Journal

The Fine Art of Idol Making

This a meditation about Idols and idol making – what idols are, the purpose they serve, how we create them, how they can enliven and enrich our lives.

How we can become Idolaters.

Please notice that I am using the term Idolater in a very positive sense. This is very deliberate, and it is the exact inverse of the negative connotation most people place on the world in our Western “Christlemew” culture. (The word “Christlemew” is a coinage by Lon Milo DuQuette to refer to the common religious heritage of Christians, Muslims and Jews.) In that context, to be an Idolater is to worship something other than the one, true God. It assumes a monotheistic, single standard religion. Further, it assumes that God stands transcendent, outside of His creation (yes, I said His). Either Idols are not permitted, or only Idols of the God are permitted – for instance, pictures of Jesus, or statues of Mary or the saints.

I want to recover what is good about an Idol, to examine what the word means, and to consider how using an Idol affects how I relate to the world. I also want to consider how astrology can be enlivened by understanding and using Idols.

Continue reading “In Defense of Idolatry”

This is the second of two posts, in which I am examining how the meaning we attribute to the astrology signs has changed through time, and I am focusing on the sign Aquarius for my example.  In the previous post, I looked at the meaning of Aquarius in various astrology writers, reaching up to around the 1920’s.

In the earlier meanings, going back to late 19th and early 20th century, the influence of Saturn as sign ruler dominated the characteristics, along with elements of meaning taken from the eleventh house. By the time you get to Charles Carter, there is an increase in Uranian overtones to the meaning given to Aquarius, with the shift of focus to Uranus as sign ruler rather than Saturn,

We will now examine some writing from a major astrology teacher from the mid twentieth century.

Continue reading “Aquarius Today”

Modern astrology is built on the foundation of the psychological meaning of the 12 signs of the zodiac. This is where most modern astrologers start, and we still refer back to it as a kind of quick astrology shorthand.

Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs is a good and typical example of modern sun sign astrology, and her book still reads quite well. Full modern astrology is quite a bit more complex and nuanced than that book, and yet there is a certain core of meaning there that is a kind of foundation, a simple base.

We describe or identify people with their Sun Signs – Hi, I’m a Leo, what are you?  At an astrology gathering you might then be asked to add your moon sign and rising sign, but the core is still the meaning of the Sun sign. That is what you are.

This is very much a twentieth century phenomenon.

I want to take a walk through the history of astrology, looking at how the meanings of the signs has changed and evolved over the last few centuries. I am going to focus on the sign Aquarius for my example, since this sign has Saturn as ruler for traditional astrologers, and a different ruler, Uranus, for modern astrologers.

My premise is that the meanings we give the signs changes as we associate different rulers with them, and as we put astrology in different spiritual or psychological contexts.

Continue reading “The Signs They Are A-Changin”

This is  a personal piece.

I have Sun and Mercury both in Pisces, and five planets in water signs in my chart. I think by emotion, and I feel my way into things. When I am dealing with ideas in astrology I am feeling for a certain sense of symmetry, balance and wholeness.

I’ve always been bugged by the usual definitions of Pisces, traditional and modern both. In some of the older material Pisces is the garbage bin of the zodiac, dissolute wastrels destined to come to an ill end.

In more modern material you will often read about how Pisces is a sign of self-sacrifice, giving oneself over to the larger whole. Part of me completely rebels against that idea. Inside I do not feel like the self-sacrificing type at all.

If anything, the inner feeling is the opposite.

Continue reading “Pisces and the Meaning of Sacrifice”

On this coming March 19 I am going to be participating in an on-the-web conversation as part of Kepler College’s celebration of International Astrology Day. The theme for the day will be, astrology and spirituality.

That got me thinking.

I am just off doing a couple of blog posts on rethinking Saturn as feminine and Saturn as Crone, and what that entails. A commenter on one of the posts asked if I had considered looking at how viewing Saturn as feminine works out in chart interpretation.

That also got me thinking, and the two topics dovetailed.

To really get a sense of how Saturn as feminine changes how we do chart interpretatation, I think we need to have a very good grasp of the deep knowing compassion of age – in my last post I labeled that quality, Understanding.

That is the subject of this meditation.
Continue reading “Wisdom of Saturn”

This is the second post in which I am exploring the ramifications of viewing Saturn as feminine, and also considering symbolism related to Saturn as Old Crone.

In my previous post on Saturn as Feminine I quoted a passage from the Hellenistic astrologer Dorotheus, in which Saturn is classified as one of the feminine planets. This created some striking arrangements of Saturn with the other planets, having some of the distinctive symmetry and balance of much of traditional Western astrology.

In this post I want to consider further how the symbolism of Saturn is linked to feminine symbolism.

Here is the quote from Carmen Astrologicum by Dorotheus:

“…the feminine planets are Saturn, Venus and the Moon, the masculine ones are the Sun, Jupiter, and Mars.”

When I first saw this quote I wondered if Saturn might originally have been associated with an Old Crone goddess figure or figures, that then was turned masculine in a later cultural development.

What I want to do in this post is to consider the nature of Saturn and feminine symbolism, and see how they combine.

Continue reading “Saturn as Feminine and Crone”

This is the first post for calendar year 2016, so it seems like a good time to rethink for myself the purpose of my writing here.

Credit where credit is due – this piece was triggered by reading a phenomenal blog entry by John Michael Greer on his occult blog, The Well of Galabes. This particular piece is titled The Twilight of the Neopagan Era.

He chronicles how we are at the end of a pop culture version of the Neopagan and Occult communites, and as that fades, serious committed followers of neopagan paths will need to weed out the core of their practice from the pop trappings, the candles, unicorns and medieval costumes.

I am a child of that era.

Continue reading “What I’m Trying to Do Here”