The Zodiac by Degrees: Second Edition, Extensively Revised

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION

The Importance of Degree Symbols

Astrology is complex by its very nature. So are we justified in complicating it even further by giving symbols to the individual degrees? For those who already use the Sabian symbols, the answer is obvious. The degrees give us more specific information, and more interesting information than any other element in the birth chart. To say that someone's Sun is in Aries ties them to a set of keywords traditional to the sign Aries. They will be bold, honest, aggressive, etc. However, if one knows that their Sun is on the 29th degree of Aries, symbolized in the Sabians by a heavenly choir, one knows that aggression is less important for this person than attunement. The celestial choir degree has its aggressive side—there may be an attempt to orchestrate events, but once one has associated this person with the energy and consciousness specific to 29 Aries, one will be unlikely to connect them with physical aggression. The degree shows us many other things as well—an interest in celestial phenomena, and a talent for music. None of these things would be known to us if we were simply looking at the Sun in Aries.

The History of Degree Symbols

Astrologers have been trying to symbolize the degrees of the zodiac for thousands of years. We have reports of degree symbols from ancient Greece, where Metrodorus of Scepsis used them as a memory system.¹ Another set of symbols existed at the tomb of Rameses in Egyptian Thebes. According to Hecataeus of Abdera,² there was a circular ring of stone on the roof of the tomb, measuring 365 cubits in circumference, on which a different symbol was carved for each day of the year. Hecataeus' testimony, which has come down to us only through the works of Diodorus Siculus, is somewhat questionable. However, it shows that the idea of degree symbols was certainly around in Hecataeus' own time—that of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The astrologers of medieval and Renaissance Europe also used degree symbols. The most important set of symbols during this period was created by astronomer and astrologer Pietro d'Abano (1257-1315), a professor at the University of Padua. These symbols are still with us today.³ D'Abano's symbols inspired a lineage of other symbol systems which might be described as the Western line of degree symbols. These include the symbol systems of Johannes Angelus (16th century), and the more modern systems of Charubel, Carelli, Janduz and Kozminsky.

The Sabian Symbols

The history of degree symbols took a remarkable turn in 1925 when a psychic named Elsie Wheeler, under the direction of the astrologer Marc Edmund Jones, channeled an entirely new set of symbols. The Sabian symbols had little in common with earlier systems. To begin with, they were much more modern, for they included telephones, airplanes, and other artifacts of modern life. In earlier systems, medieval imagery had predominated—even when they had been written in the twentieth century. Notably absent from the Sabian symbols was the pessimistic fatalism of old-time astrology. Charubel, who lived in the late nineteenth century, had for the fifteenth degree of Aries A black, or very dark, curtain, like a pall, which seems to defy my vision. By way of interpretation, he intoned that it is to be hoped that such an one may die in infancy. The same degree in the Sabian symbols is An Indian Weaving a Blanket.

In addition to their infinitely cheerier flavor, the Sabians were also much more accurate. Before the advent of the Sabians, degree symbols had never been particularly popular among modern astrologers, for the simple reason that they didn't work very well. The Sabians could be counted on to give insights into most of the degrees, and this led to their being studied more closely than other systems. Two of the most important astrologers of the twentieth century, Dane Rudhyar and Marc Edmund Jones, wrote entire books on the Sabian symbols,⁴ and an increasing number of astrologers have come to use them as basic tools of chart interpretation. Because the Sabian symbols work so much better than other systems, they have essentially eclipsed the competition. This has been a mixed blessing, for it has discouraged further research into the degree symbols.

I myself was introduced to the Sabians in the early 1970s, just a few years after I began to study astrology. I was immediately impressed when I discovered that my Sun symbol was a concert pianist. I have played piano seriously all my life and have even soloed with an orchestra. Many of my other symbols worked almost as well. The Sabians were by far the most exciting aspect of astrology that I had come across, and quickly became the first thing that I looked at in a chart. By the mid-seventies, I had joined up with other serious students of the Sabian symbols, notably Rick Klimczak, Lin Luttrell, Dale O'Brien, and Delores Allegra, all of whom lived around Washington D.C. This group met to discuss the symbols for a period of more than twenty years. Our ongoing interest was maintained by the level of analysis made possible by the Sabian symbols. Imagistic astrology allows you to penetrate to the level of soul and spirit. Symbols are like windows to the soul, for as religious thinkers have always known, symbols can put you in touch with the spiritual energies that they represent. Keyword astrology, by contrast, has no real energy. When you read keywords, you begin and end by checking off points on a mental list—that's true; that's true; that's not true.

Symbols have the power to engage your intuitive faculties. They allow you to make a direct connection with a person's basic spiritual energies, and to penetrate the private language of their personal mythology. This understanding is essentially nonverbal; in fact it is a kind of channeling of the energies themselves. At best, symbols help you connect directly to the level of cosmic energies, and to understand how these cosmic energies express themselves in human personalities. Degree symbols therefore add a gnostic⁵ element to astrology, for they train the mind to see the energies of a higher plane. Since astrology operates on the level of planetary and zodiacal energies, the best astrologers work at this level. Their understanding is intuitive as well as intellectual, for the rational mind can take one only so far in understanding phenomena that are essentially energetic.

How This Book Evolved

In the late 1970s I wrote a book of over a thousand manuscript pages on the Sabian symbols. It was never published. Like my fellow Sabian devotees, my approach was essentially intuitive. I interpreted the symbols much as you would interpret the imagery of a dream. I was certainly familiar with the Sabian interpretations of Jones and Rudhyar, but from the beginning I felt that it was possible to arrive at a much deeper understanding of the symbols.

At this time I was not particularly interested in any of the other degree systems. I had looked briefly at the Degrees of Life, Charubel and Volasfera, but how could I take Charubel seriously when his symbol for my Sun degree was not a pianist, but two wolves devouring a carcass in the moonlight? The Sabians seemed both more positive and more accurate.

Over the next twenty years, my method of approaching the symbols changed slowly but radically. My brother Ken had collected solar charts for tens of thousands of people, and occasionally, when I was unable to come up with a good interpretation for a symbol, I would gather examples from this collection and analyze this list. In the course of studying these problematical degrees, it became obvious that some of them had at best a tangential relationship to the Sabian symbols. I therefore changed a few of the degree-symbols to give them a better fit with the examples.

By the mid-1980s I had been studying the Sabian symbols for about fifteen years, yet I was still uncertain about many of the degrees. The more research I did, the more I realized that I could not trust intuition alone to arrive at reliable interpretations. More importantly, I realized that the Sabian symbols themselves often had to be interpreted very freely if they were to fit the collected examples. In the end, I decided that I would never be confident of my interpretations until I had analyzed a large collection of examples for each of the 360 degrees.

Collecting the examples was a lot of work, but it was a fairly straightforward project, made immensely easier when Lois Rodden's AstroDatabank was published, with its 25,000+ full charts.⁶ My brother's collection of charts was almost entirely lacking in birth times, so I could use it only for the outer planets, since the inner planets often change degrees in a single day. I also had to be careful of this data because it was not always accurate, since performers of almost every type routinely lie about their age, and these lies often find their way into biographical encyclopedias (before I even began to collect data for the second edition I checked all of my birthdays with Wikipedia and Find-a-Grave. Consequently, the database for the second edition is considerably more accurate).

Once I had collected the data for each of the degrees, I analyzed it. What is the first thing that stands out about the examples? What kind of people are they? The chief obstacle facing me here was psychological projection. By the time I tackled the degrees as a serious research project, I had been using the Sabian symbols for many, many years. I had committed the Sabian symbols to memory years earlier, and I was very attached to some of the more beautiful images. It was therefore very hard for me to see the degrees in a new way. Even when I had a large collection of examples in front of me, I tended to see only the examples that worked with the Sabian symbols. Since I am trained in science, I at least understood the importance of looking at the data dispassionately. However, this is easier said than done, for without the impersonality of statistical methods, one's prejudices and preconceptions can easily prevail. I tried to get around this problem by going over the examples very carefully, and by working through each degree repeatedly. The real key, however, was in emptying the mind of all previous analyses and images before I even looked at the data. Once I cleared my mind, I simply looked for groups of people who had peculiar things in common. I started by identifying every common thread that I could find. Only after much thought and analysis did I begin to identify the central principle of a degree.

After going as far as I could from the sample, I examined ten different degree systems to see if they could provide any new insights. I checked these systems against the examples themselves and against my previous analysis of the examples. In general, the Sabians tallied with the examples more often than any of the other symbols systems. However, in isolated instances, a symbol from one of the other systems conformed to the data better than the Sabian symbol (for a critical evaluation of these systems see Sources in Appendix B at the back of the book).

By the end of this process I had generated up to ten pages of notes for each symbol. These notes gave me a reasonably solid basis to interpret the degrees. However, this still left me with the difficult problem of coming up with good symbols for each of the degrees. When the Sabian symbol fit the examples fairly well, I simply modified this symbol in light of the examples. When the Sabian symbol didn't fit the examples, I turned to the other symbol systems. Since I was looking at about ten other systems, I had a lot of images to choose from. Unfortunately, the fit between the examples and the degree symbols was often not particularly good in any of the systems. This made it necessary to create a new symbol. Luckily, if even one aspect of a symbol worked in any one of the systems, I found it easier to come up with the rest of the image.

To give an example, the sixth degree of Scorpio is symbolized in the Sabians by a gold rush. This symbol had never particularly impressed me, even before I had done any research. I knew a number of people with planets on this degree, and the image didn't seem to fit them. They were not, as one might have expected, greedy people who were always on the lookout for moneymaking opportunities. After I had collected around 170 examples, a new picture began to emerge. I noticed that a number of the people in the examples were involved with guns and police investigations, including Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan), Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Robert Urich, and Kim Basinger. The Degrees of Life has this symbol for 6 Scorpio: Thou art a woman alone in thine house, defending thyself and thy possessions against thieves, in the absence of thine husband. This seemed to describe the examples a lot better than the gold rush. So I started with the image of thieves in the house, and then imagined some of the people in the examples in similar situations until one of the images passing through my mind seemed to click.

For this particular degree, one of the symbol systems was already fairly accurate. With many others I was more or less on my own. Creating new symbols has been the most challenging aspect of this whole project. However, with practice I have gotten better at it, with images suggesting themselves fairly readily when I look at most of the example lists.

I am the first to admit that this method, which mixes empirical research, intuition, and a kind of channeling, is hardly scientific, since the intuitive phase is open to various types of subjective distortion. Nonetheless, the methodical analysis of a large number of examples is definitely more reliable than purely intuitive methods. A symbol system has merit to the extent that it effectively describes the people who have planets on these degrees. And there is no easier way of arriving at a good symbol system than by studying example charts. I always come back to the examples. The new symbol has to fit the examples, because if the degree symbol doesn't fit the examples, how can one say that it works on an astrological level?

Philosophical Considerations

One of my most basic philosophical assumptions is that the energies of the astrological signs, planets, and degrees have an objective reality outside of the consciousness of the perceiver. If this were not the case, then astrology would be purely imaginative, and it would be perfectly legitimate to invent an entirely new zodiac, or to introduce nonexistent planets.

It is my belief that more or less correct symbols for the degrees do exist, though I may not have always arrived at these symbols. Generally speaking, I have leaned heavily on the Sabian symbols, not so much because they come from a superior channel, but because many of them make a good fit with the examples. It would be absurd to throw out the Sabians when so many of them work so well, but it is equally clear that each must be evaluated on its own merits.

I have seen some recently created symbol systems that do not rely on any earlier symbol systems, nor are they based on research. They don't even claim to be channeled. In fact, it is hard to determine on what they are based, other than the poetic imagination of their creators. Such systems rest on the underlying philosophical assumption that any system is valid, and that astrology is essentially subjective. This position has become increasingly popular within the astrological community, and is usually framed in statements like Every system is valid within itself. Perhaps one can make this statement about religions, but if there is any scientific reality behind astrology—and I believe there is—these statements merely excuse people from critically examining competing assertions. Such attitudes certainly do nothing to help astrology progress, since baseless ideas can never be weeded out if one refuses to condemn any idea as false.

If the symbols are in fact objective realities beyond the personality of the observer, the question may be asked: "What are the degree symbols?" Are they archetypes in the collective unconscious? Are they the divine Ideas of Plato and the Neoplatonists? Philosophically, one should no doubt begin with Neoplatonism. Astrology, like almost all of the other occult arts, tends to be grounded in Neoplatonic philosophical assumptions. This is particularly true of symbolic astrology, since astrological images, including degree symbols, can be very easily identified with the archetypal ideas of Plato. Because of its Neoplatonic underpinnings, astrologers tend to give a lot of authority to channelers who claim to be in contact with a higher level of consciousness. Since my first two books elaborate upon channeled material, I myself can certainly be included within this camp. Moon Phases begins with Yeats' A Vision—dictated to his wife through automatic writing—and The Zodiac by Degrees begins with the Elsie Wheeler's channeled Sabian symbols. These two channeled systems are very impressive on their own. Still, I never accepted them on faith, but studied and perfected them through empirical research. My methodology is therefore very mixed, for I started with channeled material and used empirical research to ground it and improve its accuracy.

About the closest model that I have found for my philosophy is the Christian Neoplatonism of the Middle Ages. The Franciscan Order, and its great thinker Saint Bonaventure, inherited a Neoplatonic view of reality from Saint Augustine.⁷ For medieval Franciscans, the Names of God were real things—they were emanations of the Godhead. Beauty, Courage, Wisdom, Truth, Righteousness, were all actual emanations of the Godhead. Earthly (and therefore lower) examples of beauty, could nonetheless lead our minds towards the higher beauty of the Name of God, which was the true dwelling place of Beauty.

Like most Franciscan philosophers, Bonaventure suggested that one could use sensory and natural knowledge as a ladder to this illuminative or revealed knowledge. One could study earthly exemplars and abstract these towards a general principle. If one were trying to arrive at an understanding of divine beauty, one could take the most beautiful people and things in the universe, and contemplate what they have in common. These abstractions, based on empirical observations, could serve as a ladder to a direct understanding of divine beauty as a Name of God. The abstraction could not get one all the way there, because the intellect can never reach God. God can only be experienced through a direct illumination of the intellect by the Divine Intelligence, in states of mystical communion. However, the empirical study of the virtues in earthly exemplars was seen as helpful in achieving the goal of God realization. It took one as far as one could go before one needed to receive a direct revelation.

The medieval Franciscan philosophy contains many elements that are irrelevant to modern astrology. Nonetheless, it has some features that can be applied to the study of astrological symbols. One collects a lot of examples and studies them to find their common themes, and then after one has gone about as far as this empirical analysis can go, one tunes in on a purely intuitive or mystical level, and hopes to arrive at the right place. This is a complicated and time-consuming methodology, but it definitely seems to work.

1 Aries

On a huge warship, the second-in-command emerges from below deck and strides down the gangplank.

Struggling to emerge from the shadows and into the light; mustering up the courage to step out of the background and show what one can do, especially in group endeavors (stuck in the shadow of one's parents or one's boss); military, political, or cultural leadership; setting a new agenda and enlisting an army of followers to put that agenda into effect; decisiveness; confidence in the soundness of one's will and one's impulses; bold conquest of new territories of knowledge or expertise; following some vision towards a distant goal (one-tracked mind; refuse to be sidetracked; march inexorably along the path to success); fighting to get one's way (quarrelsome; bossy); impressing one's will on the world; deferring to others vs. setting one's own course in life.

Examples: Stonewall Jackson (Pluto. Confederate general); Betty Ford (Chiron. First Lady; founded the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol and drug rehab); Clare Francis (Mercury. Competitive yachtswoman; author of Night Sky); R. D. Laing (Uranus. Psychologist—Politics of the Family); César Chavez (Uranus. Organized Hispanic farmworkers); George C. Scott (Uranus. Actor—Patton); Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac (Neptune. 3/9/1862); Ron Ziegler (Jupiter. Press secretary to the Nixon White House); Leonard Chess (North Node. Founded Chess Records, which recorded Muddy Waters, Etta James, etc.); Wilson Ferreira (Chiron. Uruguayan opposition leader; forced into exile when he failed to unseat the dictator); Norman Breedlove (Mercury. Races a jet-powered car); Ales Hrdlicka (Chiron. Anthropologist—first to propose that North America was populated by Asians coming over the Bering Strait); William Shatner (Sun. Actor—Captain Kirk on Star Trek); Viscount Edmund Allenby (Neptune. British general; took Jerusalem in 1917); Raisa Gorbachev (North Node. Stylish First Lady of the U.S.S.R.); Dada Manifesto released by Tristan Tzara (North Node. 3/23/1918).

2 Aries

A band of gypsies perform in a traveling show that includes vaudeville comedy, the reading of the future from cards, and a cleverly rigged gambling game.

The juggler-magician-trickster archetype; figuring all the angles and then taking a shot (risky gambles; play the long odds); studying aspects of reality that rely on the rules of probability and chance—including genetics, the formation of stars and planets, and games of chance; quick studies and provisional analyses; thinking on one's feet; juggling a number of factors; trying to predict the future vs. being blindsided by unforeseen events (try to outrun the karma of tricky stunts); roguish manipulation of others; entertaining others by entertaining oneself (childish shticks); putting together a gang of friends united by a common agenda and a common stance towards society (hostile to straight society); trying to understand the nature of causality and the mysteries of time; living in a playful universe.

Examples: Chico Marx (Sun. Marx Brothers zany; inveterate gambler); Molly Ringwald (Mars. Actress, singer—The Breakfast Club); Liza Minelli (Venus. Actress, singer—Cabaret); Tim Curry (Mercury. Actor in Rocky Horror, with its floor show); Eric Idle (Mercury. Monty Python comic—The Life of Brian); William Bateson (Neptune. Geneticist—popularized Mendel's laws); Roberto Calvi (Venus. Did money-laundering for the Vatican); Bobby Stone (Ascendant. Lead in The Dead End Kids); Jean Renoir (Moon. Filmmaker—The Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game); John Masefield (Saturn. Poet, children's books—The Box of Delights—where a magic box can shift one in time and space); Thomas Pynchon (Saturn. Wrote Gravity's Rainbow, with its time-bending black device); George Carlin (Saturn. Topical comedian—Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure); Richard Kelly (Jupiter. Writer and director of Donnie Darko); Bruce Boxleitner (Moon. Actor—Tron); L. Frank Baum (Jupiter. Author of the Oz books); Richard Dawkins (South Node. Evolutionary biologist—The Blind Watchmaker); Manfred Eigen (Uranus. Chemist—high-speed reactions).

3 Aries

On top of the capitol building, the statue of a great patriot is being erected, holding the golden orb of power.

Having a clearly defined idea, from an early age, of who one is and what one believes; adopting and giving expression to the ideals one admires; embodying national or cultural archetypes, vs. fighting to redefine what it means to be an American, an Italian or whatever; trying to figure out how one fits into the whole—how one can help preserve the values and usages of the country one loves; being an exemplary citizen or an exemplary employee; emerging as a trusted leader; activism aimed at changing national policies or national consciousness (penetrating social criticism; commentary on the mess that we've made of things); staying alert and awake to what is happening around us (global solar consciousness); putting one's personal stamp on society; getting involved vs. rising above it all.

Examples: Fidel Castro (Uranus, Jupiter. Cuban revolutionary leader, longtime president); Gina Lollobrigida (Jupiter. Italian sexpot actress, photographer); Charles Evans Hughes (Neptune. Chief Justice, tried to keep FDR from packing the court); George Washington (Saturn. President—The Father of his Country); Dick Gregory (Moon. Comic; ran for president on the Peace and Freedom Party); Bette Davis (Saturn. Actress; set up a USO club during World War II); George M. Cohan (Saturn. Patriotic songwriter—Yankee Doodle Boy); Norman Lear (South Node. Television producer—All in the Family; leftist political activist); Wallace Broecker (North Node. Leading climate change scientist); Akira Kurosawa (Sun. Japanese film director—Seven Samurai); Judy Blume (Saturn. Realistic writer for children—Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret); Charles Reich (Mars. Writer—The Greening of America); Dane Rudhyar (Sun. Revitalized astrology; avant-garde composer); Rosalynn Carter (Jupiter, Uranus. First Lady, author of Helping Yourself Help Others); Emancipation Proclamation (Neptune. 9/22/1862); Johann Schadow (North Node. Sculptor who created a monument to Frederick the Great).

4 Aries

In a school play, a little girl substitutes a cynical ditty for her official lines. During the teacher's attempts to remove her, the whole set falls over.

Deciding how much of society's reality one is going to buy into (reject cardboard reality frameworks); examining and testing received ideas at a fundamental level; rebellion against appointed roles or belief-systems (bratty, but endearingly so); overturning old perspectives vs. enforcing the establishment line under the guise of objectivity; guiding children into socially appropriate behavior without damping their spirit (teaching with patience and insight); relentlessly voicing the truth as one sees it (impudent remarks from the peanut gallery); rote recitation vs. speaking from the heart; choosing one's words carefully vs. uncensored babbling; joyous self-dramatization (hams); overwhelming a situation through sheer force of personality; sabotaging the stupid or the fake.

Examples: Carl Alfalfa Switzer (Jupiter, Uranus. Child actor—The Little Rascals); Carlo Collodi (Pluto. Wrote Pinocchio); Lily Tomlin (Moon. Comedienne; little girl on a huge chair routine); Jason Alexander (South Node. Smug actor on Seinfeld); Vicki Lawrence (Mars. Comedienne—Mama's Family); Ida Wells (Uranus. Early black journalist who covered lynchings and other civil rights issues); John Chancellor (Uranus, Jupiter. Newscaster); Natalie Z. Davis (Uranus. Historian—The Return of Martin Guerre); Noam Chomsky (Uranus, stationary. Radical critic of the Establishment media; linguistics expert); Philip K. Dick (Uranus. Sci-fi writer who influenced The Matrix, The Sixth Sense and other metaphysical turn-about movies); Robert Carradine (Sun. Actor—Revenge of the Nerds); Fred Rogers (Uranus. Children's show host—Mr. Rogers); Thomas Kuhn (South Node. Wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—about paradigm shifts); Albert Einstein (Mercury. Revolutionary physicist); Alan Alda (Moon. Actor—MASH); Red Grooms (Saturn. Artist—humorous dioramas of New York City).

5 Aries

Holding the neck of his electric guitar straight up in the air, a rock musician improvises a wild solo. Some audience members are enthralled; others are totally lost.

Unbending individualism; taking responsibility for the standards one adheres to, and the level at which one lives one's life; trying to connect to one's highest Self—to follow one's bliss; developing an innate talent as far as it will go; living at full throttle vs. recharging one's batteries so one doesn't burn out; experimentation and improvisation; getting into a groove that makes sparks fly; having one's antennae out (channeling); receiving the ideas one needs from the heart of the universe; giving the public what it needs to hear (must try to gauge what level of truth the public is capable of receiving); rueful observers of debased human behavior (want to elevate others); being a strong vibrational force that others can plug into (having punch); lighting a fire under people; irrepressibility.

Examples: Scott Joplin (Jupiter. Ragtime composer); Paul Krassner (Mars. Iconoclastic editor of The Realist; suffered a nervous breakdown); Ilona Staller (Jupiter. La Cicciolina—Italian porn star and politician); Albert Einstein (Saturn. Physicist; wrote a popularly accessible account of relativity); Aretha Franklin (Sun. Soul and gospel diva); Tennessee Williams (Sun. Playwright—Cat on a Hot Tin Roof); Jules Feiffer (Uranus. Loopy political cartoonist); Margaret Merrick (Uranus. Whiz kid on radio quiz shows); Steve Norman (Sun. Lead singer of Spandau Ballet); Aldous Huxley (North Node. British writer on consciousness and mysticism; experimented with LSD); Howard Cosell (Sun. Sportscaster); Mickey Mantle (North Node. Baseball great); Tom Lehrer (Uranus. Satirical, taboo-breaking songwriter); Jules Piccard (South Node. Balloonist); Garth Hudson (Saturn. Electrifying keyboard player for The Band); John Le Carré (North Node. Author of spy thrillers); Tom Stoppard (Saturn. Wildly innovative playwright); Victor Borge (Saturn. Pianist, comic performer); Oriana Fallaci (Moon. Aggressive interviewer).

6 Aries

A honeybee alerts the other bees that a hornet has entered the hive. Together they kill the intruder and push its body out of the entrance.

Determined efforts to get past an obstacle to personal or collective evolution; forcing society to come to grips with an unpleasant problem (witty exposés of human stupidity vs. biting attacks on evasive drivel); puzzling over a problem with no obvious solution; penetrating beyond mere symptoms to the underlying source of a problem; coming up with a practical solution vs. banging one's head against a wall; focusing on a problem amidst total confusion (social claustrophobia; need to escape into nature in order to unwind); attempts to gain political leverage (labor unions, political committees); getting rid of people in the workplace who cause problems or impede productivity; rebuilding society according to a rational plan; influencing the group mind (controversialists).

Examples: Rosa Parks (North Node. Began a major civil rights protest by refusing to step to the back of the bus); Clarence Darrow (North Node. ACLU lawyer defending Scopes in the Monkey Trial); Alvin Toffler (Uranus. Author of Future Shock); Yasser Arafat (Uranus. Palestinian nationalist leader); Terry Southern (Uranus. Screenwriter for The Magic Christian and Dr. Strangelove); Hunter Thompson (Saturn. Cynical journalist—Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas); Christina Crawford (Jupiter. Author of Mommie Dearest); Robert Ardrey (Saturn. Author of African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative); Erica Jong (Sun. Feminist writer—Fear of Flying); John Calvin (Uranus. Protestant theologian; leader of the theocratically organized city of Geneva); Anita Bryant (Sun. Singer, Bible-thumping gay-basher); Marvin Mitchelson (Uranus. Attorney specializing in palimony cases); Elie Wiesel (Uranus. Historian of the Holocaust); Brigham Young (Pluto. Mormon leader in the Beehive State of Utah); Judd Apatow (Saturn. Director—Freaks and Geeks); Bob Woodward (Sun. Broke the Watergate story with Carl Bernstein).

7 Aries

The emperor's fool, in cap and bells, sits peacefully under a flowering tree. When he sees his master walking down the street stark naked, he yells at him to put on some clothes.

Maintaining the simple, direct, honest mind of the child; basing one's reality on what one sees and what one experiences (guileless commentary); frank appraisal; cutting through the bull (pointing out the Emperor's new clothes); potency of action when one deals with the situation as it really is and ignores the false representations of the ruling elite; zeroing in on the truth, even if people aren't ready to hear it (bring up taboo subjects like sex, class and race); being wise enough to seek further clarification vs. being foolish enough to think one has all the answers (are hard to fool but can fool themselves); being honest and direct in one's approach to life; relaxed acceptance of the central givens of life vs. being drawn into the superficial concerns of society; exposing the naked truth.

Examples: Lina Wertmuller (Uranus. Filmmaker who examines sexual relationships between the classes—Swept Away); Sir Thomas More (Venus. Author of Utopia, he died rather than acquiesce to Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church); Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Uranus. Activist in the Right to Die movement); Joseph Campbell (Jupiter, Mercury. Researcher in comparative mythology); Jimmy Kimmel (Saturn. Comic—The Man Show); Gregory Peck (Mercury. Actor—To Kill a Mockingbird); Dr. Ruth Westheimer (Uranus. Outlandish sex educator); Vicki Lawrence (Sun. Harshly realistic comedienne—Mama's Family); Alfred Kinsey (North Node. Sexual researcher—The Kinsey Report); Christian Anfinsen (Sun. Biochemist—The Molecular Basis of Evolution); George Wallace (Chiron. Racist politician); Bill Moyers (Moon. Reporter who explodes Establishment fictions); Giulietta Masina (Mars. Actress—Nights of Cabiria—about a woman who is routinely fooled in love); Arlo Guthrie (Moon. Folksinger—Alice's Restaurant); Vince Vaughn (Chiron. Actor—Four Christmases—about painful revelations in a relationship).

8 Aries

Eyes fixed on the horizon, a Samurai chief on horseback leads a rowdy, good-natured band of warriors through enemy territory.

Steely resolve; steadfastness of purpose; clearly visualizing one's ultimate goal; infusing others with one's vision of the future; gaining a following through one's example of commitment, self-sacrifice, and self-discipline, but also showing forbearance towards the weaknesses and limitations of one's comrades; mastering one's lesser desires and impulses and putting them under the command of one's dominant purpose (determined to enjoy their trek through life despite its hardships); decisive leadership (ruthless); having a firm grasp of one's situation, its needs and its possibilities; the power of an indomitable will to get things done; pursuing and eventually materializing a vision; setting out bravely to meet one's destiny; emerging as a major power.

Examples: Abraham Lincoln (Venus. President who led the U. S. through the Civil War); Vince Vaughn (Sun. Actor—DodgeBall); Rudyard Kipling (Neptune. Poet, novelist—Captains Courageous); Sally Ride (Jupiter. Astronaut); Julia Roberts (Saturn. Actress—Erin Brockavich); Betty Friedan (Chiron. Feminist leader; NOW founder); William Shatner (Mercury. Actor—commander of the Enterprise); H. Rider Haggard (Jupiter. Novelist—King Solomon's Mines); Lily Tomlin (Jupiter. Comedienne, actress—Nine to Five); Stephen Crane (Chiron. Writer–The Red Badge of Courage); Ulysses S. Grant (Chiron. Union general); Bob Crane (Uranus. Actor—Hogan's Heroes; out-of-control sex addict); KKK founded (Neptune, stationary. 12/24/1865); Ralph Abernathy (Mercury. Civil rights leader; established SCLC); Richard Nixon (North Node. Ruthlessly determined U.S. president); Lord Baden-Powell (North Node. Founder of the Boy Scouts); Adela St. John (North Node. Intrepid reporter of the twenties and thirties); Louis Sullivan (Jupiter. Architect); Paul Revere (Mars. Rode through British lines to warn the colonists).

9 Aries

A psychic moves her hands over a glowing crystal ball, bringing the cloudy images within into clearer focus.

Seeking inner illumination or guidance (gnostic or alternative religion; channeling); getting a glimpse of higher truths in the cloudy realm of psychic intuition; predicting the future by examining the many possibilities impinging on the present (are tempted to represent tenuous intuitions as certainties); testing