Two worlds, two minds, a fight: Mercury and Jupiter

Imagine you are a bird. You have two central preoccupations. 

One is picking berries or insects for food. You need to be precise. You can’t just pick around in a blur and hope to be lucky. You need a clear focus. Evaluation of distance, details… 

Your other central preoccupation is to be ready to escape.

Predators may attack from above, from below, from North, South, East or West. If your bird business coach has told you to “focus, focus, focus on the berries you deserve”  you’re dead. 

You need unfocused attention. You need a global perception of the world around you to notice when something moves. You may also notice other bushes with berries and make a mental note to go there next. 

Every time you focus on the berry you’re about to pick, you’re like an antelope drinking at the water hole. You may not see the lions waiting in ambush. You better be quick. You reverse to peripheral vision and unfocused attention, open to detect signs of suspicious activity, you pick another berry… you don’t want to miss the cat.  

These two modes of attention are expressions of the two cerebral hemispheres. Not only human brains have differentiated left and right cerebral hemispheres. 

I’ve been reading Ian McGilchrist’s book:  The Master and his emissary. For astrologers, this book can be renamed: “Jupiter and Mercury”. It’s a gold mine for understanding our two minds and the great divide between them.

Ian Mc Gilchrist is a neuroscientist, a psychiatrist and a philosopher. 

He starts his book saying: “Forget everything you believe you know about the right and the left brain”. 

His point is that the question of their difference is not “What are they doing?” but “How are they doing it?”

Both cerebral hemispheres are involved in whatever we do. What matters is that they are doing it in different ways. One way to look is efficient and practical: if you are a bird, it allows you to pick insects and berries; the other way allows you to know where you are and what’s going on.  

Mc Gilchrist borrows a little tale from Nietzsche to make his point and give the title to his book: there was a  wise and generous master who ruled a small but prosperous domain. His people grew in number, his domain became bigger. He couldn’t supervise everything himself anymore. He had to delegate his power and trust his emissaries.

However, the cleverest of his ministers betrayed his master’s trust. The emissary came to see himself as the master. He didn’t see the point of his master’s generosity. The domain became a tyranny, and eventually collapsed in ruins.

The emissary, according to Ian McGilchrist, is the left cerebral hemisphere, the one that has been called rational and logical. The master is the right cerebral hemisphere. This one is immersed in life as it flows. It sees the forest rather than the tree. For us, these two are Mercury and Jupiter.

Imagine. The Mercury of the bird has had enough of this habit of losing focus again and again. It could eat ten times as many berries if only it was able to increase its attention span. It despises itself for being such a dreamer. Cats are superstitions. God is a fairy tale. In this reality there are only twigs and berries. To be a winner, all you need is to be precise. Focus. Control. Never let go.  

Let’s leave birds alone. 

As humans, we have our own berries. Our science and technology make us the masters of the world. Nature is our slave. We are exhausting the earth. We abuse our own bodies. We are prisoners of our hyperactive minds. Sometimes we break down.

According to Ian McGilchrist, our modern/postmodern culture shares characteristics with schizophrenia, and schizophrenia with troubles observed when lesions in the right cerebral hemisphere gives the left cerebral hemisphere the monopoly of mental activity. 

Thanks Mercury, damned trickster. 

We can build computers but we don’t know who we are. 

Neuroscientists can’t explain consciousness.

The meaning of life is but the title of a collection of rejoicing absurdities by the Monty Pythons. 

We are lost, and we prefer not to think about it.  Keep busy.

On the astrological front, how many times have I come across students mentioning a particular placement entirely out of context and asking: “What does this mean exactly?” 

The word “exactly” is so typical of the demand of the berry picking worldview. It’s as if you were asking, “There is a slope, what does it mean exactly?” A slope doesn’t mean anything, and especially not “exactly”, out of the context of the mountain! Or maybe it’s the only slope you’ll find ten miles around?

If you’re riding a bicycle, your experience of it will be very different if you’re going uphill or downhill, and if you’re wondering whether to build your house there, it may be the same slope, but not the same life.  Every time there is a context to take into account.

With the emissary getting rid of the master, you may get excited to know that the slope is fifteen percent steep, but you have no idea whether you’re climbing a mountain, riding a bicycle downhill or choosing a terrain to build a home. 

This mental attitude is silly, but to talk about this silliness, I needed to use the slope as a metaphor, and you need your right brain to understand it. In this meaning-rich context, does it really matter if it’s fifteen percent rather than twelve? 

The Moon, the Sun, Cancer, Leo, Capricorn, the Eastern horizon… nothing means anything “exactly”.

Symbols are the ultimate way to think in pictures. They were not born from great minds like logic from Aristotle’s. They are not the result of conscious efforts to measure, classify, give clear definitions and formulate coherent theories. 

Symbolic language and analogical thinking are born from our direct experience of life. Like the fish of Pisces, we have been immersed in it for aeons. Our right brain is in touch with life as it flows, never twice the same river, but still knowable as it is. Our right brain registers a complex web of relationships evolving all around us, and within.

The psyche is a sea of images reflecting this intimate and direct knowledge.  It’s pre verbal, pre rational, pre intellectual. It’s like knowing air because we’re breathing. We may have no idea about the percentage of oxygen, but knowledge of what it does when we come back to the surface after some time swimming under the water. We have knowledge of the wind when it blows and of its power in our sails. The zodiac reflects this kind of knowledge.

To understand symbols and read charts, we need to let go of our berries, of our urges to grasp and hold, let go of our rational thinking if only for a moment, and just remember how we see and feel, when we are not thinking compulsively. 

What does the Rising Sun inspire us? How do we feel about rams, bulls or twins? What belongs to the ram family, what to the bull’s and what to the twin’s, in the world we are currently contemplating? 

Symbols have various meanings, some of them can be downright opposites. Fire may mean hell, but it may also mean love, violence, presence of God or cooking. Jupiter, the holistic mind, doesn't mind: nothing has to make sense out of a context. It’s not like 2 + 2, which is 4 in all cases and even in the absence of any case.  

Symbols are complex, seem paradoxical at times but are as familiar as being ourselves. Now, to what extent do we know ourselves?  

To understand, the way is contemplation. 

Becoming calm like the surface of a lake in the absence of wind.

Daydreaming, meditating…

Trying to walk in our ancestors’ shoes. A ram or a bull may mean more to a shepherd than to us. But we can imagine. 

Coming back to Mercury, asking questions like “Where is the ruler of the Ascendant? In what signs and houses are the luminaries? Any tight aspects to them? Any  planets conjunct angles in this chart? Where are the nodes and their rulers?...” 

Once the general architecture of a chart is seen, coming back to the Jupiterian mind. Beyond what we have learned… What images come to the surface? How do they interact in a fluid mind? It doesn’t matter if nothing is certain, letting imagination live is inviting inspiration. 

Inspiration may not come running like a dog to the word “treat”, we really need to let go of our fierce desire to control. 

 If we ask to Spirit, to invisible friends or to our own subconscious mind for help, we don’t command, we say “please”, and if we don’t forget the spirit of “thank you” for what is revealed, more may come another day. 

At the core, it’s divination. 

Jean-Marc Pierson

When I write about astrological symbols, my aim is to conjure up their spirit and inspire my readers to be able to do the same. Understanding the spirit is the deepest understanding. Cookbook definitions can only fall short of that.

When I teach, that’s what I wish students to be able to do.

To learn more, here is the way to the homepage

Thank you!

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Taurus Spirit.

Let's  conjure up the spirit of Taurus. 

Abracadabra, As above so below, the material world is a mirror. The things we see with our eyes are reflections of the psychic dimension. 

Some of these reflections have more evocative power than others. They are symbols. They  bridge the visible and the invisible. 

The zodiac signs are such bridges. Taurus, as grounded as it looks, is no exception. 

The picture of the bull conjures up the vision of herds of cattle and green pastures. Imagine we’re still living in a pre industrial, agricultural society. Taurus shows wealth and fertility. 

Do you see the thriving bull? The earth underneath is moist. There are worms under the grass. There is life. In the Northern Hemisphere, where astrology is from, when the Sun is in Taurus, it’s the middle of spring. There are flowers and showers. We can almost feel the etheric dimension nourishing the material plane. 

The bull is fleshy, almost juicy. Its mass is impressive. Sometimes it demonstrates his power: he charges because you walked into his territory. However, most of the time, he looks like an animal Buddha, standing still in the present moment. 

Reading this post on YouTube.

Taurus is a sign with great focus on the conditions of incarnation (a word which literally means: becoming meat). 

Meat is a metaphor we can use in various circumstances. For a musician, the meat is the repertoire. It is the quantity of music he or she is able to perform. 

For someone who likes to dress up, the meat is hanging in the wardrobe. Good taste, elegance, style are hanging in the air, to manifest on the material plane, these qualities need Taurus stuff hanging concretely in a wardrobe. 

A philosophical concept is "Substance". 

Taurus accumulates. At the beginning of life, after being born  we soon start suckling and putting on weight. Before incarnation we were as thin as spirit in the wind. Now our mother is proud of our three or four kilograms of baby. There will be more. 

Taurus wants quality. It’s ruled by Venus. However, the Great Mother Goddess knows that quantity comes first. There must be something rather than nothing, and taking it from there, the more beautiful and nice smelling the better. 

Taurus is fixed. Taurus people have a reputation for stubbornness. This is not rigidity but inertia, the power of mass. 

Let’s zoom out. There is a herd around the bull, there are pastures, fields and meadows, a little house, or a big one, more cattle, sheep, goats, horses, hens, pigs, wealth! 

You need a bull to mean wealth. 

A cow could belong to a poor family.

As a storyteller, I know that once upon a time, there was a poor widow who lived with her son, a little boy, and all they had was a cow. She would graze along the road grass that belonged to nobody. Thanks to this cow the widow could give at least some milk to her son... 

You would not have, once upon a time, a widow who would have only a bull. Gender identity confusion dissipates very quickly when you try to milk a bull. No, once upon a time, if you have a bull, you have a herd, and you own land, pastures, fields, animals, you are wealthy. You can praise the Great Goddess who appeared, accompanied by bulls, at the beginning of the Neolithic in the history of humanity. 

The time of being hunters and gatherers was over. Food was domesticated. 

Come back next year: the bull will be bigger. The herd will be bigger. There will be more gold buried under the fireplace - or money in the bank.

As you can see there is a lot Taurus can tell without the help of mythology. But I've nothing against ancient tales! 

The zodiac signs are from Babylon, and we know Greek mythology better, it doesn't matter, various streams can end up flowing into the same sea. 

Minos had a deal with Poseidon. The God sent a magnificent bull out of the sea as a sign meant to tell Minos' brothers that he, Minos, was the one who should sit on the throne. 

Had Poseidon sent an ugly cricket or a skinny toad, the brothers wouldn't have been convinced. A magnificent bull, on the other hand... If a god sends one for you, you don't need to repeat positive affirmations to boost your self-esteem anymore. You're the king. The bull means value. 

Minos loved the bull so much he couldn't part with it. He was supposed to sacrifice it back to Poseidon. That was the deal! He gave another magnificent bull from his collection instead, but this other piece wasn't as worthy as the original. The God was insulted.

Poseidon's revenge was to inflict on Minos' wife, Pasifae, to desire the bull as much as Minos did, and even more. We only need to blur a little bit the pictures, stop to believe that Minos and his wife are two different characters - they are just two phases of the same energy.  We all know loving something a little bit too much, alcohol, food, money, sex, attention, weed or whatever... We may get addicted. The more we give in to temptation, the more we crave. That's Neptune's revenge for missing the point. 

Let’s question family history to understand the addiction. A white bull, wasn't it the form Zeus chose to seduce and abduct Europa? 

And then they had children, Minos was one of them. 

Now, the story repeats itself, amplified to grotesque proportions. Pasifae, disguised as a cow had sex with the bull, ha ha ha, the next phase of the same energy comes as her son, the Minotaur, a monster, half human half beast, locked up and lost in a labyrinth. Relationship status: it's complicated. 

If Minos had remembered that he was Zeus' son, that he was born from the White Bull, he would have seen Poseidon's present as meaning: "Remember who you are, son of Zeus and Europa, you, fruit of the union of divine essence and mortal flesh!" 

His sin, his stupidity, his trauma response if you prefer, was to want to have the bull, as if he was not it already. Had he remembered his own nature, he would have seen Poseidon's present as a mere reflection of himself. He wouldn't have felt the need to possess this reflection, and his feminine side wouldn't have been possessed in the process. He would have sacrificed the bull effortlessly. Reflections belong to Poseidon. Neptune rules illusions. 

We are gods. To handle our own flesh, we better not forget who we are.

We don’t have to be possessed by the desire to possess. We can sing instead, the joy of being who we are, incarnated!

Jean-Marc Pierson

Thank you for your attention!

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Children in the birth chart

With my Mum!

When we say "children" we automatically think: "The fifth house!" and we look there.

However, the fifth house is not the house of children only, and not only the fifth house means something about children.

I'll start talking about other indicators that have to do with children. 

Jupiter is a traditional significator for children. Jupiter is exalted in the sign of Cancer, sign of fecundity, Jupiter is about expansion and growth. Families, tribes and nations grow by having children - and it is generally considered a blessing. You can see the connections. 

The thing with astrology, and with symbols in general, is that their meanings have no boundaries. You can never say something like: the Moon is your mother; the Moon says everything about your mother and is only about your mother.

Symbols work the other way round. The Moon is mother, a mother by definition has children so the Moon symbolises children and childhood as well. Children are emotional, sensitive and have a lot of needs, the Moon symbolises emotions, sensitivity and needs... Crowds are emotional entities, the Moon symbolises crowds as well and so on...

So, the Moon, between quite a few other things, symbolises children. 

 I knew a woman who had five children - which is quite exceptional nowadays in Western countries. Her Moon was very prominent, conjunct the MC in the sign of Cancer. She also had Venus, ruler of her Ascendant, in Cancer, and a very tight Cancer Moon- Taurus Mars sextile. Taurus is also a fertile sign; the Moon is exalted in Taurus. As a general rule, Water signs and Taurus are the fertile signs.

This woman had also Jupiter in the first house, and conjunct the North Node. So globally we had various placements  emphasised, which all have in common that they may mean children.

When we look at charts, placements say nothing precise, we only get clues. We are like Sherlock Holmes; we look at all these clues and if we are trying to figure out a story in which they all make sense together... 

So, for children, we can get clues from the Fifth house, which includes the sign on the cusp of the house, the placement of the ruler of the house and of course planets in the house, if there are. Along with the Fifth House, Jupiter, the Moon, the sign Cancer, and also the Fourth house, naturally associated with the Moon and meaning private life, home and family.

If someone has a strong focus in this house, home and family is likely to be a strong focus in their life. It's not a hundred percent sure, as all houses have more than one simple meaning, and not all meanings have to manifest.  

But it's very likely. So, unless this Fourth House is very challenged by difficult aspects and placements, a busy fourth house also suggests family life and therefore children. Then, more about them in the fifth.

We can also look at the Sun and the sign Leo. A reason for that is: modern astrology sees various expressions of the same archetypal energies through every planet, the sign they rule and the house naturally associated with it.

So, if the Fifth House has to do with children, Leo and the Sun must have some correlation to children as well. However, Leo is not considered a fertile sign like Cancer or Taurus. It’s the opposite, Leo, along with Virgo and Gemini, are considered sterile by tradition. Leo’s symbolic associations rather take us to showing, and children need to be shown a lot of things. A parent is likely to say often: "Look at me!" "Listen to me!". That's not being egocentric, that's education.

Leo is the sign of mid summer. In temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, where astrology is from, it's a hot and dry time. You don't sow in Leo, but you reap. Children are fruits aren't they?

Let’s sum up: for questions about children, we look at the Fifth house, and also the Fourth, to Jupiter and the Moon, and the sign of Cancer… 

Then the particular signs, houses, aspects involved can give indications. For instance my father has Jupiter in Gemini and the ninth house. His three children have settled abroad, including me, writing and recording in a foreign language - Gemini - about knowledge and worldviews - Sagittarius.

Let's focus a little bit more on the fifth house now. 

It's the house of children. Children play. The fifth house is the house of fun and entertainment. Not only our children play and have fun in the fifth, but ourselves as well. We have a playful child within!

Children are spontaneously creative. Give them paper and colour pencils, they make drawings, they don't complain about not knowing how to draw. The fifth house is the house of creativity and self-expression.

Self-expression can be artistic, painting, playing music and so on, however, it's not limited to arts. The way we dress up, the way we talk and whatever we do because that's exciting and great fun is self-expression. Even creating a business can be. Then the business owner says "this business is my baby, I made it".

Our children are our creations, to some extent. We made them, and then we have to educate them.

The fifth house is also the house of education. I remember someone who had a stellium in the fifth house and no children. She was a teacher. She spent her days standing in front of an audience of children and showing them. The fifth house is even the house of speculation. I think this shows that speculating is a game, a gamble rather than real work.

And the fifth house is also the house of romance. When we are in love, we are like children, we don't pretend. We show who we are. A wonderful romance is the meeting of two selves free to express who they really are.

So once again, there is more to the fifth house than just children, but children are a central theme in fifth house interpretation.

If someone has children, and wonders about questions about education, no hesitation, there are valuable clues in the fifth house.

Jean-Marc

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Why is there water in Aquarius and Capricorn?

Saturn rules over Capricorn, which is an Earth sign, and over Aquarius, associated with the element Air. However these two signs have Water as part of their symbolism. How come?

The symbol for Capricorn is a Sea-Goat. The front is goat, the back is fishtail. This suggests a transition from fish to goat, from sea to mountain, from Water to Earth. It’s a story of becoming dry.

Everything is relative. The story may not be about becoming absolutely dry, but moving towards the dry end of the wet-dry spectrum.

Psychologically, this dryness is the dryness of the child growing up. In the beginning, in Cancer, the world is all emotional dependency, mother-child bond, the protection of the family. In the womb we were completely immersed in Water. When we were a baby, we were still swimming in very emotional waters… Growing up is somehow drying up! Like the goat we learn to climb our own mountain without being carried by mother and the flow. We learn to be self contained and pursue our own goals, in spite of the contrary moods…

Now, the rulership of Saturn over Aquarius, the Water Bearer, often representing Water pouring down, seems to contradict the idea of Saturn being dry, or drying. Aquarius is an Air sign.

Even without knowing Greek mythology it’s easy to connect the Air of Aquarius with the sky. In the air, the water bearers are the clouds. The ruler of the opposite sign, Leo, is the Sun - which, during daytime, can only be obscured by clouds. Uranus, the modern ruler of Aquarius, happens to be named after the God of the Sky.

Water in Air and pouring down is rain. Here, the action of Saturn is condensation. Saturn always increases density: with this energy, Water comes out of Air and Earth out of Water.

This is not modern physics! This is a language of symbols. Replace Air by “gaseous”, Water by “liquid” and Earth by “solid”, and think of Saturn as cold and pressure.

Rain is cold. Air is considered hot according to the traditional elemental qualities, this shows how relative these notions are: Air is definitely hotter than Water. Air has insulating properties. At the same temperature, we feel Water colder than Air. Air can be felt as cold, especially in Winter when it rains and winds, but by contrast with Earth and Water, Air is hot.

Air is a symbol of mental space. Fleeting thoughts and ideas are weightless and invisible like the wind. With Saturn, our mental life becomes consistent and coherent. Our ideas may become fixed or at least organised into systems - theories, plans or ideologies.

Saturn gives form, Saturn shapes: In Air, it is the wind blowing on the water, making waves, as the glyph of Aquarius represents. Waves are visible manifestations of the invisible wind’s action. Our ideas shape our realities.

The wave is a symbol of individuality. We are waves, and we are the ocean. We are made by the wind, and we are the wind (but we have forgotten).

Now you may wonder. Is Aquarius, the water bearer, a symbol of the clouds, or is it the wind that makes waves? The answer is: both.

Symbols do not obey the “either…or” demands of rational definitions of concepts. Symbols don’t separate, they unite. The wind carries clouds, clouds carry water, the context is the sky, the symbol is the whole picture.

I hope you enjoyed this Watery ballad through the lands of Saturn!

Jean-Marc Pierson

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Moon in Aries

Once I saw a hen charging a dog. It was a young and  playful dog, it was three times as big as the hen. Behind the bird was a string of cute little chicken. Mother-hen doubled up in volume and charged. I was so impressed. The dog ran away.

Since I got this vivid picture as an answer to the question of what a Moon in Aries is like, I can’t see anything else. Yes, Moon is mother, but not only, and even though a mother hen charging like a ram to protect her progeny is a wonderful illustration, there must be more to an Aries Moon than the odd heroic moment…  

I know a woman with an Aries Moon. She  doesn’t look like it though. Her own mother had an Aries Moon among a few other Aries placements. The daughter must have inherited something of her primary role model. 

I don’t know her well enough to see far beyond her Pisces rising, so I am not able to dissect her privacy for the sake of astrological knowledge.  The Moon is on the private side, that’s my point.

If her Sun wasn’t conjunct the Ascendant, her Aries Moon in the first house would be much more apparent. but even an Aries Moon can’t steal the show to a Rising Sun. 

Some people wear their moon on their sleeves, others don’t. 

She told me she was embracing the Aries Mooness through her Pisces veil! f you’re curious, here she is.

Now, let’s leave her alone and let the symbols speak. 

Aries mothers aren’t constantly charging potentially dangerous individuals or animals to protect their little treasures.

There are times when they turn towards them and say things like: 

“Look in my eyes and tell me. What did you just say? I want to hear it again.” 

There is no getting away with it.

“This is not acceptable, do you understand why? Say it!”

Or

“But there is nothing to be ashamed of, child, come here, we need to talk about it!” 

Or

“Do you know how important you are, for me? You are my child. I love you.”

You don’t have to be good at guessing with Aries!

Moon is mother and more. Moon is also family and early environment: she is mother plus father (hopefully), plus siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and even neighbours, if the fences are not too high between the grasses.

There may be many opportunities to literally bang into one another with the Moon in Aries. Expect energy, running, climbing, jumping and crawling. 

Expect Can-you-do-its?  And Bet-you-I-cans! Followed by First Aid kits.

Expect the opposite of avoidance when it comes to conflicts.

The Moon describes our early environment. We are plants with roots in her soil.

Now, we must take the rulers into account to interpret planets. The sign feels the state of its ruler. If Mars is winning, Aries is winning, and the Moon in Aries benefits from a winning environment.

Is Mars, ruler of the Aries Moon, strong and healthy or banging into a wall? Does he have to fight a hard battle to break through a carapace?

We usually imagine Mars with a sword or a spear, but a shield is a weapon as well. Not all people with Aries placements appear fearless.

Is courage the victory over fear? Aries doesn’t mean victory, it means the fight. It’s not won in advance. Courage is fighting the fight, no more no less.

Mars in Aries may be a flamboyant warrior. It may also be a little sprout fighting its way between stones and clumps to appear as a new little plant, so cute, just above ground level. Hop! Grazed by a rabbit. Starting again. Beginnings are tough…

Mars in Aries may be the small boy playing with the big boys. He will look more like a stereotypical Mars in Aries when he is back with the small ones, but he would rather not.

It’s the subjective experience that matters, not what other people think.

Back to the Moon. In the beginning (of the post)  she was mother, then family,  and environment… She also means the child within us. 

There is more than one child in our inner gallery of subpersonalities. The Moon is the inner baby. It’s vulnerable,  emotional and needy. In Aries he may be loud. 

Later baby will be told to grow up. The Moon rules over instincts and emotions, they are strong in Aries. Have you got a heavy Saturnian lid weighing on your impulses? Bang bang bang! There is something powerful inside that wants to exist!

Imagination belongs to the Moon. In Aries, I let you imagine at what speed images may come and go.  

Imagination is doing mentally what children and artists do when they draw. 

With paper and pencils as a metaphor for a Moon thing comes astrological embarrassment: creativity and self expression are of the Sun, on principle.

 Reality is always playing tricks onto our labels and categories, because in reality, all the energies are always collaborating. When children and artists are drawing, the accent is on creativity, therefore the Sun rules.

 But when the process is internal, we call it imagination; the Moon rules, because the focus is now on the quality of the paper and pencils,

The Moon is receptive;  the quality of the paper is a fitting symbol.

A Pisces Moon may have a watercolour paper pad. A Libra Moon, a pastel paper pad. As for Aries… scrap paper!

Something fit to receive first sketches, rough drafts and unprocessed strokes of genius.

Drawing made of three lines, only three, but straight to the point: imagine this as a kind of imagination.

Let there be sparks! 

That’s enough. What’s next? 

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Another way to look at houses

Have you ever wondered how come the 12th house, traditionally called the “House of Hidden Things” –or of “Hidden Enemies” is found above the horizon, in broad daylight?

If, in your chart, the Sun is in the First House, which is traditionally called the House of Self and has a lot to do with how we appear… It was still dark when you were born.

As soon as the Sun crosses the Ascendant, there is daylight but we’re back in the House of hidden things. Strange inversion, don’t you think?

If you are using whole house as your preferred system, you still have the house of hidden things in broad daylight, and at least part of your first house under the horizon.

There is another way to look at what’s going on with the houses which makes more sense.

If you have planets in the First House, what matters is that these planets are about to rise. This gives them super power. If the Sun is in your First House, it was still dark when you were born, but just wait a few minutes, two hours maximum. Your life started with a Sunrise.

If you were born just after the Sun rose, you missed the train. You’ll have to wait the whole day and night before the Sun rises for the first time in your life.

I have not found this way of explaining in astrology manuals. However you can see by yourself that astronomically what I am describing is the case, and I am going to demonstrate that this view is entirely consistent with tradition.

As I've read Deborah Houlding I know that the houses were numbered after the watches of the Egyptian astronomers: it is the order in which stars or planets placed in them become visible at the Eastern Horizon.

Planets placed in angular Houses, that is the first, tenth, seventh and fourth, and especially near the angles themselves, Ascendant, Descendant, MC or IC, are especially powerful.

At every angle, something changes. As a general principle, in life, when something changes, something powerful is happening. Remaining the same rarely makes news.

In the diurnal cycle, the most powerful change happens on the Eastern Horizon: that’s where everything and the Sun appear. Light comes from the East and light is power. The Ascendant is the place of greatest power. The Rising Sign has always been given prominence, even over the MC.

There are three kinds of houses.  In many quadrant systems, the Angular houses are placed just before the angles – from the point of view of a clockwise motion. If the houses were considered independently of how what’s in them moves, why would the first house be considered angular and not the twelfth?

The Succedent Houses come after the angular ones. Succedent mean that they follow, like in the word “succession".

 Planets and signs in the Second House for instance, will be second to rise, after whatever is placed in the First House.

  After the Succedent Houses come the Cadent Houses.

Traditional astrology says that planets in these Houses have the weakest impact. They are considered unfavourable.

The word “Cadent” comes from the Latin “Cadere” which means “Falling”. Cadent Houses are falling away from the angles. How things move is what matters.

The twelfth house is falling away from the Ascendant. Or, to be precise, what is contained in the twelfth house, is falling away from the Ascendant.

When you call a team of race horses with little men on their backs a "stable" it is a figure of speech called "metonymy". I can say that houses are moving. They are like stables.

 Cadent houses are houses where we learn according to Arroyo.  In the Ninth House, for instance, we are seeking the Truth, we are trying to see the Big Picture of Life through religious beliefs, knowledge or philosophy…It often starts with travels and explorations. It’s a really interesting house, definitely worth living, but philosophers are rarely kings.

There is more power in the 10th house, from the point of view of down to earth life, where social status is more important than epiphanies. Otherwise, why would this house, traditionally called the House of God, aka the Almighty, not be the most powerful?

We can allow a certain orb. A planet in the ninth house but conjunct the MC still benefits from MC power – I would interpret it as if in the 10th, with a 9th twist.  

 

 The houses are divisions of the day

They are about what manifests at the most immediate and concrete level.

If I ask you: what are you usually doing in the morning? You’re going to talk about your daily routine, getting up, doing some exercises, stretching or meditation, having breakfast, what kind of breakfast, going to work, how far is work… Your answer will be precise and full of details.

But if I ask you: What are you doing in autumn? You will talk about your life in much more general terms. Going for long walks and picking up mushrooms in the forest for instance. You’ll talk about a general atmosphere.

The difference between placements in houses or in signs is similar.

Houses and signs are not equivalent but there are meaningful. correspondences.

I find important to insist: words such as: succedent, cadent, ascendant, rising, descendant, culminating  are words that describe movement, not fixed placement. Moreover, houses are numbered with ordinal numbers (First, Second, Third etc. not One, Two, Three...)

An argument used by traditionalists who wants to deny correspondences between houses and signs is that the houses derive their meaning from the primary motion of the heavenly bodies from East to West, daily and clockwise, when the secondary motion of the planets through the signs goes in opposite direction, from Aries to Pisces, yearly and anticlockwise.

If you understand primary motion as the Sun going through the houses in reverse order, climbing through the twelfth, eleventh and tenth houses in the morning etc. you don't want to superimpose signs and houses, and you exclaim: "Why would the house in the middle of the sky correspond to the tenth sign! This doesn't make sense!"

Now if you understand primary motion as the content of the houses going through the sky in the order of their numeration, you see that what is in the tenth house starts on the summit, will quickly decline all the way down to the bottom of the sky (IC) before eventually rising in tenth position in the order of succession.

Sure, the meaning of the houses is partially derived from the daily motion of the Sun through the sky, especially when we consider the angles, where the Sun rises, culminates and sets.

However, this doesn’t cancel the validity of any other consideration. It can be this, and that. The meaning of the houses is derived from various point of views. In the known history of astrology, the aspects the houses form with the Ascendant also contribute to their meaning, along with the concept of derived houses and the joys of the planets.

There were more than one way to explain meaning, so why not taking into account the meaning of the words used to qualify the houses by tradition? Four houses are cadent, they fall away from the angles. Four succeed to angular houses, they are numbered as first, second, third… Why not accept to see there is a pattern of development from First to Twelfth?

Furthermore, when astrologers consider transits to a natal chart, they can’t ignore that the houses are activated in the order of their numeration.

Once you have two wheels, both made up of twelve sections, both divided into four quadrants by four angles, both expressing a basic cycle of life, the year and the day, both unfolding in the same order, from Aries to Pisces or from first to twelfth, it becomes impossible, unless we are of the mindset of worshiping old scriptures as the ultimate word about everything, not to think of a correspondence.

Isn’t the law of analogy, fundamental to esoteric thinking? Denying it is jumping out of Tradition at high speed!

Analogy is not equivalence. If there has been a confusion which ended up with people believing that the Sun in Gemini or the Sun in the third house meant the same thing, it’s because of this eternal sin against intelligence which consists of taking metaphors literally.

The third house may be an concrete expression of the spirit of Gemini, this concrete expression will have the qualities of the sign and the planets placed in the third house. The ruler of the third house will be the ruler of the sign on the cusp of the house. What’s going on with Gemini and Mercury may co-signify third house stuff in the chart, as a complement of information.

Here is a snapshot - Chris Brennan sharing, from his book about Hellenistic Astrology, in an episode of his podcast about Astrology and Hermeticism, a summary of the meaning of the Houses attributed to Hermes Trismegistus himself mentioned in Thrascillus'tablets.

Look at the 12th house: One of the meanings is "pre-ascension."

What is in the twelfth house seems to mean what it means, not as much for being above the horizon than for having ascended before the ascendant. What else could that mean?

As the saying goes: "It's always darkest before the dawn".

Thank you! 

Jean-Marc

To learn more about me as an astrologer, storyteller, writer and about a possible retreat in Turkey, visit my homepage

The Cross of Matter matters

If you were born in Kiruna, in the north of Sweden, and Cancer or Capricorn were rising, your cross of matter looks like it has been rolled over by a truck. 

As you know, Ascendant, Descendant, MC and IC are the four angles. Together they form the Cross of Matter.

However, in many charts, it doesn’t look like a proper cross, with all the right angles at the right places, unless you were born when 0 degree Aries or Libra were rising.

Let’s call the  Ascendant “East”, the Descendant “West", the MC “South” (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the IC “North”. 

This flattened cross of matter  looks very wrong. East and North, West and South never collide like that! 

The MC is not exactly South actually. The MC is where the Sun peaks in its daily course. It’s in the sky. When you’re looking South, you’re not looking upwards but towards the horizon. 

When the Sun peaks, it shows South anyway,  even in Kiruna. 

If we wanted a chart aligned with the horizon of our daily lives,  we should grab the MC-IC axis and force it,  with energy and determination, to square the Ascendant Descendant axis. (Imagine your chart is a disc made of rubber and the axis are rods of metal) 

If we did that, we would have North, South, East and West properly placed, but the zodiac would have become distorted. Some signs would appear very elongated, and others compressed, poor things.  

That’s a question of perspective. 

Diagrams often represent the plane of the ecliptic horizontal (even though horizontal should be for the horizon) and the earth, turning around the Sun in the ecliptic, tilted on its axis.

Wherever you are, your horizon is tangent to the earth and turning with you as the earth rotates on its axis…  Try to visualise this  if you can, and flatten the picture to get a chart! 

Forgive my geometry in the air. 

All this to say: to deepen our understanding of the angles, we can reflect on the symbolic meanings of the cardinal directions. 

If you were a prince of this world, you would want the front of your palace facing South.

On days of celebrations, you would appear on a balcony, facing the crowd. The Sun would shine on you, enhancing your glory, from behind the crowd. 

If your balcony was facing North, it wouldn’t work that well. The Sun would dazzle the crowd and you would look insignificant. 

The MC is a place of power, of honours and achievements, or simply the place where we are seen by many. If you are the drunk of the village, that’s the role you’re playing, as a member of society. Being drunk is what you’re showing to the crowd, from your own little South facing balcony. 

When you’re facing South, North has your back. You remember your first appearance on this balcony. You felt proud and intimidated. Your father, behind you, laid his hands on your shoulders. Or maybe it was your mother. And maybe you were a princess. Anyway, you didn’t happen out of the blue. You felt you were a product of the land, the heir of a family. 

 If you are the drunk of the village, it may have been a different story indeed, but who knows about that?

Bear with me, I’ll tell you about East and West soon, but I feel like inflicting a bit more air geometry on you first. If you can’t bear it, just skip the next paragraphs! 

The plane of the ecliptic is where the Sun seems to go round, as seen from Earth. The ecliptic is flat like a very thin pancake. 

However, we always talk about the zodiacal belt. Imagine a belt surrounding the pancake. 

Now, imagine standing on earth and extending an arm eastward at Sunrise. You have the power to extend your arm horizontally so far that the tip of your finger reaches the zodiacal belt. 

If you do that on the day of the Equinox at sunrise, the tip of your finger touches the heart of the Sun. It is exactly East.  

But if you extend your magical arm eastward at the summer solstice, the Sun rises further North on the horizon. 

The tip of your finger touches one side of the zodiacal belt. You’ll touch the other side in Capricorn. 

Now imagine that this belt is so wide that it’s actually a cylinder. In the middle of it, the pancake. The zodiac signs are like vertical stripes on the cylinder. 

That’s what happens in far Northern or Southern latitude. The Earth is round, so the closer you get to the poles, the more your horizon makes a wide angle with the ecliptic. 

As the earth is turning, your East pointing finger is going to go through some signs obliquely, almost vertically. It will take a very long time before reaching the next sign. But a bit later, your finger will move more horizontally, and move very quickly from one sign to the next. 

There would be more to visualise, but we have enough to understand why charts like the ones in Kiruna look the way they do:they respect the proportions of the Heavens, but the view of our own horizon gets distorted. 

However, it’s important to keep in mind that we live, day in day out, at the centre of this cross of matter, and that it is, indeed, a proper cross. It’s our orientation. The meaning of the angles is tied to what the four cardinal directions mean. 

East is the most fundamental of the four directions. East shows the difference between being there or not being there at all. 

The Sun appears on the Eastern horizon, and like a new Sun we appear for the first time when we are born, naked.

There is no costume for the ceremony on the South facing balcony yet. The only clothing we’re wearing is this naked body. 

If you were a princess of this world, you would want your bedroom’s window facing East. You would rise from your bed and open the curtains to salute the rising Sun. You would not try to impress the Sun, being just who you are in your pyjamas. Then you would turn to your wardrobe and decide on how you will appear today, to your loved ones and to  whoever else.

East in the chart is you. The rest is interactions. 

West is beautiful. You would want a reception room there, to hold parties starting at the end of some days, or to sit with only one significant other and watch the sunsets, until death do us part. The Western horizon means death as well, not only other people. Opposed to East, it’s where we disappear. And opposed to who we are, it’s where others come into play. Not any others, the room is not big enough for the whole world to come. Those we invite, consciously or not, those who are attracted by our vibe, mirrors, opponents, partners… 

Because it’s annoying to get death inviting itself along with other people in the reception room, we pushed it away, to the eighth house, originally “the beginning of death”. The Sun is in the eighth house in mid afternoon, a time when shadows start becoming  longer. 

There are many house systems but there is only one cross of matter. The four directions are powerful places. Whatever is found near the angles of a chart plays an essential role in our life story. 

Jean-Marc Pierson , storyteller, astrologer.

Would you like me to read your chart? Taking a one to one class? Or Join a small group for a five sessions cycle? Visit my homepage and contact me.

Jupiter in Aries: a leap of faith. Featuring Saturn in Scorpio.

I threw the Astrodice, asking: “What could I write about now?” and I got Jupiter, Aries, and the First House. 

I had been struggling with Saturn in Scorpio and feeling more and more depressed in the process. 

I was thinking of the old Latin phrase:

 “Omnes secant, ultima necat” found on ancient sundials. 

“All take something away from you, the last one kills you.” 

Every single hour does that. 

Saturn is time, and it meant also death or tombstone before Pluto grabbed all the morbidity for himself in the name of modernity. 

I was thinking of skeletons and of the pirate flag, I was thinking of replacing the skull that means “danger of death” by a scorpion on high voltage electrical transformers or bottles of chemicals…

I was thinking of the vanity of the aspiration of writers, artists or other wannabe great men to beat death with a masterpiece (if I am dead at the time of your reading this, thank you) and of the sexual tension that the scorpion’s tail evokes so well, the purpose of which being also to beat death by passing on genes and property, but also to give it, as the ultimate end of every new life. But sometimes, even Saturn finds it difficult to get hard. To have an erection, you need to relax…  

I was thinking of Saturn doing Saturn with extreme intensity, of weasels who would not let go of the throat of a prey, even whilst being bludgeoned to death by a furious farmer…

I was thinking  of someone I know who has been working so hard over the last decade that she built what might well become an empire, starting from scratch.

I was thinking of geisha mastering the art of eliciting fantasies and desire with such an iron grip on themselves, do they ever feel pleasure I wonder?... 

I didn’t find the way to put all these evocations of Saturn in Scorpio into words, even though I just did it, but before I started writing this, I had given up, thrown the astrodice wondering what to write about, and I got Jupiter, Aries, and First House.

Then, I pushed all the contents of my mind out in one go. I was talking about Saturn in Scorpio, but I was doing Jupiter in Aries. Aries is a go go go let’s go energy! 

And now,  I’m done with it! Enough of Saturn in Scorpio, there may be dots left, connect them yourself if you feel like it, or let’s move on before it becomes boring! Let’s talk about Jupiter in Aries, now! 

• Knock knock!

• Who’s there? 

• Jupiter in Aries! Do you believe in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? 

• Oh no! Not you again! 

It takes some courage to take your Bible and your human fear of rejection to people’s homes, and to insist. 

This Jupiter in Aries is not the best it could be though. Yes, it does take action, like a good little soldier, on matters of faith, but is it good faith really? 

• It’s all written in the Book! 

Silly Jupiter, why do you believe in Mercury? 

It is written that  “In the beginning was the Word”, but which word was the Word exactly? Was it the word “Word” which was there in the beginning? 

All these stories are supposed to be inspiring, to make us feel something, to stimulate our intuition, not to be taken literally! 

• But if God is love (and it’s true, because it’s written here) do you think he would abandon us without giving us a user manual?

A user manual? Oh my God, this Jupiter has definitely been hypnotised by Mercury. And then it stumbled into Mars’ energy field, aka Aries, and couldn’t help moving forward fanatically.

Ian Mc Gilchrist, neuropsychiatrist and philosopher, makes the point that our Western culture suffers from a predominance of a left brain approach to perceive the world, to the expense of the essential, holistic, metaphorical, intuitive way of the right brain. His work is huge. As it happens, the key words and themes associated with the left brain are those astrologers assign to Mercury, and those associated with the right brain are typical of Jupiter. In his book “The Master and his Emissary” Ian Mac Gilchrist borrows the metaphorical story Niestzsche used of a master who his betrayed by his emissary. The master has no choice but trust him; the emissary takes the power but hasn’t wisdom and understanding. This book is about 500 pages and this was just a short paragraph. It is behind my saying that Jupiter has been hypnotised by Mercury in the mind of people who believe in religious texts literally, a tendency which is actually present in our whole culture. We believe in science, logic and reason beyond reason. Jupiter has become hypnotised by Mercury.

A healthy Jupiter takes a leap of faith, from common sense and reason to intuition of a higher order. In the sacred Books, Jupiter reads between the lines. It understands how words betray and reveal at the same time. Jupiter is understanding. There is an ineffable reality...

In matters of faith, someone with Jupiter in Aries will be quicker than anyone to to get it, and then is likely to act on it passionately! 

Now, everyone has Jupiter in their chart, but not everyone leaps from ordinary to mystical experience, whether at the speed of Aries or not. 

However, we all make similar leaps at all times. The left brain may have imposed its values as predominant, we can’t do without the right brain altogether. We can’t have a mental life without both Mercury and Jupiter.

As an example, let’s read a comic book. I’m French, to me the summit of the art is the adventures of Asterix and Obelix. 

Before I make the point, a quick digression: in these books we see the roman legions expanding what would later become the roman empire through military conquest. Mars in Aries is a single warrior, Jupiter in Aries brings cohorts of them. They march on in good order, under the command of their officers. 

Organisation belongs to Jupiter (and enforcement to Saturn). The Eagle, symbol of the king of the gods and of Rome stretches its wings over the Roman legions.

Jupiter in Aries could be a high ranking officer (or mean that you come across as someone who could be one, if you have it in your First House). This placement is likely to be an enthusiastic community organiser, not to say bossy.

In the comics, Asterix and Obelix win against the Romans every time they meet them, thanks to the magic potion prepared by Panoramix the Druid, but that’s not historical truth… 

Back to my point. How do Mercury and Jupiter work together when we read a comic book?

Mercury sees what is in the book, literally, that is a succession of fixed panels separated by white space. Speech balloons are hanging above the characters.

But our experience and our pleasure, as readers, is nothing like a succession of fixed panels separated by white spaces.. With Jupiter, we link them mentally. We create a mental world in which they are alive, walking, fighting, laughing. They move, they make noise. We rejoice. There is more in our mind than on the paper.

There has been a leap from the communicated material to the experience of a world. We trust we get what the authors suggest. We do that even more when we read novels. Mercury is only half of the mind. Jupiter puts everything together, and we understand what’s going on.

In everyday life, we are constantly turning the data we get from the world through our senses into our lived experience of reality.

In lectures about perception I attended at university, I learned that people born blind who have eye surgery and see for the first time don’t see a stable world with objects and people easy to identify. In the beginning, they experience something like visual chaos. The brain, or the mind, has to process all the visual input before they can see a stable world.

Our perceptions are built.

This fact is also demonstrated by asking to subjects to wear glasses that makes them see the world upside down. After some time of dizziness, they end up seeing the world right - and then, they see it upside down when they take the glasses off!

The world we see is higher knowledge to the extent that there is more to it than what our eyes meet.

The mystery of what happens when our consciousness translates nerve impulses in the brain into, for instance, the sight of vivid colours is a spiritual experience. There are no colours in our grey matter. They belong to what astrologers associate with Jupiter. It’s higher knowledge.

In practice, when we interpret Jupiter, we can say it’s our mind. It’s how we know and understand. How we integrate the world brings about how we integrate ourselves to the world. Our understanding becomes our attitudes. Liz Greene says that Jupiter can act as a surrogate Sun. In Aries, Jupiter is likely to be quick to understand, quick to embark on new explorations, assertive in matters of opinions, ideas or beliefs…

Jupiter is a civilising energy.

The story of humanity could be summarised as a series of attempts to escape the state of nature to get a better life. We take a leap of faith from nature to culture, so to speak. We seek knowledge and wisdom to temperate wild instincts. We establish the rule of law. A rock star may sing they were born to be wild, if they were wild there would be no motorcycle, no rock’n’roll and no song. 

Jupiter in Aries is likely to promote values like action, courage, daring, individualism, heroism… 

(If you’re used to thinking of values as being ruled by Venus, you’re not wrong, but Venusian values are personal, and Jupiter’s cultural)

 With Jupiter we create laws to organise society. Unlike natural or spiritual laws, we are actively creating these ones, this suits Aries well. Legislators initiate bills. If someone in your household suggests making rules about who takes the bins out on what days, check their Jupiter-Mars connections. 

Growth and faith as expressions of the same principle.

A question that has been tickling me for some time is how can I understand Jupiter as meaning growth and faith as expressions of the same principle.

The idea came to me that a clairvoyant would see the energy field of a growing leaf as the template the leaf is about to grow into.

What if our consciousness was like a young leaf, and the destiny life invites us to grow into was like the invisible energy field of the next steps we may take? 

With some free will thrown into the equation, we may accept the invitation now (or maybe later) but whatever is calling us is nothing we could have rationally and logically thought of. 

And maybe there is more than one possible path, and maybe our own will has contributed to the creation of the energy field…

 One way or another, the time always comes when the next step is a leap. 

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, storyteller.

You are on my website, the homepage is here.

Blog posts written over the years have become a book: Magical Doors.

Let me read you the introduction on youtube. Next video I’ll dress up.

Would you join me for an astrology retreat in Turkey in autumn?

How to read a chart. Where is the Earth? Why is it the Moon?

The Moon is mother, says the astrologer. 

The Earth is our mother. Traditional cultures with roots have been saying it since ancient times. In Greece she was called Gaia.

Where is the Earth in the chart? The usual answer is that it’s at the centre, half way between Ascendant and Descendant, where the horizon crosses the meridian.

 The Earth is where we are looking at the Heavens from, we can’t see it over our heads moving from sign to sign! 

Some chart types, for instance on Astrodienst, include a small circle at the centre. That’s where we are.

Here is another answer: Where is the Earth? It’s the Moon! 

This is not to be taken literally. I’m not that confused. 

Let me explain:

Traditional cultures with roots have been saying, since ancient times, that we are children of Heaven and Earth. 

There is a fundamental duality in us. We are spirit and matter, we are body and soul, we are from above and we belong below. The planets must express this fundamental duality if they are talking about us. But, of course,  the Earth is nowhere to be seen up there! 

But look. The Sun is a Sky wanderer. The Moon is close to the Earth. The Sun is Father, the Moon is Mother. They are the Yin and the Yang, they tell us about the fundamental duality. 

So, is it Sun and Moon, or Heaven and Earth? 

Such a question could be asked by someone with an overactive left-brain, and a sleepy right-brain, the one that understands metaphors. It’s both! It depends on the mood of the storyteller.

The Moon changes, she waxes and wanes, she dies and is reborn. Her phases reflect the phases of mortal life. She is our mirror. Nature, tides and plants do what she does.  She means home, influence of the environment, emotions and instincts, generation. Along with the first house, she means something about our body. Yes, she means Earth. 

The Sun looks immortal by comparison. Always round, always radiating light and warmth, it’s the most potent source of life and energy we know, and if it’s a source, it’s like God. It’s  Spirit bursting out in Heaven.

Now, when we are reading a chart, it doesn’t help to think that the Sun is a symbol of the Ultimate Source… unless we connect it with the idea that there is a divine spark within us, a creative spark that is busy creating ourselves from within. For more about the Sun, read The Sun is the Heart of the Chart.

All the efforts and aspirations to become who we want to be, our dreams and ideals, our callings belong to the Sun. This immortal part is not vulnerable. Only its creation is, that lives in the flesh, in the Moon’s realm.    

In another post, “Self or Ego, what is the Ascendant?", I used the metaphor of a submarine -a metaphor for the Ascendant - driven by a pilot - The Sun - used to explore the depth of an ocean - a metaphor for life on earth. 

Seen from the lightness and freedom of the spirit world, incarnating on Earth can be compared to getting down to the bottom of an ocean; the soul in the body can feel imprisoned, like in a submarine. 

How we appear on earth, with a body and a temperament, is shown by the Ascendant and the First House. Our goals and intentions, our life purpose and the heroic journey of becoming who we want to be is shown by the Sun.

Thus, the fundamental duality can be symbolised by the Sun versus the Ascendant, or by the Sun versus the Moon. Symbols are flexible. What if we consider the three of them together? Ascendant, Sun and Moon are the “Big three”, the most fundamental indicators in a birth chart.  

As part of a Sun-Moon-Ascendant Trio, the Moon is the soul, or psyche.

The psyche is an intermediary. She has a foot in the eternal world of Spirit, and a foot in the changing and mortal world of Nature. She is a medium. She rules over dreams, not the solar dreams of who we want to be, but the watery dreams, the messages. The Moon rejoices in the Third House. In our sleep, in our daydreams, in the flow of our thoughts and feelings, sometimes in a blurred way, sometimes clearly, we are connected with the great sea, whilst living in this body. 

Jung would talk about the function of intermediary of the Anima or Animus between the conscious ego and the collective unconscious. 

Again, the left-brains may be irritated, and ask: “So, the messenger, is it the Moon, or is it Mercury?”

They can work together! The Moon provides a flow of emotionally charged pictures, and Mercury articulates words to describe them. Thot, the Egyptian God of learning and writing, to which Hermes became assimilated in Hellenistic times, was God of the Moon. 

In this body, energies flow, or get blocked at times, causing diseases. If the Sixth House is more powerful than the First and the Moon, we may need some healing. Check also the Sun for the heart, upper spine and vitality. 

The Moon is Mother. Mothers are women, and women are witches, aren't they? They gather in a clearing in the middle of the woods to dance bare feet under the Moon when she’s full. They know the plants and they know how to bind, because they care for tribes and families.

They belong to the Earth and they extend invisible roots into the psychic dimension, where the light of the Moon reflects that of the Sun. 

Applying this to the metaphor of the submarine, the Sun is the driver, it is us, with individuality,  intention and purpose. It is the Heart. 

 The Ascendant is the submarine, with an emphasis on its outermost layer. The Ascendant says something about how we appear, with our body and face, behaviours and temperament, and how we interact with the surrounding world.  

The Moon is the flesh of the submarine and its Mama. (You know how submarines reproduce). The submarine’s Mama is outside and inside. Outside, it’s another submarine, which belongs to a whole family of submarines sharing characteristics, and it’s the environment where sustenance is found. Inside, it’s all the maintenance, health and safety systems, including the desire to have babies. 

The Moon is the psychic world that mediates the Sun-Ascendant connection. She is Earth and more…

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, Storyteller, etc.

To know more about me, about astrology readings, classes, active listening, visit my homepage

I would love to read for you!

And if you would like to have me as a teacher for a retreat in Turkey, it’s here

Modern Astrology and Fate

What are we thinking, nowadays, about fate?

I have often heard people say that “everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes people wonder whether a relationship is “meant to happen” or what they are “meant to become”.

What does “meant to happen” mean?

Was it written, from all eternity, in the book of fate? Was it the inescapable consequence of our actions, good or bad, tracing back to past lives?

Do we “always have a choice”? Do we believe that “The best way to predict the future is to create it?”

The way we practise astrology is inseparable from the answers we give to these questions.


In Hellenistic times, the philosophy of the Stoics was very influential. The Stoics had a deterministic view of life. For them, we are like a dog tied to a cart. The cart will go where it must. The dog can kick and scream, or walk along with acceptance.

If your philosophy is stoicism, you ask an astrologer what is going to happen because it will help you accept what you can’t change.

A traditional tale about fate, from Persia, tells the story of a man who persuaded King Solomon to teach him how to understand the language of the animals.

It was a bad idea. The man heard his rooster say that his donkey would soon die. The man quickly sold the donkey, who actually died a few days later in the home of his new owner. Good money saved!

The man then heard the rooster say that his slave was about to die. He quickly sold it and the slave died in his new home. Then the man heard the rooster say that he himself would soon die. He couldn’t sell himself!

In a panic, he ran and asked King Solomon what could be done about it. King Solomon told him that the loss of his donkey and his slave was the price to pay to preserve his own life, but as he didn’t paid it, there was nothing that could be done…

So what is fate, with the worldview that is implied in this ancient story?

This more complex view can be connected with the etymology of the word “redeemer” which means “to buy back” and with the Christian belief that Jesus paid the price for our sins.

Why would the son of God, assimilated to God himself by Christians, have to pay a price to wipe the slate clean? This implies a law...

The notion of karma also comes with the idea of a state of equilibrium which needs to be restored by necessity.

This worldview is symbolised by the scales and the sign Libra.

With the philosophical questions in mind, my point is: a psychological approach is relevant.

I do believe that a state of equilibrium has to be restored, or maintained, however, I am convinced that this can be done as an inner process.

What happens within has an impact on what happens without, and vice versa.

As a Westerner living today, I don’t sacrifice bulls, sheep or goats to the gods to avoid bad fortune.

I would rather watch my inner self-talk and make a sacrifice conscious attention to my painful emotions.

Astrology is an efficient way to direct our attention to what's important.

The way is within.

Jean-Marc
I read charts, teach astrology, and I write.
Now, it’s time to check the homepage!

Or maybe to learn about an astrology retreat in Turkey in October 2024…

The Sun is the Heart of the Chart

Some people don’t relate to their Sun sign. It’s annoying! The Sun is the most important and the most influential of all the indicators. 

Astrology is a language of metaphors. For instance, the Moon has been a symbol for women since prehistoric times. One obvious connection is that both Moon and women go through monthly cycles. So women are like the Moon or vice versa.

So let’s look at the sky. What is the most important thing up there? 

The Sun is the most powerful, the most visible, the most influential of all the indicators in the birth chart. It is the most essential of all the heavenly bodies, for us.

So how come some people don’t relate to their Sun sign? 

A way to answer this question is to look for dominant energies. The Sun may be the king but sometimes kings have powerful ministers. 

 A planet conjunct to an angle of the chart, or very emphasized by aspects from the Sun, Moon and personal planets can become so dominant that its influence eclipses that of the Sun sign, and also of the Moon sign and Ascendant.  

Another way to become dominant for a planet is to rule over many other planets or points like the Ascendant or the Moon nodes. If there are, for instance, three planets in Virgo and the Ascendant and the South Node are in Gemini, Mercury becomes very important, even if the Sun is not in one of these two signs. 

So what happens then?

If, let’s say, Venus is dominant, even if the person is neither Taurus nor Libra, they will display Venusian traits, which will make them rather Taurus like, or Libra like - or a bit of both. Let's say Venusian. 

If Mars, Jupiter or Saturn are dominant, I think it's very important to remember that these three planets traditionally rule two signs each. 

If Mars is dominant in a chart we can expect Aries like traits, and Scorpio traits as well. When Mars is taking action boldly and energetically, Mars expresses its Aries side. But when Mars is waiting in ambush, resisting in the face of adversity or thinking of a strategy it's more like Scorpio. The sign in which Mars is placed and the overall balance of elements should give clues as to how this Mars is more likely to express. 

In all cases Mars dominant in the chart of someone with a soft sign like Cancer or Libra will give the person traits which are not part of the stereotypical description. 

Now stereotypes are just stereotypes. What is essential is deeper.

There is another and complementary way to explain why some people don't relate to their Sun sign: it is to say that they haven't understood what their sign is about. 

When you read standard descriptions of Sun signs, they describe how people born with this Sun sign are. Virgos are supposed to be fussy, picky, neat and organised. A good deal of them are, but there are also messy Virgos. So let's drop this idea of Sun signs as immutable characters, all cast in the same mould, as fixed in their ways as Greek marbles. 

If we come across a messy Virgo, a shy Leo, a silent Gemini, a sleeping Sagittarius… Instead of thinking that they are not how they should be, let's ask:

"What is the Sign about?" 

The messy Virgo may be intellectually very sharp. Their mind may be the most organised mind you'll ever come across. If you could visit their mental world... you would realise the description of the textbooks applies, but in their head, not in their house. 

It's possible that in the chart, the Sun or Mercury are afflicted by challenging oppositions or squares from other planets, and this generates disturbances. So to deal with the threat of chaos, Virgo separates their own universe into two distinct boxes. In one box, chaos wins. Investing energy in this box is of no use, let's be pragmatic and practical. In the other box, order is firmly established and maintained. That is the best possible use of the energy.

Take some distance and you'll see that this Virgo is really a Virgo even if the living room is an abomination.

With Virgo there is a strong urge to discriminate, analyse and organise. But it won’t be expressed exactly in the same way for every single Virgo. 

My father is a shy Leo. I've seen him many times being the silent one in family gatherings. He is nothing like the boisterous and egocentric stereotype of Leo. He is a Libra Rising - so Venus becomes his chart ruler and Venus is conjunct Pluto and conjunct the MC. This brings a very strong Plutonian influence. Other placements in his chart are not supportive of Leo energy - rather the opposite. Sun conjunct Neptune, Mars in the 12th house for instance.

So rather than asking "What is a Leo like?" Let's ask "What is Leo about?". In short, Leo is about self expression, it is about showing, sharing the light. Being at the centre and radiating energy. 

In my father's case, this was a challenge for him. He had to try hard to be at least a little bit like a Leo. Still he was a Leo. With another Sun sign, he could have been shy, and it would not have been such a challenge for him. He would have accepted it more easily. One day he showed me some self help books in the style of the fifties. “How to overcome shyness” - “Handbook for emotional people”. The Leo urge in him made him try, and I’m sure he tried hard. He fought like a lion. 

 If life is a school, my father had enrolled in the Leo school - but he was still far from the PhD. In all schools there are beginners, intermediates and more advanced students. 

Now, my father was not a complete beginner at the Leo school. He managed to spend his entire professional life on a stage. He was a maths teacher. He was sharing his light. He was making demonstrations on the blackboard. When a maths teacher demonstrates that something is true, he is right, and if you have something else to say on the topic, you are wrong. Students had better shut up and listen. 

My father had a trumpet. He didn't play very often but he had one. He didn’t look like a stereotypical Leo but if you look more closely you find the Leo energy at the heart of the mix. 

To understand what the signs are about, we can remember the stereotypes, but we also need to remember to be a little more subtle about them. The key question is: what is this energy about? 

Let me give you another example: Libra. The stereotype is that this sign suits women better than men, because Libra is all about relationships. In life, romantic partnerships, marriage or long term relationships are certainly a huge topic, but is Libra about that and only that? 

Libra is a cardinal sign. We have a contradiction, because we read in textbooks that cardinal signs are focused on initiating, starting, taking action.... And Libra has a reputation of struggling with decision making. Libra hesitates, that’s the stereotype! It’s the opposite of Aries, Cardinal and Fire, the typical action guy. 

But let’s remember that Libra is Air. Thinking is part of Libra’s field of expertise. As a Cardinal sign, Libra initiates a thinking process. The symbol of Libra, the scales, is an instrument of measurement. You weigh the pros and the cons. You compare. You oppose. You notice how things or people contrast. You perceive nuances. You compare contrasts with other contrasts...  You do that in your mind, then you may join a debate society. You may aspire to sit in parliament and initiate bills, or plead as a barrister. Or maybe you're taking delight in solving equations. In an equation, there are two terms and a relation between these two terms.  

Libra is actually as dynamic and energetic, in the Air, as Aries is in the heat of the Fire. 

So it is possible to be born a Libra Sun and to seek balance between opposites in other areas than romantic relationships. 

That’s all for today. Trying to understand what every sign is about in the great fabric of life is philosophy. It’s deep meditation, it’s contemplation. It’s a lifestyle at the end of the cosmic day. 

Jean-Marc Pierson 

Astrologer, storyteller, philosopher with a homepage.
How about an astrology retreat in Turkey?

The houses are moving!

First thing, you exist.

That’s strong, that’s powerful, that’s Angular, that’s First House.

Succedent Houses are Houses that come next.

Planets located in the second house are following those that are located in the first, in primary motion, that is clockwise.

These planets will rise next.

The Second house is a Succedent one.

You exist, and now you are hungry

You want food, you want money

Cadent Houses are Houses that fall over.

(form latin cadere, to fall)

Angles are peaks. After any summit comes decline.

After angular you fall into cadent.

That’s clockwise logic, aka Primary Motion. It’s worth repeating.

The IC is an anti peak, a reversed MC so to speak

The cadent house that falls after this anti peak actually starts climbing.

It’s the third house, aka House of the Goddess. The Moon is happy there.

She is a mirror as you know.

Of course Houses don’t move. At least not literally.

Houses are like stables.

A stable, is it a building, or a team of race horses? Or a team of race cars?

Angular, Succedent and Cadent Houses, understood as teams of planets and signs, race clockwise, in daily motion. It’s more like a procession than a race actually.

Planets placed before the Sun in this procession are called Oriental. (This is notion that emphasises once more the importance of how things move)

In this procession, the First house comes first, the Second succeeds, the Third comes next but the Third is also preceding the Fourth team, falling away from the angle that the Fourth is reaching.

However, in a natal chart, all motions are stopped in their tracks.

A chart is a snapshot, a frozen moment. In a chart, the Houses, like the signs and planets are fixed. Houses get activated anticlockwise by transits or progressions. Thus, again, the First comes first, followed by the Succedent second, the Third precedes the Fourth and the Fifth succeeds to it etc.

Now, this doesn’t deny the symbolic value of planets moving in primary motion, ascending through 12th, 11th and 10th houses, then declining and setting at the 7th place and so on.

We can perfectly look at things from various points of view.

To sum it up: the names of the Houses (Angular, Succedent, Cadent) describe the movement of the planets (and signs) contained within them in primary motion, clockwise.

The meaning of the houses is in great part derived from the highlights of this movement: planets (and signs) rise, culminate and set, they ascend and descend, day after day.

However, this clockwise movement is crossed in the opposite direction by the movement of the same planets moving in secondary motion, anticlockwise through the signs of the zodiac.

It’s worth meditating, because cosmic movements and life on earth reflect each other…

Jean-Marc Pierson

I am an astrologer. Yes I do read charts, and I teach. Here is the homepage.

Astrology and Identity

For astrologers, our identity is symbolised by the Sun, and by the Fire element.

This identity is supposed to be unique. I love the saying:

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

Spiritual folks talk about a "Higher Self": there is an identity in a spiritual sense that is more authentically us than the little ego.

Can this "Higher Self" have a gender? A gender is a category. In this temporary incarnation, I am a man.

I may have had past incarnations as a woman. I also had a life as a rabbit, but mostly as a human being. This Higher Self which incarnated many times as a woman, many times as a man and once as a rabbit is now me, a man. Higher Self must be beyond gender.

The big problem with identity is that we don't know ourselves.

"Know yourself" was written on the portal of Apollo's temple in Delphi. Lao Tzu said "He who knows others is wise, he who knows himself is enlightened".

Throughout ages and traditions, self knowledge has been what we should strive for. It's not a given.

Because we don't know ourselves, we identify with a number of things. I identify as a storyteller, as a man, as French, as an astrologer etc. But this is my ego.

When we know ourselves, the ego dissolves. The ego may not like it but it's just a temporary illusion, a psychological construct.

The Sun in the chart symbolises both the authentic Self and the ego, which is the temporary illusion we entertain about this authentic Self we don't know yet.

The ego is like the snake that sheds its skin. It dies and is born again, always trans-forming. There is a sign and a house for that: Scorpio, eighth. What is real and eternal does not transform, has no form but can take form.

The Moon has another conception of the word "identity". To be fair with words, the Moon doesn't care about identity. The Moon belongs.

With the Moon we absorb our environment. Ideas like "intersectionality" are typically from the Moon. You are defined by where you belong.

Here are our roots in the material world: I was born French, my Frenchness is obvious when I record a podcast or a video. I am a man. I am white. Was born like that. It's Moon stuff.

I am middle aged. I have not always been middle aged, and won't always be, but that's part of my 'identity' for now. Boom, baby. The Moon always changes.

I am a man. There is a biologically obvious dimension to it (I don't do dick pics but I could if there was a philosophical purpose).

Biology is able to mix up its own categories, however in the majority of cases we are clearly born male of female. That's sex. Gender starts with sex but goes further.

We have absorbed and internalised all kinds of expectations about how we should be. All the influences we absorb are symbolised by the Moon and the Water element. Maybe Venus as well. Water and Earth, the archetypal Feminine energies take from outside in.

Some of the influences I absorbed contribute to my well being, others make me suffer. I do rebel against the influences that make me suffer, I want to break free from them.

How? There may be more than one way. I believe in Kind acceptance and Understanding of what is, in the "here and now".

On earth, we live within the Moon's orbit, in the world of forms.

Forms may be illusions but they are our reality. The spiritual path is striving to look beyond the world of forms and awaken the Sun within.

Jean-Marc

Astrologer, storyteller

I can read your chart! I can also show you how to read charts, possibly in Turkey in October 24. Here is the homepage Have a look, there is even a contact form!

Liquid routines and more about astrological interpretations

Astrology is a language of symbols. Symbols are metaphors for invisible realities.

The material world provides us with the pictures we need to describe more subtle levels of experience: “A solid discipline” is only solid metaphorically; we understand perfectly what it means because we have a direct and physical experience of solid things.

Language is packed with metaphors. If you need to take a break, you are not going to literally break anything. Work is hard, so it breaks, like a branch of dry wood or a piece of glass.

Symbols may at times suggest idioms that poets have not rendered familiar yet. If an astrologer tells you about “liquid daily routines” the expression sounds nonsensical, but what if the symbols suggest just that? How about a sixth house with Mercury in Pisces in it?

In this example, a word with a watery root like “fluctuating” could save us from being too surrealist to be paid.

“Flexible” could be relevant as well. The word “flexible” makes us think of a branch of green wood. Dry wood can’t be bent, it breaks. “Flexible” doesn’t apply to liquids but it implies a certain degree of humidity, literally and metaphorically. We may expect rigidity from an excess of the Earth element, flexibility from a good balance between Earth and Water and laxism or indulgence from an excess of Water.

If we wonder about the connection between Water and emotions, we can remember the expression: some people are emotional sponges. Liquid daily routines then may involve some emotional availability on a daily basis.

Language reveals a lot about the meaning of the elements. Once, as I was searching for inspiration for things to tweet, I thought: if the four elements are valid to describe life - or at least to describe the way we experience life subjectively - then they must be reflected in the structures of language. How about punctuation? I had the idea of tweeting:

Fire! Earth. Air? Water…

Language can reveal a lot, but we should become able to get the meanings beyond what is revealed by language, like children who, one day, become able to ride their bicycle without the little wheels.

We can perceive the metaphorical value of the essential qualities - dry, wet, hot and cold - independently of whether or not words or idioms reveal them to us. If nobody had ever had the idea of saying “I am an emotional sponge”, we would need to say it for the first time. It would be weird, but still make sense.

When reading astrological charts, we have to come up with evocative words to translate the pictures. Our work is poetry. It takes inspiration.

Breathe well!

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrology readings, one to one or small group classes, digging deeper for self-knowledge, healing and empowerment, and an astrology retreat. You on the website, here is the homepage

The Spirit of Fire and the four elements.

If life was a table and the four elements were its legs, would one be more essential than the others? No. 

How about the four elements?

The number Four symbolises life getting anchored in the material world. Most animals have four legs. Our houses have four sides, our rooms four walls. East, West, North and South get us oriented. There are four seasons. 

Four feels balanced and stable. Two axes form a cross, four right angles, a square. 

However, if we were to bump into the four elements at a spiritual party, one of them would attract our attention more: Fire. Here we have warmth and light in eternal abundance! 

Life is a flame, and so are you. Creation is a deflagration. If God was invited to the party, It would appear as Fire and Light. Could you imagine God as a handful of dirt? 

Now, when you think of it, God could appear as the wind, even though, when clothed in wind, God is invisible; holy, subtle and spiritual no doubt, but not appearing at all. God could also, why not, be a sea mother, a fluid immensity out of which creatures emerge. God could even be a handful of dirt after all, a mother of seeds, Sacred Nature, when you think of it. Still, before thinking of it, Fire came First. 

God is like the Sun, Fire suits It best. 

You may wonder what the connection between the element Fire and God has to do with astrological interpretations. Just follow the thread:

God is the creator, people with a fire emphasis are creative. They see life as a stage, they aim at performing well. Saving money or finding emotional security is less of a concern for them than expressing their sacred fire. 

They are powerful, maybe not all powerful, but at times, at risk of believing they are… until the possible burnout. 

God is said to provide, fire people are often quick to pay for the drinks, even when they know you have as much money in your pockets as they have. Question of prestige! 

More than others, they draw self-confidence from the intuition of what’s divine within themselves. Isn’t it written that God created us to his own likeness? They dare knowing they are beautiful, which can be done in a healthy way, or not… 

Is Fire the supreme element then? Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. Symbols are not rigidly defined concepts. 

Empedocles, the Greek philosopher who had the idea of considering the four elements as the four roots of everything, didn’t consider Fire as the super root of the others, otherwise he would have simply stated, in opposition to Thales, who thought that everything came from Water, that it’s actually Fire that the whole world comes from. But he didn’t.

When we look at the world through the  prism of the number four, there are four dimensions, and they are all equally essential.  

South is not a more fundamental direction than East, West or North. We may like it more, and turn our back to North, but without North, we would have nowhere to turn our back to, and South would vanish. Similarly, Fire, as an element, is only one of them. 

Symbols are evocations. Ordinary logic is not relevant to describe how pictures articulate their powers of evocation. Sometimes Fire conjures up the intuition of the One and Only Being, and sometimes Fire is one amongst four equally essential elements. And sometimes, both at the same time, which is logically absurd, but metaphorically why not. 

By the way, do you think that the elements mean something specific in the context of astrology?

Or do Fire, Water, Air and Earth mean what they mean, whether they appear in poetry, myths, dreams, spiritual visions, alchemy, magic or astrology?  Neptune’s answer is: astrology is not a waterproof box separated from the universal language. As without so within, as within so without. So… 

Fire!

We may  light a candle on an altar. 

We may call home a “hearth”, cook on the fire and share  as family members. 

We know that guilt or shame, as well as anger or desire at times burn like hell.  

God once appeared as a burning bush. 

Sometimes, there is a little flickering light at the end of a tunnel. 

For astrological interpretations, as always, follow the threads. For instance, we’re used to thinking of family life as symbolised by the Moon. The Moon symbolises women and mothers. But men have a role to play. Even in modern times, when switching roles happens, we still want Water and Fire together, they are the life giving elements. 

Fire in a chart may burn in the hearth, for instance in the 4th house, and make it warm there. 

How could Fire mean only one thing? Life gives us so many experiences of it. 

The warmth of a stove 

The pain of being burnt

The light of a candle in a dark place

The spectacle of moths throwing themselves into the flame (like us!)

A wildfire engulfing forests and witches

Body temperature, human warmth

Fireworks, celebrations…  

Every spark, every twinkling star becomes a metaphor for soul and spirit to tell their stories. 

Symbolic language unfolds along the lines of lived experience. We need to surrender and let the symbols speak. 

Now, don’t worry. The standard interpretations of what it means when you have an element strongly emphasised in a chart will be very often true. 

Fiery people often have this tendency to steal the show… until you meet one who apparently doesn’t. Then it is time to remember the difference between a little flame and a blaze, a servant of the Secret Fire and a fire spitting dragon, or between a blacksmith and a cook… 

Look at what houses are involved for clues about what interpretations are more likely, along with what planets are involved, follow the threads, let inspiration fill in the blanks, and  good luck! 

Jean-Marc

Blog posts written over the years have become a book, and got great reviews. To know more about that, and about me as an astrologer, storyteller and teacher (a retreat in Turkey is planned in 2024) visit my homepage!

Jupiter square Pluto

Jupiter wants to know. Pluto’s abode is the dark underground.

Jupiter speaks of growth, luck, enthusiasm, faith and expansion.

Pluto has an instinctive sixth sense that has always been very useful for survival in extreme settings.

Jupiter rules over laws.  Pluto knows the law of the jungle . Jupiter wants civilisation.  

What are laws exactly?

In Jupiterian fashion, let me embark with you on a journey.  

What are laws? 

Let’s take an example: E = mc2

You know this equation, it’s one of the most famous laws of physics. But how do you know it? I am not asking if you learned about it reading a book or if it’s your cat who told you. I’m asking: “What is your mind doing when you know?”  

For instance, right now, you may not be really interested in thinking about the theory of relativity. Just knowing that you know is enough for now. You vaguely remember: Einstein, energy and matter, ok, what’s next?

We are very often juggling with words with very little of what they mean present to mind. I could tell you a story about a cat, which may or may not belong to Schrödinger, and then ask you: what colour did you picture this cat in your mind? And if you’re like me, you notice that you can listen to a cat story without visualising a cat in your mind at all! Strange, no? 

Or maybe you did visualise a cat, but it’s was just a vague cat,  nothing but a botched mental representation with very little in common with a real meow that moves, climbs on the fence, walks on top of it, jumps onto the roof of the garden shed, and surprises a squirrel!…

If you don’t take the trouble of holding a substantial cat in your mind when I’m talking about one, I’m sure that when it comes to E = mc2 not much is happening either. 

Mercury is a trickster. It gives us words to talk about things, language is a fantastic tool, but we become, as the philosopher Wittgenstein saw it, “bewitched by language”. Language is like a game we’re playing, we follow its rules and we don’t need to know what we are talking about to make it work. We may not even notice how disconnected from reality we are.

Jupiter, the truth seeker, is looking for the real thing. Are laws real things? Take E = mc2   Mercury knows the formula. How does Jupiter know such a thing? Like this:

Imagine a light bulb, with a filament in it. Try to be empathetic. Be the filament. Feel how it feels to resist an electric current so hard. Feel it in your body. You’re so strong! You become incandescent. Your body radiates light. It’s your very body which is turning into light, you’re losing weight in the process - even though you’re not losing much, you’re nowhere near vanishing, the proportion of your physical body that turns into light is soooo tiny actually. To get an idea of how tiny it is, imagine that you have to multiply it by a huge number, the speed of light squared, and the speed of light, it’s huge, look at the stars… 

So yes, the proportion is tiny, but still, you are turning into light. You are it.  

Geniuses like Einstein can hold mental pictures so vividly that they can even feel the maths! Or should I say “intuit”?  

A number of geniuses have said that they saw the results before doing all the calculations needed to prove they were right. 

Einstein was a Pisces and Cancer Rising, with Moon in Sagittarius. With such placements, you don’t forget Jupiter in the closet. His Jupiter in the ninth house was squared by Pluto and opposed by Uranus… 

Pluto destroyed the old worldview. To be able to conceive energy and matter as only one thing, there was a need to drill  holes in the old habits of thinking. Newtonian physics had to fall apart in Einstein’s mind. Pluto touching Jupiter gave Albert a mental power as strong as a rhinoceros charging an elephant. Einstein was posthumously diagnosed with autism. We know how intensely autistic people can obsess over what interests them. 

Mercury uses reason and logic to check whether Jupiter saw right or if it was just a bit drunk. It’s important to check. Not any vision is true.

Mercury focuses on the signs and the relationships between signs, but the law is what is actually happening. Laws are the cosmos’ organisation. The most fundamental laws are gravity, electromagnetism and two others that are active at atomic level. Jupiter makes the world hold together. A key word is “integration”. No wonder it was called the Great Benefic! 

Pluto is a disintegrating force. How can so much energy be released from such a small bomb? (It’s not Einstein who made it by the way). 

In Hiroshima’s event chart, Uranus is bang on the MC. Pluto is conjunct the Sun and connected with Jupiter by a semi-square. 

To sum it up, with Jupiter square Pluto, expect a radical tension between forces of integration and disintegration. 

There are other laws that are not natural but debated and voted in parliaments. here is a similar problem: connecting formulation and reality. Reality is: People are such as they are, there is room for trouble. They have useful instincts and intense emotions, but with only instincts, life is hell. Pluto’s world is not a happy one. Philosophers called it the state of nature. 

Therefore we make laws, by Jupiter. Do you know that the first cause of death among lions is other lions? It would be the same with us, but we declared that killing other people is a crime. Society  punishes criminals. As a result, we keep the peace, not always, but often enough to make a difference. Thanks Jupiter, good job, oh Great Benefic!

However, writing laws is complicated. We should not kill other people, but  what if we were defending ourselves? If we were defending ourselves, but our life wasn’t threatened, was our response proportionate to the aggression? If our response was not proportionate, could the judge and the jury believe that we genuinely believed it was? ….

The spirit of the laws is that we should do our best to live in peace, respect others, be fair etc. In practice, we need to write down, formulate, precise particular cases… Formulation is Mercury’s job, however Mercury’s job is also to find loopholes in the service of those who are willing to take advantage of the imperfections . Pluto keeps oozing through the cracks. 

When Pluto squares Jupiter, it’s not easy to uphold the rule of law, both within societies or within ourselves. We have sneaky shadows. They find their ways through our ethics. 

Thanks to Jupiter and Pluto’s conflict, we can enjoy Western movies. Pluto loves that game: get them to draw their gun first, make sure there are witnesses, and kill them legally, you, the fastest shooter in the history of the West. 

Do you prefer thrillers, detective stories? Pluto loves them as well. For those who respect the laws in real life, but fantasise anyway, going to the movies is a compromise.

And sometimes, it’s not a movie, all hell breaks loose. Corruption is a permanent threat, and the climate is changing. 

There are also moral, or spiritual laws. For instance, the Golden Rule: 

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" has a flavour of the laws we make: it tells you how to behave. But this is also a law that we should understand rather than just do as we are told: karma says that what comes around goes around . It makes sense to sow what we want to reap. 

Jupiter the Truth Seeker takes us to seek God, or Moshka, Nirvana, Enlightenment, Ultimate Reality. From the spiritual dimensions, or from the collective psyche, it gets experiences that are quasi impossible to translate into plain language. We get symbols instead, like our zodiac. However, with Pluto, nothing is safe from corruption. Sometimes we kill in the name of God, and the Devil laughs. 

May all the beings be happy!  

Jean-Marc Pierson

In October 2024, there will be an astrology retreat in Turkey. Click!

I offer readings, classes and I have written a book. To know more, click!

Thank you for your attention.

Pluto square Moon

Moon square Pluto. Ouch, it’s a difficult one. 

Caveat:  Planets and aspects may be strong like big blows in the face, or soft like shoulders clad in velvet rubbing. Every planet comes with an invisible dimmer switch. So do aspects. How intense was the light at the moment you were born?

The Moon square Pluto that worries you may be a mere skeleton in a well forgotten closet, or a cohort of demons making your life hell day in and day out. 

In general, with this aspect, expect rubble. 

“Rubble” is an evocative way to say: “destruction followed by regeneration of something that means home to you”. 

Followed by regeneration, yes.  “This too will pass” is a valid mantra, it applies to rubbles. Keep calm and carry on is a relevant exhortation. (When you need to hear that, you’re in trouble)

The optimistic word in “destruction followed by regeneration of something that means home to you” is “something”. It may not be the end of your entire world. Only something. 

“What means home” is more subtle than just home. Our interpretations can be literal only once in a while. An earthquake, a landslide, bombs falling or damages caused by time and neglect can cause roofs and walls to collapse, literally. Then you’re dead, or homeless. 

However, we are symbolic beings. The Moon means home, home means environment, environment is family, tribe, village, city, nation, environment is nature, it’s the little piece of land we belong to (rather than the opposite) and it’s the blue planet that owes us… 

When transiting Pluto squared my natal Moon, I left France and came to England. It was my decision, it was a good one, it was time to close a chapter and get a fresh start. I needed to shed my old skin and leave it behind. I had spent eighteen years of my life in Drôme Provençale, in the South-East of France. I loved it so much there. My heart had made roots. When Pluto squared, I left. I hope I’ll get another life and live there again. I want another youth. I loved it so much but it’s all over even though still living in spirit. 

Rubble can be metaphorical; other related pictures can be relevant, the snake tearing its own skin apart, the uprooted tree… 

As a Scorpio Sun with Cancer Rising, I could only be especially sensitive to a Pluto square Moon transit.

The Moon rules over the inside world, which contains our most vulnerable side. There is a need for wrapping and warmth. Nurturing, nourishment, safety… 

We are spirits in the material world. We inhabit bodies, courtesy of the Moon-Mother. Our body is our home. It is a home that needs a home. For some, this home feels like a prison. A future butterfly must feel trapped in the cocoon. One day, it will break open. Transformation is permanent. 

Our spirit is wrapped up in layers of soul, like an onion. There is an etheric body, an astral body and many other bodies. We are made of inner layers and we belong to outdoor layers, family, natural habitat, village or city etc.  

When Pluto squares the Moon, the question is: what layer, or what layers are being torn? Is it physical, emotional, social, mental…? 

We may dream that our house is falling apart, the earth shaking and trees being uprooted.  Then wake up, sweating and feel so relieved that it was “just a dream”.

But what is happening in our dreams, isn’t it a real psychic event?

The world of dreams could erupt and overwhelm our consciousness, people with white blouses would call our case a “psychosis”. Our mental world is also a home. (Who lives in it?) 

Pluto squaring the Moon may simply find us struggling with insecurities. We may feel tormented by inner demons. In the outer world, our house could stand still, as if nothing was going on. Neighbours won’t know anything about our underground fight for mental survival. 

In my understanding, when we go through hell consciously, in the world of our own feelings, we are diffusing the destructive energies. We are sparing ourselves painful manifestations in the physical dimension. Paying attention to our inner life is worth a thousand talismans. 

I with you fertile daydreaming and cogitations!

Jean-Marc

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Mars in Cancer

A warrior with a sword, holding a baby with his other arm, engaged in a fight. That could be Mars in Cancer. 

He has promised a dying friend to protect this baby and here he is, fighting bad guys who would prefer this little one dead. A question of inheritance or succession, poor baby. 

Mars is in fall in Cancer. Planets in detriment face a special challenge: the conditions are not favourable to the full expression of their energy. It’s certainly more difficult to fight holding a baby. Mars in Cancer has a particularly vulnerable side but it may win anyway. 

Symbolic language is the opposite of literal. The baby may be an inner child, with dreams, imagination and old traumas. 

Soldiers fighting to defend their countries have also a metaphorical baby on their arms. 

As for the Mafia, aggression and family are central values. I remember Al Capone had Mars in Cancer. At the time of writing, I googled “famous Mafia bosses”. I picked up two, randomly, Carlo Gambino and Paul Castellano, then searched for astro data. Both had Mars in Cancer. I tried another one, Toni Giancana. Mars in Libra… but a Cancer Sun, and Pluto in Cancer trine Moon. Frank Costello. Mars in Aries, but… Cancer Moon in the 12th, Cancer Rising.  This is not a valid statistical study, but a strong first impression: these five mafia bosses all had whether Mars in Cancer, or Cancer higher than Mars in the chart hierarchy. I wonder how much Cancer we would find in the chart of the Godfather. 

As an idealist, I hope that one day, people will know how to live without violence. Will Mars disappear from the sky? Probably not. There must be peaceful ways for Mars. The energy of the warrior in Cancer can also be the energy of providers, (hunters), nest builders, sport teachers for children, cub scout leaders… (Akela!)

Here is another series of pictures for Mars is Cancer: A baby playing with razor blades. Is it going to self harm or will it rather experiment with a little brother? It doesn’t know it’s playing a dangerous game… yet. 

A variation on this theme: a child with a loaded gun. Or a knife. Or his bare fist, I love dramatic pictures for entertainment and clarity, but it may be just a child fighting. 

Check the third house for clues about peers and neighbourhood. 

Now, a domestic abuser is nothing but a child in an adult body. Children need to test boundaries. Adult abusers are responsible for the actions of their inner disturbed child indeed. They should test boundaries in psychotherapy. 

There is no precise grammar with symbols. Mars in Cancer may take active care of the baby, or be the baby, baby. 

In other words, the same energy - and therefore the same symbol - can mean the abuser, the abused, or the protector. We can also be our own protector indeed, both fierce and vulnerable. 

In Cancer, energies can be maternal or parental, responsible, nurturing, providing materially and emotionally, or childlike, sensitive and imaginative, or even  childish, dependent, passive aggressive, manipulative and full of needs. 

They can also be tribal. Family or nation, with their codes and values may dictate how Mars should act. Individualism is in exile in Cancer. Mars is found there wearing a scarf, the colours of his team. Mars in Cancer has a family name and he is following a flag… 

The antidote to negative expressions of an energy is cultivating the positive side. Not cultivating the positive side is the equivalent of offending a god, the negative side will be the curse. 

There is a giving and a receiving end. Cancer is not traditionally considered a dual sign, but the glyph: ♋︎ shows a double design. We are used to thinking of it as representing a woman’s breast, or the eyes of a crab. We shouldn’t let the interpretations we already know get in the way. Symbols are magical doors. It’s possible to find out more. The doubled design looks like a 6 or a 9, could that be the beginning of a spiral? We can draw it turning from inside out or from outside in. One provides, one takes in. 

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The more challenged a Mars in Cancer is, the more likely it is to manifest as immature, driven by its own needs. If you’re reading the chart of an older person, don’t tell them they are still immature, how could you know? They may have  learned their lessons. 

Mars in Cancer may act with sensitivity, or be motivated by emotions, dreams, imagination or memories, it will know how to appeal to emotions when leading the team, it may manifest as a paternalistic leader or a strong minded woman, maybe a midwife… 

Now, if Mars is in Cancer, its ruler is the Moon. A planet in a sign loves and depends on its ruler. 

Signs are mindsets, houses are more concrete. If the Moon is in the fourth house, it will take the power of Mars in Cancer at home, if it’s in the fifth, it will appear as the rule of a game, in the context of creative endeavours, love life, or be expressed by a child. 

For now, let’s just imagine Mars in Cancer being ruled by a Virgo Moon. There is no precise grammar with symbols. The Moon rules, beyond that, let’s just let images mix. 

The warrior with a baby on his arm is fighting the energies of chaos. Hostile germs are waiting in ambush. The immune system is powerful. Well supported by Mars, good exercise and herbs, antibodies and life energy will shake off the disease! 

Or maybe it was an accident? Reeducation is a fight. 

This interpretation would be particularly relevant if Mars or the Moon, is in the sixth house, or rules it, or makes a strong aspect to a planet placed in the sixth house, or to the ruler of the sixth, or indirectly, if the sixth house is emphasised in the chart, I just don’t want to repeat this all the time!

A child with a loaded gun with the Moon in Virgo could be very skilled at hitting the center of the target - It’s a question of precision after all.  It may be a young chemist who knows what powders to mix and in what proportions to prepare his own explosives. Exciting! With a bit more maturity, he could be serving his country in the army as an explosive expert. 

Not everyone with Mars in Cancer and the Moon in Virgo will handle explosives in the army, even with 10th house (career) or 11th house (groups) emphasis of course. The Moon rules emotions, and if she rules Mars in a chart, there should be some metaphorical fireworks in the interpretation, unless Saturn blocks or dampens it all. 

I hope you enjoyed these pictures conjured up by Mars in Cancer and what comes up with a Virgo Moon. These are only illustrations. What I wish to convey is a sense of how to juggle with pictures to explore in search of relevant interpretations.

Jean-Marc 

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It's moving! How to use your Right Brain for Astrological Interpretations

If you look at the head of the ram - the symbol of Aries - the two horns seen from the front look like a V or a Y: 

♈︎

Meditating on it you may see the tree of life, or a spring, and get good inspiration from that, but if you were a shepherd watching the head of the charging ram coming up to you, you would get a much more straightforward interpretation. 

These animals are powerful; they compete with the shepherd for the leadership of the flock. 

To interpret symbols, let’s remember that life is movement. 

Don’t ask “What is this?” Ask “How is this moving?” A ram is power in action. It pushes forward and it’s too focused to care about anything else.  

Taking it from there, you can find metaphorical rams in all areas. Some emotions are like rams: anger, excitement, a shot of adrenaline… There are intellectual rams: sometimes we “attack” a problem and sometimes we have a “breakthrough”. At a social level,  the one who turns a  vague group into an efficient team is called a leader. Aries may mean the efficient team or the leader, according to cases. In the eleventh house, it’s more likely to mean the team, in the first, a leader.

A left cerebral hemisphere approach would want a list of defining characteristics. Someone born with Aries predominant in their chart should demonstrate characteristic traits or attitudes. The list is the left-hemisphere ideal, but with life, we will always come across exceptions and contradictions.

A right cerebral hemisphere approach is much more relevant to understanding symbols. Instead of starting from Aries and wondering what it may mean, let’s start from life, and wonder “How are things when they are like Aries in this context?” 

For instance, imagine a monk. You wouldn’t think of a monk as a manifestation of the energy of Aries, but if you start with the knowledge that a certain guy is a monk and that Aries is strong in his chart you will wonder what can be like Aries in the life of a monk. 

At the time of writing, I didn’t know where this example would lead - I chose Aries and monastic life as an unlikely match, at least according to the common stereotypes, to make my point. And then I remembered a funny concept, in Christian culture: the ejaculatory prayer - or ejaculation. In Christian jargon, an ejaculation is a short and intense prayer. For instance: “Thank you Lord!” or “Oh God Help me!”

The etymology of ejaculation traces back to some Latin that means “throwing a dart” - which fits the energy of Aries very well.  

So you see, you may not think spontaneously of the tendency to pray in ejaculatory style when you see Aries in a chart, even if it’s in the ninth house, but in some cases, this will be the right interpretation. 

Within the context of spiritual life, Aries will be the energy of fervour, and in a less desirable expression, fanaticism. 

Let me rewind: I was talking about Aries in religious life as an illustration of the principle of looking at life first, and seeking for how the symbols manifest in the context we are considering, rather than starting with the symbols and trying to remember lists of things they mean. We need to make more use of our right brain. 

In this way, we’ll better understand the essence of the symbols: they don’t mean anything in particular, but they mean something that is common to an infinity of particular things or rather  processes. 

Before this, I started talking about remembering that life is movement. Aries shows a ram charging. Taurus once was a small calf but it kept grazing and it put on some flesh. The Twins are talking to each other and swapping…  

Aries is only one symbol. However, as astrologers, we’re looking at whole astrological charts, and again, an astrological chart may seem like a fixed picture, because we are so conditioned to approach it in left hemisphere style and analyse its parts, but actually it is like the picture of a running horse:

If you believe it's fixed, the picture of a horse with its stretched legs suspended above the ground by no strings, doesn’t make sense. It’s supposed to conjure up the galop, the movement. 

A chart is a particular moment of the movement of the cosmic clock; if we try to see it globally and in motion, we’re closer to reality. 

Let’s be honest though: I am not able to create a mental picture of all the planets moving through the zodiac signs, at their different speed, anticlockwise, whilst the signs with the planets in them are also moving clockwise, on their way to rising, culminating or setting. This is an ideal too. However it’s possible to have glimpses. What are planets doing when they form, for instance applying or separating aspects? In what order will planets rise on the Eastern Horizon? Which will be the first one? We can look at the Sun and the Moon as a duo and take the phases of the Moon into account…   

And we can forget about it, let our right brain work subconsciously and say thank you when intuitions pop in. (It pops better when we asked)

To make the best use of our two minds - our inner twins, the left and right cerebral hemispheres- , let’s remember: 

A balanced approach is like breathing. There are two ways, and there is alternance. 

So let’s stop believing we have to breathe in more and despise breathing out as if it was being lazy. 

Sometimes we need to focus, and sometimes we need to be receptive. 

Our own balance is key. 

Jean-Marc

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Spiritual Enzymes

The symbols of the zodiac are spiritual enzymes. 

The anonymous author of “Meditations on the Tarot”  - A Christian Hermetist - introduces the Major Arcanas as “Spiritual enzymes”: they have the power to stimulate and awaken deep layers of the soul when we contemplate them. I have no doubt that the zodiac is the same. The twelve signs are authentic symbols, let’s say arcanas. 

Symbols are not mere conventions, like ordinary words. If you don’t know that the French word “bateau” means “ship”, you won’t be able to guess. The sound of the word “bateau” has nothing to do with any sound that may suggest a ship. You can calligraphy the word with great art, it won’t look like a ship at all. 

Symbols on the other hand are like tips of icebergs: if you see the tip, you can have an intuition of the whole iceberg. 

Imagine being new to the world like a child, and you see an iceberg for the first time; however you have previous experiences of  floating things. 

Intuitively, you are using the law of analogy: this new thing (the iceberg) must behave like things you already know (the yellow duck in the bathtub, a piece of wood in the river...) so there must be a  part of the iceberg below the surface. Intuitively you also understand density, because you have experience of small and heavy things versus bigger but lighter ones. 

You can feel the approximate size of the immersed part of an iceberg, even without previous experience of icebergs. You apply the law of analogy: you assume that it goes with this new thing- the iceberg - like with the things you already know.  

Symbols invite us to a similar intuitive understanding. They appear as the tip, they mean the iceberg. Thanks to the symbol, we should be able to guess the whole thing without opening a textbook. 

One day a guy called Archimedes found the exact formula for floating bodies, but he would never have been able to discover the scientific formulation if he hadn’t had first the lived experience of things floating or sinking. 

The famous esoteric law of analogy states that we can similarly get intuitions about the invisible worlds. 

Symbols are tips of spiritual icebergs. Don’t take the metaphor too literally, this doesn’t mean that the spiritual world is cold like Antarctica. It’s only the tip versus hidden part that is supposed to make sense! 

Symbols show something we know, the head of a ram, a bull, two twins etc. or imaginary creatures like a centaur or a sea goat - but these are made of parts that belong to the world we know: a  horse and a man, a goat and a fish…

The other side of the equation, the hidden part belongs to dimensions that are beyond the grasp of our senses. Symbols mean psychic energies or spiritual realities, you may think of “the occult”. The word “occult”, as you know, means “hidden”. 

The law of analogy, as an esoteric principle, states that “As above, so below” and we understand that “above” means the heavens, the spiritual world, and “below” is down here on earth. 

So, paradoxically, our world below is like what is above, it is a reflection of the psychic or spiritual dimensions,   but at the same time, there is a radical difference between what’s familiar and what’s beyond our grasp, what’s transcendent, mysterious, unutterable, ineffable, you name it. 

Another disorienting theme in esoteric thinking is the coincidence of opposites -This simultaneous likeness and radical difference may be an example of it. 

I believe paradoxes to be only confusions though.

Our everyday mind is limited. It is used to deal with finite objects or bodies. We live in a three dimensional space, we are unable to imagine a four-dimensional one. Try, imagine a house: it has a certain length, width and height. Can you create a mental picture of a house with a fourth dimension? No. Could God design worlds with four, five or more dimensions? Why not! It’s just unimaginable for us, humans. So let’s just accept that there can be reality beyond our understanding, with a tip of the iceberg that we can perceive: symbols, messages from the Mystery.  

We have a linear perception of time: the past is behind, the future is ahead. Some people say that ancient folks had a circular definition of time, but I’ve never heard of old Hindu or Chinese sages mentioning that with time, our physical body will get young again, and we will have our childhood a second time. But what if there were more than one dimension to time? We can certainly imagine puzzling stories, but we can’t hold clear mental pictures of alternative realities. Our reason is stuck in this one. 

Symbols have a foot in our world, and the rest in the unknown. The foot we can see is an integral part of the rest, it has the power to conjure it up, or simply to mean it for our intuition to get it and feel dizzy. 

However, if we admit that we are spirits, created in the likeness of God as some old texts claim, these mysterious, sacred and ineffable dimensions of “above” are also within ourselves. We are made of them. Therefore, when we try to understand symbols, we are trying to remember who we are. My faith, or intuition, is that we also have within ourselves the ability to become conscious of the Mystery of who we are, and understand it, not with reason, but with what is called “Nous”in the Corpus Hermeticum, the Higher Mind . The search for Truth is meant by the Ninth House.  

Blog posts from past years have become a book…

Symbols are spiritual enzymes. Astrology is a spiritual path. 

Jean-Marc

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