Saturday and Sundry Magical Scorpionic Words

With the content of Thursday's post touching on war and peace still skidding around in my mind, for this weekend I delved into the archives and pulled out this (now lightly edited) post from 2008. I love to read the words of the two featured writers, even though they bring tears to my eyes.

When someone with a good dollop of Scorpio in their natal chart writes, a certain magic seeps through. Two examples of such writers, never far from the top layers of my memory, are Carl Sagan and Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich doesn't have Sun in Scorpio (it's in Libra) but he has Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and Venus there. Carl Sagan had Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury in Scorpio.

Dennis Kucinich's "Spirit and Stardust" speech from June 2002 is a good example. Barack Obama was lauded for his inspiring speeches, which were probably written by a team of script writers - I'd bet a large amount of money that Dennis Kucinich wrote every word of "Spirit and Stardust" himself. Remember the movie "Crocodile Dundee"? When Dundee (Paul Hogan) was approached by a mugger with a knife, he reached for his own jumbo-sized knife and brandishing it said "That's not a knife - THIS is a knife". Well - Obama's aren't speeches - this is a speech! It can be read in full HERE. Below are brief snips from it:

Feel the magic...

"As one studies the images of the Eagle Nebula, brought back by the Hubble Telescope from that place in deep space where stars are born, one can imagine the interplay of cosmic forces across space and time, of matter and spirit dancing to the music of the spheres, atop an infinite sea of numbers.

Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic
spiraling.

We begin as a perfect union of matter and spirit

We need to remember where we came from; to know that we are one. To understand that we are of an undivided whole: race, color, nationality, creed, gender are beams of light, refracted through one great prism.... We become conscious of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music of cooperation, we hear music of love....

Our leaders think the unthinkable and speak of the unspeakable inevitability of nuclear war; of a nuclear attack on New York City, of terrorist attacks throughout our nation; of war against Iraq [in 2018, for Iraq read Russia] using nuclear weapons; of biological and chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations; of catastrophic global climate change; of war in outer space. When death (not life) becomes inevitable, we are presented with an opportunity for great clarity, for a great awakening, to rescue the human spirit from the arms of Morpheus through love, through compassion and through integrating spiritual vision and active citizenship to restore peace to our world....


Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines........

I have seen groups of people overcome incredible odds as they become aware they are participating in a cause beyond self and sense the movement of the inexorable which comes from unity. When you feel this principle at work, when you see spiritual principles form the basis of active citizenship, you are reminded once again of the merging of stardust and spirit. There is creativity. There is magic. There is alchemy."


And from Carl Sagan's masterwork, "COSMOS"

"For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.
Page 193
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably headlong to self-destruction. I dream about it, and sometimes they're bad dreams.
Page 318
We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?
Page 329
If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
Page 339
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter. "

Carl Sagan & Astrology

About three weeks ago I received a comment on a five-year-old post, from December 2006 featuring Carl Sagan. The anonymous commenter wrote:

"Thank you for this insight. I too watch closely the connection between modern astronomy and ancient astrology - and believe that one day, astrology will be acknowleged as a science in itself, as it was in it's inception."

As today would have been Carl Sagan's birthday (77th) I've decided to re-air a slightly modified version of that old post:

CARL SAGAN & ASTROLOGY

It's something of an anomaly that Carl Sagan was, and still is, one of my heroes. He was never a friend to astrology, he was a critic of so-called pseudo-science. Perhaps because I have doubts of my own about certain areas of astrological doctrine, I'm able to go along with his views to some extent. I sense though that, deep down, he stood not too far away from my own beliefs. One day it might emerge that both he, and astrolgers, were both partially correct.






Carl Sagan had Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter all in Scorpio - is there any wonder he was so passionate and dedicated to his subject? It was that kind of passion driving his inspiring writing and style of presentation, a style which endeared him to many. His natal chart is here at Astrodatabank.

Using Carl Sagan's words ~
From the last chapter of his book Cosmos~

And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring!

And from The Cosmic Connection~

The fate of individual human beings may not now be connected in a deep way with the rest of the universe, but the matter out of which each of us is made is intimately tied to processes that occurred immense intervals of time and enormous distances in space a way from us. Our Sun is a second or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star stuff. Our atomic and molecular connection with the rest of the universe is a real and unfanciful cosmic hookup. As we explore our surroundings by telescope and space vehicle, other hookups may emerge. There may be a network of intercommunicating extraterrestrial civilizations to which we may link up tomorrow, for all we know. The undelivered promise of astrology-that the stars impel our individual characters - will not be satisfied by modern astronomy. But the deep human need to seek and understand our connection with the universe is a goal well within our grasp. "

The Magic in Scorpio's Words

When a person with a good dollop of Scorpio in their natal chart writes, a certain magic seeps through. Two examples which are never far from the top layers of my memory are Carl Sagan and Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich doesn't have Sun in Scorpio (it's in Libra) but he has Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and Venus there. Carl Sagan had Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury in Scorpio.

Dennis Kucinich's "Spirit and Stardust" speech from June 2002 is a good example. Barack Obama has been lauded for his inspiring speeches, which are probably written by a team of script writers - I'd bet a large amount of money that Dennis Kucinich wrote every word of "Spirit and Stardust" himself. Remember the movie "Crocodile Dundee"? When Dundee (Paul Hogan) was approached by a mugger with a knife, he reached for his own jumbo-sized knife and brandishing it said "That's not a knife - THIS is a knife". Well - Obama's aren't speeches - THIS is a speech! It can be read in full HERE, below are very brief samples from it:

Feel the magic...............

"As one studies the images of the Eagle Nebula, brought back by the Hubble Telescope from that place in deep space where stars are born, one can imagine the interplay of cosmic forces across space and time, of matter and spirit dancing to the music of the spheres, atop an infinite sea of numbers.

Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic
spiraling.

We begin as a perfect union of matter and spirit

We need to remember where we came from; to know that we are one. To understand that we are of an undivided whole: race, color, nationality, creed, gender are beams of light, refracted through one great prism.... We become conscious of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music of cooperation, we hear music of love....

Our leaders think the unthinkable and speak of the unspeakable inevitability of nuclear war; of a nuclear attack on New York City, of terrorist attacks throughout our nation; of war against Iraq using nuclear weapons; of biological and chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations; of catastrophic global climate change; of war in outer space. When death (not life) becomes inevitable, we are presented with an opportunity for great clarity, for a great awakening, to rescue the human spirit from the arms of Morpheus through love, through compassion and through integrating spiritual vision and active citizenship to restore peace to our world....

Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines........

I have seen groups of people overcome incredible odds as they become aware they are participating in a cause beyond self and sense the movement of the inexorable which comes from unity. When you feel this principle at work, when you see spiritual principles form the basis of active citizenship, you are reminded once again of the merging of stardust and spirit. There is creativity. There is magic. There is alchemy."

And from Carl Sagan's masterwork, "COSMOS"

"For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.
Page 193
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably headlong to self-destruction. I dream about it, and sometimes they're bad dreams.
Page 318
We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?
Page 329
If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
Page 339
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter. "

And my favourte quote of all from Carl Sagan's wonderfully magical words:

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff comtemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness...Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."

YouTube and Astrology

I try to avoid YouTube, I find it irritating, I'm not sure why. However, led there yesterday via an astrologer's website, I watched several videos on the topic of astrology. Oh dear! So now there's another arena in which skeptics and astrologers will clash.

One of my favourite men, Carl Sagan, is shown denouncing my favourite subject, astrology. This wasn't new to me, I got the "Cosmos" DVD set for Christmas. Carl can do no wrong in my estimation - well, maybe just a little bit of wrong! We must not forget that this film was made many years ago. Perhaps, had Carl Sagan and some of the more enlightened astrologers of today (no names, no pack drill) ever had an opportunity to get together and discuss matters in depth, Carl might have had something slightly different to say on the subject. When feeling depressed about his views I return to his famous quote "We are star stuff contemplating the stars". For me that says it all. Carl just needed to reach the next chapter, but tragically he was not allowed to do so.

The other astrologers and skeptics on YouTube, so far, only serve to muddy the water even further in my opinion. It has all been said and written before, and the fact that we can look at the face of the presenter adds little to the proceedings.

As usual, Sun sign astrology bears the brunt of the criticism. Up to a point, this is warranted. The "astrology" column in our local newspaper, for instance, is a synicated and synthetic offering, completely meaningless, possibly written by a group of monkeys, after experimenting with the old idea that if you have enough monkeys banging randomly on typewriters, they will eventually type the works of William Shakespeare. This kind of thing obviously gives astrology a bad name. But a good Sun sign astrologer can be the catalyst who sends a proportion of his/her readers off to find out more, and perhaps even take up the profession themselves, eventually.

Imagine a world with no Sun sign columns, daily, weekly, monthly. No books of the "What's Your Sign?" variety. A world where only "real" astrologers lived, cloistered in their ivory towers, keeping mysterious secrets from the "great unwashed". Wouldn't that be a dreadful step backwards?

Astrology would have sunk without trace decades ago had it not been for the Sun sign astrologers. I look on them as flag-bearers, ensuring that astrology is kept in plain sight of all - whether they like it or not!

Carl Sagan and astrology

In several blogs yesterday, the 10th anniversary of the death of Carl Sagan was remembered with tributes from science fans, and self-proclaimed sceptics. It's something of an anomaly that he is one of my own heroes. He was never a friend of astrology, he was a critic of so-called pseudo-science. Perhaps because I have doubts of my own about certain areas of astrological doctrine, I understood his views to some extent. I sense though that, deep down, he stood not too far away from my own beliefs. One day it might emerge that he and the astrolgers were both partially correct.

I wanted to add my own tribute to the 'blogathon' tribute out there, but felt that it would be unwelcome. Here - a day late - using his own words, is my tribute.

From the last chapter of 'Cosmos'

"And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring!"

and from "The Cosmic Connection"

The fate of individual human beings may not now be connected in a deep way with the rest of the universe, but the matter out of which each of us is made is intimately tied to processes that occurred immense intervals of time and enormous distances in space a way from us. Our Sun is a second or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star stuff. Our atomic and molecular connection with the rest of the universe is a real and unfanciful cosmic hookup. As we explore our surroundings by telescope and space vehicle, other hookups may emerge. There may be a network of intercommunicating extraterrestrial civilizations to which we may link up tomorrow, for all we know. The undelivered promise of astrology-that the stars impel our individual characters - will not be satisfied by modern astronomy. But the deep human need to seek and understand our connection with the universe is a goal well within our grasp. "