Dispositors

I usually liken dispositors to the guests interviewed on news broadcasts to explain an unfolding event.  They are asked to speak because they know more about a situation than the rest of us.  We turn to them for help and direction navigating a new experience.  In astrology dispositors are the planets ruling (link to Rulerships) the sign in question.  Just as we would refer to a cross country runner for advice in running a road race or an artist to draw a portrait, we refer to Saturn in building for the future (Capricorn) or Mercury if we are concerned with documentation (Virgo).

Dispositor is not listed as a word, even as one that is obsolete, in Webster’s dictionary, but there are a bunch of helpful phrases under the entry for the word dispose.  My favorite is: to transfer to the control of another.  They say the word comes from Latin disponere: to arrange.  It sounds like a tongue tied mish mash of deposit and disposition, but is actually a term from way back in earliest astrology literature.

For this page about dispositors we will use the chart of the day Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  She was on her way home from working at a department store, so I guessed about 6pm.  She was probably getting her photo taken at the cop shop while Uranus was coming up through the 1st house.

Uranus in Leo was disposed by the Sun.  The Sun was in Sagittarius-right on target.  Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter so that means the Sun was disposed by the planet of the thunderbolt.  The planet of the thunderbolt was in Virgo- very proper like.  Virgo is ruled passively by Mercury, so the big god of righteous thunder was under the influence of the messenger in its passive state.  Where was Mercury the messenger?  Oooh!  Right next to the Sun in Sagittarius- the sign of the Thunderbolt.  Makes me think of Ben Franklin fishing in the sky for electricity.  So far no one is ruling here.  Each planet is looking to the ruler of the sign it happens to occupy, and finding the ruler occupied with some errand elsewhere.

Except of course the Moon rising in Cancer.  It was ruling that day.  Moon rules in Cancer.  The soul (Moon) rules in the sign of nurturing and motherhood.  Venus over in Capricorn was setting; Capricorn is ruled by Saturn so Venus was disposed by the god of time.  De grim reaper came and took Venus away.  And where was Saturn?  In Scorpio which is ruled passively by Mars.  That means there may not be a lot of violence, but someone is getting their way.  Mars is the drive of the individual for survival or supremacy.  Once that adrenaline gets going it's all the same.  Where was Mars???   Scorpio.  So Venus, through Saturn was ultimately disposed by a quietly powerful Mars.

Neptune was in Libra, but not for long, and even so, the disposition to Venus just passed through Saturn to Mars.  The buck stopped at quiet Mars for Venus, Saturn and Neptune while another dollar got passed around from Uranus to the Sun to Jupiter to Mercury back to Jupiter, back to Mercury like a hot potato.  Same thing with Pluto in Leo.

Not sure how to make it any more compelling.  It seems so silly when I imagine a non astrologer reading this, but when I am thinking about that day and considering it as though it were the unfolding of say....some heroic tale of ancient mortals under the influence of a pantheon of swirling spheres....Mars quietly ruling through the private discipline of Saturn, with Venus subjected as well to that same control; while another group is passing around an electrified key....it all makes sense to me.

Link to Rosa Parks and The Montgomery Bus Boycott 

This page posted at about 7:52am Sept 29, 2014