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A joint publication of: Astro Logos and Zyntara Publications |
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ISSUE NO. 10 |
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October 2005 |
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The VAN
is a free monthly electronic newsletter |
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In this issue: |
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| The Moon sets with Unwashed Feet - The visual astrology of a lunar eclipse- Bernadette Brady | ||||
| Simon Wiesenthal – Beyond The Final Solution - Darrelyn Gunzburg | ||||
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VAN Archive - www.Zyntara.com |
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Introduction As we move into October we move into an
eclipse season and so in this issue of the V.A.N. we begin the long
journey of learning to delineate a lunar eclipse via the techniques
of visual astrology. With this goal in mind, the aim of the first
article is to examine the visual phenomena of the forthcoming lunar
eclipse on 17th October so we can observe the unfolding events with a
little more consciousness and understanding. The case study this month is
on Simon Wiesenthal, the Jewish refugee from WWII who devoted his life to
hunting down Nazi war criminals. He died last month at the age of 96 and
his fixed star parans are without doubt a testimony to his life.
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The
Moon Sets with Unwashed Feet
As to whether it was the
kingdom or its enemies which experienced the ill-fortune depended on the
location in the sky where the eclipse was actually observed. To the
Mesopotamian priest, if the eclipse was seen in the east – Moon rise –
then the ill fortune indicated by the eclipse would occur in the land of
one’s enemies. This also indicated that illness would be cured and
generally threats would be reduced. However, if the eclipse occurred in
the west – Moon set –
Figure 2 The above diagram (Figure 2) is for the visibility of the forthcoming lunar eclipse on 17 October, 2005. For the USA, the eclipse is seen in the west as it sets (grey shaded area on the left). Thus this would be delineated as difficulties for the "kingdom" of the USA. Interestingly if the astrologer was in the Middle East, they would see the eclipse occurring at moon rise in the east (grey shaded area on the right) and would therefore delineate the ill-fortune for their enemies. As can be seen from Figure 2, this particular lunar eclipse is actually linking up the USA and the Middle East via its lines of setting and rising. Now if we are observing the eclipse in the USA, then this is a moon which sets with “unwashed feet” (Hunger 4) which is the term used for the observation of a partial lunar eclipse in which the lower part of the moon’s sphere is darkened and the eclipse occurs as the moon is setting. This is shown in Figure 1. Such a moon with “unwashed feet” indicates that there will be attacks but the clay tablets are broken and the actual nature of the so called attacks are lost.
Additionally, the ill-fortune could be moderated or emphasized, depending
on whether other planets were visible at the time of the eclipse. For
example, if Jupiter or Venus were visible, then their positive forces
could reduce the potency of the eclipse (Hunger 300,
Parpola 40).
Yet this is not the case with this forthcoming eclipse. As can be seen from the chart of this lunar eclipse, at the time of moon set there are only two planets which are visible in the sky (above the Ascendant/Descendant axis): one is Mars, bright and just above the setting Moon in the 8th house; and the other is Saturn in the 10th house. If you look at Figure 1 you can see the sky map for this chart. As the moon sets, Mars gleams bright red above it and above Mars is the red star of Aldebaran. The only restraining force is Saturn who, in visual astrology, represents the King. Whether this means that the “king” will go to war, a war which is not good for the kingdom, or whether this means that the "king" is personally attacked is impossible to decide.
The English Civil War – the last time such a sky visual occurred. In scanning over 500 years of sky narratives there seems to be only one available example of the same sky narrative that was an eclipse setting with “unwashed feet” with both Mars and Aldebaran shining above it and no Jupiter in the sky.
From this eclipse England was thrown into a civil war that eventually lead to the success of the parliament and the execution of the king.
Return to 2005 – Venus radiates Antares To add to this sky narrative for this current month, Venus which at the moment is a bright evening star has moved close to Antares the Heart of the Scorpion. This combination is seen as Antares receiving radiance from Venus and in this manner the star Antares is being empowered by the brilliance of Venus (see figure below).
Independent of all of this potency of the visual astrology, we can also note that George W. Bush’s MC/IC axis is receiving this lunar eclipse and that this particular lunar eclipse belongs to a series which started on 11 July, 1843 and is concerned with the illusions of power or resources coming to a sudden end through difficult revelations. So the potency of the sky narrative is reflected in the horoscopic use of eclipses. Now the advice which would be given by the Mesopotamian visual astrologers would be to use a substitute king. Thus any ill-fortune would befall the substitute and not the true king (Parpola, 298). But to be honest, I do not know how to delineate this complex sky narrative. Whatever occurs, the simple matter is that in visual astrology a moon with “unwashed feet” is setting over the USA while only Mars and a radiated Antares oversee it. So the central issue for visual astrologers is to wait, observe and learn, not only for immediate events in this next month but also for events over the next six months until another lunar eclipse is observed in the sky. Although we can locate the difficulties of the eclipse being focused in the USA, the key questions which are raised are these:
This last is certainly not a question that as astrologers we have asked before! Sources:
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Between the last New Moon of the Visual Astrology Newsletter and this New Moon of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year, the world lost Simon Wiesenthal (alav hashalom), Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter. We are all aware of how awed we feel when acts of terrorism or natural disasters hit our headlines. Yet engaged empathy can spread only so far. Within two weeks news presenters have carefully segued such items to places of lesser weight until eventually they evaporate from broadcast space. For news in any form always seeks the peak experience. This is why Simon Wiesenthal was so extraordinary, for he was a man who fought against forgetting and with a determined obsession, remained a witness his whole life to the atrocities of the Shoah. When western powers lost interest and turned away, he raised his voice and shouted into the echo chamber of history.
With no birth time available we can however still look at his fixed stars. The first way we can look at Wiesenthal’s life is to consider the two great foundation stones on which his life was built - his heliacal rising star and his heliacal setting star. (These stars were discussed in the August, 2005 issue) His heliacal rising star is Facies. Starlight says of this star, in this position: HELIACAL RISING STAR Facies - A philosophy that life is hard or unforgiving
Wiesenthal was firstly imprisoned in the Janowska concentration camp until 1943 and later in a small forced labour camp attached to an important railway repair yard. He was singled out by the railway yard's Nazi manager and assigned to design work and to act as a go-between with Polish contractors. In such a situation he was able to build contacts with Polish underground members who helped his wife to escape into hiding in Warsaw. Wiesenthal himself escaped from the camp in October 1943 but was recaptured by the SS in 1944. Convinced that he faced torture and extermination in the death camps, he made three failed suicide attempts in short succession. He was sent to eleven concentration camps over the next year or so, before spending six days half alive in the freezing confines of packed, open freight wagons destined for Austria's notorious Mauthausen camp. When Mauthausen was liberated by an American armoured unit on 5th May, 1945, Wiesenthal was barely alive. He weighed less than a hundred pounds and had been left lying helplessly in a barracks where the stench was so strong that even hardboiled SS guards would not enter. Wiesenthal and his wife lost a total of eighty-nine members of their families in the Shoah. Unwillingly caught in the maelstrom of the Holocaust, Wiesenthal made the conscious decision to become its voice, rather than its victim. He turned this philosophy that “life is hard or unforgiving” into a framework from which he could pursue justice. Credited with helping to bring more than 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice in the decades after the genocide of the Jews in World War II, including Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, and Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor Nazi death camps in Poland, here we see Facies strongly focused as the non-diplomatic but achieving person. We can also consider Wiesenthal’s helical setting star, the star that has been living amongst the immortals at the pole and has now returned to the earth. This star is the gift from one’s immortal soul or daemon. In Wiesenthal’s chart his heliacal setting star is Algol. Starlight says of this star, in this position: HELIACAL SETTING STAR Algol - Led by one's passions, to create or destroy
In contrast to the Nazi killing machine, devoid of passion, intellectually arrogant, heartless and chilling, it was the wild, raw, frightening face of the outraged feminine of Algol that rose up through Wiesenthal after his liberation from the camps. He determinedly culled every pertinent document and record he could find and listened to the many personal accounts told to him by individual survivors. Using his architect's structural acumen and a brilliance in investigative thinking, he pieced together the most obscure, incomplete, apparently irrelevant and unconnected data to build cases solid enough to stand up in a court of law. The dossiers were then presented to the appropriate authorities. When, as often happened, they failed to take action, whether from indifference, pro-Nazi sentiment or some other consideration, Wiesenthal went to the press and other media, for experience had taught him that publicity and an outraged public opinion were powerful weapons. Here is Algol not only firing him in his search but also being used to fire the public with the passion of justice. When asked why he had devoted his life to hunting Nazis and bringing them to trial rather than going back to building houses and becoming a millionaire, Wiesenthal replied: “When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?', there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweller'. Another will say, 'I built houses', But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'” (2) From the formative years of Facies to the passion of principles of Algol, Wiesenthal’s obsession with bringing mass murderers to justice ricocheted into the mainstream with the establishment of the UN international criminal court and international tribunals charged with identifying and trying those responsible for crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. To add to the story we can look at Wiesenthal’s parans. We don’t have a timed chart for him but it doesn’t matter. Starlight will look at the full 24 hours of the day of birth and search for every star-planet combination. If we take the parans to his Sun - his health, vitality, rank and position - we can see an unfoldment from his early years up to the Saturn Return with the Sun making a paran to Aculeus, and then the maturation of that Sun in his middle years with the Sun making a paran to Sirius. Starlight says of the Sun rising when Aculeus is rising: A person who grows in strength through attacks or difficulties. A battler. Aculeus is one of the stings of the Scorpion, linked with physical, mental, verbal or spiritual attacks which an individual can endure and use to harden or strengthen themselves. Since this is connected with his Sun in his youth, this tells us that these years have been hard for Wiesenthal with regard to his father but that he has the ability to identify with the struggle and to grow stronger. Wiesenthal’s biological father was killed World War I; his step-father was arrested by the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs - Soviet Secret Police) in the purge of "bourgeois" elements that followed the Soviet occupation of Lvov Oblast at the beginning of World War II and eventually died in prison. However, through his initial struggles Wiesenthal wins through by growing in strength. Starlight says of the Sun culminating when Sirius is On Nadir: Sudden success which can burn. Sirius is one of the great stars of the sky, the brightest star in the heavens apart from our Sun. The Egyptians called it The Shining One or The Scorcher. It was linked to the life-giving rising of the Nile and in that capacity it was also called the Nile Star. Sirius is a marker of great deeds. It indicates that the mundane may become sacred, that the small action of the individual has a large effect on the collective. The individual, however, may be sacrificed to this collective expression or may gain fame and glory. With Sirius in paran with his Sun in his prime, as long as he did not seek personal fame or glory, Wiesenthal could reshape the struggles of his youth to help him achieve levels that were not thought possible. He applied this to finding Nazi war criminals and by his efforts, gained far more than what was expected. This is the star-planet paran of the mundane becoming sacred, where a small action becomes a symbol for the collective. As you can see, these star-planet combinations add to the story of the heliacal rising and setting stars and give detail to the larger picture. Wiesenthal died in his sleep at his home in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on 20th September, 2005, aged 96. I wanted to take this opportunity to pay my personal respects to a man whose work I have followed for many years and at the same time show how difficult stars myths and difficult star-planet combinations can be shaped to make a positive difference for others. Simon Wiesenthal may have left us but his light remains. ___________________________
(1)
Hella Pick at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1574315,00.html
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The
lunar eclipse on 17th October, 2005, provides a rich
opportunity for the exploration of visual astrology. Lunar eclipses were
key events in the Mesopotamian view of the world as the Moon, Sin,
was the god that empowered the king. Normally any obstruction to the light
of the full moon, even if it was simply a passing cloud, was an omen of
the king being challenged in the coming month. Thus the event of a lunar
eclipse was a serious threat to the kingdom or to the kingdom’s enemies.
This
was on 8 October, 1642. This lunar eclipse set over England, so its
ill-fortune was focused into England and Europe. As can be seen in this
chart (left), the moon sets as it is being eclipsed and only Mars
is visible in the sky. This lunar eclipse occurred just before the first
battle of the English Civil War – the battle of Edgeville which took place
on 23 October, 1642. Charles I marched towards London and met the
parliamentary forces at Edgeville. This first battle was undecided in its
outcome. However, by 12 November at the battle of Tuirnham Green, Charles
I had been repelled from his drive towards London. From that period onward
he used Oxford as his base throughout the civil war.
Algol,
the head of the Gorgon