Ask Christine Astrology

Where have I been?
Reading, mostly. The Fated Sky by Benson Bobrick is the history of astrology that I couldn’t put down. Loved this, read it voraciously, want my own copy (this and the Forman book mentioned below are on loan to me). Some errors here, but lots of very good stuff. I may write up a full review later.

Simon Forman by Judith Cook I found a good deal drier; it’s the story of a 16th century physician and astrologer, researched in possibly more detail than I needed. Interesting read if you want to know about life in Elizabethan England; not so interesting from an astrological point of view, as the biographer knows next to nothing about astrology. She seems to treat all Forman’s horary & medical astrologizing as slightly embarrassing and only accurate by chance - she sounds surprised when some of his prophecies come true. (Somehow, her side note about William Lilly near the end of the story never mentions his crucial contribution to astrology, Christian Astrology; did she tire of her research in the end, or did she never take the astrology seriously?)

Astrology & aesthetics:
Here’s a photo that doesn’t do justice to a blank book I recently bought. Love the antique celestial maps on each cover.

Also, at a wine shop around the corner, I saw a woman whose freckles seemed to form a constellation - then I realized they weren’t freckles, they were intentional. “Excuse me, is that the constellation Scorpio tattooed on your shoulder?” And so it was.  

Horary questions I’m working on this week:
Is my girlfriend still in love with her ex? (Nah, she’s just combust, it’ll pass. Querent doesn’t sound persuaded.)
Where is the gold ring my father-in-law gave me? (Ugh, lost object questions! The ring is probably gone for good - as seems to be the case in all the lost object questions I get - though it’s possible the querent accidentally left the ring at his father-in-law’s house, & it’s being shipped back to him now.)

Why are the 12 houses of the chart arranged as they are? English astrologer Henry Coley, a protege of William Lilly, provides a neat explanation in his 1676 book Clavis Astrologiae or a Key to the Whole Art of Astrology. Dividing the houses into four triangles, each one grounded by one of the four angles, he explains that each set of three houses shares a single theme: life, love, action, or passion (not as in romance, but as in suffering; that which is done to us, as opposed to action, that which we do). Each house in each set expresses that theme in a complementary way.

The Life triangle is linked to the Ascendant and includes houses 1, 5, and 9. The 1st is the house of our present life and body: our self. The 9th is the house of religion, or, as Coley explains it, our hoped-for eternal life in God. The 5th is the house of our children and creative works; that is, our life carried forward into posterity.

The Action triangle, also called the triangle of gain, is linked to the Midheaven and includes houses 10, 2, and 6. It is concerned with worldly goods and honors we earn. The 10th, says Coley, is the house of immaterial resources: our mastery of a profession, our honors and dignities, even majesty and power. The 6th is the house of material, animate resources: those who work for us, or, as Coley expresses it, “subjects and servants.” The 2nd is the house of material, inanimate resources: our possessions and our capacity to earn money.

The Love triangle is linked to the Descendant and includes houses 7, 11, and 3. The 7th is the house of matrimony: the relationship of love. The 3rd is the house of siblings (”brethren and kindred,” says Coley): the relationship of blood. The 11th is the house of “simple benevolence and favour,” per Coley: the relationship of friendship.

The Passion triangle is linked to the Nadir, which Coley ominously calls the Dark Angle. Remember, “Passion” here means suffering. It includes houses 4, 8, and 12. The 4th is the house of parents and ancestors, or, as Coley darkly puts it, “a sorrowful expectation of the natural death of his parents.” He goes on to link this house to “the stain of Original Sin,” the suffering we each take on by being born. The 12th is the house of secret enemies, imprisonment, servitude - the misery and suffering imposed upon us during life. And the 8th is the house of death itself, the end of this temporal and temporary existence.

John Worsdale’s 1825 book Celestial Philosophy or Genethliacal Astronomy is not light reading. Its chief purpose is to demonstrate, via some 30 natal charts and his meticulous calculations, how the time and cause of death may be determined from the birth chart.

A page-turner it is not. For one thing, he’s a bit of a ranter; don’t get him started on all those false, pernicious astrologers whom he deems a discredit to the art. He names names. He digresses, often, and often in mid-delineation. Perusing it, I frequently wished he’d had an editor to steer him back on course from his high-pitched rants.

For another, it’s just sad. Of the charts I reviewed, there are drowned children, ladies dead of consumption, a child who takes a horse’s hoof to the forehead; promises of marriage defeated by death; young men, thinking themselves competent astrologers, who sadly get their own predictions quite wrong.

The astrology itself is detailed, mathematical, and stark. Worsdale has parked some of the critical how-to information in the very final pages of the book, explaining how one determines the Giver of Life and the various killing events. I only just found those pages this afternoon, after jumping around from chart to chart, wondering when he was going to explain this key point. Each chart (which is composed in the older box-style rather than the round chart modern readers are more accustomed to viewing) is accompanied by lists of planetary events, motions, and directions, both in the zodiac and in mundo. The method, if I understand correctly, involves choosing the Giver of Life (Hyleg, Apheta) from several possible candidates based on the conditions presented in the birth chart, then composing and studying these long lists of events to determine when that Giver of Life is sufficiently threatened as to be extinguished.

Worsdale, it is true, often astonishes with his ability to hone in on the most dire time of the individual’s life, and on the cause of death. In one instance, he recounts how a lady came to him with the birth data for a female relative of hers, and asked what sort of adventures this relative might have in her life, whether she would travel, and so forth. He studies the chart and proclaims that the person in question died before the age of six, some 46 years earlier. The querent confirms this, admitting she had come to test him, but that he’d proven his art sufficiently by his reply. (He goes on to request her own birth data, and lets her know she’s got about seven years left, herself. It’s not nice to try to fool John Worsdale.)

Worsdale fixes his eyes on the Creator’s unerring laws; yet he rarely seems to express compassion for the lives lost. Too often he makes statements to the effect of “this prediction was made public a full year before it came to pass, just ask the family.” It made me wish for a few empathetic words. Yes, to shuffle off this mortal coil for the promise of eternal bliss must, in the grand scheme, be a fine trade indeed; but while still in this life, at least, some words of comfort for the grieving survivors must be in order.

That said, astrologers ought to know that this text is out there and not difficult to obtain. No, it is not an astro-cookbook; it requires concentration and real work, and its concepts are foreign to most of us peering in from the 21st century. But it is an interesting answer to those who believe that length of life cannot be determined from a birth chart. It does not, for me, answer whether death should be predicted. I think there’s more than one future blog post waiting to be written on that subject.

Four of the astrology texts I ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday afternoon, and a nice bit of reading it’s going to be. Let’s see, there’s William Ramesey’s Astrologia Restaurata from 1653… Astrological Practice of Physick by Joseph Blagrave, 1671… ooh, a modern text, Celestial Philosophy or Genethliacal Astronomy from John Worsdale writing in 1825… and Henry Coley’s Clavis Astrologiae Elimata or a Key to the Whole Art of Astrology, 1676. All of these are facsimile reprints from Kessinger Publishing, preserving the texts as they were typeset back in the day.

This last one is making me laugh as I return to Amazon to review its information page. Amazon, you probably know, lists Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs). For Coley, apparently Amazon merely scanned the book with some optical character recognition software. All those old-style long S letters, the ones that look like a lower-case f, have come out as f in the SIPs… eighth houfc, tenth houfc, fourth houfc, third houfc, pofited therein, being pofited, fad brown hair, tenth houfe, eighth houfe, confider alto, judge the fame, judge the contrary, fuch kind, fame nature, moft part, fuch perfons, fuch things…

Sorry. I’m probably the only one who thinks it’s funny. I’m easily amused. “Fad brown hair.” Serioufly.

What have you been reading lately?

It seems my old philosophy schoolbooks have much to teach me about astrology. I’m currently rereading On Moral Fiction by John Gardner, which was a text for a philosophy class I took long ago, and it’s given me an “aha” moment on the subway, another way to think about our three modalities: cardinal, fixed, mutable.

Gardner, talking of Tolstoy, says that “Tolstoy argues… that the ideal held up in a proper work of art comes from God, was originally revealed in action by the life of Christ the intermediary… and is passed on to all humanity by artists,” by whom he means everyone from the writers of the Bible to “the framers of folktale and parable” and so forth. “Note the scheme,” says Gardner. “From God comes the standard; it is enacted by a hero and recorded by the poet.”

Three stages: three modalities. The initiating impulse is cardinal; the enacting is fixed; the recording and describing is mutable. Aha…

Gardner goes on to say, “With the worship of Zeus substituted for Christianity, this is almost exactly Homer’s position…. What the warrior-hero does on the battlefield… shows ordinary men what the gods love.” Gardner states, “Every hero’s proper function is to provide a noble image for men to be inspired and guided by in their own actions…. And whereas the hero’s function (like the function of Tolstoy’s Christ) is to set the standard in action, the business of the poet (or ‘memory’ or ‘epic song,’ and also the business of arts other than poetry) is to celebrate the work of the hero, pass the image on, keep the heroic model of behavior fresh, generation on generation.” 

Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn: these signs show the spark of the idea, the standard of each element.
Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius: these signs show the unfolding, the standard in action, enacted.
Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces: these signs show how the message is carried forward to future generations.

Deborah Houlding has a very thorough article about Gemini - the Sun sign, the principle, its relationship to Mercury - in the new issue of The Mountain Astrologer. Reading it on the subway this morning, I was excited to see she’s included the chart of a famous Gemini musician and celebrity with more than one fixed star prominent in his nativity. The detail I love most about this guy’s chart? He’s got 29 degrees of Leo on the MC, conjunct the brightest star in the constellation of the Lion: Regulus. What does Regulus mean in Latin? “Little king.” What’s the musician’s name? Prince. Ta-daa!

Venus returns to her domicile, Taurus, later today. Her journey through this part of the zodiac every year takes a path of riches-to-rags-to-riches. In classical astrology, Venus is exalted in Pisces, in its detriment in Aries, and in its rulership in Taurus.

To understand what these dignities and debilities mean, imagine Venus as a queen in her travels. In Pisces, she is exalted: treated as the highly honored guest for whom no request is too difficult to carry out. She is placed on a pedestal and revered. But upon leaving this friendly realm, she falls into enemy territory: Aries. Worse than being peregrine - traveling unknown and unrecognized - she is in her detriment, her crown stripped, her essence defied. Venus cannot behave like the true benefic it is when in Aries. After Aries comes Taurus, showing her escape from the foe and return to the land of her rule. In Taurus, what Venus says goes: she does not need to ask anyone’s permission to do exactly as she pleases.

I’ve been listening to CDs of John Frawley’s lectures about the fixed stars from a workshop he gave in San Francisco in February 2006. (Thank you, AB!) In the course of his fascinating explanations of mythology and its astrological correlations, Frawley mentions in passing the roles of cardinal, fixed, and mutable modalities in the various elements. It’s given me yet more insight into Taurus and its role in the earth triangle.

In earth, we start with cardinal Capricorn, the initial earth impulse. It is the seed buried in the earth at the winter solstice, whose teleology is to grow and push upward. From there to fixed Taurus, where Venus finds herself starting this afternoon. In the fixed modality, we explore all the possibilities of that element, so Taurus is an exploration of all the possibilities of earth, the material world. Venus wants the comfy bed, the bonbons, the 401(k), and the diamonds. One way or another - or all ways, really - Venus in Taurus explores every aspect of the sensual world.

What about mutable signs? These show where we take what we have learned and carry it forward. Virgo, the discriminating one, is the sign of the harvest. From the crops we have gathered, we separate what we plan to use now from what we will set by for future use - or reserve as seed to sow in the new year.

A new client put a surprising spin on her question to me today. “Have I already met the man I will marry,” she wondered, “and if so, what is his name?” I put on the brakes instantly and explained that was probably not something I could wring from the stars. (I’m an astrologer, not a psychic.) I convinced her to rephrase her question, which I’ll work on later tonight, but now I’m paging through William Lilly’s Christian Astrology for the one section where he mentions finding names in a chart.

It shows up in Chapter 50, “Of Servants fled, Beasts strayed, and things lost,” as one of many bits and clues for locating and identifying a thief. After a paragraph or two that describe “the Clothes of the Thief,” there is a short section entitled, “For Names.”

It’s a hodgepodge of ideas that Lilly admits he’s never really road-tested. The most interesting feature is a list of names, men’s and women’s, with planetary significators written alongside them. (Henry Coley, his secretary, must have loved transcribing it.) He says we can figure out a name by the ruler of the seventh, or a planet in the seventh, or a planet joined to one of these. As you’d expect from a 17th century Englishman, these are very English first names.

Men’s names

Mercury/Mars: Matthew

Moon/Mercury: Simon

Sun/Jupiter: Laurence

Mercury/Sun: Clement

Mercury/Saturn: Edmund

Jupiter/Sun: John

Saturn/Venus: William

Mars/Sun: Robert

Mars/Sun: Peter

Mars: Anthony

Sun/Mercury: Benjamin

Jupiter/Saturn: Thomas

Sun: Roger

Sun: Phillip

Saturn/Sun: George

Sun/Saturn: Andrew

Moon/Sun: Henry

Moon/Saturn: Nicholas

Jupiter/Sun: Richard

Sun: James

Sun: Stephen

Women’s names

Mars/Mercury: Katherine

Mercury/Mars/Sun: Christine

Saturn/Moon/Venus: Joane

Venus/Saturn: Isabel

Saturn/Sun: Elizabeth

Saturn/Sun: Julianne

Moon/Mars/Sun: Mary

Moon/Venus: Ellen

Venus/Mercury: Agnes

Sun/Mercury: Margaret

Sun/Venus: Alice

Sun/Mercury: Edith

Sun/Venus: Maud

Sun/Jupiter: Lucy

Sun: Anne

Jupiter: Rachel

Moon: Nell, Eleanor

Great, what do we do with this? Lilly reports, “Some modern Professors, have endeavoured to give a probable conjecture what Christian name the Thief is of, or party inquired after, whether man or woman.” The steps he provides are these:

• Consider if the quesited’s significator is angular or not.
• See if it aspects any other planet(s).
• If no aspect, see whose dignities it’s in.
• Check the table for that planetary combination (significator + influencing planet).

He gives an example. Say Mercury is Lord 7, signifies a man, and is in aspect to Mars or in Mars dignities. Consult the Men’s Names table for Mercury/Mars: there you find the name Matthew. “I shall then say the man’s name is Matthew, or of a name equivalent in length, or same number of letters,” Lilly explains, only somewhat helpfully.

“For my part,” finishes the English Merlin, “I never use this way, nor yet have much credited it.” (Oh, well, thanks just the same, Bill.) But further research, he believes, ought to bring forth “some pretty conclusions.”

Friends, do try this at home. Does it work? Does it serve any purpose? Is it best left to the quirky, dusty back corners of time?

I’m making my slow way through Joseph Crane’s new article, “A Practical Introduction to Hellenistic Astrology,” in the current issue of The Mountain Astrologer. Hellenistic astrology goes way back, and informs the branch I practice, but I’m not well versed in its different rules. Let’s see what has stuck to me from paging through the article on the subway…

• Two planets in any degree of the same sign are effectively conjunct, or at least “together”. They act in concert. Even if they’re 25 degrees apart. As long as they’re in the same sign.
• The concept of signs beholding one another is key, more so than precisely measured aspects. So a planet at 3 Leo would be trine a planet at 27 Sagittarius, although they’re far past 120 degrees of arc from each other.
• In a Hellenistic chart, the entire sign that is rising constitutes the first house; the ascendant is an important point within that house. I have 29 Virgo rising and am used to thinking of degrees 3-29 (or so) of Virgo as making up my 12th house; but in this system, all that Virgo (including my Venus at 1 Virgo) makes up the first house, or “place.” Each sign then follows suit and forms the following 2nd to 12th “places.” (I’ll have to go back and see how they manage the midheaven when it is in a sign that is not square to the ascendant. I think they just plot it where it lands but still call the 10th “place” the house of career, etc.)
• Different planets are stronger in day charts than in night charts. Some planets are in sect (and therefore strengthened) when above the horizon in a day chart; others, when above the horizon by night. Mercury changes, of course: in a day chart, it’s strong when preceding the Sun; in a night chart, it’s strong when it sets after the Sun. That makes sense. If the Sun is already warming the sky, Mercury can’t do much.

I’m not finished with the article. I read a little and set it down, pick it up again and read some more. Crane has a book about this: Astrological Roots: The Hellenistic Legacy, from The Wessex Astrologer. I might have to look into that.