A Practical Mystic . . .

Our last post was about the state of Israel and this post is about a man who passed from this life in the same land, when it was called Palestine. He was imprisoned for over 40 years for being a promoter of a Faith that had the following as its central principles:

~ One God
~ The Oneness of humankind
~ Independent investigation of truth
~ Harmony of science and religion
~ Equality of men and women
~ Elimination of prejudice of all kinds
~ Universal education
~ Spiritual solutions to economic problems
~ A Universal auxiliary language
~ Universal Peace upheld by world government

I'm going to try another experiment in this post. Come to think of it, this whole blog is an experiment—an effort in securing Your opinions and feedback about my interpretive system, presented (as a free download) in my book and in the free simplified guide to the system. I recommend one or the other as constant companions for readers of this blog so that alternative interpretations to the ones I offer can be created and posted in the comments, along with your thoughts and feelings about the system...

I'll only be interpreting the Sun, Moon, and Saturn of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's chart: first, because I'm keeping the interpretations simple until my readers get used to the system and, second, because the Sun/Moon combination is the "battery" of the whole chart and, in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's chart, Saturn is extremely prominent. In fact, due to the overall structure of the chart, Saturn and Moon are the focal pair and the Sun concentrates their interplay in the depths of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's character.

I'm going to use the system to interpret His Saturn, Moon, and Sun by selecting words and phrases that I feel reflect those ten Principles up there that He promoted. Each Planet/Sign/House combination has 64 basic interpretations in the system so I encourage you to consider the chart and those ten Principles and use the system to come up with your own interpretations; then, post them in the comments. If you don't feel up to that, you might post your thoughts about how the interpretations I create reflect those Principles...

~~~~~~~~~
The Major Shapers of His Character
Saturn in Aquarius in the 12th House
{since this function is retrograde, the interpretation should be understood
in its most unique and individualized sense}
Clarifying Humanitarian Considerations in order to Realize the Oneness of Life.
Moon in Leo in the 7th House
Nourishing a Creative Response in order to Initiate Sharing.
~~~~~~~~~
The Focus of His Life Endeavors
Sun in Gemini in the 4th House
Vitalizing Intellectual Freedom in order to Fertilize any Situation.
~~~~~~~~~
Do you see those interpretations as indicating a man who would endure
40 years' imprisonment for his beliefs?

Want to offer alternative interpretations?

Thoughts?

Feelings...?

"...the dream afraid of waking..."

The title of this post is the beginning of a lyric sung by Bette Midler in the film The Rose, based loosely on the life of Janis Joplin.

"It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance..."

Yet Janis took every chance she could lay her heart on and became a rocking, waking dream...

But there was a piece of her heart that resisted becoming fully awake; the place that had been shunned and ridiculed because of her uniqueness. She took that uniqueness into the rarified atmosphere of the 60s Rock-scene, became a superstar, and died of a drug overdose at the age of 27...

We'll look at her Sun and Moon combination in this post and look more deeply into her chart in later posts.

For those of you not familiar with her music or life, read this biography, listen to this song, or watch this interview...

Janis' chart (which opens in a new window so you can switch back and forth) shows her Sun in Capricorm in the 12th House and her Moon in Cancer in the 5th House.

In our last two posts, we played a bit with the interpretive system I introduced in my free-to-download book, Astrological Repair Manual. You can read about how to use the system in the book or this abbreviated Word .doc. I recommend you at least download the Word .doc so you can easily follow along as well as stimulating your own intrepretations of the chart factors we explore.

Now, let's do some Serious Play with Janis' Sun/Moon combination...

I'm going to use the words and phrases from the system that I feel best express her Spirit, yet you may find other combinations that work better for you (and, if you do, please share them in the Comments!).

Sun in Capricorn in the 12th House:

Vitalizing (Sun) Structural Innovations (Capricorn) in order to Explore the Value of Transcendence of Self (12th House).

Janis was extremely Vital, she Innovated constantly with the Structures of Blues and Rock, and it seems her whole short life was a journey to go Beyond her Self...

We could (by consulting a synonym dictionary) replace Vitalizing with Invigorating, Structural with Performance, Innovations with Creations, Value with Pricelessness, Transcendence with Going Above and Beyond, and Self with Consciousness.

Playing with the meanings that way produces this Symbolic Sentence:

Invigorating Performance Creations in order to Explore the Pricelessness of Going Above and Beyond Consciousness.

Ever thought of Sun in Capricorn in the 12th House that way? If you've come close to thinking that way, please let me know in the Comments since we're more than likely Mind Mates!

For all these decades, while reading more books then I can remember, during all the consultations I've shared in, I've had one constantly swelling Dream—Stop Giving People Fish and Teach Them How To Fish For Themselves...

Each Planet/Sign/House combination has 64 possible Symbolic Sentences in my system, without going looking for synonyms. The whole point of the system is to show you how to fish for unique, creative meanings; unless, of course, you're the type that wants to keep handing out the same old smelly fish you got handed...

Let's look at Janis' Moon in Cancer in the 5th House:

Enfolding Emotional Security in order to Dramatize her Concerns.

I'll soon be sharing the basic meanings for aspects from the system (from Book Three) but for now consider this for the Quadnovile (Book Nine) that separates Janis' Sun and Moon: striving toward a moment of truth.

Now let's combine the first sentence I constructed for the Sun and the one for the Moon with their aspect phrase:

Vitalizing Structural Innovations in order to Explore the Value of Transcendence of Self

Strives Toward A Moment of Truth by

Enfolding Emotional Security in order to Dramatize her Concerns.

To make meaningful interpretations of a chart, you have to "know" the person, usually by sharing an open, honest consultation. I didn't get to meet Janis Joplin but that last interpretation of her Sun/Moon resonates with me. If it means nothing to you, get to know her through those links at the top of the post to Biography, Song, and Interview...

More About Pluto...

I'm still moving forward, slowly, with this blog's posting since I want to let people catch up with where we're at. Right now, we're still in the second chapter of my astrology book (Astrological Repair Manual {it's a free download}), the book that I'm in the process of revising and expanding.

Hopefully, you'll just jump right in and respond to the first few posts (backing up can be fun in a blog) by adding Your thoughts and feelings to help an astrologer with 40 years experience learn something New!!

Here's part of what I wrote about Pluto in chapter two:

"...since we’re into space that's been paid attention to by humans since 1930, we can get down to some real work in the realm of astrological understanding. Understanding death, to be precise, and how it’s a river that wends its way through every part of our lives. There are many deaths in a life—many times when one phase of our existence gives way to another. Even orgasm as been called 'the little death' and sleep can be viewed as a nightly death of our conscious awareness. Pluto/Charon's orbital period is about 248 years and the symbolic significance of that length of time is perfect for gaining meaning about long-term social, political, and economic cycles. In fact, thinking back to what our society was like that long ago can be like looking back to a time that's certainly died, gone forever. Yet, there can be influences felt from those times, just like your parents' behavior on Earth has an influence long after they've left their physical bodies.

"In astrology, the period of 248 years is symbolic of completely new circumstances, a total regeneration of what's being considered, a thorough purging of the past. And, even though none of us can live that long, we can still gain meaning from the symbolism of this cycle. One reason we can use it personally is that the halves and quarters of cycles are very important in gaining meaning from a chart and, if we look at the quarter cycle here, we have 62 years—an amount of anyone's life that shows the qualities of death-of-the-past, or regeneration of basic life factors, or purging of one heck of a lot!"

Your Turn...
Add your thoughts and feelings in the comments...

The River of Death...

Not many comments here yet but I'll begin to forge ahead, slowly, more deeply, into our solar system—my book, Astrological Repair Manual (which is a free download), is structured as a flight back into the solar system from the depths of space...

To gain the most from this and the next few posts, I recommend you backtrack and read the posts about Xena and the Hordes...

Pluto, discovered in 1930 (near the beginning of the Great Depression), with a spacecraft due to arrive in 2015, has been a great challenge for the understanding of astrologers.

From the second chapter of the book:

"Did Pluto cause the Great Depression? How loud can I holler, "NO!"?

"Right here, we're at one of the most crucial Repairs of Perception I hope to offer. The planets and their cycles do not cause events. The best that can be said is that humans are born into the solar system and all of its interlocking cycles and, because whatever is included within something else participates in the rhythms of the larger structure, we have cycles in our lives that mirror the cycles of the planets. It's as simple as that. No horrible fates, no in-bred bad traits, no mumbo-jumbo."

And, further:

"...while we're still out here where the meanings are so deep, the important thing to remember is that we all have these nearly-unfathomable meanings in our lives and it can take most of a lifetime to gain even a small amount of understanding. Still and all, knowing about them can often be enough to help us weather the changes they can induce in our lives. And, again, I'm not saying the planets are causing these changes. It's the synchronistic and mirroring cycles in our deeper minds that bring these ponderable changes."

From deeper in the book, here are some basic, positive meanings for the Plutonian cycle:

Getting to the Depths of
Transcending
Purging
Regenerating

Now it's your turn! Comment to your heart's content...