From Alison's column in the Jan/Feb 2011 volume of

the Astrological Journal, called

 The Astrological Wonders of the Solar System

Currently the scientists are developing a modern astrology and getting to the Truth faster than astrologers are.

A Look at how the discovery revolution in the Solar System should be informing our astrological understanding of it.

From activity on Jupiter to epi-genetics and the Water houses. An original and interesting inter-weaving of knowledge.

It is likely that the issues I discuss here will be deeply controversial, for there are many astrologers who do not think it necessary to introduce any more planets or correspondences into astrology. And there are those who do not think it necessary to compare the latest scientific research with our ancient texts or astrological lore and chortle gleefully when the two things go together like jigsaw pieces.

But to stick to the old 7 planets when we have discovered so much more, is to say that only half of the Solar System has meaning. How can it be that Mercury counts but not Eris?

I fear we ignore the need to embrace and include new enlightenments from astrophysics at our peril. For currently, the scientists are developing a `modern astrology` and getting to the Truth faster than astrologers are. And we are in danger of having this new, respectable science-based-astrology readily accepted by mainstream, whilst we sit in our fairground tents ignorant of the new parlance and knowledge that boosts our subject out of the 20th century and into the future.

Let’s just take a quote from the cover of Newscientist on 4 September 2010 for instance. Along the top of the front cover, it proudly announces:-

“Weird Water. The Strangeness at the Heart of Neptune”.

That could easily be the title of an article in this magazine. Certainly the key words `weird` `strange` and `water` would be found in an astrological text book on Neptune. The actual article within supports astrological beliefs, since it discusses the illusion of how the water on Neptune, (and possibly Uranus) is in a strange form that behaves as if it were solid and liquid at the same time, leading to “bizarre” magnetic fields. (This strange behaviour feeds into the `central nervous system` of the Solar System, as we shall see later.)

Or how about a NASA press release that quoted the Japanese scientist Imamura as saying "Venus's atmosphere is in perpetual motion, as if a living thing".¹ That quote is interesting because some astronomers seem to be understanding the Solar System to be a living breathing entity far faster than astrologers.

In the TV documentary, `Wonders of the Solar System`, Brian Cox (Yeh…go on…let’s get REALLY controversial….) said “We live in a world of wonders, a place of astonishing beauty and complexity… and if you think that this is all there is, that our planet exists in magnificent isolation then you are wrong.”

I think some astrologers see the planets as dead, lifeless lumps of rock that by some miracle have a set of keywords hanging off them. And those planets are supposed to stay the same……. inert and dead. But the planets live! And learning about their lives and not just their position in the Zodiac deepens our connection to the living, invisible, dynamic world around us.

Because things happen to our planets on a daily basis – they have lives that we are learning about and have transit-ory meaning. Like when planet Jupiter conjuncted Chiron and got a big hole in his side. And does it mean anything, that in the summer of 2010, right in the middle of the T-square chaos, it was suddenly noticed that his southern large red stripe had disappeared? (yep…. gone ….puff!)

It was also noted by NASA² that he was getting hit by asteroids or fireballs surprisingly often that summer. Maybe all the trouble being stirred up according to astrology was being accompanied by an unusual amount of physical disturbances in the outer Solar System, in turn dislodging or churning up small asteroids that were then flung into Jupiter’s mighty gravity.

The fireball strike on June 3rd 2010 happened when Jupiter was less than a degree from Uranus and Saturn was within 2 degrees of orb in his opposition. Another asteroid/fireball strike happened on August 20th 2010, when Jupiter was at 02° 09’ Aries, Uranus was at 29° 48’ Pisces and Saturn at 02° 48’ Libra.

Smug Moments

Sometimes, following the astronomical discoveries as they happen can be deeply satisfying in a `told-you-so` way. Like when they finally accepted in 2009 that the Moon does have water on it, so I was able to post a smug comment that astrology had known the Moon was watery all along….. (Oh the joy those moments give my natal Jupiter!)

Solar System as an Entity With a `Nervous System`

Our solar system, like the Universe is a living, breathing, intricately connected web of stuff. Like 3-D lace. As with the human body, it has a central nervous system and maybe it is in this way that “man is made in the image of God” - assuming the Divine to mean the numinous, incorporeal energy supporting the Universe. I’ll just cover some of the known connectivity so you get the general idea.

When I was at school in the 1960’s I was told emphatically that Space was empty. Now we know it’s not. The Sun fuels a giant bubble or energetic ocean around the Solar System called the Heliosphere. This has magnetic field lines running through it and around all the planets.

These are like power transmission lines and they carry electricity and other high energy stuff throughout the Solar System. Earth has its own reasonably protective bubble of magnetic field lines within this, but often incoming Solar System particle radiation enters, as does light, which is a form of electromagnetic radiation.

There is loads of other invisible stuff in the Heliosphere, such as gravitational corridors that weave through the planets like ropes.³ They are like giant waterslides in a theme park and if you could get in one, you would be transported around in a similar way, whooshing around the planets and moons with the huge flows of gravity.

As our Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun it passes through the influence of these corridors along with giant `flux ropes` of electromagnetic charged particles which run along magnetic field lines from the Sun and affect the Ionosphere around our planet. This is then passed down to Earth’s surface, where is enters our own etheric bodies and nervous system.

The Pyramid Texts were originally written around 3,000BCE and found under a pyramid at Sakkara in Egypt. It is lovely to compare the description of the gravitational corridors and flux ropes in the heavens with some of this text:

“The two reed-floats of heaven are placed for [the sovereign] that he may ferry over therewith to the horizon……… The canal is open; the Winding Watercourse is inundated; the Marshes of Reeds are filled (with water). [The sovereign] will certainly ferry over to yonder eastern side of heaven,”

“A stairway to heaven shall be laid down for him, that he may ascend to heaven thereon;” 4

At the very least, the ancients sensed the presence of dynamic movement through the sky above them. And if you are sceptical that they could sense the possibility, then I remind you that they actually did a better job than my old school physics teacher, who told me the heavens were definitely an empty, dead vacuum!

However, Alice Bailey was the best authority on the invisible Cosmos and this quote in `Esoteric Healing` puts it beautifully:-

“The etheric body, which has one main objective. This is to vitalize and energize the physical body and thus integrate it into the energy body of the Earth and of the solar system. It is a web of energy streams, of lines of force and of light. It constitutes part of the vast network of energies which underlies all forms whether great or small (microcosmic or macrocosmic). Along these lines of energy the cosmic forces flow, as the blood flows through the veins and arteries. This constant, individual - human, planetary and solar - circulation of life-forces through the etheric bodies of all forms is the basis of all manifested life, and the expression of the essential non-separateness of all life.”5

There is a growing body of evidence which links all manner of terrestrial events, such as earthquakes and typhoons and other weather events with these flux ropes and flows of gravitational and electromagnetic tides around the Solar System. The connection is the Ionosphere and how it appears to bulge or suddenly heat up in events called `stratwarms`.

These in turn are linked to atmospheric tidal waves and planetary waves which move around the outer atmosphere of our planet. There are also things called spacequakes which can erupt around us when our protective bubble gets stretched and these come all the way down to the surface of our planet.

According to NASA, “The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.”

And “By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on.”6

And how about this really cool quote from the NASA site in October 2008:

“During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page. It's called a flux transfer event or FTE.”7

So basically I’m saying that you put your toaster on and there is a quiver on Pluto because of the intense and dynamic interconnectedness of the Solar System. And it goes both ways, so planets affect space weather, which affects Earth weather. Then, because Earth is a planet, Earth’s weather also affects space weather… which affects other planets.

(Still with me? Great....press on…. cos the next bit includes you…)

SO, if Jupiter looses a stripe in some sort of weather event, then that will, in turn, have an effect on Earth. AND that event has some sort of astrological meaning which may only become apparent when astrologers do what they used to do…. study the phenomenon in the sky as best they can and then match it to the events here on Earth and in people’s lives.

And we have to do this because we will accept synchronicities without the mindset of “It can’t be possible, because we don’t see how it can be.” We can accept the numinous and explore it with open minds. For who else would be broadminded enough to say that a hole in Jupiter has an effect on the human nervous system? Well, actually the scientists are getting close and they are going to get all the credit if we don’t put down our astrology books and start looking at the science sites and making connections.

So this new column will seek to explore new developments in the discovery revolution which will help us achieve a greater astrological understanding of our Multiverse, or perhaps link them with astrological lore or even help develop new theories.

Sometimes these discoveries can happen in sciences that seem to have no obvious link with astrology, such as the latest revelations in epi-genetics…..

The Water Houses, the Matriarchal Line and Family Karma.

According to Astrology……

From our first breath, the water in our charts both attracts and stores memories, ensuring that we will attach and respond according to our emotional inheritance and pre-ordained blueprint. We `feel` our mother’s first responses and these both confirm and model our ability to nurture and receive love.

With the watery energies in our charts we feel the love, lust and desire that fuels the unconscious and compulsive primal need to relate, copulate and reproduce. To have babies. The emotions involved in the selection of sexual partners, relationships, and in parent/child bonds, are all held in this mysterious element. I love a line in a Kate Bush song “Sex is the root of all reincarnation.”

Water holds the seeds of life. It connects us to all life and evolution. Water is the medium of the other dimensions, it is inter-dimensional. It flows, connects and mediates throughout both the 96% of dark matter and energy and the 4% of Earthly existence.

The water houses are about that which was there before us. The history of the mother, the grandmother, great grandmother etc. are held in there like an inheritance, an intangible memory or family karma, a blue print for the family lineage. These houses can symbolise the DNA and family ancestral stuff.

The experiences that the mothers before us had will be encoded there, working us silently from within, `bringing in` the past. This is where history will repeat itself, like a longer version of the movie `Groundhog Day` with a new set of characters all born out of each other.

Somehow, our ancestors and the life they have led pass unknown feelings and experiences on to us and reoccurring themes, such as illegitimate children or love-less marriages can be found. As astrologers, we weren’t sure how this could be, it just is, water is very mysterious stuff!

Now the science…

Science is getting a flavour of this in a new sphere called epi-genetics. For instance, the famine one of our ancestors experienced can be found latent in our epi-genes.

It turns out that the female gender has a mysterious, genetically carried life-selecting role that as far as astrology is concerned, must be held within the element of Water. Apparently, there is an unconscious selection process that has intelligence and memory through matriarchal generations.

It was always thought that once fertilisation has occurred, each sex makes an equal genetic contribution to the off-spring. But a report in Newscientist in 2010 explained otherwise. For instance female birds will alter the testosterone content of the yolk of an egg to decide the hatching order of the chicks. And this type on influence increases dramatically when the mother grows the baby within her own body.

To start with the egg and the sperm both carry vast amounts of genetic information. They are both made up of cells, and they, plus the resulting cells which become the embryo, all have DNA. This is the code of life, which tells the cell and the emerging organism what to become and this information does seem to come from both parents.

But then the female egg, which is so much bigger, does more. Something called epi-genetics comes into play. This is a mysterious process that seems to come from memory and signals from cells or the etheric body and it holds information about the maternal line and its origins.

Epigenetic effects, called genomic imprinting, are passed on through the generations by the matriarchal inheritance in the egg. The sperm isn’t entirely helpless, and he does have an effect, but maybe only as much as the female will allow.

“The maternal control of growth and development has some fascinating implications. It means that for many of the traits important in the mating game, such as body size and brain function, the father’s genes might not be as influential as the mother’s. ….What females could really be after when they choose the sperm of one male over another is the male whose genes they can most easily manipulate behind the scenes.”8

Key traits like body size, cognitive ability and personality might be moulded by epigenetic inheritance. The mother’s DNA actually protects her own epigenetic process whilst stripping out the fathers.

This explains what we’ve always known in our astrology, that Watery traits and memories of the female lineage are reproduced through the generations. Most surprising is the way in which memory and actual experiences re-occur. So the event of a child being born out of wedlock might re-occur over and over again, or basic family issues or patterns like sibling rivalry may re-appear to be healed in generations to come.

Sometimes these issues are not dealt with and so they snowball in the family matriarchal line until a special child is born who has so much karma or epigenetic family material gathered up, there lives HAVE to take on the family myth or skeletons in the cupboard. Call that a packed 4th or 8th house.

All this will show in the natal chart, maybe through the conditions surrounding Water zodiac signs and planets, but definitely and most especially through the Water houses.

So How Does This Help Our Astrology?

Perhaps new insights such as these inform and enrich our astrology. Maybe such reflections will add a deeper dimension or another facet to our ponderings and readings. And as I said before, this is how astrologers learnt astrology in the first place, by being aware of the synchronicities and correspondences around them and keeping records. According to Percy Seymour, in his book called `Astrology, the Evidence of Science`

“The simple rules of astrology must have risen from observations….. early humans had a more highly developed awareness of their magnetic sensitivity than we have, because it was important to their survival to be able to find direction and dowse for water. Quite early on they must have realised that certain planetary configurations upset these abilities and thus the first simple laws of astrology were discovered.”

The amount of man-made electromagnetic energy around us now denies us the possibility of discovering cosmic synchronicities in the old way. But we have the discovery revolution to provide new possibilities of finding correspondences and although it is `new`, I believe it is an opportunity that must not be missed.

copyright Alison Chester-Lambert

What is astrology? A system for deriving self and future awareness by analysing the behaviour of the Cosmos.

Image by Jitka Saniova Angela, alias Starblue @ Dreamstime http://www.dreamstime.com/Starblue_info

References:-

¹ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/16aug_vco/

² http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/09sep_jovianfireballs/

³ EDWARDS, L. (16/9/2009) Gravitational Space Corridors Could Slash Space Travel Costs. Physorg.

http://www.physorg.com/news172302860.html

4 http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/pyt12.htm

5 http://kingsgarden.org/English/Organizations/OMM.GB/WomenWriters/AliceBailey/SevenRays/Healing/heal1001.html

6 http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/27jul_spacequakes/

7 http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30oct_ftes/

8 MONAGHAN. P, (27/2/2010) Who’s the Daddy? NewScientist. Vol 205 (2749) pp 30.