DREAMS, AN ASTROLOGICAL ANALYSIS WITH EXAMPLES

In ancient times, dreams held a prophetic significance.

Joseph famously interpreted the dream of the Egyptian Pharaoh, foreseeing a period of great abundance followed by severe famine, which indeed transpired.

Similarly, Penelope experienced a prophetic dream wherein geese were symbolically decimated by an eagle, representing her husband, Odysseus, who had clandestinely returned and was present in the palace.

This suggests that dreams may offer insights into the future inaccessible to the conscious mind.

 For astrologers, the intriguing aspect lies in how dreams intricately weave the influence of celestial bodies, shaping our subconscious thoughts and the astrological chart.

Recently, when Mars opposed my friend’s natal Saturn, compounded by other challenging configurations, she dreamt of a tranquil conversation abruptly interrupted by news of her father’s death.She awakened distressed despite her father having passed away over a decade ago. This illustrates the subconscious impact of planetary alignments.

Romantic encounters often feature prominently in dreams under Venus/Mars configurations, even during transits.

Consider a client with Mercury, the psychopomp, governing the 9th house, frequently dreaming of travel. However, with Mercury retrograde in their chart, returning home in dreams poses challenges, symbolized by lost passports or muddled pathways—a reflection of Mercury’s influence. Retrograde planets tend to evoke obsessive contemplations, potentially leading to profound insights, as seen with Mercury.

Life, whether awake or asleep, is akin to an astrological manuscript. Planetary influences persist during sleep, influencing the subconscious and often revealing insights into undetected or latent illnesses. Traditional astrological wisdom associates dreams with the 9th House, symbolizing religion, prophecies, and visions.

Astrologers like Rhetorius, Abraham ben Ezra, and Abu-Mashar have extensively written about the significance of dreams in astrology, highlighting their connection to divine contemplation and philosophical insights.

I will summarize the traditional authors on what they say about dreams.

Rhetorius (“Astrological Compendium,” translated from Greek by James Holden, AFA): “The 9th House is the house of God. It is the House of the Sun. It means everything belonging to gods and kings and foreigners and dreams and religious observance.”

Abraham ben Ezra (“Judgment of the Stars,” pg. 67, Sadalsuud Library): “The ninth House rules all those who will suffer a decrease in their honor, wisdom, faith, service to God, sending of messages, new news, dreams, signs of wonders, sentences, judgments.”

Abu-Mashar (“Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology Together with the Medieval Latin Translation of Adelard of Bath,” translated by Michio YanoYamamoto and Charles Burnett, ed. Brill) says: “The nine, that of travel and pilgrimage, laws and divine contemplation, philosophy and arts and visions.”

Guido Bonatti (“Liber Astronomy” Treatise 6, Questions, translated from Latin by Benjamin Dykes, ed. Cazimi) mentions dreams, which he does not when talking about the 9th House in Nativities. However, he states that dreams are a matter of the 9th House, precisely when explaining how to analyze a question about dreams.

Bonatti states that if the querent asks about dreams, attention should be given to the 9th House, the querent’s dream. If it is a nightmare, one checks which house Capricorn and Aquarius fall into. The mundane location of these signs in the Horary chart will tell what the fear refers to, depending on the meaning of the House.

William Lilly faithfully copies Bonatti (Christian Astrology, pg.434, Ed. Sadalsuud Library), one who has read one does not need to read the other.

I will now quote the responses I received from  social media after raising the issue of dreams. The answers were so significant that they prompted me to write this short article.

Some followers of my posts commented:

“I have a stellium in the 9th in Gemini, with Mercury domiciled, and I dream a lot about travels… I often dream that I am living in another country or sightseeing! These dreams bring me a lot of joy! I feel sad when I wake up and realize it wasn’t real.”

 “I also have Mercury (direct) in the 9th. And I often dream that I am traveling or that I am in different places. And I hadn’t realized that until now!”

 “I dream a lot about disputes, confrontational situations, and things I desire to achieve/have. The ruler of the 9th is the Moon conjunct Venus ruling the 7th.”

“My Mercury is also retrograde and it also rules my 9th house, like your client’s. I have very similar dreams to what you described (about him).”

“Very interesting. I have had many nightmares since childhood. In fact, I had Panic Disorder at the age of 6, and nightmares were one of the symptoms. They are always very violent dreams. I have the ruler of the 3rd house (Moon) and the 9th house (Saturn) in the 12th house. Saturn and Moon in Aries conjunct with the South Node.”

 “How curious, I always dream about my family, and when I was young, I had many romantic dreams. I have Libra in the 9th, the ruler also rules the 4th, and is in the 7th.”

“I have Mercury in Sagittarius in the 9th and a few other planets, since I was young, I have dreamed about teachers, school, classroom.”

 “I have Mars in Leo in the 9th, and in the year I had Jupiter in Sagittarius in the solar return making a trine, it was a year I started in Umbanda and developed and discovered my ability with prophetic dreams.”

 The above responses were spontaneous and accurate collaborations, based on tradition, which motivates any professional to continue a path in search of understanding the harmony between earth and heavens.

Clélia Romano,DMA

February 2024

Einstein, Probability and Astrology

I was reading about Einstein, the great mathematician and physicist. He advocated for a unified theory, which presupposes that all atomic, electrical, and magnetic forces are not separate or independent, but rather manifestations of a single force that has an underlying principle. He believed that the various elements that make up matter are not distinct entities. He believed that there should be symmetry and a hidden order behind appearances, and that there should be consistency and logic between the differences and complexities of phenomena and among the various branches of physics. He considered quantum mechanics to be incomplete and probabilistic: it did not predict the exact outcomes of physical events but only their probabilities. For example, the exact position of an atom is not entirely known until it is measured. This implies, according to him, the existence of hidden parameters that determine these properties before measurement but are not accounted for by quantum mechanics.

Einstein was Jewish, but he had no religion, finding even the Bible filled with meaningless things and relying on superstitious concepts. However, despite this, he had the ambition to discover the ultimate reality of phenomena, to discover how everything works at the most fundamental level, without gaps or mysteries. He wanted to answer questions about what space is, what time is, what matter is, what energy is, what light is, and how they interact, how they originated, and how they evolved. He wanted to find a theory that answered all these questions consistently and comprehensively. He never gave up on his quest, even when colleagues said he was not very objective. He never managed to prove that “ God doesn’t play dice”. But he died working on it.

We, through astrology, and he, through mathematics and physics, are always seeking the same thing: determinism, prediction of  events, as if a conjunction of malefic planets, for example, led to results determined by the sign that ruled them. He wanted to explain all in numbers, which are symbols, and we want to explain in astrological symbols  the complexity and mystery of life. This is Always a human disappointment because it is impossible to know the future with precision.

 In a letter to a colleague, he says: quantum mechanics is certainly impressive, but something deep down tells me it’s not the real thing. The theory tells us a lot, but it does not bring us closer to the secret of nature, which is deterministic and not random. That’s when he says God doesn’t play dice. His colleagues said that quantum mechanics does indeed provide a valuable and consistent description of physical reality at the microscopic level and that there is no need for hidden variables or deterministic laws. They also claim that physical properties, such as position and momentum, do not exist until measured and that measurement modifies what is measured and determines a probabilistic result.

The debates were not only about quantum physics but also about the philosophical and epistemological implications of quantum physics for our understanding of the nature of reality. Such debates between Einstein and his colleague Borg were very important and remembered as influential episodes in the history of philosophy and science.

What this has to do with astrology and prediction is that we strive to sharpen our instruments more and more, study and rack our brains to be able to predict the future, and in this, we are very much like Einstein. However, as he himself said, there are hidden and mysterious forces that make our prediction, no matter how well-founded, a probability. When consciousness falls on a fact of our life, it modifies it. Perhaps this is astrology’s greatest asset. The mysterious force may be, in the case of astrology, the consciousness that an event is going to happen. And in this case, it does not occur as expected. On a global level, there is a collective unconsciousness, making it harder to escape certain prognoses like earthly phenomena caused by eclipses, which cause many disasters where the eclipse´s shadow is visible.

Personally, I identify a lot with Einstein’s thinking, but I believe that, although God doesn’t play dice, it is impossible to read the mystery of his mind, and all that remains for us is the realm of probabilities. But it is possible, and this depends on an inner voice inside us that the real outcome was already part of the plans of a mysterious and immeasurable intelligence.”

After these considerations, one question remains: What is the reason for a brilliant scientist to compulsively seek, as Einstein did, the mathematical equation that would unify everything? To explain this, I used his astrological chart, which follows:

Such an extraordinary intelligence would have to gather the elements of fire, earth, air, and water! Einstein lived for mathematics and physics and tended to see things on a big scale and had the persistence to pursue a goal obsessively. We observe the unfortunate union of Mercury with Saturn, which often causes language problems. However, this was a different situation, because the Part of Fortune was present with both planets, allowing Saturn’s highest philosophy to manifest through the intellectual Mercury. It represents a gift.

The stubbornness, almost obsession, to prove his vision is also referred to as the Mercury-Saturn conjunction. If we use whole signs, we see that this “stellium” occurs in the 10th house, favoring the native to be known for his work. Furthermore, Einstein had no fear; the ruler of all these planets present in the 10th is Mars, exalted and angular in the 7th. It shows the capacity to act, but also shows controversial partnerships, whether in marriage or with colleagues who embraced mainstream ideas. His famous phrase, ‘God does not play dice,’ which signifies a strong spiritual inclination, is explained by many planets related to Jupiter. The Sun is in Pisces in the 9th house, by whole signs, and in its joy, and there is a strong mutual reception between the Sun and the Moon in Sagittarius. But this spirituality was not close to any established religion. Aries innovates, it does not follow the herd!

And when, in his letters, Einstein refers to ‘something within him’ that tells him that everything is interconnected, it’s a function of Jupiter, that is broad, and of the Sun, which sees beyond.

As I said, this analysis aims to explain, through his natal chart, Einstein’s vision that all things that appear as separate, are obeying the same principle. The native was not made by just cold intelligence; his mind was profound, and while Mercury prepared the equations, Saturn and Jupiter worked within him, favoring philosophy and a broad view of things. The problem is that he made physics and mathematics his tools: we see that the planets in Aries are in the tenth house, which means that his path was fire and not water. Hence, he tried, until his death, to put the ocean inside a shell (or within an equation).”

Copyright  Clélia Romano, DMA

http://www.astrologiahumana.com

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STARS TO UNDERSTAND A CHART

The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the importance of stars and parans. For this, I used the chart of Scott Fitzgerald, the great American author. I will make some considerations using medieval techniques and then I´ll use the stars that were in parans or in angles during the day of his birth.

As for longevity, Scott only lived 44 years and we have to look for an explanation. I will delineate the chart based on medieval techniques, at first.

The Sun cannot be hyleg because it is cadent, so we have to choose the Moon as hyleg and alchocodem. She’s at an angle and her years will be 108, but she’s opposed to Saturn, outside the orb.

These orb issues are very relative. Let´s see: the Moon has a 12° orb and Saturn a 9°. Adding the two together, we get 10.5. In this case, the Moon would be far from the orb, as Saturn is at 16° and the opposition ends at 10.5 in Scorpio.

What occurs to me is that the Moon walks throughout the day of birth (a technique used by the ancient Egyptians), until it reaches the orb with Saturn.

If this Moon is really in opposition to Saturn, Saturn will be Alchocodem and would give its greatest years, 57 years, being angular. As Robert Zoller would say, ten years more, ten years less. Even so, the native died before he was 47 years old. He died at the age of 44.

Very well: It is clear from the natal chart that the author had a talent for writing and writing well: Mars in the house of creativity trine Venus, in her domicile, Libra. Venus is conjunct to Mercury.

The cadent planets in the ninth house can provide a lot of virtuosity, but they don’t last a lifetime.

I have cases that show exceptional musical talent, but if the astrological configuration is cadent, it doesn’t generate a profession and the talent fades along the way.

Fitzgerald’s chart continues to show many mysteries. At first glance, in short, the chart does not reveal the unstable and extraordinary life of the author, and other people have aspects like those lacking the popularity of Scott´s name as a writer.

When he died, the firdar was Saturn, sub-ruler Mars, the profection fell on the 9th house, the house where the Sun is, and the solar revolution shows the following chart:

Next, I’ll show you some parans and stellar positions, which, in my opinion, explain more of the chart and make it exceptional.

Stars that rise with the Sun:

Alphard –

Native takes a life close to the limit to seek intense emotional encounters

Aldebaran – In the orb of Nadir 02 minutes 33 seconds –

The principles and integrity are the compass and foundation of your life and afterlife.

Denebola while Mercury is rising orb 01 min 46 secs –

Having a different point of view about language and culture

Stars of his Prime

Antares with Saturn is culminating in the orb 00 min 02 secs –

Black and white, a life full of struggle with polarities

Phact is with the Moon in Nadir 00 minutes and 34 seconds –

The love of reading or writing

Algol is with Venus in the nadir orb 00 minutes 46 seconds –

Be a victim or a savior

Stars in the NADIR – Stars that are the BASE of the card

Sirius is with Jupiter:

Inspiring in artistic, architectural or athletic endeavors

Antares with Saturn, the orb 00 minutes 06 seconds –

Black and white, a life full of struggle with polarities

Phact with Mercury orb 00 min 36 secs –

An original thinker or a foolish mind, always looking for new ideas

Mirach with Jupiter orb 01 min 36 secs –

An insatiable appetite for the physical world, money or people

Zosma with Mercury in Nadir 01 min 40 sec –

Worrying about the difficulties of others

Menkar with Venus culminating orb 01 min 55 secs –

Social confronting  or trying to represent other people

Well, now I’m going to write the native biography taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica, in order that you compare it with the stars. 

“Scott Fitzgerald, in full Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, (born September 24, 1896, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.—died December 21, 1940, Hollywood, California), American short-story writer and novelist famous for his depictions of the Jazz Age (the 1920s), his most brilliant novel being The Great Gatsby (1925). His private life, with his wife, Zelda, in both America and France, became almost as celebrated as his novels. Fitzgerald was the only son of an unsuccessful, aristocratic father and an energetic, provincial mother. Half the time he thought of himself as the heir of his father’s tradition, which included the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Francis Scott Key, after whom he was named, and half the time as “straight 1850 potato-famine Irish.” As a result, he had typically ambivalent American feelings about American life, which seemed to him at once vulgar and dazzlingly promising.
He also had an intensely romantic imagination, what he once called “a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” and he charged into experience determined to realize those promises. At both St. Paul Academy (1908–10) and Newman School (1911–13), he tried too hard and made himself unpopular, but at Princeton University he came close to realizing his dream of a brilliant success. He became a prominent figure in the literary life of the university and made lifelong friendships with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. He became a leading figure in the socially important Triangle Club, a dramatic society, and was elected to one of the leading clubs of the university. He fell in love with Ginevra King, one of the beauties of her generation. Then he lost Ginevra and flunked out of Princeton.

He returned to Princeton the next fall, but he had now lost all the positions he coveted, and in November 1917 he left to join the army. In July 1918, while he was stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. They fell deeply in love, and, as soon as he could, Fitzgerald headed for New York determined to achieve instant success and to marry Zelda. What he achieved was an advertising job at $90 a month. Zelda broke their engagement, and, after an epic drunk, Fitzgerald retired to St. Paul, Minnesota, to rewrite for the second time a novel he had begun at Princeton. In the spring of 1920 it was published, he married Zelda, and “This Side of Paradise” was a revelation of the new morality of the young; it made Fitzgerald famous.

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1921

This fame opened to him magazines of literary prestige, such as Scribner’s, and high-paying popular ones, such as The Saturday Evening Post. This sudden prosperity made it possible for him and Zelda to play the roles they were so beautifully equipped for, and Ring Lardner called them the prince and princess of their generation. Though they loved these roles, they were frightened by them, too, as the ending of Fitzgerald’s second novel, “The Beautiful and Damned “(1922), shows. The Beautiful and Damned describes a handsome young man and his beautiful wife, who gradually degenerate into a shopworn middle age while they wait for the young man to inherit a large fortune. Ironically, they finally get it, when there is nothing of them left worth preserving.
To escape the life that they feared might bring them to this end, the Fitzgeralds (together with their daughter, Frances, called “Scottie,” born in 1921) moved in 1924 to the Riviera, where they found themselves a part of a group of American expatriates whose style was largely set by Gerald and Sara Murphy; Fitzgerald described this society in his last completed novel, Tender Is the Night, and modeled its hero on Gerald Murphy.

Shortly after their arrival in France, Fitzgerald completed his most brilliant novel, “The Great Gatsby “(1925). All of his divided nature is in this novel, the naive Midwesterner afire with the possibilities of the “American Dream” in its hero, Jay Gatsby, and the compassionate Yale gentleman in its narrator, Nick Carraway. The “Great Gatsby” is the most profoundly American novel of its time; at its conclusion, Fitzgerald connects Gatsby’s dream, his “Platonic conception of himself,” with the dream of the discoverers of America. Some of Fitzgerald’s finest short stories appeared in ” All the Sad Young Men” (1926), particularly “The Rich Boy” and “Absolution,” but it was not until eight years later that another novel appeared.

The next decade of the Fitzgeralds’ lives was disorderly and unhappy. Fitzgerald began to drink too much, and Zelda suddenly, ominously, began to practice ballet dancing night and day.

In 1930 she had a mental breakdown and in 1932 another, from which she never fully recovered. Through the 1930s they fought to save their life together, and, when the battle was lost, Fitzgerald said, “I left my capacity for hoping on the little roads that led to Zelda’s sanitarium.”

He did not finish his next novel, “Tender Is the Night”, until 1934. It is the story of a psychiatrist who marries one of his patients, who, as she slowly recovers, exhausts his vitality until he is, in Fitzgerald’s words, un homme épuisé (“a man used up”). This is Fitzgerald’s most moving book, though it was commercially unsuccessful.
With its failure and his despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an incurable alcoholic.

By 1937, however, he had come back far enough to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood, and there he met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a famous Hollywood gossip columnist.

For the rest of his life—except for occasional drunken spells when he became bitter and violent—Fitzgerald lived quietly with her. In October 1939 he began a novel about Hollywood, The “Last Tycoon”. The career of its hero, Monroe Stahr, is based on that of the producer Irving Thalberg.

This is Fitzgerald’s final attempt to create his dream of the promises of American life and of the kind of man who could realize them. In the intensity with which it is imagined and in the brilliance of its expression, it is the equal of anything Fitzgerald ever wrote, and it is typical of his luck that he died of a heart attack with his novel only half-finished. He was 44 years old.”
Arthur MizenerThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Back to the Past

This article was recently recovered by P. James Clark on Google Drive. It was
written by me in August 2017, 4.5 years ago. 

Here you have what I wrote at that time:

Cosmology by John Augustus Knapp (1853-1938) – Public Domain

“Thoughts expressed by Pablo Ianiszewski F. here on ISCA prompted me to write after a long silence because I had been busy writing my last book.

I have raised a few points which, even if they were not true, are most certainly worth discussing.

In my ancient studies of astrology, I tended to see the planets as the primary causation of the facts. The malefic planets caused harm, the benefics, benefits.

But after years, I have approached a non-causal, but synchronistic view of the facts. The understanding of this synchronicity, if it can be sought in the celestial configuration, will not occur because the planets caused harm or blessings on earth.

I would like to point out that I agree with my colleague Pablo Ianiszewsky that excess of heat or cold is not conducive to the development of life. This is not under discussion. Probably the fact that some planets are more distant from the Sun, the creator of life, led the astrologers to divide them in their basic characteristics. The more distant from the Sun, the more maleficient the planets turn out. Jupiter is an exception, probably because it has an affinity with Sagittarius which makes a trigon with the Sun, the diurnal luminary, and with Pisces that makes a sextile with the Moon, the nocturnal light. The mix of aspects with luminaries added to the distance of the Sun must have influenced the ancients in their classifications also in hot, cold, wet and dry.

Finally, this ground raises many questions that I do not want to discuss here, but what perhaps may be quite interesting is to have in mind that such classification depends on the human view of the elements and that it changes culturally, as we can see in the Eastern philosophy in which the elements wood or metal are also considered.

What I would like to bring about in these few lines is that the intrinsic planetary essence goes far beyond the earth and that we know nothing about the planets, which are beings, each of them has their own inscrutable cosmic purpose and must seek it far beyond the pettiness of our little world.

My view is that we, as human inhabitants of this part of the universe, the earth, embedded in one of the hundreds of galaxies, depend essentially on the Sun, the principle of all life. So we tend to classify the visible planets according to the effect they cause to us.

I remember that Alchabitius saw Saturn esoterically as the first planet to which all the others follow. He says that Saturn is the first to operate on conception after the shedding of semen in the womb, contracting and unifying the matter with which the being is formed. Also in the Poimandres, it is said that the soul descends through the celestial spheres. Rudolf Steiner followed more or less this tone when he explained that the soul comes from the universe and creates the skeleton through Saturn, until arriving at Venus that beautifies the flesh and finnally reaches the Moon, rounding of the forms, shortly before the birth.

Much is supposed, but nothing is known for certain of the planets and their intrinsic nature.

I have more and more the impression that the planets are not concerned with events on earth, but with their interplanetary relationships.

I have raised the hypothesis that the chaotic or harmonic events that we experience have to do with the way the planets treat each other.

Evil derives from the evil form as one planet deals with the other in a specific quadrature, and this is reflected in the life on earth, in a specular way, as in the entire universe.

For example, if Mars attacks Jupiter, without mutual reception and especially being in a higher position, that is, considering the primary movement, events will happen according to the nature of both, but the massacre will be especially bloody for everything that represents justice.

If things go the other way, and Jupiter is in a position above Mars, the result would be the victory over criminals, crushed by justice.

By this I mean that a square, just to name a kind of aspect, has a different meaning if one planet has a superior position to the other. This explains the fact that there are squares that come to good and others that come to evil.

Even the trigons, an aspect of friendship, in a case where a malefic makes aspect, can have a paltry result if the malefic is in a superior position.

I will provide an example of this – something that in my country, when our president, visibly suspected of criminality, was released by the court to follow his mandate, instead of suffering an impeachment.

Let me explain: Jupiter in Libra occupied in the 7th house, Libra when the Sun entered in Cancer and Saturn, the ruler of the MC was cadent and in retrogradation, occupying the 9th house.

Jupiter was then in an inferior position to Saturn and was direct, whereas Saturn also approached to Jupiter, for being retrograde. Faced with this relationship between the two, one planet in the sign of the other, Jupiter for regency and Saturn for exaltation, I predicted at the beginning of the third quarter of the year that the president would be supported.

In fact, he, Saturn, ruler of Midheaven, constrained the law, Jupiter, which weighed against him, and Jupiter obtained favours and facilities, in the generous manner of the sign of Sagittarius, which Jupiter rules.

Had the position of the planets been changed the result would be different.

But the result suffered in the country was neither bad nor good from a universal point of view.

In this way, duality, in my humble opinion, is only one facet of ONE and the same thing, that “thing” that the human mind does not reach and which in its smallness calls good or evil.

Clelia Romano, September 2017

A Validade Astrológica de Planetas a 5º de uma cúspide

Clélia Romano, DMA

04/11/2020

Muitos astrológos fazem desse tópico um dogma a ser amplamente considerado.

Mas é preciso entender os fundamentos de qualquer técnica que formos usar,é preciso pensar e pesquisar, não repetir, baseados simplesmente em ideias que nunca chegamos a entender bem.

O caso de um planeta a 5 graus da cúspide de uma casa ter influência sobre a casa é um desses fatos que não tem sentido, junto com outros que não cabe nominar aqui e que continuamos usando.

A questão citada sobre os 5º começou com Ptolomeu.

Este autor considerou as casas com alguma irrelevância, mas a questão de Qual Método de construção de casas ele se referiu provocou um grande debate.

Sua constante sobreposição das palavras “lugar” e “signo”, e a maneira como ele se refere ao meio do céu como “o sinal culminante”, foi usada para sugerir que ele considerava “lugares” .

Resta, no entanto, uma passagem altamente significativa, na qual ele oferece uma definição das casas. É o que está contido em seu método de determinação da duração da vida, sendo que os planetas dos quais extraímos tal julgamento devem estar localizados nos lugares poderosos, que ele descreve como segue:

“Em primeiro lugar, devemos considerar aqueles lugares … em que o planeta receberá o senhor da prorrogação; a saber, a décima segunda parte do zodíaco em torno do horóscopo de 5 ° acima do horizonte real para cima, e os o 25 ° que resta, que está subindo em sucessão ao horizonte [isto é, 1ª casa]; a parte sextil destra a esses trinta graus, chamada de Casa do Bom Daemon [11ª casa]; a parte no quartil, o meio do céu [10ª casa]; a parte em trígono, chamada de Casa de Deus [9ª casa]; e a parte oposta, o Ocidente [7ª casa]. ” (Tetrabiblos III.10). Vemos que o autor só aceita como Hyleg um planeta acima do céu.

Isso é tudo o que Ptolomeu tem a dizer sobre a base técnica das casas. Ao avaliar sua importância, o comentário introdutório sobre a 1ª casa é o mais pertinente: tal casa é composta pos 5 graus acima da cuspide do ASC e 25 graus abaixo, 5 ° acima do horizonte real até os 25 ° restantes, aqueles que vão subindo sucessivamente para o horizonte.

Esses 5 ° de deslocamento do ascendente causou muito debate, porque não é bem explicado, mas é a única forma de entender essa “fixação” dos 5º que atribui a cada casa uma influência de um planeta a 5 ° antes da cúspide, como no uso tradicional.

Como disse, essa abordagem é usada hoje por astrólogos treinados em técnicas tradicionais, de modo que , se um planeta estiver a 5 graus da cúspide da próxima casa, ele terá sua influência no contexto daquela casa.

Esta definição é enganosa, porque é claro que o princípio de reconhecimento dos cinco graus que precedem uma cúspide de uma casa é tradicional APENAS considerando-se a primeira casa, independentemente do método de divisão de casas utilizado por Ptolomeu.

Portanto, isso deve ser considerado um princípio de interpretação da casa 1 para localizar o Hyleg ou prorrogador e não um método que funcionaria em todas as casas, pois, nesse caso, cada casa teria que começar 5 graus antes do que começa por qualquer método de divisão, e terminar 25 graus depois!

Tal concepção poderia ter validade em caso de não haver divisão alguma de casas e as constelações se misturarem às seguintes.

Mas essa não é nossa prática: dividimos os zodíacos em 12 signos.

Além disso, se considerarmos que os planetas andam na direção dos ponteiros do relogio e as casas e seu movimento primário em direção contrária aos ponteiros dos relogios, um planeta a 5 graus da cuspide esteve na casa ha um tempo atras, havendo portanto um natural afastamento entre casa e planeta referidos.

A posição do planeta é de se tornar mais distante da casa onde esteve, dado o movimento secundário.O mesmo ocorre com a casa, dado seu movimento diurno ou primário.

Sob o ponto de vista filosófico um planeta a 5 graus de qualquer cúspide e a Casa onde se localizou estão em relação de distanciamento e finalização de relações, não havendo qualquer sentido em usar a técnica de Ptolomeu para todas as casas, quando foi usada por ele para encontrar o hyleg na primeira casa.

Como um aparte, em minha opinião, sugere-se que ele usava signos completos, mas essa é apenas uma sugestão, baseada no parágrafo inicial e que repetiremos aqui:”Em primeiro lugar, devemos considerar aqueles lugares … em que o planeta deve estar que receberá o senhor da prorrogação; a saber, a décima segunda parte do zodíaco em torno do horóscopo, de 5 ° acima do horizonte real para cima para o 25 ° que resta, que está subindo em sucessão ao horizonte [isto é, 1ª casa]; a parte sextil destra a esses trinta graus, chamada de Casa do Bom Daemon [11ª casa]; a parte no quartil, o meio do céu [10ª casa]; a parte em trígono, chamada de Casa de Deus [9ª casa]; e a parte oposta, o Ocidente [7ª casa] “.

Tal parágrafo sugere o uso de signos completos, pois se baseia no sextil com o ascendente, na quadratura , no trigono e na oposição com ele, elementos que outro tipo de divisão de casas não levam em conta.

04/11/2020

 

The Counseling Function of Traditional Astrology.

The emphasis I want to put on this short article today is on the counseling function of traditional astrology.

Modern astrology is said to be, by comparison with traditional astrology, more psychological and the last one more predictive.

I ask you who can advise a more whole psychological advice: the one who knows what can happen to the native, the one who knows his temperament and the special techniques to outline every aspect of his life, or who believes that a combination of planets can be lived by the native depending on the way the native wants to?

Giving productive advice requires using the techniques abundantly described by medieval astrologers. I have written a lot about them and many articles are on my website, www.astrologiahumana.com, and some of them are in English.

A few years ago I was asked why I named my site, as “human astrology”, since that astrology deals, with the exception of climate astrology, with humans.

It happens that I was a training psychologist and the thing I was more interested to  has always the human being as a whole. More than psychology it was astrology which brought me the vision of the true human being, this specific kind of life in earth who suffers the most, given their capacity for consciousness.

Moreover, because of the large parental dependence, the influence of the environment has the power of being completely antagonistic to the native tendencies, even since the early years in the family niche.

I quote as examples:

Imagine a child, whose ascendant is feminine, of water, thus seeking affection, as primary motivation. That child will do much worse in a school that encourages competitiveness, than another, whose ascendant is masculine of fire, that would lead the native to be stimulated for competition.

 Of course other factors must be seen before complete counseling.

Similarly, there are professions that do not match the professional significator of the native and should soon be discarded.

Even in sports, a predominant Mercury tends to lead to appreciate speed rather than strength.

People do not know who they are, said Robert Zoller.

They force themselves into roles that have nothing to do with their charts in the hope of fitting some kind of persona. Depression and stress are common, and especially in women who need to play numerous roles, feelings of guilt and inadequacy are common.

Factors such as temperament, expected family environment, occupation, kind of expected marriage, illnesses, financial significator, quantity and quality of children, whether or not dependent on the native will, are of paramount importance to settle the mind and provide the most important overview of the chart: “WHO I AM .” And  traditionalists have a clear answer to that.

This question is also answered by the so-called almutem figuris, which is the planet with the most essential and accidental dignity in the chart. Disobeying what you are causes disturbances in body and mind.

Moreover, to foresee also means also to guard against what cannot be changed. For example, if you are expected to enter a difficult financial phase, it is best to curb spending today and make a money reservation. On the contrary, if the difficult phase is about to end, it is a great encouragement for the native, tired of tribulations, to know this.

Therefore, I claim that traditional astrology has all the resources to be a true psychological astrology and not just a predictive one.

 

Clélia Romano, DMA

November 2019

The exquisite sign of Aquarius

                                                                          Marsilio Ficino:

Due to the precession of the equinoxes we are entering the age of Aquarius.

Many astrologers believe it is a time of openness and humanism. Partly we can foresee some development regarding ideas, since Aquarius is an air sign. But such ideas will not always, especially in Aquarius, dealing with fair ideals.

We can´t forget that Aquarius is ruled by the great malefic, Saturn, which, being a day planet, is happier in Aquarius than in Capricorn, which it  also rules.

Thus, keeping with the traditional view, not only Aquarius opposes Leo, but their respective rulers, Saturn and Sun, also do so.

The Sun is the daytime luminary, so we can expect a darker time linked to this opposition, as soon as Aquarius will rule the time.

One thing to keep in mind is that many astrologers identify signs with houses, which is a mistake and confuses things.

The signs refer to the position of the constellations in the sky. But houses are the most terrestrial phenomenon that exists as it is experienced as the change between day and night and the several hours over a period of a day.

Meanwhile, the constellations remain unchanged. It is the earth that changes, offering every two hours a different position in the east.

The fact that we observe, let´s say, the sign of Aries at dawn during the fall in the southern hemisphere, does not mean that dawn or the 1st house has to do with Aries, since in another latitude and longitude Libra, or any other constellation / sign, can be seen.

Much of what is thought about Aquarius relates to the fact that in the standard zodiac, which has Aries as its beginning, Aquarius appears in the 11th house, which in fact is a positive house, connected with fraternity and hope, and where Jupiter has its joy.

However, Jupiter rejoices in the 11th house, whatever sign appears there and not necessarily in Aquarius. Therefore, there is a huge difference between signs and houses.

Another thing to take into account is that the signs or constellations have their own proper characteristics:

As for the mode they can be fixed, common and mutable. The fixed signs keep things as they are. The common signs start things up and the mutable signs act sometimes in one way, sometimes in another.

As for the gender, the signs can be feminine and masculine. Feminine signs are centripetal, they hope, masculine signs are centrifugal, they seek.

As for its elemental nature the signs are divided in earth, water, fire and air. Earth signs wait for material security, water signs wait for being loved, air signs seek freedom of ideas and fire signs seek freedom of action.

In relation to Aquarius, object of our study, it is a masculine sign of air and is a fixed sign.

Male signs tend to be active and go after things. Air signs, which are masculine, tend to seek freedom of ideas and fixed signs tend to immutability.

We note here a kind of internal conflict in Aquarius because its immutability restricts the action to which Aquarius is prone. We can say that it is a sign that has a conflict in itself.

Leo is also fixed, but it is a sign of fire, but the Sun, its ruler, changes its sign much faster than Saturn, and Leo, having the Sun as its ruler can see the action needed being executed by others when its majesty, Leo, keep resting.

Aquarius is trapped in its freedom of ideas, and even if Saturn is in a masculine sign of action, Saturn is a slow planet, the slowest of all, which always suggests delays and melancholy.

Aquarius strives for freedom of ideas but cannot act in that direction because it is subject to its mode, which reflects immutability.

However, despite these more general characteristics, signs manifest themselves through their rulers, and it is then that we individualize a chart, be it mundane, personal, elective or horary.

In this case, there are specific rules and techniques for each of these kinds of astrology.

In a certain internet discussion of world astrology, someone told that the Aquarian age would bring “hopes” to mankind. I can´t agree, because Aquarius is ruled by the malefic Saturn and in the Thema Mundi it occupies the 8th house, a malefic house. Thinking about these matters we came across Marsilio Ficino´s chart. This man was a Renaissance´s astrologer, philosopher, translator, poet and physician.

At that time I was not aware of the chart, but got interested in the fact that this native, who wrote “Three books on Life”, “Soul Meditations,” and about the nature of love, had Aquarius on the Ascendant with Saturn!

I began to read his biography and to analyze his chart, in order to understand the meaning of Aquarius and his ruler being in the ascendant creating a prodigal author and a transmitter of ideas.

Much is said about Marsilio Ficino’s life, but very few is know of him in truly personal terms, for example if he was happy or unhappy person, if he had any love, how well he got along with people, etc.

About these matters we have nothing. His life, according to Wikipedia and other sites, quoted in the end ot this article , boils down only to his intellectual output, his intelligence, and the protection of the Medici´s. There are no books in any language, not even in Italian, narrating his personal biography. We have a lot about his writings, though.

First I will show his chart, obtained by Astrodatabank and considered as AA, that is, the time was reliable. Next I will write his biography as it is found on numerous websites, and then I will outline the chart, emphasizing the rising Aquarius sign.

 Marsilio Ficino was born in Figline Valdarno, in October, 19, 1433 and died in Careggi, Florence, in 1st of October 1499

He was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with the major academics of his day and the first translator of Plato‘s complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato’s Academy, influenced the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.

His father Diotifeci d’Agnolo was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, who took the young man into his household and became the lifelong patron of Marsilio, who was made tutor to his grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Italian humanist philosopher and scholar was another of his students.

When Cosimo decided to refound Plato’s Academy at Florence he chose Ficino as its head. In 1462, Cosimo supplied Ficino with Greek manuscripts of Plato’s work, whereupon Ficino started translating the entire corpus to Latin.  Ficino also produced a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents found by Leonardo da Pistoia later called Hermetica, and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, including Porphyry, Iamblichus and Plotinus.

A physician and a vegetarian, Ficino became a priest in 1473.

In 1474 Ficino completed his treatise on the immortality of the soul, Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae (Platonic Theology). In the rush of enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, he exhibited a great interest in the arts of astrology, which landed him in trouble with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1489 he was accused of magic before Pope Innocent VIII and needed strong defense to preserve him from the condemnation of heresy.

Probably due to early influences from his father Diotifeci, who was a doctor to Cosimo de’ Medici, Ficino published Latin and Italian treatises on medical subjects as De vita libri tres (Three books on life). His medical works exerted considerable influence on Renaissance physicians such as Paracelsus, with whom he shared the perception on the unity of the micro- and macrocosmos, and their interactions. Those works, which were very popular at the time, dealt with astrological and alchemical concepts. Thus Ficino came under the suspicion of heresy again; especially after the publication of the third book in 1489, which contained specific instructions on healthful living.

Ficino introduced the term and concept of “platonic love” in the West developed all along his work, mainly his famous De amore. He also practiced this love metaphysic with Giovanni Cavalcanti, whom he made the principal character in his commentary on the Convivio, and to whom he wrote ardent love letters in Latin that were published in his Epistulae in 1492; there are also numerous other indications to suggest that Ficino’s erotic impulses were directed exclusively towards men. His Latin translations of Plato’s texts put into practice the theories of anti-homosexuality in his Convivium.

With the death of Lorenzo of Medici, in 1492, the political balance between Florence and the other Italian states was broken. This was followed by a bloody period of war and invasion.

  The decline of the Medici will have a negative influence on Ficino’s life. The Academy’s activities have been extinguished and its thinking is harshly criticized by the powerful cleric Girolamo Savonarola, against whom Ficino will write an Apology in 1498.

Disgusted, the philosopher retires, dying in his house of Careggi in 1499.

Again:

As we see, it is a chart whose ascendant is Aquarius. The native’s primary motivation is to pursue intellectual freedom. As Aquarius is a fixed sign, it persists in this goal, but has little malleability in the way it is pursued. Saturn, ruler of the sign, is a masculine planet and is dignified by domicile and placed in an angle.

Possessing the ascendant´s ruler in the ascendant we see that Marsilio was primarily interested in his own goals. But they are opposed by Jupiter in Leo, which we will analyze later.

Saturn is the dispositor of the Moon and Mars. The position of the Moon is quite negative, in the sign where it has its detriment and in bad house, the 12th.

This tells us of a reclusive type of life, which is confirmed by the fact that Mars, the dispositor of Mercury, ruler of the profession and ruler of the 10th house, is also falling in 12th house.

Mercury, on the cusp of the true MC, makes a sextile with Mars in the 12th house and Mercury, as we said, is the native’s profession dispositor: he is received by Mars, which is in its exaltation in Capricorn, so he wrote about deep and serious things and we suppose that in complete solitude. This sextile between Mars, ruler of the 10th and Mercury, ruler of the native´s profession, and Mars receiving Mercury by rulership, is the reason why Ficino´s writings and deep study were very important for the native’s reputation.

The chart is diurnal and the Sun is in the 10th house: the brilliance will be obtained without the native acting, since the Sun is in a feminine and passive sign, but because of Jupiter in the 7th House in Leo. So we understand most of Ficino´s life and support: Jupiter receives the Sun by rulership.

We can clearly see the partnership with solar and wealthy persons admiring  Marsilio’s studies.

Venus is the ruler of the 8th house, and is in its fall. Venus rules the 4th house, and Marsilio receives from Cosme a village to live and study. We see that a benefic dignified planet as an angular Jupiter, can turn bad things, as Venus in its fall, into not so bad, perhaps because Jupiter rules Pisces, the 2nd house of the chart. Also, the good effect is received because Venus in the 8th house is in Mercury’s sign, which is acting as a benefic. Venus in Virgo  is ruler of the 9th, which explains his priesthood.

His solar partners welcome him to court and value his knowledge, but his life was lived, most of the part, behind the scenes and alone, and love was represented only through letters, because he was shy, priest and rigid, not accepting sodomy.

I do not see Marsilio as an outgoing person at all, and he seems taciturn, melancholic, and sad.

Certainly he was not a threat to the Medici, as long as he developed the translations and the intelectual labor much appreciated by Lawrence the Magnific, who admired Plato.

I imagine that Marsilio submitted to the power of Jupiter, who acted not only for him to carry out his studies, which was his primary motivation, but Jupiter opposing to Saturn required a mundane life, parties and celebrations, which were important to the Medici, but not to Marsilio, who preferred a life of closure, quietness and study.

We do not know what really happened but it is very plausible that Marsilio have had to bow his head to the powerful Church, restricting his interest in magic and alchemy, since he was once accused of necromancy.

With these thoughts I hope to have shown a life which only obtained his primary motivation doing compromises and never having the total control over his own needs and freedom, including love.

 Had him a fiery ascendant, for example, he would hardly avoided quarreling in an environment filled with conflict over the power as used to happen in Florence at those days.

But the sign of Aquarius in the ascendant leads to great immutability, although Saturn, domiciled there, is masculine and leads to action, albeit very slowly.

Clélia Romano,DMA

August 2019

PS: Fort hose who want to know more of Ficino´s work I recomend the following encyclopedia  https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=001101905209118093242%3Arsrjvdp2op4&ie=UTF-8&q=+Ficino&sa=Search

Love and Marriage- Some Considerations

                                              by Clélia  Romano, DMA  March 2017

                       Astrological analysis of love, marriage and companionship is not difficult to delineate in a chart and frequently the astrologer is asked about these kinds of questions.

It

is easier also to analyze this topic in a horary chart, since it is enough to look at the 7th house, its dispositor and the ascendant ruler, and see if there is any aspect between them. If both are in aspect  we have an important testimony in favour or against the question, depending on the type of aspect and if benefics or malefics give their testimony. If Venus and Moon appear in the configuration, especially in a male question, we can judge that the marriage will happen or will have a good evolution. If a maleficent planet appears in the configuration the matter tends to be hindred. In case of a female client, we accept a relation between the ascendant´s dispositor and the Sun to signify a possible marriage.

As Robert Zoller said, following medieval astrology,  the woman always goes in search of the Sun.

In a horary chart the Moon is co-ruler of the  chart and contributes sometimes very clearly, even replacing the ruler of the ascendant  or the ruler of the  7th house if she aspects one of the significators or a benefic strong by position .

However, the aim of this article is to present the most difficult questions, those which have not a simple answer, but that which takes into account the whole chart settings.

Venus and its position, angularity, sign and aspects, counts a lot in favor of happiness in love ( and even in life as a whole) and in an opposite way the aspects with Mars cause the end of things, ruptures and pain. The more I study individual charts the more I pay attention to the position of Venus by sign and by house, as well as its aspects, when the matter concerns marriage and love.

But even with this testimony the difficulties in delineation come from qualitative rather than quantitative aspects. A simple “yes” or “no” is easier than to describe  the kind of marriage or love the client will live.

When we get to the 7th house the  first thing is to be aware that we reach the West angle, one of the four hinges where important things in the chart will revolve, especially if there are planets in there.

Moreover, it should not be forgotten that  the 7th house makes an opposition to the ascendant. It is where the Sun sets on the West horizon. So, in the past, the 7th house was  considered the house of death.

In the human trajectory on earth we start from the known, from the mother’s womb, from the cradle, the ascendant, and  go towards what is unknown. What is awaiting or us after this journey is to reach the seventh house, the house of the Moon in Chaldean order. In this case the Moon is not  representing  women, but night, unknown and the obscure.

When Plato spoke about  primordial forms, one of them is the Same versus the Other. And the 7th House is the furthest house from the Ascendant (the Same), and it is attached to that which is unfamiliar, the Other.

The daily movement that carries the whole celestial vault toward the East, called by Plato the Circle of the Same, and by the astrologers the  Primary Movement  is faced by the opposite circle, which moves in an opposite direction, the zodiacal circle, i.e. the ecliptic ,the Circle of the Other. It was said that the Platonic Demiurge linked both.

A so disparate union gives some food for thought. The Ascendant and the 7th house are opposite in every sense and they were linked for some reason. We can not get to the ultimate reasons but we can speculate about the opposition link between the ascendant and the 7th house.

 

Traditional astrology has always given great importance to the topics of marriage, love and sex .

Of the planets, especially Venus has a lot of relation in the prediction and happiness of the marriage.

In any delineation one must look for a configuration, that is the relation between two, three or four planets in their signs and houses. A single planet does not say much.

The institution of marriage, though it has relations with Christianity, does not necessarily have to do with love, and it deals also  with hate and destruction.

When we study medieval techniques to predict marriage, some things seem outdated, but I do not think that anything has essentially changed.

We must remember that in medieval times Europe was pagan, and in it lived the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, French and Germanic tribes. Civil marriage did not exist for people. Rarely did anyone know their grandparents and sometimes even their parents . The family as we know nowadays only existed among the aristocrats and the incipient bourgeoisie, which, in order to pass on their power and lands, made marriage an arrangement and a mutual partnership in which the children are generated to continue and expand the family business. Marriages were arranged long before the bride and groom were old enough to formalize a carnal union. The woman had a inferior role to that of the man, but if we were to study the society of the time there was very little place for individualism, even for man.

The Catholic Church tried to institute marriage as a sacrament, but the people did not have even an economic condition to pay for civil marriage.

Uses and customs were worth more than any contract, and in a certain culture of medieval times a woman was considered married to a man if he took his keys customarily in his own belt. Returning a woman to the family imposed a certain payment on the man, such as a compensation.

Who consulted the astrologer was not the common people  but the aristocracy and bourgeoisie that was formed from the thirteenth century. They wanted to know if they would find a bearable partner , whether the woman would be fertile or spoiled, whether she would accept the sexual act with the appropriate pleasure, whether she will be straight or gay, whether the future partners would be able or not to control their sexual appetites or if they would fornicate with the servants, etc.

When one reads the observations and conditions for the prediction of marriage in medieval authors we, as an individualistic society , tend to put them aside and say that they do not serve in our culture. Sometimes they even seem laughable.

However, I urge you to analyze your study charts to see how timely the old assertions are: behind ideals bathed in romantic civility, human beings and marriage have not changed much and behind the scenes lies the same medieval needs, for they are human and marriage is nothing less than a contract aimed to carrying forward some form of partnership capable of increasing or at least managing better the patrimony of the couple or the family, generating children and allowing them a minimum of development, besides guarantee a group of people belonging to a clan capable of protect against malicious strangers.

All this can happen with love, but most fall with ruled and compromises.

The 7th house relates to both love and hate, the spouse, boyfriend or lover, partners but also enemies. It  means the forces that opposes us, people who openly face us, to whom we end up going to war: it representes the Circle of the Other.

To talk about love we have to look at almost all houses, meanwhile marriage is a question intrinsic to the 7th.

Whe can see love, looking to the ascendant, when Venus appears there, making the native someone prone to harmony. In the fourth house, making the family atmosphere clean, beautiful and harmonious, and we know how important this foundation is to foster love, in the fifth house, fostering the pleasure of carnal union and of the children. In the 7th house, if you learned how to deal with compromises, in the 9th house as the love for God, in the 11th house, the love to our friends and even in the 12th house, the compassion and pity to the excluded and unfornunate.

Everything depends on the relations of Venus with other planets because, depending of this the love can change in hate, self-complacency, laziness, perversion.

The ancient authors describe marriage and the type of sexual intercourse, but not love, because love is virtual, can be in every house or in none.

Poets say that love is an emotion which do not want compensation, simply gives and do not expect  receiving, since the pleasure of love stays in the very sensation that love brings.

I finish with a quote from  Mortimer Adler: “love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That’s why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.”

On the art of electing a good moment

Masters tell us that astrologers should not analyze a horary question for themselves. In the same way, they can make a mistake by creating an electional chart for themselves.

Our desire for something to happen, or not to happen, leads to difficulties in interpreting the astrological configurations, giving room to ours unconscious mind.

It is true that mistakes mark us more than correctness, so we should learn more from them, but … this is not always possible.

Sometimes, even “a posteriori ” we are not able to identify the error, and yet, the election has not occurred as it was expected.

Any chart, but especially the electional one, is of extraordinary complexity, perhaps because in the final analysis we may be playing God.

So here’s an advice to the astrologer: never read a chart in a hurry, without sleeping for at least two nights from the first sight. The initial trust of an electional date must remain unabated. If not, it should be reviewed.

It may just be a personal opinion, but it is not possible to serve too many customers. Ideally, the astrologer would have to be paid enough, so he or her could devote several days to the same chart. This would give chance to be dazzled by the enigma of the unknown that must be deciphered and enable the professional to become a scholar.

Having the client’s chart in mind, memorized, from so much studying it, it is possible to do the best . The professional who has time to dwell unhurriedly on the chart benefits clients enormously, because their charts live in the astrologer’s memory.

I can say that there are people who I have not seen for years, and for so many years that their charts have been lost on old thirty years old drives. Many of them are dead. But the charts are still in my mind, like those of my friends, relatives and children. I forget birthdays, numbers, but I do not forget the charts I worked on.

I mention this fact of “digesting” the chart, because it is fundamental especially for any election.

I advice also to the astrologer avoid in any way to erect an electional chart whose purpose he, as a person, does not agree. The astrologer has to be on the client´s side, so considering his goal unacceptable or impossible, is a bad way to begin the work.

What can happen on this cases is that the astrologer will not find plausible dates, will start running for years without finding anything, and finally will adapt some things correctly, but usually as a result of the time and context of the client.

The result is ineffective and will ultimately harm the client and his/her own name.

Such a thing has happened to me, and up to this day I do not discovered a mistake in that disastrous electional chart! Apparently the choice for the day was okay…but the subject was not one, but a bunch of events very intricate and not depending one of the other, even if they will begin at the same time.

If the desired outcome is unreasonable, such as winning the lottery, doing several surgeries at the same time, in order to take advantage of the election, or because of the hurry, or if a woman wants to become pregnant at age 55, frankly, it is better to decline the election, even if the client is willing to pay a big money, so big as the client´s fantasy and desires.

In the case of several surgeries on the same day, for example, it is difficult to hit a good day, because the procedure lasts too long: the position of the Moon changes and also the ascendant which can be able to harbour Saturn or Mars, which dilutes the election, even if it has been well done.

The electional chart must take into account the client’s natal chart, the cyclical moment in which he is living, which is provided by the rulers and sub-rulers of firdars and profections, and by the ruler of the year, indicated by the solar revolution. The last one will be the Lord of the Year and we have to look exactly how it is configured in the natal chart and in the solar revolution, which means signs and houses it rules, its dispositor and finally, the aspects that it realizes and receives in the natal chart and in the solar revolution.

Writing what we observe is useful, because there are so many things to consider that our mind often forgets some very important of them

– Even if it seems obvious to you, write it down.

Yes, write down to yourself, it do not hurts, and justify your choice as if you were in the court room, until you have pages and pages of thoughts about what is important and why you have to take it into account, which houses should be avoided, which signs, which planets cannot be configured to some others … and much more.

At last but not least, consider the transits and avoid the malefic planets to be in configuration with the Lord of the Year and with the profection and firdar signs dispositors. If it is not possible, choose the less bad of the configurations.

All of the attention is good, but the astrologer will have to count on with some luck. I´ll give you an example:

Once, I chose the date of surgery for a client. I had already restricted the appropriate period, observing that both the firdar ruler and the sub-ruler were well configured in the natal chart, have avoided any contact with the eight house and her ruler, Venus, have paid good attention to where the profection felt in that year, which by the way was in the 8th house, which was ruled by Venus, as I said. In the natal chart Venus was in Virgo, very weak and in a cadent house, which was no good.

I had already verified the solar revolution, and the ascendant was Leo with Venus in the first house. Venus in this case, as ruler of the 8th house could be a light against a surgery. But the natal Leo was the sign of the 5th house, which seemed acceptable to me, due the intention of the surgery.

The Sun was the Lord of the Year, succedent in the solar revolution, applying itself to Saturn, but still distant, but I knew I had to take it into account.

Well, charts are imperfect, we have to get used with that, the malefics are always present, so the impression we have is that the astrologer flies from one side to another and when he thinks that has arrived at a good date, a planet appears to spoil all the job done.

I finally chose the day and the hour of my example chart. I justified the choice writing down to myself. And so I ended my day´s work and went out to watch a movie.

That night, when I closed my eyes to sleep, I remembered to send the report the next day and I felt uneasy. I stood up and opened the computer.

Out of the blue I saw that the Moon of the chosen date was in exact conjunction with Saturn in the Solar Revolution. The Moon was firdar´s sub-ruler and in addition, it has a huge importance over vital facts. I discarded the date and chose another one, very close, because the other planets were well.

It was not a perfect election, because after all, I realized that I could not accommodate well so many significators. But it looked as good as it was possible to be.

What is disturbing is the fact that it was virtually impossible to remember All ,as the fact that in the solar revolution Saturn would be at the same point and in the same degree as the Moon’s position of the chosen electional chart!

Saturn was not a significator, but it is the greatest malefic, and these coincidences, which in fact happen often, do not bode well.  Anyway, all this tiny thing requires a bionic attention! How do we ensure that we have all this in mind?

I don´t know if the surgery would be a disaster if I had forgot the position of Saturn, but I don´t like these kind of bad coincidences.

The question of choosing a date is complex. It is an intricate subject, because it uses the maximum freedom that is allowed to us, human beings.

In addition, there are elections of the date and time of birth, something of an unusual responsibility and that we must always carry out keeping in mind that we will try to reach some agreement with the divine.

Clélia Romano, DMA                                                        http://www.astrologiahumana.com

Mars, bloodthirsty and brave

Nocturnal, irregular, a wanderer of the heavens, masculine, maleficent, hot, has an affinity with that which is public, be it prostitution, carnage; impulsiveness hanging on to war and infections. In the body, it rules especially the head.

In the natal chart, if it occupies an angle, or looks to the ascendant or has to do to key points like the Lot of Fortune, or if it is in its exaltation or domicile, it can add a positive point to counteract its evil: it confers the ability to react and fight, not surrender or conform if the native is in an adverse situation.

As the Brazilian song goes: evil can be good and good can be cruelty.

Even in fall, if his mundane situation is angular, in spite of immense fears, the native is led to react and not to conform. This I have seen in my experience.

There is hardly a good thing to be heard about Mars, a true malefic that comes to break and destroy abruptly whatever it may be, whether it is exalted or in regency, in fall or detriment, whether in mundane or personal affairs.

But sometimes it is the only one responsible for making crucial and fast decisions.

It occurred to me these days, when Mars sailed for Scorpio, to watch a series of rather painful films, where people were locked up and abused for years, to an unbearable point. Even freed from gags and handcuffs, the will was broken and they do not escape. Other characters, in equally scary movies, in an act of courage, even accepting the loss of a member, were freed from the bonds.

I should probably watch lighter movies, which would require me less courage to go to the end. I agree, but Mars transits Scorpio, his nocturnal sign, and no doubt there was a synastry.

Even the fact that I am writing now on the subject is not a random fact and is related to this passage.

I went to the Astrodatabank © list of charts that I own and had used the filter of abducted people who suffered violence.

But I soon realized that in order to find Mars in an important position, I should look for examples of courage rather than victimization.

I found thousands of charts, of which I selected two, for no particularly important reason. The native’s stories were one of courage and I thought they would serve the purpose.

We will see these charts and I expect that the delineation will give us greater clarification on the role of Mars.

This is the first chart:

François Achille Bazaine (February 13, 1811 – September 23, 1888) was an officer of the French army.

Rising from a position for decades of service (including 35 years in campaigns, under Louis-Philippe and then Napoleon III, held all positions in the army.

He became known for his determination of leadership, for his impassive bearing under fire and for his personal bravery, getting to be bruised, which resulted in injuries on several occasions and had his horse shot from under him twice.

From 1863 he became a Marshal of France, and it was in this role that he delivered the last French army organized to Prussia during the Franco-Prussian War, during the siege of Metz.

They gave him an impossible task: to defeat a powerful enemy force, without support or supplies. He was able to engage them for 54 days, resulting in thier surrender.

He was sentenced to death by the government of the Third Republic, which declared that he yielded hastily and without due honor. He was tried by the Martial Court and sentenced to death.

But the president commuted his sentence to 20 years in prison in exile, from which he escaped.

He finally settled in Spain, where he died at 77 years old, alone and impoverished.

For the Foreign Legion he remained a hero and to this day is honored as one of its bravest soldiers.

Notice now that the astrological chart shows no angular planet.

If we did not use the Lot of Fortune as a second ascendant, the chart would be totally puzzling, a real enigma.

But, from the Lot of Fortune in House 9, using it now as House 1, Mars occupies the 10th House in relation to Fortune.

We can see that the domiciled Mars generated the profession of the native and his destiny. The ruler of Fortune is Jupiter in house 12, and it rules Saturn in the 7th house, the declared enemies, that is, the heavy sentence to which the native was submitted by his peers, the Martial Court.

Interestingly, exile, being away from home, in another country, from where he escaped, has a connection to house 9, where Fortuna is located.

But returning to Mars, domiciliated and below the sky in a daytime nativity, in haym, is squaring the Sun, the source of life in a daytime birth. That is why even Mars in good condition fails to do evil, soon or later.

The Sun ruler of sect lies in its joy, in the 9th house, but it is in its detriment, so in bad celestial condition, besides being afflicted by Mars.

By analyzing the chart we may see beforehand that something would go wrong. This hero was not only a hero, he killed many people even in the name of the motherland.

And when Mars is so prominent its sword is double-edged.

The second hero I will introduce is Jacques Lusseyran.

He was a fighter of the French resistance.
He was an active and happy child that became blind at the age of eight, on May 3, 1932, after accidentally hitting his head on a table.

He made school and college in Braille in Paris, maintaining his love for life and inner joy. He decided to study German when he sensed Hitler’s threat.

In 1943, as a teenager, he joined a group of young people, leading them to the Resistance Movement. Soon he joined a larger network and had his own newspaper, the Defense of France.

The edition of July 14, 1943, was printed in 250,000 copies (he also wrote the editorial). The transmission passed from the door-to-door distribution system to the open transmission, the exit of the churches or even to the subway.

Despite his disability, he quickly played an important role in the movement. During the first few months, he was responsible for controlling the recruitment of new members, using an inner sense, developed since he became blind, which allowed him to detect false pretensions in unknown interlocutors.

Betrayed, he was delivered to the Nazis, being arrested on July 19, 1943, being moved to a concentration camp. Among 2000 French in the same condition he was one of 30 who survived.

His survival is due, on the one hand, to the fact that he was involved as an interpreter by the Nazi camp administration, not having to suffer the terribly hard work of the “kommandos” of the work, but he was also helped daily by other prisoners because of his blindness.

Finally, according to what he reports in his books “The World Begins Today” and “The Light in the Dark” he felt supported by his spiritual strength which he claims to be present at all times.

His knowledge of German allowed him to understand and decrypt the information transmitted by the SS on the field loudspeakers. On August 26, 1944, he was certain that Paris had been released, although this was obviously not explicit.

On April 9, 1945, the US Army of General Patton arrived in the Weimar area. On the 10th, when the SS gave him the choice between staying at the camp or going out with them, he decided to stay. After a day of uncertainty, the field was released.
On April 18, 1945, he emigrated to the US and worked as a university professor in America, married and had four children.

He died in a car accident along with his third wife Marie, in France on July 27, 1971.

Analyzing the chart from the point of view of the contribution of Mars, we see that it is set to the South Node, which represents a great bad fortune in everything that concerns Mars. In addition, Mars squares the Ascendant and is angular if we use whole signs.

This man was wounded in the head and suffered a severe injury that in his childhood made him blind.

Now see: Mars has dignity in the ascendant, who receives Mars in his house as regent. It is worth quoting Masha’allah in his book On Reception: “When the ruler of life receives the ruler of Death there is death” Mars is not the ruler of the house of death but is a malefic. What happened is that the native did not revolt with his blindness: he accepted the designs of Mars and moved on.

Mercury provided a fruitful intellectuality and ability to express himself well, to learn and to write. A prodigious mind is revealed by Mercury occupying the house of the Good Spirit, far from the Sun and joined to the true MC: he was a writer and not a warrior.

What I found interesting in this chart is that we do not find bloody heroism, but the native’s acceptance of fate. In the end, the damage from Mars saved him effort and perhaps his life, because if he could see, he could have been killed in the concentration camp. A lord received in his own home is well treated, or the best possible. But we have to consider that receiving Mars in his own home is to receive a troublemaker and a thug.

In fact, our native died in an automobile disaster, a typically martial event.

What we see is that the maleficent Mars can be of assistance to tasks that require courage and they go beyond the war. But, Mars will always leave its mark of blood, like a fierce and hungry carnivore.

May we know how to use the beast that the cosmos has placed in our chart, may us try to understand it, and finally may us know that in the end we are not able to domesticate it once and for all.

Clélia Romano,DMA                 February 2018