For children, and with respect to one's parents or grand-parents we will always be that, the better part of the "old ones" are the grand-parents, most of the time anyway. Astrology gives some answers for that, tentatively at least. Also, I must say beforehand, that my comments are due to an often tense relationship I have had with my father. But knowing that this is not a big exception and quite often also happens to others, father and son or mother and daughter, this post may be helpful to someone else, rather than just being of "astrological interest".
At the boarding school I attended there was a truly genial teacher of natural sciences. He had a strange head, very conical, which earned him the nick-name of Dr. Pot (Topf in German). Had he lived longer (he died shortly after our class had graduated), he would have been proud to discover that about one third of his pupils became either chemists, physicists or medical doctors.
"Dr. Topf" is mentioned here because he presented an intriguing idea, but also added that there was no proof for that, and that he hoped that one of his students may prove it one day. He said that the human being was built on 48 chromosomes etc. In his view, as every human has 4 grand-parents, most probably each of them was contributing with 12 chromosomes. In a democratic world that is, an interesting detail, he gave. I do not know if science today has been able to corroborate "Dr Topf's" assumption.
It actually is not even so important (except for science maybe). What struck me then, was that my all-dominating, controlling father was not the only one who had contributed to my existence, and neither my mother who was exceedingly obedient to him, as at least I was thinking then, at the "revolting age of puberty". I clearly preferred all my grand parents over my parents and to discover a biological explanation for that was very satisfactory.
Besides "Dr. Topf's" scientific (although not proven) theory, there was circumstantial evidence for such preferences. Not only were the grand parents much more patient and rarely criticized us (I have a brother), but they took us more seriously and listened to us. But, and that was some consolation, my parents were not different from other parents, I rapidly found out from several of my classmates. Parents lack objectivity with respect to their immediate offspring. Or patience. Today I realize in all objectivity, that the grand parents, for having more life experience, have an advantage. They also usually see their grand children in more favorable circumstances than just day-to-day. At Christmas, birthdays and during other often special circumstances. But in fact my relationship was much better with my grand parents. And "Dr. Topf" gave the reason and I believe this somewhat "defused" the problems I had with my father.
Unfortunately I never attempted to have a conversation about this with my parents or one of my grand fathers, especially one of them who had a scientific mind. It might have helped to further clear the "generational conflicts" from which I suffered and which were really stupid, creating permanent tensions, especially with my father.
Later on, when I got involved with astrology, I tried to find out about any links a natal horoscope may offer to one's parents and grand parents. As usually happens, I started with myself and others in my family. What I rapidly discovered, also extending my observation to people outside the family, is that a child very often has, if not the same Sun-sign as one of his grand-parents, so his/her Ascendant often turns out to be of the Sun-sign of one of his grand-parents.
My Ascendant is Sagittarius, both my parents were sun-sign Sagittarius. In that sense I am a direct product of my parents. So I had to look further for the reasons for my sun-sign, Aries. Three(!)of my grand parents were Aries. My parent's respective Ascendants were Libra for my mother, Scorpio for my (quite dictatorial) father. The one grand parent who was not Aries, was a Virgo, my maternal grandmother. I was very close to her - and happen to have Moon in Virgo. This, for me, was an important corroboration of the value of astrology (which I then was still contemplating with some skepticism).
My brother, a Leo, has Ascendant in Virgo (same as the sun-sign of the grand mother just mentioned). Two of my three cousins are sun-sign Leos. I suspect that one of my 4 grand parents must have had Ascendant in Leo. But could not investigate as I do not have their hour of birth. But my brother's and 2 of 3 cousins' sun-sign in Leo points the way for that being probable. (Most likely, a grand parent's sun-sign reappears in one or several of his/her grand children's Ascendant or sun-sign. Or vice-versa).
As time went by, I met people who had doubts about their birth hour or could not find it at all, especially in Brazil. Lula, the outgoing president here, e.g. even has two dates of birth: one for the day his mother says he was born, another for the day his father went (as Lula said himself on donkey's back) to the next town to register the birth of his first son. Did he indicate the day of birth, if he remembered that, or the day he arrived in town and his son was registered? That Lula is a Scorpio appears certain (judging by his character), but exactly on which day in October or November 1945 he was born, nobody knows.
For most of the cases where I proceeded to "rectify" a horoscope (a technique used when the birth hour of somebody is uncertain or totally unknown and presenting quite a job, but rewarding), I inquired about the sun-signs of the grand parents of the person concerned. And, without having "kept statistics" for that, it often helped to confirm my findings when the Ascendants were in doubt.
This may sound like a lot of technicalities for non-astrologers, but isn't this blog designed to explain and to help finding out what's on Twilight's (and her reader's) Ecliptic? What happens to people in their childhood often leaves an imprint for life. And given a child's dependence on adults, parents and grand parents play a decisive role in many cases.
The further one investigates, the more many things appear to be connected. With respect to one's parents, one may be well advised to take into account what Dr. Topf's "thing with a democratic distribution of chromosomes" may mean in practice: More access for children to their grand parents. But that needs intelligent behavior and understanding by the parents. If grand parents are mostly used as a "dumping-ground" for children when needed, it creates the wrong premises. Parents should beware of the sensitivities involved. On all sides.
The position defended here is mostly the one of children. However, the interests of parents are not being neglected by recognizing the important role grand parents can play. Children have a great deal of "genetical sensitivity" which over time, as they grow up, may disappear. But it probably is something much more fundamental than imagined and astrology appears to have some explanation for that.
At the boarding school I attended there was a truly genial teacher of natural sciences. He had a strange head, very conical, which earned him the nick-name of Dr. Pot (Topf in German). Had he lived longer (he died shortly after our class had graduated), he would have been proud to discover that about one third of his pupils became either chemists, physicists or medical doctors."Dr. Topf" is mentioned here because he presented an intriguing idea, but also added that there was no proof for that, and that he hoped that one of his students may prove it one day. He said that the human being was built on 48 chromosomes etc. In his view, as every human has 4 grand-parents, most probably each of them was contributing with 12 chromosomes. In a democratic world that is, an interesting detail, he gave. I do not know if science today has been able to corroborate "Dr Topf's" assumption.
It actually is not even so important (except for science maybe). What struck me then, was that my all-dominating, controlling father was not the only one who had contributed to my existence, and neither my mother who was exceedingly obedient to him, as at least I was thinking then, at the "revolting age of puberty". I clearly preferred all my grand parents over my parents and to discover a biological explanation for that was very satisfactory.
Besides "Dr. Topf's" scientific (although not proven) theory, there was circumstantial evidence for such preferences. Not only were the grand parents much more patient and rarely criticized us (I have a brother), but they took us more seriously and listened to us. But, and that was some consolation, my parents were not different from other parents, I rapidly found out from several of my classmates. Parents lack objectivity with respect to their immediate offspring. Or patience. Today I realize in all objectivity, that the grand parents, for having more life experience, have an advantage. They also usually see their grand children in more favorable circumstances than just day-to-day. At Christmas, birthdays and during other often special circumstances. But in fact my relationship was much better with my grand parents. And "Dr. Topf" gave the reason and I believe this somewhat "defused" the problems I had with my father.
Unfortunately I never attempted to have a conversation about this with my parents or one of my grand fathers, especially one of them who had a scientific mind. It might have helped to further clear the "generational conflicts" from which I suffered and which were really stupid, creating permanent tensions, especially with my father.
Later on, when I got involved with astrology, I tried to find out about any links a natal horoscope may offer to one's parents and grand parents. As usually happens, I started with myself and others in my family. What I rapidly discovered, also extending my observation to people outside the family, is that a child very often has, if not the same Sun-sign as one of his grand-parents, so his/her Ascendant often turns out to be of the Sun-sign of one of his grand-parents.
My Ascendant is Sagittarius, both my parents were sun-sign Sagittarius. In that sense I am a direct product of my parents. So I had to look further for the reasons for my sun-sign, Aries. Three(!)of my grand parents were Aries. My parent's respective Ascendants were Libra for my mother, Scorpio for my (quite dictatorial) father. The one grand parent who was not Aries, was a Virgo, my maternal grandmother. I was very close to her - and happen to have Moon in Virgo. This, for me, was an important corroboration of the value of astrology (which I then was still contemplating with some skepticism).
My brother, a Leo, has Ascendant in Virgo (same as the sun-sign of the grand mother just mentioned). Two of my three cousins are sun-sign Leos. I suspect that one of my 4 grand parents must have had Ascendant in Leo. But could not investigate as I do not have their hour of birth. But my brother's and 2 of 3 cousins' sun-sign in Leo points the way for that being probable. (Most likely, a grand parent's sun-sign reappears in one or several of his/her grand children's Ascendant or sun-sign. Or vice-versa).
As time went by, I met people who had doubts about their birth hour or could not find it at all, especially in Brazil. Lula, the outgoing president here, e.g. even has two dates of birth: one for the day his mother says he was born, another for the day his father went (as Lula said himself on donkey's back) to the next town to register the birth of his first son. Did he indicate the day of birth, if he remembered that, or the day he arrived in town and his son was registered? That Lula is a Scorpio appears certain (judging by his character), but exactly on which day in October or November 1945 he was born, nobody knows.
For most of the cases where I proceeded to "rectify" a horoscope (a technique used when the birth hour of somebody is uncertain or totally unknown and presenting quite a job, but rewarding), I inquired about the sun-signs of the grand parents of the person concerned. And, without having "kept statistics" for that, it often helped to confirm my findings when the Ascendants were in doubt.
This may sound like a lot of technicalities for non-astrologers, but isn't this blog designed to explain and to help finding out what's on Twilight's (and her reader's) Ecliptic? What happens to people in their childhood often leaves an imprint for life. And given a child's dependence on adults, parents and grand parents play a decisive role in many cases.
The further one investigates, the more many things appear to be connected. With respect to one's parents, one may be well advised to take into account what Dr. Topf's "thing with a democratic distribution of chromosomes" may mean in practice: More access for children to their grand parents. But that needs intelligent behavior and understanding by the parents. If grand parents are mostly used as a "dumping-ground" for children when needed, it creates the wrong premises. Parents should beware of the sensitivities involved. On all sides.
The position defended here is mostly the one of children. However, the interests of parents are not being neglected by recognizing the important role grand parents can play. Children have a great deal of "genetical sensitivity" which over time, as they grow up, may disappear. But it probably is something much more fundamental than imagined and astrology appears to have some explanation for that.
4 comments:
GP:
I could not agree more with your post about the importance of grand-parents in our lives. I had very little contact with my grandparents on my mother side and never knew my father's parents. But they had an enormous influence on my upbringing.
Both myself and my maternal grandfather share the same Aries sun sign in addition to several other close contacts.
What I find fascinating is astrology can also indicate the overall family "themes" running among generations. Using Jigsaw, I examined the astrological dynamics of my family to discover my family's karmic and developmental themes. The results were quite uncanny and helped me deal with these themes in my own life.
I think it is more than 48 chromosomes that we carry. It is a whole "village'.
Yes, I agree too with your views, GP. Astrological links within families are clear, and grandparents often provide a very close relationship with their grandchildren through that, as well as for other, more mundane considerations.
By the way, I think that the 48 chromosomes has been downgraded to 46 (not that it matters to us). A quote
"If you learned your biology a long time ago, you learned that men have forty-eight [chromosomes]--but the number has now been revised downward to forty-six (twenty-three pairs)." [The Language of Life: An Introduction to the Science of Genetics, by George and Muriel Beadle (1966), p. 89.]
I was very, very close to my maternal grandmother (Sun in late Taurus and some emphasis on Cancer). Ruler of my Aquarius Sun was in Taurus at my birth and I had natal Cancer rising. My mother had a stellium in Cancer.
My Airy Sun comes from both sides of the family - maternal grandfather Sun in Gemini, his daughter - my mother Sun in Libra. My father had Sun in Aquarius, like me. His father, my paternal grandad had Sun in Pisces, Mercury in Aquarius, and several of his offspring and grandchildren have Sun in Aquarius.
I have no times of birth for any of my relatives though, their Moons and ascendants remain a mystery.
There has to be some kind of astro link to DNA -when will some enlightened scientist start trying to track it down??? When pigs start to fly I guess.
Hi Astrology Unboxed-Fabienne: Agree with you that "we carry a whole village", as you nicely say. I had looked into the cult of the ancestors by the Chinese. There are very strange things there which they respect. Some occidental esoteric authors as well point out that our souls (or whatever more subtle part in us) is essentially a consequence (karmic?) of who brought us into this existence.
And far beyond just our direct, physical parents. Some astrologers believe that a human being not only choses his parents to be born to but his entire destiny. It's kind of a pre-concluded deal. "Vai saber" (who knows) as the Brazilians say...
Hi Twilight, that there are now only 46 chromosomes may be a temporary fad. Or not. Science these days (see e.g. what they "know" about climate change) needs to be taken with a grain of salt...
Same with economists, or other pundits. And why not astrologers as well! We are all soooo human (and far from perfect).
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