Sabian Origins

17/4/2020

Origins of Sabian Symbols

This is a story that connects Sabian Symbols with the number 7. It is a feasible explanation for what might never be proved or even fully understood about how and why Sabian Symbols came into being.

Gobeklitepe

A group of highly evolved people called the Sabians washed up on the shores of the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean Sea thousands of years before history was written. Perhaps they came as refugees from the supposedly-fictional lost continent of Atlantis that Plato spoke of, perhaps they were from another planet, who knows? What we do know is that, some 7000 years before Stonehenge, when all the indigenous people around them were hunter-gatherers, they had the knowledge to move inland to where wheat would grow well, and to construct an impressive temple, at Gobeklitepe in Turkey, which demonstrated advanced astronomical awareness.
(The very first makers of bread may well have been others on the planet - the Aboriginals in Australia) LINK.

Sabian People as Teachers

The locals, though primitive, nonetheless had the sense to see the great advantage in learning from the Sabians, primarily how to grow food. Thus the seed of civilisation was germinated. Yet this was also the first steps of a long march, over millennia, towards an almost inevitable existential crisis of the species homo sapiens. Why inevitable? Because without wisdom there is a predictable formula: from agriculture, and the resultant technology, comes wealth, then extreme power and the lust for dominion over others and over Nature. The corruption of truth and beauty soon follows and madness comes to be seen as normal. We can surely see today what that has led us to – we are on the brink of a cataclysm that we may not survive.

Power and Responsibility

The Sabian people anticipated this. They understood that with great power comes great responsibility, so they delivered not only the one, but two teachings. The one was how to master, through agriculture and technology, the survival requirements of the physical world; the other was how to develop the wisdom to be responsible for such power. This wisdom could not have been formulated into any written text, even if there had been writing. Any ‘system’ of wisdom will fail and create more harm than good – think of religious wars and the prejudice in the world today born of the animus that arises when people think in terms of right and wrong. Wisdom, like morality, is time-and-place dependent, so any attempt to fix it into laws and explanations is falsely guided.

Star Gazers and the Number 7

Instead they encouraged people to gaze at the stars – perhaps mainly in order to teach the importance of the number 7. Only star-gazers will see that the lights that travel across the heavens are 7 in number. To the naked eye the only travellers are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Those who gazed became noticeably different from those who did not – they were a little spaced-out, mystical, highly intuitive, spontaneous and largely disinterested in the things that others pursued. For most of our history, these types were profoundly respected for that very quality that intuitively we associate with the number 7. Their word was often held to be sacred, and could frequently curb the power of chiefs and those bent on war and such practices offensive to peaceful co-existence with other living things and Nature itself.

Sabians and Sufis

The essence of this approach to knowledge lies not in the use of words to offer explanation, but in their use onomatopoeically as sounds that bring about states of higher consciousness; or as an awareness of breath as having a spiritual aspect that connects us to the life force; or as tuning in to music as a way to remember the soul. The natural successors to this attitude of spiritual expression are the Sufis, and there may well have been a direct transmission of knowledge from the Sabians through the ages to the Sufis. Apart from the strong likelihood due to geographical proximity, the study of the various musical forms certainly suggests this.

Corporate Crocodiles

Relatively recently, in the era of Scientific Materialism, materialists have gained supremacy and, through ridicule and even torture, have cast witches and mystics aside. Thus intuitive wisdom has recently been mostly ignored, and even intuition itself has been degraded and become confused. As ‘dog-eat-dog' became ‘corporate crocodiles eating all they can devour’, our species' memory of how to live well was all but lost. Blue skies became filthy; air, earth and water were all poisoned and very few people can remember how to live in joy.

Elsie Wheeler

Yet in 1925 an extraordinary woman, with the exceptional ability to employ her right-brain to an impressive degree, reached out across time and space and intuitively discovered the resonance of universal wisdom that vibrates eternally across all the universes, the same star-wisdom that was taught by the Sabian people 12000 years earlier. When tasked by an astrologer, she found her own way of capturing what she could of the eternal message, and delivered this in the form of 360 images, linked to the Zodiac, the circle of the stars. Each is a rather obscure and mysterious symbol that triggers the intuitive side of any student. She was of course aware that they came to her from a particular source, the Sabian people, so appropriately and respectfully she called them Sabian Symbols.

Elven Star

Almost a century later a method has been developed, Elven Star, to link the Sabian Symbols with Sufism’s 7 Planes of Consciousness. The subtle, intuitive wisdom of 7-ness lies dormant within each one of us, and can be awakened by those who train themselves to know what 7 feels like, what it means and how it can be used. It is the study of the 7th harmonic frequency of vibration and connects our consciousness to the realms which, in our mythology, we associate with faeries and elves. By using the Elven Star, we are remembering the 7-ness within us and helping to restore the balance in the world at this time of great distress and potential turbulence.

Creativity Music and Dance

It is certain that balance will one day be restored – this is a cosmic law without which existence itself would collapse, being dual in its very essence. Yet it is also certain that each individual must affirm a path of light and behave accordingly, or else be drawn towards a darker experience wherein, though veiled by the many glamours of materialism, fear is dominant. Then real joy is forfeited. By tuning in to our ‘7-ness’, we make that affirmation, and we learn to raise creativity, music, dance and spontaneity above the burdensome heaviness and reluctant duties of an obedient life lived solely to avoid discomfort.

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Chiron at Aries 7 - (April 5th to 23rd 2020)

15/2/2020

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 7

Chiron Images Paola Angelotti

Reflexive Self-Consciousness

The means by which we advance spiritually is to practise ‘reflexive self-consciousness’, in other words simultaneously to see things from the other point of view as well as our own. This attitude of living translates as the Golden Rule, or simply put, ‘do as you’d be done by’, ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, or ‘what goes around comes around’. It is the opposite of selfishness; it is consideration and respect.

Life's Duality

Life itself is not a single event; it is eternal duality, the dynamic interplay between two opposing principles. These can be seen in yin and yang, in electricity, or in interpersonal relationship – anything where two attitudes are polarised. Whether we see this as unloving conflict or energetic dynamism is a measure of our maturity and wisdom.

Building on Shifting Sands

To be selfish is to demonstrate one’s fearfulness; to be considerate is to express, share and prove one’s faith and love. Yet to allow another to be selfish is no less problematic, and must be avoided by the operation of strong, clear boundaries that enforce our own important choices and personal viewpoints sufficiently well that we earn and can claim respect. If we fail to realise this balance then we suffer the consequences – of confusion, of intrusion, and of very shaky life-foundations. Then, whatever we try to build will only ever reach a smaller and poorer level of expression than otherwise we could accomplish.

Do We Lack Proper Balance?

As Chiron passes through this Aries 7 degree, we may look for clues of imbalance – too much of this and not enough of that; too much self, not enough other, or quite possibly too much give and not enough take. Noticing exactly what is unbalanced can give us a springboard to seeing why. Why are we selfish? Or why do we allow ourselves to be treated disrespectfully? What’s underneath that distorted life attitude?

Balance in All Things

We’ve already mastered this skill in so many areas of life – putting enough salt, but not too much, in our cooking; fast enough to get there on time in our car but not so fast it will be dangerous. If we are seriously committed to a path of spiritual evolution, then we must learn to apply this approach to all things.

What is Attention

The trick to learn in doing this has to do with developing the ability to focus attention in a special way. It is not to do with dividing the attention as such – the focus of our glance must always be single and direct if we are to achieve our purposes – it is a question of expanding our understanding and awareness of what attention is and what it can be trained to do.

Developing Mastery of Attention

Everything living has two aspects or directions – life is duality, so anything living is dual in nature. Attention is a living thing. Perhaps attention is directed towards its experiences at first and only later towards the assimilation of their meaning (as knowledge); or perhaps it wants to bring its understandings into clear focus first, and only later pursue the vision of putting them into form (as experiences). Yet the true master will be able to slide immediately, spontaneously and effortlessly between the two attitudes of attention such that no attachment – to either this or that – is present, and their behaviour is immediate, sensitive and authentic. This promotes both joy and achievement.

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Chiron's positions

3/2/2020

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Next Phase 2020

Station at 1:26 Aries, on 14 December 2019 (Aries 2)
Aries 3, 18th January 2020 - 12th February 2020
Aries 4, 12th February 2020 - 2nd March 2020
Aries 5, 2nd March 2020 - 19th March 2020
Aries 6, 19th March 2020 - 5th April 2020
Aries 7, 5th April 2020 - 23rd April 2020
Aries 8, 23rd April 2020 - 13th May 2020
Aries 9, 13th May 2020 - 10 June 2020
Aries 10, 10 June 2020 - 13 August 2020
Station at 9:26 Aries, on 12 July 2020 (Aries 10)

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Chiron at Aries 6

22/5/2019

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 6

Chiron Images Paola Angelotti

Finding our Life Direction

The first batch of 5 degrees having been transited and to some extent assimilated into consciousness, Chiron enters the second expression of Aries. The name given to this Expression is ‘Direction’. The thrust of desire began with self-centred action – and the five stages of this process are outlined already. Now the focus becomes making some accommodation within ourselves in order to relate to society, and thus benefit from the support and fellowship that that offers. Cultural norms impact upon us in an emotional way – we are offered both opportunity and penalty and are subject to the ups and downs of our feelings according to whether our expectations and desires are being met or disappointed.

Determination of a Life Code

Jones called this particular degree A SQUARE BRIGHTLY LIGHTED ON ONE SIDE, whose keyword is ‘SET’. This image employs traditional symbolism: a square indicates materiality, and the light is spirituality. It focuses upon the need to bring steadiness into our lives and settle the emotional ups and downs to an acceptable level. This occurs when, and only when, we adopt a spiritual code of some sort, in other words by SETTING STABLE LIFE PRINCIPLES.

Importance of Creativity

Because we have a desire to establish ourselves as a unique person, the need exists to resist the force that tends to pull us back into the undifferentiated state of pre-existence; this force of resistance is seen as our urge to be diverse in our self-expression, to be a creative individual.

Conformity as the Foundation of Creativity

Being different begins first at the level of family and tribe – WE are not like THEM – so we adopt the behaviours, beliefs and practices of our fellows to underline how different WE are from THEM.

Bubbling Up of Creativity

Yet our yearning to be expressive as an individual bubbles up as the drive to achieve our own special goals and have our own special attitudes to life, which give rise to our own unique set of experiences.

What Does it All Mean?

We are, however, confronted with the need to understand that without the gift of knowledge experience is meaningless. We are all challenged to set ourselves upon an enlightened path as we struggle with physicality.

The Meaning of Knowledge and Experience

Understanding our life is only possible when we give meaning to our experiences; a path must have meaning, or events are disconnected and lack depth of purpose. Without knowledge, experience is meaningless, yet without experience, knowledge is two-dimensional. Can we see that knowledge is the symbol of experience, and experience the symbol of knowledge? Each is the meaning of the other, and neither has meaning alone.

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Chiron at Aries 5

29/4/2019

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 5

Synthesis of Wisdom

With the 5th degree of any batch of 5 degrees we look for a synthesis of the wisdom suggested by the previous 4 of the set. In this example, Chiron is taking us through a process of reviewing what we are doing and who we are as we embark on another cycle of shifting perception.

Awareness of the 'Other'

If we were able to bring ourselves in Aries 4 to a heightened awareness of ‘the other’ we can step into Aries 5 with an advanced level of consciousness, wherein all polarities are reconciled, all ambiguities are resolved, and harmony is found. As was made strikingly clear during the Brexit process, it is very difficult to see things from the other’s point of view.

The Golden Rule

Nonetheless, on a personal level, some of us aspire to do exactly that – to practice the ‘Golden Rule’ and see things simultaneously from two points of perception. We need to do to others what we would have them do to us. This teaching is not just for Christians, it is present in all spiritual belief everywhere and throughout history.

Transcendental States

When we do then a higher state of being unfolds for us, and we can see more, understand more and feel more empathy. We can even expect occasionally to touch into transcendental states of consciousness.

Triangle With Wings

Aries 5 is called A TRIANGLE WITH WINGS. “Through processes of development and refinement, our impulses lead us towards self-realisation”.

Essence of our Life Journey

We come to see ourselves differently, as parts of the whole, and totally enthusiastic about reconnecting with the Source, which means having access to the transcendental aspect of self. We come to recognise that this is the essence of our life journey.

Skills, Loyalties and Values

We learn of three fundamental aspects of who we are and what we are made of. Described by Marc Jones in terms of our skills, loyalties and values, these three bits of us relate to the animal, human and angelic components of self. The animal part is motivated by the four features of the gene’s survival imperatives: fight, flight, feed and fecundate. We develop skills so that we can survive in a harsh environment. Loyalties connect us with the two bloodlines of our roots and so connect to the push of family goals. Values speak to our soul’s sense of what is the right thing to do.

Chiron Images Paola Angelotti

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Chiron at Aries 4

5/4/2019

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 4

Chiron Images Paola Angelotti

The Next Chapter

Chiron’s complete zodiac journey, which began as it entered Aries recently, is mapping out the individual steps through the 360 degrees. Each step can be studied by examining closely its Sabian Symbol.

The Two Lovers

Between April 11th and May 30th Chiron will transit through the 4th degree of Aries. This degree is called ‘Two lovers strolling through a secluded walk’ and the keyword Jones uses is ‘Enjoyment’ whereas Rudhyar suggests ‘Polarisation’.

Jones’s keywords tend to be more to do with our personal experience and speak to the qualities that can be developed; Rudhyar’s have more to do with lessons for a seeker on the path to realisation.

The Golden Rule

Chiron’s teaching is basically that a perceptual shift is necessary and sufficient condition for healing. To put this differently, Chiron teaches us how better to see things. We can, for example, see that our enjoyment reaches spiritual heights when we hold on to our awareness of both aspects of any polarised position.

This attitude is the essence of the fundamental principle of spiritual awareness, the Golden Rule, reflexive self-consciousness, ‘Do as you’d be done by’.

Pleasure is not Joy

It differs completely from the selfish principle of pleasure. Pleasure is the hollow echo of joy. If we simply take our pleasure, for example in casual sex, in ruthless ambition, in manipulation of others, in excessive food-lust, then the momentary buzz soon fades and one day soon turns into its opposite emotion of disappointment.

Joy, however, is sustainable and wholesome. It may lack the exciting temporary buzz but it builds an grows and becomes a solid foundation of life.

Sharing

The essential difference between pleasure and joy is that pleasure is for me and joy is for us. When we find that our own pleasure is optimised though another, then we are closer to joy. Think of how we are with babies or a new romance – we get so much more joy through sharing our experience. This is general truth that doesn’t always require offspring or a lover. When we care for another, joy deepens.

Accepting both sides

The more mystical, philosophical aspect of Aries 4 is that we will be able to know how to experience this level of joy only when we recognise, acknowledge and celebrate our own polarities – the masculine and feminine, the light and the shadow, certainty and doubt, love and fear – and embrace both sides with awareness.

Having accepted and healed our inner polarities it becomes inevitable that our relationships with others are also healed. The reverse is also true that we cannot hope for a deep and peaceful, joyful connection with another until we have found such qualities within ourselves.

Dealing with inner ambiguity

Chiron’s new initiative in Aries 1, met by a contrasting response in Aries 2 and an understanding, in Aries 3, of the importance of responding to community needs, now, in Aries 4, shows up our own personal inner ambiguities. We come to see that we have been wanting two things that cannot be reconciled, to be both involved and free, to have our cake and eat it or, during the Brexit fiasco, to enjoy Europe’s wealth and yet be free of responsibility to share its problems.

In the name of a higher, joyful, shared purpose, lovers resolve such ambiguities with caring compromise.

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Chiron at Aries 3

26/3/2019

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 3

As Chiron transits its complete zodiac cycle we can look for the various steps of its journey through the lens of Sabian Symbols. Chiron will passage Aries 3 between 25 March and 11 April 2019.

Desire and Action

The first 5 degrees of Aries is about taking action to express desire and, according to Rudhyar, every batch of 5 degrees follows the formula:

Affirmation of an idea
Countering and contrasting that idea
Reconciliation and the combined result
Change mechanism
Synthesis and progression

Personal Journey

If we are able to make this work on a personal level we have to identify a seed, something totally new, that occurred between these dates: 18 February 2019 to 8 March 2019, or if not then 17 April 2018 to 7 May 2018, or 3 September 2018 to 26 September 2018. This could be a new idea, a new project, a new person, a new way of being – the seeding of a very significant new chapter of life.

The Seed of Possibility

Although we are looking at Aries 3, let’s consider the preceding steps.

Aries 1; we see that the woman who has arisen from the sea represents the receptive principle coming out of the undifferentiated sea of humanity’s collective unconsciousness. The seal, which rises up to embrace her, shows a rather similar image of something rising out of the unconscious, yet with a more masculine, rather phallic sense. At this first point in the story, both aspects could very easily simply sink back into the sea and return into unconsciousness. Indeed most of our ideas and possibilities lead nowhere; they pop into our awareness for a moment, we have our little fantasy about what could happen, and then we forget all about it.

Comedian

Aries 2, (the comedian entertaining a group), the second within the batch of 5 degrees, is the polarising principle to the first idea. In society it is the comedian’s function to make it clear that our own exalted self-perception is not shared by society.

Reflexive Self Awareness

This symbol shows us that an idea we may have of who we are, or what we are doing, cannot be properly understood until we have also taken into account the way our community views us. We will only ever be effective within a background context, and that context is the social group within which we circle. An important aspect of who we are is the community’s take on who we are.

Making Adjustments

So whatever was seeded in Aries 1 will come up against something that gives pause during Aries 2 since we have to come to terms with outside factors. We have to make adjustments to our awareness and intentions so that we may progress.

Social Context of What We Do

In Aries 3 (A profile of a man outlined by his country), we have to marry what we want for ourselves with what we want for the community with neither side taking advantage, and both gaining benefit. The power needed to realise any idea comes from those who support it and do work to bring it into form. To some extent this idea, and any other project, must become a communal project because in fact we can do nothing alone. This fact requires us to win support, to persuade, to communicate and negotiate, and eventually to find an overlap between our personal vision and the collective need.

Power of Participation

Participation is powerful, alienation is ultimately disempowering.

Those of us who feel we can complete a project alone may need to think again. We love the idea of independence, the freedom from the need to compromise and being forced to interact with potentially tiresome people – but here the wisdom is very clear, unless we align with the community to some extent we will not succeed to realise anything much, and our ideas will come to nothing.

Further understandings of the mystery of polarity can develop and deepen during Aries 4, and then the gate to progression is opened in Aries 5.

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Out of Bounds Planets

14/3/2019

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Out of Bounds Planets

Introduction

One less-well-known fact in astrology is that sometimes planets go beyond their normal limits. People with these in their charts can behave in an exceptional manner, occasionally showing surprising and even extreme qualities and behaviour; later we will look at what to expect if you have such a planet. In the general sense, when a planet is Out of Bounds you may look for feelings, thoughts, events and situations in your life to become noticeably out of the ordinary according to society’s ideas of normality.

OOB Planets Qualities

Conversation by Telepathy

Mars goes out of bounds on 20 April 2019, at Gemini 14, whose Sabian Symbol is ‘A Conversation by Telepathy’. It stays out until 11 June 2019, with its most extreme reach around 19th May when it has just entered Cancer. The first degree of Cancer has as its Sabian Symbol, ‘Furled and unfurled flag’, which has a lot to say about allegiances and loyalties.

Commitment

So in mid-May we can look out for feelings of doubt about where we belong, highlighting whether or not we can make a commitment – and with Mars OOB we may expect a rather passionate, even aggressive resolution to the question!

Technicalities

In your horoscope, technically speaking, a planet’s position is given in the form of degrees and minutes of a zodiac signs. My Sun for example is at Taurus 15:38. These numbers, which can be between 0 and 30, are measuring the degrees of longitude. Another dimension of the planet’s position (up or down rather than side to side) is its declination, which is the measure of its angular distance above or below, (North or South), of the ‘Celestial Equator’. More technical explanations are on this site.

Definition: Out of Bounds

Planets are almost always found within the range between 23:27 North and 23:27 South because they circle the Earth in a band around the equator rather than being dotted about randomly. However sometime they exceed this angular distance (which is the same as the Earth’s tilt on its axis) and when they do they are said to be ‘Out Of Bounds’. For example if your Moon’s declination is ‘24:00 North’ then it is OOB.

Which Planets Go Out?

Mars and the Moon are often OOB, and Jupiter is seldom out. The Nodes and four planets never go out – Sun, Saturn, Neptune and recently discovered Chiron, which is already very ‘out there’ in its meaning and behaviour! As an example of a person with OOB Moon we can see how the celebrated Japanese artist Ruby Fumizki’s paintings are very subtle and hint at, rather than fully express, their intended meaning.

People are divided roughly equally between those with none and those with one or more. Of 100 people you would expect only 1 to have 4 planets, 3 people would have 3 planets and 20 people would have 2.

Multiple Planets

A person with three planets will very likely be seen as a real odd ball and could be innovative and creative – or rebellious and unsettling. A person with four is so rare that analysis is impracticable, but we can be sure that such a person would be seen as very weird and probably would live on the margins of society doing very unusual and creative things for which they go unrecognised.

Off Limits

The phrase itself is very descriptive. As children we would be told where we were allowed to go and which areas were off limits, and sometimes we would even see a sign saying ‘out of bounds’. A child who wandered out was a naughty child and risked penalty, especially if they did it repeatedly.

Not Good Nor Bad

Similarly with the behaviour of a person with any OOB planets – they behave to some extent in a way that society considers antisocial, disruptive or eccentric, and this can be just mildly so or extremely so, even to the level of criminality, depending on distortions of basic personality. However there is no evidence that OOB planets are essentially bad; good guys and bad guys have the same percentages, as do famous people and the rest of us. Yet whether helpful or harmful they tend to be radically different in some way, depending upon the qualities of the planet itself and also the extent of its OOB-ness.

Finding Your Planets

You can find out about some of your planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter by visiting Café Astrology, otherwise you would need some skill at reading an astrology table (it requires an ephemeris for declinations).

Qualities and Celebrities

I am including here are a few of the descriptive qualities of OOB planets, and if you want to read more about them you can check out a fuller list of characteristics on my website Sabian Mysteries.
Some celebrities with OOB planets clearly display certain of these qualities and I have recorded an example of that after the description:

Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars

Moon: great need for freedom, good emotional intelligence, strong intuition, sensitivity and understanding, having different moral values to established society. (Oprah Winfrey)
Mercury: innovative thinking, very commercially minded, ability at writing, eloquence, charismatic style of speech, can reach the audience. (Donald Trump)
Venus: grace, special charm, extraordinary appreciation of beauty, artistic talent, unusually romantic nature, ability to entertain. (Frank Sinatra)
Mars: masculine energy, leadership qualities, brimming with self-confidence and vitality, drive, courage, will to succeed. (Rupert Murdoch)

Pluto and Uranus

When Pluto and Uranus go out they are effective in shaping history because they influence a whole generation. We cannot really say what Pluto means on a personal level because it is poorly researched and anyway already well beyond our day-to-day understanding; however it will have something to do with an extreme, and possibly dangerous, inclination to push boundaries around questions of taboo like sex, death and personal transformation.

Uranus OOB Generation

To some extent this is also true for Uranus but an interesting quirk is easily identified in history. The ‘Uranus Out of Bounds’ generation, which was born within a few years around 1948, had a very powerful impact upon society when, in the late 1980s, their Uranus oppositions were also OOB. OOB Uranus is extremely eccentric, obsessed with the spirit of discovery, revolution, experimentation, and with unrestrained imagination and creativity, demanding freedom of thought and action, and displaying very rebellious behaviour.

This period was typified by social discontent and refusal to accept unreasonable constraints; it gave huge emphasis to the Alternative Culture that has had a major impact on current thinking about gender issues, climate change, racial acceptance and holistic healing methods for example. Richard Branson (Uranus), and Leonardo da Vinci (Pluto) show how they may act on the individual level.

Qualities of Out of Bounds Planets

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Chiron at Aries 2

6/3/2019

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The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron – Aries 2

It would be false if we thought that a particular planetary placement has a definitive meaning that is always the same for everyone. People, and life, are much more complex than that. As astrologers we are observers and we study human behaviour to check out whether our ideas prove workable.

The closer, visible, planets have been studied for thousands of years so we have had more time to observe and understand their impact. But that said, a lot of commentary had been strongly influenced by morality, philosophy and conditioned expectations – for example Saturn and Mars were not always at all well thought of.

Pluto and Chiron are Newly Discovered

Recent discoveries like Pluto and Chiron have not even completed the whole Zodiac cycle since they were first seen, so really we are still learning about them, and our interpretations are rather more speculative and philosophical than we might want to admit.

We Participate in Discovery

Our special study of Chiron as it passages through each Sabian degree is actually an aspect of its discovery. We are not yet so much learning and confirming what it means as we are finding out and co-creating its meaning, which is inevitably a function of humanity’s current and limited state of awareness.

This is no less true for Sabian Symbols, whose influence within astrology is only now starting to be felt widely. As we try to grasp their meanings we stand at the leading edge of esoteric knowledge.

Evolution of Knowledge

This position, the horizon of consciousness, is the territory of Chiron. In mythology Chiron was the first astrologer, first teacher of the mysteries. Even more than for the other planets, Chiron’s meaning can never be complete because it is always evolving, that is its very purpose - to evolve our knowledge, to bring us to new understandings. The wisdom of Chiron can be captured in the phrase ‘the meaning of life is to discover the meaning of life’.

After 18 days in Aries 1, on March 6th it moves into Aries 2 where it stays until March 25th.

Aries 2, the Comedian

The Sabian Symbol for Aries 2 is “A comedian entertaining a group”, which Marc Edmund Jones explains with the keyword ‘Release’. Rudhyar offers his version, “A comedian reveals human nature” with keywords ‘Objectification of Consciousness’.

If the first degree represents the un-met seed, vulnerable and by no means certain of survival, then the second degree is its accommodation, the womb or matrix that responds and holds it, and offers the possibility of potential furtherment.

The secret of Aries 2 is that ‘whatever is an aspect of human nature must be revealed’. There is also the strong hint that this revelation is not likely to be reverent and sacred but the opposite: we will experience aspects of our personality being ridiculed for their silliness and lack of grace.

Who we really are will certainly be revealed at some point in our personal evolution, and we will be shown – and shown up! Generally comedians tackle us for our ego-pride, and by doing so they reveal shadowy facets of personality that actually need to be looked at, accepted and released.

Sometimes we take ourselves much too seriously – we are attached both to self-congratulation and self-blame – yet to be free is to be free of such attachments. The comedian helps with this, as does the light-hearted psychotherapist.

My Sufi teacher taught: ‘If you take a person’s problems seriously you are not taking the person seriously enough’. In other words a little bit of humour is worth a lot of sympathy. (However we must remember that the chuckle works better than the aggressive, blaming ridicule!)

Release of Pain and Distortion

In order for us to break new ground, to step forward rather than repeat old patterns, we must release some of our distortions and pain. There is no choice about this, no negotiation. No new initiative will find an accommodation within us unless and until we make space for it by releasing what must now move out of our field of self-image.

Examination

Whatever has presented itself to us as opportunity during Aries 1 will stimulate in Aries 2 the process of emotional clearing needed to allow a new perspective to take root within us. This is a type of examination wherein we are asked the question: “Is our commitment to find our spiritual path backed up by our willingness to face up to our imperfections of personality, and release some of the more negative qualities we have been holding?”

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Chiron at Aries 1

13/2/2019

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Chiron’s Miraculous Journey Begins

Chiron is starting its cycle of 51 years, entering Aries on February 18th; symbolising awakening. It leads us to change our experience of events by changing how we see things – and this shift of awareness is part of our spiritual emergence into higher states of consciousness.

Ageing Hippies

It was noticed for the first time in 1977 and this discovery signalled the start of a new age for human consciousness. Those of us affectionately known as ageing hippies remember this time from 1968 to 1976, when it transited Aries.

One small step for man...

We had integrated the juddering shock of rock and roll, The Rolling Stones, Nobel-Laureate-to-be Bobby Dylan, and the Fab Four, and were now dressed in outrageously bright and loose clothing, in open rebellion against suits, parents and convention generally. Also we were, for the first time ever, wielding unimagined power as young spenders.

This was already massively powerful; yet Chiron entering Aries kindled some events that grew into so very much more than they seemed at the time. These included “One small step for man and a great step for mankind”; Jumbo jets; the incorporation of both IT-giants-to-be…Apple and Microsoft; electronic music; anti-Vietnam marches, Luther King’s shameful murder, and the West experiencing unheard-of riots.

A New Age

Looking deeper into these apparently unconnected occurrences, we might spot the commonality – people were waking up to another level of life, another reality.

Jumbos brought tourism, and so reduced the xenophobic paranoia that white people generally had towards foreigners, especially dark-skinned ones; space exploration brought an iconic vision of Planet Earth as an unprotected little ball in a limitlessness expanse of space, which prompted much more awareness of environmental science and ecosystems. The High-Tech age came with its laptops, The Web, Facebook and cell phones – which until that point were just silly science-fiction toys.

Sex, Drugs...

And the rebellion inherent within “sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” forced everyone, including politicians, to become a little less reactive, more tolerant and open to minority groups. However bad it may still be today it was so much worse then.

Rainbow Bridge

Known mainly as the ‘wounded healer’, Chiron is also termed the ‘Rainbow Bridge’ since its unprejudiced attitude tolerates all rainbow colours, and its capacity to modify perception bridges the division among those of differing opinions and ways. Only when we see things from another person’s perspective will we know how to walk the road to peace and harmony. Looking for a different viewpoint is the path for all seekers today.

Marc Edmund Jones

Jones describes Aries 1 as follows: ‘A woman rises out of the water; a seal rises and embraces her’.
We can easily see that the ocean is a familiar metaphor for the instinctive, intuitive knowledge and actions of our species. From this unconscious state ideas arise like the waves of the sea. Equally our every utterance could have a knock-on effect, word upon word, light upon light, which might lead to lasting changes. But most initiatives fail, almost none live on, and we simply do not know until time passes which ones might persist and have any consequence.

Learn to Listen

Yet there are some creative possibilities, many not well-formed nor lucidly explained. They may be vague feelings not even real thought.
If we want to support such nascent imaginings, we may need to improve our listening – to our own inner voice as well as the vaguely described feelings of a friend. We can also encourage children’s silly ideas – they are freer from judgement and outworn old standards.

This is the beginning...

It must be obvious that we will have solved our concerns to do with population, global warming and the abuse of Mother Nature by 2070, or we’ll have suffered a hefty price for failing to do so. Chiron’s teachings offer the safe and clear bridge to that future time. Astrologers might look back to this very year when we discovered the first glimpses of a way out of the bewilderment and misrepresentations that presently shadow our understandings.

Being Aware

So, between 18 February and 8 March, look out for a very subtle new direction unfolding, so subtle that its lasting repercussions may be obscure. If you’ve felt you were waiting for something – that exceptional person or opportunity – then it is now time to be really expectant, and imagine this can and will occur. We should manage each new circumstance with a hopeful attitude, and broaden our view of what exists in the realm of possibility.

Miracle and Magic

Chiron represents miracle and magic, the unworldly world of fantasy and imagination, and in this realm faith is a requirement. For those of us who have the faith, miracles are what to faithfully expect when there is a situation where only a miracle will work.

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