Last night I was reading a review of Daniel Ellsberg's latest book about the uber scary inside history of nuclear proliferation. The reviewer tells us that the depths of secrecy, the levels of classified information he penetrated, were staggeringly frightening. I could feel the anxiety building. "I am a slug. I should be beating a drum about the dangers of bombs, I should be climbing barbed wire topped fences and sprinkling my own blood on nuclear warheads instead of cleaning houses for so much money and writing a preachy blog about the sky as actual heaven."
Oh Scorpio! You deep dip in the ecliptic highway! How grateful I am to the unknown ancients for the illuminating riddles passed down to the present.
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I have been enjoying the red glow of the sun's corona from the little window in my front door. My house faces about 30degrees east of south, so the Sun is directly in front at 10am, after rising only 30 degrees to the left of that, during the winter.
I live in the Northern Hemisphere. Readers from the Southern Hemisphere will know that I live on the opposing half of earth because they face north to see the Sun. They know how different their world view is from mine because they have seen both. Since such a large percentage of humanity faces south to view the Sun, and it adds a whole extra layer of difficult-to-conceive celestial mechanics in order to imagine the view of the small percentage that faces north, we simply ignore it. But while the people facing north, from the other end of earth's axis, are constantly exposed to our model of reality, theirs is exactly the opposite. They must repeatedly translate in their minds what we say about the Sun's whereabouts in order to make it square with their objective view of heaven.
That's sort of an aside, but then again it is at the heart of what I consider to be the real value of astrology; learning to objectively grasp the view of others, including an imaginary being that can rise above the solar system, or even our galaxy and perceive its discreet events as part of a greater whole cosmos, or ornament, created by some almost, but not quite, unknowable expansive nonentity.
Still far afield from Mars meeting Jupiter in Scorpio. Ok. I'm getting there, I swear. The skies were clear this morn, as inner city skies go, and I stepped out, crossed to the park facing our house, to get a look at the pair coming together. I had not seen them for over a week, when there were still at least a couple of fingers between them. They were soo cute!! Right together! Like a couple able to hold hands, except that they are out in public, strolling along the ecliptic. I could see the stunted Libra to Sagittarius section of the ecliptic; from Spica due south, Jupiter/Mars to the left (adorable!), and then Antares further left and low on the horizon.
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This brings me back (from far afield!) to my remarks about Scorpio being a deep dip in the planetary highway, and seeing the Capricorn, aka winter, sunrise from my front window. Here is the deal--from that same little window in my front door I can not see a summer sunrise. The Sun comes up at least 20degrees north of east, almost 45degrees to the left of where I see it dawn in winter. I can only see the section of the horizon that is south of east. That's what mean when I say "the Scorpio dip" in the ecliptic. We see Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn come up well south of east, their arc across the sky is shorter, and lower, than the arc of Gemini through Leo.
Why?? The secret is in the mascots. The crustacean crawling onto land from the sea, the arrow shooting to the heights, and the goat on the top of the mountain tell us that heavenly motions are the opposite of what we see from Earth. We see planets in Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn lower and lower on the horizon because we are being elevated at the county fair.
I don't have to shout about nuclear proliferation or anything else. I can listen to, admire and respect the people who live with that cumpulsion; mine is to shout about heaven and then cringe at the sight of this obsession spinning forth through me, into the cosmos.
That ability to cringe at my own behavior and to put the shame in greater context tells me that I am being elevated. I can let go and watch the universe shape me as it shapes the people I admire.
