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The Historical Ephemeris
Astrological groundrules 2: Palden Jenkins |
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The Historical Ephemeris
Astrological groundrules 2: Palden Jenkins |
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Capricorn
Organisational structures, physical/financial resources and land; tradition and institutional inertia; social and national forms, ancestry, inheritance, laws, institutions and customs; stability, age and posterity; governance, authority, hierarchical power, finance and economic imperatives; conformity, regularity, regimentation, consequences of the past. Being the opposite sign to Cancer, the polarity being explored here is one of security and its social, systematic, organisational arrangement.
Aquarius
Social principles, ideologies, ideals, plans and designs; collective issues, mass awareness and activity; social judgmentalism and projection, tribalism and nationalism, populism; idea-led activity, planning and forward legislation; humanitarianism, social values; enquiry, philosophy and science; invention, innovation and new technologies; administration and litigation; popular movements and secular concerns. Being the polar opposite of Leo, questions of leadership, power-legitimacy, democracy, mandate and the position and rights of the individual in society are very important here.
Pisces
Visionary activity, new perspectives and perceptions, shifting paradigms and goals; religious and artistic imagination, altruism, transcendentalism, monasticism, millennialism, escapism; melting, loosening and shifting of obsolete or arthritic structures; disintegration and loss or purpose or rationale; the mysterious and unexplainable; cults, beliefs, illusions and truths, underlying hidden realities, undercurrents, fermentation, surfacing of the unconscious; proliferation, derailment, underlying tides of change, preparation of the future. As the opposite sign to Virgo, possibility and manifestation, realities and unrealities, facts and visions and shifts of awareness or actuality are explored here.
Aries
Force of inevitable or timely change and progression, waves breaking, 'over the top'; breakaway from the past, abreaction to constraints and tradition; new scenarios, germination, expansion, application of possibilities; individualism, pioneering, heroism, rivalry, conquest; expressed energy, conviction, radicalism, strong ideas, impatience; deployed resources, engineering, asserted activity, power of force. As the opposite sign to Libra, compromise, accommodation and mutuality are counterposed with personal interest, initiative and competitiveness.
Taurus
Construction, establishment, consolidation, making it happen, overcoming, attrition; growth, fertility, creativity, ongoing forward motion; continuation, perpetuation, holding on, control; materialism, land- and resource-use, agriculture, conservation, assets, artisanry, crafts, business; sense of mission and adherence to principle or default pattern; dogged determination or opposition, stuckness, fixed agendas, ends justify means; enjoyment, indulgence, comfort. Being opposite to Scorpio, this axis contrasts endings and regeneration with perpetuation and posterity, and power and manifest reality are important.
Gemini
Fresh ideas and new interrelations and configurations; changes, realignments, divergences and convergences, reversals, changing places; meetings, marketplaces, communications and media, travel, information, ideas, news, connections; relativity, variegation, cross-pollination, lateral thinking; activity, hullabaloo, exchange; diversification, exploration. Being opposite to Sagittarius, Gemini gathers experience and sorts information while Sagittarius makes of it a bigger picture and wider context.
Cancer
Security, habit, protected sensitivities, pathos, intimacy, steadying down; human values and weaknesses, women, children, underprivileged, needy or helpless people, on the receiving-end; populations, minorities, ethnic identifications, families, kin; social caring, welfare and nutrition; territory, home-ground, xenophobia, classes, clans; leakages, trespasses, incursions; stasis, daily home life, homes and localities. Being opposite to Capricorn, the needs of people in relation to structures comes into focus.
Leo
Leadership, heroism, integrity, centrality, abundance, power, grandeur, predominance; master-victim issues, winning and losing, superiority-inferiority; creativity, drama and performance; grand culture, autocracy, patronage, aristocracy, feudalism, colonialism; class-war, divisiveness, schism, self-interest; symbols and trappings of power, magnanimity, greatness. Being opposite to Aquarius, leadership and society as a whole come into dynamic interplay.
Virgo
Order, system, organisational methods, harvesting and turning to use, storage, sense and commonsense; land and workforce, peasantry, human resources; midwifery, husbandry, horticulture; work, contributions, tools; coordination, intelligence, assimilation; service and slavery; the social contract, education, skills, woodwork, health; development, infrastructure, support- and backup-systems; subgroups, guilds, complexity and simplification, pruning, efficiency; protest and dissension, splitting hairs, microtechnologies, genetics. Being opposite to Pisces, overarching visions meet operational facts, and chaos meets order, amidst changeful situations.
Libra
Social relations, international diplomacy and exchange, shared interests; mutual accommodations, conflicts, contrariness, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, consensus; I-and-Thou, Them-and-Us; alliances, allegiances, treaties, ambassadors; oscillation between extremes, switches, re-balancings, retributions, relations; cohesion and resolution or alienation and dissent, war or peace; ideas, conventions, social values, folk-traditions, cultural cross-fertilisation. Being opposite to Aries, mutuality and individualism, cooperation and competition interact.
Scorpio
Inevitability and raw, bottom-line reality, real changes, power, getting to grips, showdowns, the fall of the axe; consequences, confrontation, engagement, breakthrough, nitty-gritty; regeneration, libido, sexuality; crucible, fusion, control, surgery, incision, precision; slaughter, endings, closedowns, squeezes, grimness; underlying rumbling and held-back disquiet, covert activity, implied threat, finality; power, exposure, manipulation; inquisition, detection, crime, secrecy, secret societies; hidden fears and sensitivities, taboos, guilt over transgression; survival, comeback, comeuppance, rebirth, taking the plunge, stepping into the Unknown. Opposite to Taurus, Scorpio makes something out of a disaster, while Taurus makes something out of our blessings.
Sagittarius
Expanding horizons, remission, relief, forgiveness, celebration; cultural expansion, higher education, learning, distant travel, pilgrimage, exotic goods and ways, cross-cultural exchange; the bigger picture, understanding, tolerance; wealth, territorial expansion, greatness, imperialism, conversion, zeal, seeking glory; enjoyment, excitement, positivity, profusion, excess; jurisprudence, philanthropy, charity; orthodoxy, religiosity, belief-systems; investment, sponsorship, forward thinking, grand ideas. Being opposite to Gemini, Sagittarius tries to make greater sense of things amidst the kaleidoscopic plethora of the wider world.
There is a sequence to the zodiacal archetypes. Each follows on from, yet contrasts with, the previous one. Each sign's contribution to the whole begins as a new avenue of opportunity, and it ends by being established, an assumed fact of life, ready for a shift of theme in the sign to follow. Ingresses by planets into new signs bring shifts in the prevailing issues and public consensus, atmospheric changes of tone in the nature of the times.
When an outer planet chugs through a sign, it reactivates that sign's bundle of archetypes, issues, angles, imagery, prevailing ideas and default patterns within the group psyche. The collective then responds by reinterpreting and re-enacting the outward expression of archetypes, according to the conventional wisdom of the time. The archetype itself can go through evolutionary changes, depending on what people do with possibilities offered them, an defined afresh each time an outer planet moves through a sign, stimulating an action-response from people. Yet this response is a product of human choice. Archetypal development can also, at times, and in certain respects, regress, as a result of retrogressive human responses to their times.
If two or more outer planets move through a sign, or through two opposite signs, simultaneously or in close enough sequence, there will be great historical emphasis on the issues of those signs. Actions will be taken, styles adopted, consequences created, which all have lasting effects over time. These issues will eventually, sometimes long afterwards, resurface and be re-evaluated when the signs in question are revisited by the same, or by other planets.
The zodiac has a beauty of its own, being a sequential program of archetypes, holographic feeling-imagery and patterning. The zodiac and its sequencing affects the tone of all longterm historical developments. Archetypal zodiacal patterns can be interpreted and acted on differently at different times – a sagittarian period can bring a florescence of tolerance, prosperity and goodwill, or an outburst of imperialistic, imposing behaviour and 'missions to civilise'. Most people are unaware they act out such archetypes, and historians, by tradition and belief, currently deny that there can be astrological influences in history. Nevertheless, these influences continue to do their work. And it helps to identify and understand them.
