THIS TOO....

I've sometimes wondered what astrologers do when in need of a lift out of the doldrums. We ordinary mortals often reach for the chocolate, the apple pie, ice cream, or the bottle of Scotch, Vodka, etc. I'm not insinuating that astrologers aren't ordinary mortals, of course, perish the thought! But they are in a position to know more about themselves and the future, and their future than the average person on the street. So, do they have an antidote for the blues?

I ask this because current events, news and commentary on-line these days can lead one to feel despairing, desolate, downright depressed. So, what could astrology offer as a pick-me-up of the non-fattening, non-inebriating kind?

As a non-astrologer, but with some knowledge of the subject, I'd say this: "Nothing stays the same for long, everything changes. Just as the planets move in regular cycles, so does life. A bad patch is followed by a good patch, and vice-versa. Some patches take longer than others to give way to the next stage - these are what we call "the bad times" and "the good times". Enjoy the latter while you can and during the former resign yourself to putting on weight and drinking more than you should".

The old adage "This too shall pass" tells much the same story as astrology. That sentiment, Wikipedia tells us,

is often expressed in wisdom literature throughout history and across cultures, this particular phrasing appears to date to the early 19th century, appearing in a collection of tales by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald. It was notably employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States. Fitzgerald's usage of the phrase is in the context of a retelling of a Persian fable. Some versions of the fable, beginning with that of Attar of Nishapur, add the detail that the phrase is inscribed on a ring, which has the ability to make the happy man sad and the sad man happy.

GUEST POST by "JD" ~ Intimations of Immortality

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home"

In the hospital where my mother died they had a small prayer/meditation room with one wall decorated (and lit up) to resemble a stained glass window. That extract from Wordsworth was 'engraved' on the wall, it was a reminder that all things must pass away: to be reborn?

You will have heard that tired old cliche that we must "...live each day as if it were your last"

That is a philosophy of despair.

You must live each day as if it were your first! Look at everything and everyone with wonder as if for the first time!

Thank you, JD!

A couple of quatrains from my favourite go-to Persian philosopher (Omar Khayyam). He was in a rather more cynical mood, adding some edge, though not exactly arguing with what JD has written.

But leave the wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And in some corner of the Hubub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.


'Tis all a Chequer board of Nights and Days
where Destiny with Men for pieces plays:
Hither and tither moves and mates and slays,
and one by one back in the Closet lays.

JD counters with this though:

If you want to add some verses from the Great Omar that's fine but remember my original idea was to affirm the idea that we are truly immortal which was Wordsworth's view.

The Bhagavad Gita says "the soul is never destroyed when the body is destroyed"-

In a similar fashion that is the message of all the Sufi poets including Omar Khayyam. I have a small book called 'Magic Casements' by Sir George Trevelyan. Wonderful book and I didn't realise the whole book was on-line, so it is worth reading what he has to say about the Rubaiyat, as indicated beneath the quatrains below:

Sir George Trevelyan: At this point I include five verses from that great poem FITZGERALD's: 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' [Sir GT's comments are beneath each quatrain]. This is usually treated as a wine-bibber's philosophy - 'Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.' It does, apparently, say that death is extinction – but as we have seen, every symbol is Janus-faced. You are free to read it in the way that gives meaning to your life, negatively or the reverse. Thus the poem really is about Life Eternal, the Wine of Life and consciousness. The Cup is the body, and the wine is the life given us by Him who said, 'I am the true Vine.'

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp
Abode his hour or two, and went his way.

The Caravanserai is our Earth life, with the moon-gate of birth and the sun-gate of death – the new dawn.
Listen to this:

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past Regrets and future Fears –
Tomorrow? – Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

We must learn to live in the present, not because there is no future but that we have the creation of the future in our own hands, if we can learn to work with our Higher Self.

Ah, fill the Cup, what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our feet:
Unborn Tomorrow and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if Today be sweet?

One moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste –
The stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing – Oh, make haste!

So easily can the poem look like negation – after death there is nothing. But the Life Eternal belongs to the ethereal realm beyond time, space and form. Thus it is the realm of No Thing, a condition of unborn-ness; a freedom from the limitations of form and embodiment. Life on Earth is 'Annihilation's Waste' – this is the 'Well of Life', the heaviest, densest vibration, which we enter for a brief span of existence. As Dawn comes and the stars set, the caravan starts for that Higher Realm – O make haste! Had the negative interpretation been valid, surely Omar would have urged us to miss this Caravan and have another evening of drinking and merry-making. This gives us the clue to the central verse which superficially appears complete negation and, interpreted, is the great affirmation.

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all things end in – Yes!
Then fancy while thou art, thou art but what
Thou shalt be – Nothing – Thou shalt not be less.

For 'Nothing' read 'No Thing' – a condition of 'pre thing-ness'.

Note that affirmation of 'YES' in the middle of this strange verse, the assurance that as a soul you will not be less than a free spirit united with your Higher Self. So, while here, imagine you are what you will be – a No Thing. Thus you will prepare for the great transition, with Donne – What you will be then, think here before, for Thought is the great reality.

JD: So that will be clear as mud now, will it? :)
I love having my synapses tickled into action and my consciousness expanded!

Arthur M. Young - Inventor, Mathematician, Scientist, Philosopher, Mystic, Astrologer

Arthur M. Young was born in Paris, France, his American parents lived there at various periods, while his father, a landscape painter, studied Impressionism. I'm going to call Arthur M. Young AMY, from here on, for brevity and ease of typing. He was a mathematician and scientist first and foremost, and inventor of the first Bell Helicopter. It was later in life that he slid into philosophy, metaphysics, ESP, and even astrology. Shock horror -a scientist who was also an astrologer! Would that there were more of his ilk around today.

In Jeffrey Mishloves "An Appreciation of Arthur M. Young" he writes:

"Arthur was also a student of eastern mysticism and yoga.............. was a master of astrology, and he enjoyed demonstrating its value with reference to my own chart. He did so in the most uncanny ways."

There's a website dedicated to AMY. It includes some of his essays, several of which mention his study of astrology, in fact one is dedicated to the subject.

THOUGHTS ON A SCIENCE OF LIFE
Part III: On the Value of Astrology for a Science of Life
by Arthur M. Young (1992)
In summing up his essay, AMY wrote:

To sum up: The rejection of astrology by science is based on the belief of science that there is no way for planets to influence life. This belief is opposed by the practitioners of astrology, who find a factual correlation between the position of the planets and the dates of important events in life.

But the principles on which physics is based do not predict or even accommodate life. Life requires a narrow temperature range and a periodic alternation of this temperature, and hence a very special environment, requiring a planetary system with a certain type of sun. This makes life depend on contingency rather than law, and indicates that while the laws of nature are necessary to life they are not sufficient.

Since alternation (periodic change) of temperature is necessary to the evolution of organic life in plants and animals, it would seem that the evolution of consciousness, which has its inception in organisms which move against entropy, should for its completion require an alternation of longer period than the daily or yearly alternation of temperature. This is what the outer planets supply.

As for the question of how the planets can influence mundane events, this problem already exists in biological rhythms, which have been found to be endogenous; that is, not dependent on known physical influence

That, I can (just about) understand. I'm not going to pretend that I understand his Theory of Process , his studies of consciousness and suchlike. I don't. It's all way over my head. His Theory of Process relies on a kind of wave-like effect which he considers applies to everything in one way or another, because it's the origin of everything, starting with "Light"..... (I think!)



Ahem (too deep for me) - quickly turning to AMY's chart then - it's not my usual format, because I don't have that software on the laptop. It'll have to do!

We should find prominent Saturn/Capricorn(mathematics and science) Uranus/Aquarius (invention and maybe astrology) and Jupiter/Sagittarius (philosophy)

Arthur M. Young born on 3 November 1905 in Paris, France. Astrotheme gives his time of birth as 10.23am.



His Sun and Mercury in Scorpio remind me that Carl Sagan has these placements (but with even more Scorpio planets). As well as its reputation for eroticism, passion, paranoia etc. Scorpio has that incisive mentality (especially with Mercury there) which can cut through stuff which leaves the rest of us highly confused. AMY's Scorpio Sun closely trines mystic Neptune in Cancer - here's his draw to mysticism - a draw which Carl Sagan didn't have.

Aquarius Moon trines Jupiter in Gemini. The harmony between invention and philosophy in AMY's life is here, for Jupiter is ruler of Sagittarius (his rising sign, and therefore Jupiter is his ruling planet) and it is in very helpful aspect to his inventive Aquarius Moon.

Now we come to more of what I was expecting to see: Saturn in Aquarius, and....Uranus in Capricorn. Aquarius, Capricorn, Uranus, Saturn - there's a peculiar link here.
Aquarius and Capricorn were originally both ruled by Saturn, modern astrology places Uranus as ruler of Aquarius, and in AMY's chart the planets swap homes, with Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Capricorn. I'm not sure how that can be interpreted except that it's a conglomeration involving mathematics and science(Saturn and Capricorn) invention and astrology (Uranus and Aquarius) - all kind of related to one another by marriage (as it were), bringing together two very different realms. In addition Moon in Aquarius is in helpful semi-sextile aspect to Uranus in Capricorn - a further blending of the two realms.

So, all in all, AMY's natal chart, even from my minimalist take on it, clearly matches his chosen paths in life.