Midweek Musings ~ "They reach out in their mystic language For us to read between the lines."

The post's title is borrowed from a lovely song written by Neil Diamond titled, appropriately enough, "Signs" - first two verses:



Signs that burn like shooting stars
That pass across the nighttime skies,
They reach out in their mystic language
For us to read between the lines.
Some are born who would defy them,
Others still who would deny them, signs.

Signs like moments hung suspended,
Echoes just beneath the heart
Speak in voices half remembered
And half forgotten play their part.
Signs that come as we lay sleeping
Left behind for our keeping, signs.

On the topic of signs, astrology-wise, below are a trio of my own answers, offered on Quora's astrology section. The first, from a few days ago:


What in the world happened to the Age of Aquarius? It was dawning in the '60s and then just disappeared?


My answer:

The Broadway musical “Hair” has a lot to answer for! It was a song from that show that got hippies and some astrologers over-excited about the Age of Aquarius.

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius.

Not correct astrologically, but it does rhyme!

I like a theory put forward in a book and website, “Signs of the Times” by Robert Fitzgerald. The author divides the lengths of time between astrological ages into slices, more accessible bite-sized chunks called Eras and Phases.

At present, according to Mr Fitzgerald, we are in transit through the Age of Pisces. By this author's calculation the Aquarius Era of the Pisces Age ran from 1800 to 1980 - which could well account for some astrologers' insistence that we were already in the Age of Aquarius.

Then, dividing time into even smaller slices, 1950 to 1965 becomes the Aquarius Phase of the Aquarius Era of the Age of Pisces....that slice includes the psychedelic 60s - thought to be quite Aquarian, so with a double dose of Aquarius: phase and era, it was.... with a background of Pisces dreaminess.

1965 to 1980 = Pisces Phase, Aquarius Era, Age of Pisces.

From 1980 to 2160 is the Pisces Era of the Age of Pisces and we are presently in the Gemini Phase - 2010 to 2025 of the Pisces Era of the Age of Pisces.

The Cancer Phase will be 2025 to 2040.

For a brief rundown on what this means, and comparisons with similar eras and phases throughout history, do take a look at the website and/or the book.

http://www.signsofthetimeshistory.com/time.html

This one, from a few months ago, still occasionally gathers an 'upvote' or two (in Facebook language, foreign to me, I guess that 'upvotes' translate as 'likes'):


If each zodiac sign were a person and they all lived together in a house, what would each sign be doing?



Aries is telling the others to “hurry up, let’s do SOMETHING - I’m bored!”

Taurus is enjoying preparing a future meal.

Gemini, of course, is chatting, at some length, on the phone.

Cancer? Planning the next family get-together, feeling a bit teary when hearing that a dear relative will not be able to attend..

Leo is sorting through the wardrobe, deciding which outfit will make the best impression.

Virgo is checking accounts and complaining that the rest of ’em have been over-spending again.

Libra is attempting to calm down Aries and Scorpio who have gotten themselves into a heated argument about going out adventuring…Aries can’t wait, Scorpio wont go and won’t lend the car.

Scorpio - See Libra.

Sagittarius is reading some tome on philosophy, but on hearing the Aries and Scorpio scuffle loudly declares an intention to go adventuring, and that Aries is welcome to “come along”.

Capricorn is avidly checking how stocks and shares are performing , grimacing at the raised voices.

Aquarius is on the way out - to join a protest group, after preparing a large sign for use during The March for Equality - seeing this, Libra follows and they leave together.

Pisces? Who knows what Pisces is ever up to? Pisces, right now, is sitting by the window, gazing out, dreamily humming a tune, sipping a glass of wine, deciding whether to send the poems just written to that gorgeous individual met last evening.

Thirdly, I was asked to answer by questioner "Imran":

How can our zodiac signs tell us about our personality so exactly while astrology is considered to be pseudoscience?

If you are using “our zodiac signs” as another way of saying “our Sun signs”, then it is far from accurate to say that these will “tell us about our personality so exactly”. Sun signs will tell about one facet of personality only, and that facet could well be modified by the rest of the full natal chart’s content.

If you are using “our zodiac signs” in a general way - that is “all 12 zodiac signs”, then the unique mix of planetary positions in the signs, in a person’s natal chart , when interpreted by a competent astrologer, will tell many things about a personality - but still not everything. Outside influences, background, education, experience, location also have input to any person’s character/personality.

People can define astrology in whatever way they see fit. Because some define it as pseudoscience, does not mean that they are correct, it means they do not have the insight needed to see further than what appears on the surface. It is for each individual to define astrology, as they perceive it, after having the courtesy of studying the basics of astrology, experimenting with it, before validating or demeaning it.

WEEKEND GRAB BAG ~ TIME

Some detail from a book by Robert FitzGerald: Signs of the Times are available via the link. The author divides astrological Ages into more accessible bite-sized chunks called Eras and Phases.

At present we are in transit through the Age of Pisces. By this author's calculation the Aquarius Era of the Pisces Age ran from 1800 to 1980 - which could well account for some astrolgers' insistence that we were already in the Age of Aquarius.

Then, dividing time into even smaller slices, 1950 to 1965 becomes the Aquarius Phase of the Aquarius Era of the Age of Pisces....that slice includes the psychedlic 60s - thought to be quite Aquarian, so with a double dose of Aquarius: phase and era, it was.... with a background of Pisces dreaminess.

1965 to 1980 = Pisces Phase, Aquarius Era, Age of Pisces.

From 1980 to 2160 is the Pisces Era of the Age of Pisces and we are presently in the Gemini Phase - 2010 to 2025 of the Pisces Era of the Age of Pisces.

The Cancer Phase will be 2025 to 2040.

For a brief rundown on what this means, and comparisons with similar eras and phases throughout history, do take a look at the website, linked above.

All that can really be said is that at some indeterminate point in the very distant past, for reasons unknown, there came the moment known to science as t = 0. We were on our way.
(Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p.10)

From http://www.timephysics.com/

MEASURING TIME

Be it money, weight, a piece of estate, speed, distance or resistance. We measure by comparison to a standard that we have defined. When we measure a mass we use a standard mass like KG or LB for comparison. Distances we measure using a standard of length like a meter yard or feet. Keeping the above in mind let us think how we measure motion. We use time to measure motion i.e. Feet per second or miles per hour. This provides a hint that when dealing with time we are actually dealing with some standard of motion.

We may have made the concept of time more complicated then what it really is. Measurement of time started early on in human development. There are plenty of clues in every language in the greetings and the meetings. Time of the day is related to the position of sun in the sky or its absence thereof. There is dawn, sunrise, early morning, morning, mid morning, noon, afternoon, late afternoon, evening, sunset, dusk, night and mid night. Then there are years, months, weeks, based on earth’s yearly orbit around the sun and the changing seasons. The use of units like seconds and minutes which are radial angle measurements in geometry points toward the original connection of time measurements to radial motion of astronomical objects across the sky. Once we started using clocks, watches, and then digital time we got completely disconnected from the original method of measurement and time developed a life of its own.

The problem of time may be easy to solve if we go back to the original concept of sun moving across the sky. When we measure the speed of a car, we are just comparing its motion to the motion of the hands of the clock and also indirectly to the fractional motion of sun across the sky. We are not measuring speed with something abstract called time we are just comparing a known motion (of the sun) with an unknown motion of the car.

Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling

One from a list of crazy watches;
Relativity watch
Modeled on Einstein's theory of relativity, this Relativity Watch actually makes the numbers move instead of the hands. This, of course, makes you dizzy if you continuously stare at it for more than 12 hours.

(A thought: The movement of this watch somehow seems more akin to the movement of the planets.)

Aside from velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. You can't see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything.
— Dave Barry

The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.

Time is a wealth of change,
but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time
like dew on the tip of a leaf.

(Rabindranath Tagore).

AQUARIUS NOTES ~ (My Astro Twin ~ Keith Olbermann's departure ~ What's in a name?)

A glance through the Aquarius links via Label Cloud in the sidebar refreshed my memory on previous posts concerning the sign itself, as well as people with Sun in Aquarius to whom I'm related or acquainted; and about some characters in public life born on the same day as I was, but in different years.

As far back as 2006, I wrote about an almost exact astrological twin of mine, born same day, year, with same ascendant sign and Moon/planets placements. We were born on opposite sides of the Atlantic though. I discovered him at astro.com's VIP Astro-Twins section.

I discovered when drafting this post that the gentleman in question, Brugh Joy, sadly died in December of 2009.

Ordinarily news of the death of an astrological twin might have un-nerved me somewhat. However, I'd been told, years ago, by Brugh Joy's assistant that Dr. Joy had a biological twin brother. So I was less worried. (Brugh Joy is on the left of his fraternal twin brother in this, more recent, photo, borrowed from a blog HERE.)


A Google search indicated that the brother, Bob, seems to have led quite a different lifestyle from that of his twin. He has been a teacher and adminstrator; whereas his twin was originally a doctor then, in 1974, a life-threatening disease led to a spiritual transformation and the writing of his best-selling book Joy's Way. He continued his explorations into healing, meditation, dreams and their interpretation, and the influence of the unconscious. His last book Avalanche: Heretical Reflections on the Dark and Light tells how his "once-revered values finally crumbled under an avalanche of new insight into the dark and disowned portions of the human psyche."

"For more than twenty years, Brugh Joy has been a teacher of Heart Centered Transformation and Spiritual Enlightenment. His courses deal with body energy fields, healing techniques using energy transferred through the hands, and Self-discovery. His teaching includes shadow work (seeking insight into an individual's unconscious side), understanding dreams and projections, and exploring high-intensity sound, rituals, collective energy dynamics, and intuitional states of consciousness."

Archived post is HERE.

Something immediately came to mind as I belatedly read of Brugh Joy's 2009 death. Back in January 2009 there was a solar eclipse which hit our Sun's Aquarius degree exactly. I am skeptical about the influence of eclipses on the lives of people. I could be wrong though. Anyway, Brugh Joy's twin brother and I seem to have weathered that eclipse-related storm, but Brugh Joy, perhaps (?) with a link back to his 1974 health problem, didn't. RIP.




Keith Olbermann (with whom I share a birthday this week- 27th January) has been in the news in the last few days. His contract with MSNBC and his nightly political comment show Countdown is no more.

I didn't watch Countdown regularly, hardly at all in recent months. It is an MSNBC offering and MSNBC is part of the GE (General Electric) empire. Keith, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and others were/are there to pull in viewers who support the Democrats, so that commercials carried can reach their eyes. MSNBC commentators are necessarily hobbled by their corporate bosses. They can only get away with so much "lefty talk". Keith may have been the bravest of the bunch, over-stepping their lines on more than one occasion. For my taste he spent far too much time criticising "the other side" and conservative commentators. There is no "other side" in the USA. There is one side only - the corporate side. A brave commentator ought to say THIS on some TV channel - but they can't because the whole of the media is owned by corporations whose aim is to present the illusion of a two-party situation. Until more Americans realise what is going on nothing will change, no matter who is in the White House, for the incumbent is as hobbled as MSNBC presenters are.

The astrological slant on Keith's departure has been covered by several astrologers already. What struck me first from his natal chart was that transiting Pluto had passed over his natal Saturn, at 2 Capricorn, last September and is still within range - now being 3 degrees further along. Whenever Pluto "hits" a personal planet one can expect some kind of transformation to follow.




Aquarius is popularly illustrated as "a water bearer", interpreted by astrologers as bearer of knowledge rather than water, Aquarius being one of three Air signs, and Air connects to mental process. So there's something of a water/air disconnect, and the same applies to the commonly used Aquarius symbol: two wavy lines depicting water (some astrologers depict the lines as more zig-zaggy to better represent electricity, as a connection to the sign's modern ruler Uranus).

Delving into the origin of the name Aquarius can be pretty confusing, due to the diverse, yet related, threads of the DNA of astrology itself.

In terms of constellation, not zodiac sign, Aquarius is thought to be one of the oldest. It is located in the region known as The Sea because of surrounding constellations associated, by name, to water: Eridanus The River, Pisces The Fishes and Cetus The Whale.

Babylonian star catalogs name the Aquarius constellation after "The Great One", said to embody the god Ea (aka Enki) - one of the three primal gods of Sumer. Ea = god of water; Enlil= god of earth; and Anu = god of heaven.

Originally a local deity in the city of Eridu, he evolved into the lord of the fresh waters beneath the earth, the god of ritual purification, and a patron of sorcery and incantations. Ea/Enki is the basis for the half-fish, half-goat form from which the astrological figure of Capricorn is derived. In sidereal astrology, based on the constellations, most of tropical Aquarius IS in sidereal Capricorn.

The Air/Water disconnect remains when considering the alleged origin of the name Aquarius from Greek myth. According to that tradition the constellation Aquarius was named for either:

1) Ganymede, a beautiful prince from Troy, son of king Tros. Ganymede was considered to be the most beautiful of mortals. He was carried off by the gods (in one story by Zeus himself, or by Zeus in the form of an eagle) to Olympus as Zeus's lover, and to serve as cup-bearer to the gods, a position previously held by Hera’s daughter Hebe, goddess of eternal youth. Zeus replaced Hebe with Ganymede after she spilled a flask of nectar. Zeus immortalized Ganymede, his favorite server, with a heavenly constellation in the form of the eagle he had assumed when abducting Ganymede to Olympus: 'Aquila' (eagle), also 'Aquarius' (water bearer). One of Jupiter's many moons is also named after Ganymede. (Note: The Zeus/Ganymede myth is the first indication of male homosexuality in Greek literature.)

The Rape (kidnapping) of Ganymede. Early 16th-century Renaissance ceiling panel, Villa Farnesina, Rome, by Baldassare Peruzzi.

OR

2) The myth concerning Deucalion, son of Prometheus and king of Phthia in Thessaly, also husband of Pyrrha and father of Hellen, mythical ancestor of the Hellenic race. When Zeus, king of the gods, resolved to destroy all humanity by a flood because of their godless ways, Deucalion constructed a boat in which, according to one version, he and his wife rode out the flood and landed on Mount Parnassus. According to a story found first in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book I, upon offering a sacrifice and enquiring how to renew the human race, they were ordered to cast behind them the bones of their mother. The couple correctly interpreted this to mean they should throw behind them the stones of Mother Earth, and did so. The stones thrown by Deucalion became men, while those thrown by Pyrrha became women.

Deucalion is known as the ‘Water Bearer’. He not only lived through the flood, but he helped to bring life to a new generation. Similarities between this myth and the Judeo-Christian legend of Noah’s Ark are clear.

Deucalion and Pyrrha: Marble relief in the Parc del Laberint d’Horta in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain).

What's in a name? In astrology: sometimes confusion!

All in all, constellation Aquarius and history of its somewhat watery origin, mythologically speaking, presents a clear disconnect from our tropical Aquarius - sign of Fixed Air.



MANY HAPPY RETURNS TO ANYONE ELSE WITH A BIRTHDAY COMING UP WHILE THE SUN IS IN AQUARIUS.

Blog will be on hold for a few days after today.

AQUARIUS PRO & CON (Progressive & Conservative)

We don't have to look far to see how unwise it is to expect people born with Sun in the same sign to have similar natures and outlooks on life. Aquarius may well lead the field of 12 when it comes to such differences, though Libra and Gemini come close in my experience. Perhaps it's due to their Airy Suns. Air is never static, even in the case of Fixed Air Aquarius.

Aquarius is usually represented by a human figure pouring water from an urn - symbolic of the circulation of ideas, pouring knowledge into the world at large. (I am womanfully trying to stifle my cynicism here; I know what's coming next!)

What brought me to these thoughts was the realisation that Sarah Palin and Glen Beck, described by one wag as "lipstick and dipstick" both have natal Sun in Aquarius, born a day apart - 10 and 11 February 1964. They might well have similarities one to another, but there IS another Sun Aquarian type, exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt (30 Jan. 1882), Adlai Stevenson (5 Feb. 1900), or Abraham Lincoln (12 Feb 1809).









Those men represent the way Aquarius presented in past centuries, however. Question: Are Palin and Beck representative of today's version of Aquarius, due to different positions of outer planets decade to decade, century to century? Especially bearing in mind that outer planet Uranus is Aquarius' modern ruler? Not really. Keith Olbermann (27 Jan.1959) and Glen Beck, though in the same business, broadly same age group, doing essentially the same job are almost the direct opposites in attitude and demeanour.

Although astrology links Aquarius to social reform and humanitarianism, and one road to these is politics, not all Sun Aquarians think alike as to how to bring about reforms and improvements. Take Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, US Chief Justice John Roberts - all VERY conservative in outlook - all would run screaming from the very idea of even the mildest, European form of democratic socialism, which I (also Sun Aquarius) see as being the best way to create a just and fair society and world.



Ayn Rand (2 Feb.1905) and Bertolt Brecht (10 Feb 1898), both writers, both politically inclined, one extreme right the other extreme left - opposite sides of the political divide.

Perhaps the best way to safely describe Aquarius Sun people is to say that many, or most have a inclination towards politics. My Pollyanna-ish idea, formed years ago, that Aquarius Sun people are always going to think as I do is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Another factor which could be in play here is that Aquarius has co-rulers: Saturn and Uranus. Saturn traditionally ruled the sign, before the discovery of Uranus. That these two planets stand for opposite ideas is significant. Saturn = conservative, status quo, authoritarianism, Uranus = forward thinking and change. Two other zodiac signs have co-rulers: Pisces has Jupiter/Neptune; Scorpio has Mars/Pluto. They do not suffer from the clash of opposites as does Aquarius. This could be a symbolic key to it all.....or not.

Dissecting natal charts of all those named in this post might present us with "evidence" for their variations in character and outlook, based on Moon sign, ascendant and other placements. But some fundamental differences lie not in the stars but in education, environment, experience and family background. Sun sign is just one component in a natal chart, astrology is just one component in the structure of character and personality.

Astrological Ages ~ Are We there Yet?

The complex subject of astrological Ages came up in an unrelated comments conversation here last week. This topic is a constant source of fascination, first and foremost is the question: has the much anticipated Age of Aquarius already begun - or will humanity wait a century or more for its arrival?

I'm copying, below, my comment conversation with Gian Paul, an astrologer who lives in Brazil, sometimes writes posts at Astrology Mundo. Since making my own "off-top-of-head" comments I've refreshed my rusty information on the topic. I've reminded myself that the Ages are calculated, not with direct reference to our tropical zodiac, but by the points at which the Sun enters each astronomical constellation at the vernal equinox, as equinoxes precess. Because the constellations are of varying size, Ages are of varying lengths.

There's good information at astrologer Robert FitzGerald's website "Signs of the Times" - but good as it is, the author still states that "this can use more research by others to verify these conclusions".


The spanner in the astrological works to my mind, though, is that delineation of constellations was a manmade construct. Humans designated the shape, extent and patterns of constellations, who's to say the delineations we use are the correct way to carve up the sky?




All becomes murky. The best we can do, with any certainty, is relate events to astrological symbolism and use that as guide. What we come up with may not be astronomically accurate - but who's to say that astronomy has the last word on this particular topic?

A copy of our recent comment conversation, very lightly edited:

Twilight:

I'd like the age of Aquarius to be coming in quickly. I'm not quite sure what to think on this though, and have tended to accept Robert Hand's view on it - that there's a long way to go yet.

But....and it's a big but...who's to say when the "start date" happened? If that's wrong, then everything is wrong. We don't have a secure "start date" (start date for life on Earth - or conscious life on Earth) as far as I can tell.

Logically I think we still seem to be in a belligerent Age - Taurus, Aries? Astrologers think not. They see Pisces as representing the Age of Christianity and organised religion, ruled by Jupiter. But religion is not all that has gone on these 2000 years. It's not even the important part of what has gone on - although it has been the cause of much mayhem.

So I really don't know - and wonder at times if the whole "Age of...." thing isn't just so much Taurean Excrement aka BS.
;-)


Gian paul:

With around 2000 years, give or take, per sign, one could imagine that some "Ages" may be shorter and others a bit longer. There also might be some overlaps.

In that sense, I wonder if the sacred cows in India and what goes with them, are not remnants of the Age of Taurus. And the (often religious) bellicose events during the Christian Era, possibly an overlap from the Age of Aries - eye for eye and tooth for tooth...

The Christian Era, Pisces, has probably the most precise starting date we know, although there is historical doubt about the actual date of birth of Jesus. Ancient Roman sources (Plinius), diverge by about 5 to 30 years.

And, in case the Era of Aquarius already started, we now assist to the probably normal retro-fighting typical at the end of any civilization (except for the Mayas).

Here now some elements I believe are "Aquarian Age stuff":

* Aviation, very rapid transports
* Communications
* Science, bent towards the atomic,
nano, cyber etc.
* Beliefs, your's Twilight, your friends, me and who participates in this and similar blogs.
* Politics: democracy is being forced open to forces beyond human "manipulation". One man one vote does not function anymore. That started with Hitler/Goebbels, a government democratically elected. "The people" today, all over the world, increasingly know that politicians & Co. manipulate, lie and worse. And The People respond, via the media, arts, even violence and protests, riots (G - 20)...

For whom watches the stars and believes (knows) that they also preside over political events, it's obvious "who governs". How much time it will take for this perception to spread, if it has to do so (?), is open to speculation. One literally would have to look into the "speculum", i.e. the cristal ball.

Living in Brazil (at the frontier of rural Brazil and Metropolis São Paulo, in what remains of the Rain Forest), I can attest that this country is quite Aquarian. One can see that a new wind (air) is blowing, here at least.

The frontiers may be still blurred, but personally I would not be surprised to discover things accelerating, even precipitously. So lets keep watching!
July 03, 2010.

Twilight:

Yes, some overlap of Ages sounds right to me.

Although we know roughly when Christ was born and count that as the dawn of the Age of Pisces, it's the question of how they knew when the whole thing started, and the point from which they started counting that keeps niggling away at my mind. The start of these cycles must have had to be an arbitarily chosen point of when life began on Earth. Which life, which stage though? And whereas the Ages are calculated by the precession of the equinoxes, nobody can be absolutely sure where it would have been correct to have begun counting.

I hope I've written that clearly enough - it's hard to explain.

Also - another point, our solar system is part of a wider universe, which may also be part of a still wider set of universes, for all we know. Using astrology's principles, there'd be alignments and aspects made to our Ages from others which could modify meaning - the macrocosm of the microcosm?

I do agree that what has gone on on Earth since the Industrial Revolution seems to be classic Aquarius/Uranus stuff....invention, discovery etc.
Then again, Saturn was Aquarius's traditional ruler, and sure enough there's been a lot of Saturnian stuff going on too.

The more I ponder on this, the more doubtful I become about the value of any astronomically calculated Age. Observation of history and of events has to be our best means of calculation. We have to keep in mind, too, that Ages do not exclusively reflect what goes on in the USA or Europe - but, in varying ways, across the entire planet.


BLOGGER IS HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE COMMENT FACILITY AT PRESENT - IF A COMMENT AND/OR MY REPLY DOESN'T SHOW ON THE BLOG, THIS IS THE REASON. I'm receiving email notification of comments but they do not appear on the blog at the moment, hope they will, eventually. The fault has been reported.

David Bowie, Brandon Flowers, Adam Lambert - Common Denominator?

I still get the occasional comment on a blog post from October 2008, relating to that enigmatic song "Human". A recent commenter suggested that I should look at one of The Killers' new songs: "Spaceman", with a view to writing a post about it. I started out with that aim, but as is so often the case, I took a few side-steps.



Brandon Flowers, The Killers' lead singer, co-wrote both "Human" and "Spaceman". I considered doing a post about Flowers, took a look at a few reported interviews, and at his natal chart, and side-stepped again.






I noticed Flowers' natal Moon is in Aquarius - the exact degree can't be established without a time of birth, but it will lie between 11 and 24 Aquarius. (See 12 noon chart, right). I also noted that Brandon mentions David Bowie as being one of his chief inspirations. I immediately recalled Bowie's "Space Oddity"(video below) and "Starman". Looked at Bowie's chart with data from Astrodatabank - and see that his ascendant is at 9 Aquarius.




Another upcoming singer, Adam Lambert, runner-up on this season's American Idol also frequently cites David Bowie as his inspiration. Adam is to sing a Bowie medley in his set on the Idol concert tour which started its run on Sunday in Portland, Oregon. I suspect that it's no coincidence that Adam's natal Sun is at 9 Aquarius - same degree as Bowie's ascendant! It'll be interesting to see whether Adam's first album, due for release in the Fall, will contain anything written or co-written by him relating to space or space travellers!


For a passing reader uninitiated in the zodiac signs and their meanings, Aquarius traditionally relates to all things futuristic such as space travel, new technology etc. To have one's natal Sun, Moon or ascendant in Aquarius practically gurantees an interest in these areas. The astrology in this case is even more interesting because the actual degree of Aquarius, in at least 2 cases out of the 3, is exactly the same, and two of these artists cite inspiration from the third.

For more posts on Adam Lambert scroll down to the Label Cloud in the sidebar to the right and click on his name, it appears on the first line.




The Killers "Spaceman" - on YouTube

The Palin/Brooks Phenomenon

Whatever else she is (or isn't) Governor Sarah Plain is a phenomenon. She exploded onto the US scene, as if from nowhere, to take over headlines and media time for weeks, even during the worst financial crisis the country has seen since the Great Depression.



Is it significant that when Sarah Palin was born no less than five personal planets lay in one zodiac sign - Aquarius?



To my mind Palin's phenominal explosion into public perception compares to that of Garth Brooks, country music singer/songwriter, who experienced a similarly unexpected (Aquarius/Uranus) rise to fame on the popular and country music scene the 1990s. He became one of the two best-selling solo artists of the 20th century in the USA, Elvis being the other one. Brooks broke records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the 1990s. More at Wikipedia, here.
(Natal charts for both Sarah Palin and Garth Brooks at the end of this post).

In Garth Brooks' natal chart 6 personal planets lie in Aquarius.



Brooks did seem, like Palin, to come out of nowhere. I was an avid country music fan (living in the UK) at the time, and remember it all very well. Clint Black, another multi-Aquarian rose in the country music scene around the same time, but was somewhat overshadowed by the more showy and prolific Brooks.

I don't know whether this is coincidence or whether there is something special about having multiple personal planets in one sign, specifically in Aquarius. There were millions of other people born with large clusters of planets in Aquarius. All haven't been propelled to fame and/or notoriety, that much is obvious. But, what if those with the right talents find themselves at the right place and time, and with with the right people? Add the focus of a big cluster of planets in a zodiac sign related to humanity in general and the unexpected (as in Aquarius). The fairly unusual astrological line up might act as catalyst.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Perhaps.

GARTH BROOKS


SARAH PALIN