Feminine from the distortions of patriarchy. Restoring the juno in Juno is a task that is incumbent on astrologers to undertake within the sphere of their respective practices: mundane, horary, esoteric and evolutionary alike.

The 'cookbook' interpretations of Juno, that offer her up as a Goddess of marriage and social customs is rather a patriarchal device from which the Queen of God'desses needs to be emancipated. 

Another emanation of Juno, which I feel is of particular significance for the personal and the collective, is that of Juno Moneta - the Advisor and Admonisher.

Moneta from which we get the word 'money' and it is this emanation of Juno that is currently transiting through the Via Combusta and adding fuel to the fire of the Global Financial crisis; revealing the divisions between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

Money is energy, energy is money.  We express our energy through the current of currency. We are defined by the tax-bracket we fall into, or by the welfare allowance we receive. Money makes the world go around: and Juno Moneta gives the admonishment: the love of money is the root of all evil.

In this 21st Century, we live within a man-made world with ever escalating materialistic values and a wise man once warned of the dangers of spiritual materialism, and spirituality has become infested with entrepreneurs making a quick buck out of 2012, and teaching the Law of Attraction with a materialistic spin.

Juno is associated with the signs Libra and Scorpio. As the 'virgin' mother of Mars, she has a vested interest in all matters pertaining to the Eighth House, of which Mars is the esoteric ruler. One could also theorize that she is also interested in Aries, of which Mars is the orthodox ruler.  In the First century AD, the Roman astrologer, Manilius wrote a poem in five books called the Astronomica, in which he allocated Juno as the tutelary deity of Aquarius.

So let's take this idea and look at Juno as a Protectress of Aries, Libra, Scorpio and Aquarius: the natural first, seventh, eigth and eleventh houses of the zodiacal wheel. Caroline Myss, in her book "Sacred Contracts: Awakening your Divine Potential", correlates healing challenges to each of the natural twelve houses.

1st -Aries - Birthing the Self
7th - Libra - Maintaining personal boundaries
8th - Scorpio - Confronting greed and developing personal integrity
11th - Aquarius - Surrending to the Divine.

These are the spheres of personal transformation and soul evolution in which Juno, as Mother of the People, as Advisor, as Admonisher is present as an invisible partner.

The patriarchal distortions of the Asteroid God'dess Juno include (and are not limited to):

• the "little woman" behind the big man
• marital collapse: the unfaithful husband and the betrayed wife
• the sexless marriage
• the "powerless" woman in an unequal relationship
• the "neurotic" wife whose needs are thwarted
• the "battered wife" and the Battered Wife Syndrome

The natural expressions for the Asteroid God'dess Juno includes (and are not limited to):

• equality and balance in relationships
• interdependent rather than co-dependent relationships
• mutual sharing, love, honesty, goodwill and respect
• women reclaiming their power

The last point could be re-written as: women reclaiming their juno-soul and integrating the awareness that they do embody a bit of the God'dess (sacred feminine) which desires recognition and expression. That desires a partner that is worthy and appreciative of what they bring to the union.

Juno as Consort

Taking this concept on board, Juno is present in every relationship irregardless of whether it is platonic, casual, short-term, commited, long-term, estranged or irretrievably broken-down.  Juno is also present in workplace relationships, especially in the designation of Personal Assistant-to-Executive roles - here we find the archetype of the Consort. 

One only has to review history and the roles women have filled as King Consort, consorts to Governors, Ambassadors, Heads-of-State, social hostesses and, in her latest emanation, within the Tea Party (not that Sarah Palin is a particularly Juno-like in her modus operandi - she's more a Juno-wannabe).

Eleanor Roosevelt was a brilliant embodiment of Juno and of a women in touch with her juno. Eleanor who gave us such pithy quotes as:

A woman is ike a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

Campaign behaviour for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Lean back in the parade car so everybody can see the President.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

What is to give light must endure the burning.

To understand the essence of Juno, one only needs to reflect on the life and times of Eleanor Roosevelt and the grace with which she walked in this world. The power behind the throne and a keen observor of social rituals - as well as a betrayed wife with a husband who later became an invalid (sexless marriage?)

After FDR's death, Eleanor helped create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and this gives us another key to the essence of Juno in Aquarius: that of the World Server. 

We all serve the world by simply being present and awake to our inner and outer landscape and memory. This, too, is Juno Moneta - the title of Moneta given also to Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory and mother of the Muses.

Hard aspects to asteroid god'dess Juno need to be considered through the lens of the questions:
How does this aspect block or support the native's access to, and awareness of their Soul?  Where and how is an invisible barrier of patriarchal conditioning influencing their self-perception, and what customs and traditions are they subscribing to that reinforces the block?

Modern culture gives us movies such as "Mona Lisa Smile" that presents several junior Junos.  An earlier movie, based on Jacqueline Susann's novel "Valley of the Dolls', and bearing the same title, illuminates the struggle of Juno as she contorts herself to fit patriarchal expectations.  A yet earlier movie that presents various emanations of Juno is "The Women" - the original 1939 movie having been remade in 2008 (and not nearly as good). On the darker side of Juno, we have "The First Wives Club", which is more representative of the scorned Greek Hera - which Juno becomes when she is really pissed off.

There is a subtle difference in the energies of the Roman Juno and her Greek counterpart, Hera: they should not be blended nor confused by canny astrologists, because the point I am making with Juno, is that her placement in the natal chart, indicates the juno-soul of the native.  The feminine genius: the daimon - the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing.

The juno was worshipped under many titles:

• Iugalis, "of marriage"
• Matronalis, "of married women"
• Pronuba, "of brides"
• Virginalis, "of virginity"

As the juno is the general divine nature that is present in every individual person, then why does astrology persist in defining Juno with such narrow parameters?

Juno Moneta, as mentioned earlier, carries an admonishment, a Biblical one:

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Timothy 6:10

Timothy was one of the best known of Paul's companions and fellow-laborers. He was evidently one of Paul's own converts. Saint Paul is described as an unmitigated misogynist, yet he most likely only reflected the social and cultural mores of his times.

Juno and the Eighth House

One only has to recall the very public squabbles that break out over Wills and Inheritances, as the vultures fight over the carcass - the classic Eighth House challenge of confronting greed and developing personal integrity is very prominent in these sort of wranglings.

I found myself enmeshed in such a squabble when my mother died in 1994, As her only child, I did not anticipate nor even consider that her siblings would use the occasion of her funeral to carry out an act of breathtaking treachery and betrayal, through stealing from my mother's house, a family heirloom she intended for me to inherit, with the intention of donating it to her hometown's Historical Society - where it truly belonged for safekeeping.

Where was Juno Moneta?  Transiting the Via Combusta of course, exact conjunct my natal Neptune. Along with my mother, all illusions I held about my maternal aunts and uncles being people of good character also died.  A much well-deserved death. To describe my mother's family as dysfunctional is an understatement.

I have noticed that Juno transits across the Via Combusta have coincided with those times I have resigned (or walked out) from abusive workplaces with cultures that turn a blind-eye to Occupational Health & Safety issues, and when I have left unequal relationships in which I have stayed in too long. Ominously, Juno was in a Via Combusta transit on the day I got married - which explains a lot!

In my life, at least, Juno isn't content to play second-fiddle or to be under the authority of lesser mortals. Yet such experiences were necessary and have served the purpose of my becoming consciously engaged with my juno-genius and co-operating with the unfolding of my Soul's evolution in this lifetime. The Soul makes an enduring commitment and I am acutely aware of the marriage I have with the Divine - which no man can put asunder.

In his thought-provoking and lyrical book, "The Three Marriages", poet and author David Whyte reimagines work, self and relationship from a quintessential juno-genius.

Thinking of work, self and relationship as three marriages offers the possibility of living them out in a way in which they are not put into competition with one another, where each of the marriages can protect, embolden and enliven the others and help keep us mutually honest, relevant, authentic and alive. ~ David Whyte

The asteroid God'dess Juno and the juno(soul) is ill-served by the commonplace and mundane astrological interpretations that relegate her to the narrow confines of the institution of marriage.  An institution, as Jared Diamond, writes was invented so that men could be more certain that the children the women birthed were fathered by them - and no other.  A woman always knows who her children are, the men just have to trust that the woman hasn't hoodwinked them. This, too, cuts back to the Eighth House challenge of developing personal integrity.  It is beneath a true Juno-woman to pass off another man's child as the child of her husband-provider.

One could extrapolate that Juno may also be involved in matters of Child Support and Paternity, and in a man's natal chart, Juno may carry a warning for him to be careful when sowing his wild oats. Lest he become ensnared within a relationship or an 18-year financial commitment that clips his wings.

Another movie, more poignant, is "The House of Mirth", based on the novel by Edith Wharton - an astute observer of manners and social mores of her times - in which the heroine Lily Bart, fails to connect with her Juno-smarts.  In many ways, the novels of Edith Wharton remain pertinent to the modernity of our 21st Century life, in that they identify several themes under which we still live.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It is worthwhile to remember, when disseminating the Asteroid God'dess Juno to a client, within the parameters of an astrological consultation, that Juno's traditional role was as the Roman God'dess of Good Counsel, and as the person the client has come to, for counsel, for information - you are JUNO and you are addressing their juno-soul.

Juno Moneta: 

She had a large and famous temple on the Arx, a height on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, which was a site that had been sacred to Her from early times. One story goes that geese were sacred to Juno, and as such were kept at Her temple or cult center on the Capitoline. In the year 390 BCE, the Gauls surprised Rome with an attack on the Capitol, but the geese of Juno started a honking ruckus (as geese are wont to do) and the citizens were alerted and thus able to drive off the Gauls. In gratitude for the noble efforts of Her geese, Juno was honored with the name Moneta.

The temple was dedicated on the 10th of October,

Burning Down the House

In ancient astrological techniques, the Via Combusta (fiery road) was regarded as a dangerous section of the chart.  Modern horary astrologists still defer judgment when the Moon is situated in the burning zone, which the 15th Century Italian philosopher and humanis, Marsilio Ficino, suggested lay between 28 degrees Libra and 3 degrees Scorpio.  Some astrologists say the parameters are 26 degrees Libra and 6 degrees Scorpio, while an all-too-neat definition, offers 15 degrees Libra to 15 degrees Scorpio.

The Via Combusta has been given a malevolent reputation and with my natal third house Neptune on the edge of the scorch zone in Scorpio, I can say without doubt, that any and all my illusions, ideals and fantasies have been incinerated. Such is the path of the Mystic; all that is false, contrived and Egoic is ripe for destruction in this glowing bonfire of vanities...aaah, vanity; it's my favourite sin.

Definitely my most favourite movie quote: The Devil's Advocate

As the movie ended, the Devil, played by Al Pacino, stated, “Vanity is my favorite sin.” The wicked smile and stare rang true because most of us know that vanity and ego can corrupt us all. Human frailties can easily be seen in others. Although, when we look inward, vanity can be difficult to expose. There are many types of vanities. ~ George Gurney

Let's take a closer look at the Ficino alpha and omega points of the Via Combusta through the lens of the Sabian Symbols.

Libra 28: A man in the midst of brightening influences
Scorpio 3: A house-raising

Telling, is it not, of the transformative potential inherent in the Via Combusta?  There is nothing to fear - except fear itself....perhaps.  That great Imposter.

In the Hyperion Series of symbols created by Gavin Kent McClung (who was a student of Marc Edmund Jones), he offers the following:

Libra 28: The Statue of Liberty
Scorpio 3: Two masters teaching one another wisdom

Between the Sabian Symbols and the Hyperion Series are four keywords:

Responsiveness * Helpfulness * Revolution * Confirmation

Last but certainly not least, we have the deeply esoteric Kozminsky Symbols, that pre-date the Sabian Symbols and the Hyperion Series and which were created by Isidore Kozminsky, born in Australia of Prussian Jewish parentage.  Reputed to have been a leading member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

In the Kozminsky Symbols, we find:

Libra 28: . A mass of quartz through which veins of fine gold can be traced
Scorpio 3:  Blacksmith striking anvil, the impact causing a dazzling display of bright light.

Two more keywords: Exertion and Penetration

The Correspondence of Bushfire

Basically a bushfire is the combustion or burning of bush, forest or woodland area. Bushfires are natural phenomena most common in Australia. Most people aren't aware of the fact that fire is one of the major tools that has shaped this continent we call Australia...and it is still shaping it.

Aborigines had the ability to care for land which enabled them to conserve and protect the flora and fauna, especially through their fire management practices. Europeans had no understanding of the land and treated it as treasure trove of goodies instead of a fragile environment and also stopped the traditional owners from caring for it.

The Passage of Fire

Consider that planets, asteroids, Transneptunians and other hypothetical points that fall into the zone of your natal chart, between Libra 28 and Scorpio 3 - (or Libra 15-Scorpio 15 for the masochists) - indicate where you will make your passage through fire.  Have the greater potential to experience a Phoenix Process.

We can take guidance and heart from Earth Wisdom. In Australia, many plants have been observed to flower prolifically a year or two after a bushfire. Fire brings an otherwise unseen abundance.

The Degree Symbols and their keywords offer guidance as to how to approach an analysis of the Via Combusta energies within one's natal chart and transits, and may be especially relevant in the interpretation of synastry and composite charts.

Not to be overlooked is the Polarity Via Combusta between 28 degrees Aries and 3 degrees Taurus: sifting through the 'ashes' may well uncover another nugget of gold or, perhaps, a piece of amber that when burned gives off a scent of pine.  Pining. Mayhaps the 'burning path' is also the 'weeping path'?

My pleasant things in ashes lie
And them behold no more shall I.
Under the roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy Table eat a bit.
No pleasant talk shall 'ere be told
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.
In silence ever shalt thou lie.
Adieu, Adieu, All's Vanity.

~ Anne Bradstreet

Upon the Burning of our House 1666