The chart has Marsilio Ficino in the heading.  That's just left over from yesterday reading the Isaac Newton bio.  I came across a reference to Ficino and looked him up.  He was a Renaissance astrologer who translated Plato's works into Latin.  I made a chart for the moment I read about how he wrote against predictive astrology.

But that was yesterday, when the Moon was lined up with Saturn.  "Good work," I thought, "this biography is strange and slow going, but I am finding astrologers who I can look to for my base." It makes me feel that I have a firm foundation, now that I can refer to respected philosophers who frown on making predictions. 

Now, today the Moon is lining up with Pluto.  You can see where I put a blue highlight over Saturn, Moon and Pluto in the 6th house.  They just sunk under the western horizon about an hour ago. 

While they were above the horizon, in the 7th house of partnership, I was studying how to add a PayPal button to my blog.  When I took a break to make lunch before going to clean a house, I thought about how frustrating it would have been if I had felt really eager to get that button up. I remembered advice that came in my email from an astrology site.  They mentioned Saturn getting ready to turn retrograde, that it will back off its approach to Pluto.  They said anything not taken care of now will come back with a vengeance when Saturn goes forward again and lines up with Pluto in the new year.

I love the astrology service that sent the email.  I recommend them often.  They provide the most extensive free calculation services I know of on the web.  But I thought that ominous, "you had better get something done or face consequences months from now," was unsettling, and i was glad I have my own ideas of what Saturn regressing from Pluto is all about.

It reminds me why I am so passionate about people being comfortable reading a chart.  The only way to be at peace with the many cycles in our solar system is to follow them.

As I worked toward accepting payment for astrology consultations I considered how much I value silence, and time to study and meditate.  I am not a perky, feel good astrologer.  I am comfortable on the outskirts of society where there are few distractions.  That doesn't seem like a recipe for business success.  But since Moon is lining up with distant Pluto right now these thoughts don't disturb me.  I've observed my changing moods every month as the Moon approaches the demoted planet and I know this is just a reminder of how I am an outsider among a world of outsiders.

Also, I have contemplated previous events when Saturn lined up with Pluto - like Nov 1982 or Aug 1947.  I've thought about what was going on around the globe as well as in my little life.  Then there is the rest of the cycle between the two planets; when they are separating, when they are opposing.....they are always in some stage of a relationship to each other. 

That's what I want to help other people do, gain their own familiarity with the cycles.  Maybe it will happen and maybe it won't!

21st Century Supremicism

The chart below has a purple highlight over Mars in the first house.  It is about to "show itself" on the Eastern horizon.

I was reading the Wikipedia article about silver nitrate.  They said it used to be called luner caustic by the alchemists, because they believed it was associated with the Moon.  I got irritated by the umpteenth remark implying that ancestors exploring the technical wizardry of nature were ignorant.  Among the Greeks techne and sophe both referred to skill.  So philosophy meant the study of how nature works it's skillful magic.

Naturally a bit of poetry was used to describe the exalted processes of nature's works, in the same way modern physicists call quarks (quarks!) charmed or strange, or categorize quarks and gluons ...Gluons! ("They believed it was associated with glue.")... Modern use of poetic language to describe the wonders of nature is only more enlightened than previous generations BECAUSE of the knowledge they passed on to us.

I am reading Priest of Nature, biography of Isaac Newton, and am constantly wondering at the modern supremicist judgements scattered throughout the work.  The author is presenting a lot of really good info, some straight from Newton's manuscripts, and info about what Newton read, but he makes repeated judgements about Newton's attitudes that make me wonder if he has fully synthesized Newton's life circumstances.

When he makes offhand remarks about Newton's seething anger with Trinitaran Christian dogma being over the top, I wonder if he would make similar criticisms of my friends' extreme anger with the current state of our government.

So there i was, seriously irritated with the constant, obligatory negative remarks about alchemists.  One day they will say of us, "They believed a big man in a red suit rode a sled through the sky and brought presents to allll the children in the world," and how many of us will recognize that we are on the receiving end of the same prejudiced sloppy thinking that we use to describe the studious work of our ancestors.

I like to look at charts of the sky to see what's up when I notice strong emotions rising in me.  Mars rising.  Mars in Gemini.  I felt a militancy about communication rising at that moment.

You could say I believe Mars rising was associated with that moment.  Especially if you take 'belief' to mean 'holding something dear.'. But you must then remember the same could be said about nuclear physicists and their color charges of quarks.  Poetic language is a tool to aid the memory.  Making intellectual connections between various natural phenomena is a way of organizing the sensory input of the world we live in.

Throwing Newton and other students of nature in the same category as people who take colorful stories as literal truth reflects badly on the categorizers.