Chiron - Centaur and Healer

Chiron, the Centaur, has an important role in the horoscope of the Gondola. Straight ahead, in the East, it travels in the company of Neptune, nautical patron and god of the sea, and the North Lunar Node, the Dragon´s Head - all three in the sign of Aquarius in the twelfth house of the wave-tossed Gondola...

What is it then, Chiron´s role in the play of the planets?

In the mythology he is both horse and man, the son of earth-bound Saturn and the grandson of heavenly Uranus.

- Aha!

Mythic Chiron is the teacher and instructor, the physician and herbalist, the musician, some even say the astrologer, and the archer. He represents insight and skill - the Greek word cheir means hand - and thereby the bringing together of heaven and earth, of intuition and rational thought...

The celestial body named Chiron was discovered late - not until 1977. No one can say with certainty what it is. Is it a minor planet, an asteroid, or perhaps a comet? Chiron´s peculiar orbit agrees in in a marvellous way with the mythology. It orbits between Saturn and Uranus, so that when it is closest to the Sun it circles a bit inside Saturn´s orbit and at its furthest distance from the Sun it is even outside the orbit of Uranus.

Thus, Chiron is the unifyer of heaven (Uranus) and earth (Saturn). The herbalist and astrologer, the musician and archer, the mentor and teacher of heroes...

Your Galactic Gondolier

Structure and Movement

We live in a world of constant change. Nothing stands still but everything is in motion. "We cannot step into the same river twice."

Yet, paradoxically, we also live in a world of form and structure. Everything has its shape, its structure. The form or structure is necessary as it provides continuity and preservation. 

Movement and structure - how can they coexist?

The recently completed opposition between Uranus (movement, change) and Saturn (structure, shape) points to this contradiction. And certainly during the past couple of years we have all witnessed many an old structure that has been forced to adjust and make changes. 

If we observe nature and the cosmos, we easily become aware that movement and change also in themselves have their own structure. Everything moves in cycles. Days and nights and seasons follow each other in an orderly manner.

We will also find that the forms and structures of nature are flexible. They have a built-in ability to move, grow and change!

So there is movement in structure and structure in movement! There is some yang in yin and some yin in yang. And so continues the ever-changing dance of our reality. The only invariant is change itself...

Even the gondola - the traditional Venetian boat type - has changed its design over time to meet new circumstances. Unlike its predecessors, today´s gondola is designed to offer tourists in Venice a romantic boat ride on the city´s waterways. It is designed so that the port side is somewhat broader than the the starboard side. This asymmetrical design compensates for drift and gives the craft a straight course and perfect balance with the gondolier standing on the port side, rowing with the single oar attached to the starboard side. This gives to the gondola its particular elegance and beauty of movement under the starlit skies of Venice...

Your Galactic Gondolier

Uranus and Science

Usually Uranus correlates with modern science and its inventiveness and ingenuity. Yet in a typically Uranian manner I turned the table around in my last blog and associated modern science with Saturn in Virgo!

How come? Are not Uranian words like "modern" and "progressive" words that describe science? Well, they  usually are. But that is not the whole picture. To a large extent modern science has already got stuck in its own dogma. 

The new and revolutionary discoveries (Uranus) of quantum physics - which in reality belong to a future paradigm - have not really sunk into the minds of the science community at large. So we can easily observe a clear Uranus-Saturn polarity within science itself! The real polarity then is not so much between Astrology and modern science as such but rather between Astrology and the outdated materialistic and reductionist view of reality still clung to by mainstream science - despite the revolutionary new discoveries!

Possibly a future more expanded paradigm will allow science to collaborate with or at least tolerate Astrology in a constructive way. Possibly the materialistic and reductionist view will finally give way to a more expansive and all-embracing experience of reality...

Your Galactic Gondolier

An Expanded View of Reality

Let us return to our gently floating Gondola beneath the starry skies of Galactic Venice. As we have seen even the Gondola is colored by the polarity of Uranus and Saturn. And of course it will mirror this polarity in its own way.

Being associated with heaven, Uranus also represents Astrology as a system of knowledge. In the chart of the Gondola the planet dwells in Pisces and occupies the twelfth house ahead, mirroring an intuitive view of reality inspired by the art of Astrology. The opposition from Uranus to Saturn in Virgo in the sixth house astern speaks of an inner urge to influence or counterbalance a more materialistic and limited view of reality.

My website - called the Galactic Gondola and in the process of being translated into English - deals to a large extent with the more intuitive view of reality that comes with Astrology (in the chart represented by Uranus) as contrasted to the more limited view of Western science and society (in this case represented by Saturn in Virgo).

My intention is to point to the more expanded and inclusive view of reality that is opened up to us through Astrology. Yet, having the Sun and Mercury and Mars astern in Libra in the seventh house, the main purpose of the Gondola is to keep its balance upon the undulating waves. After all, life itself is a risky undertaking and an adventurous voyage, isn´t it?

The daring aspiration of this Gondolier is to blend an intuitive view of reality with a more methodical and rational view...

Your Galactic Gondolier