With Mercury, the Sun, and Saturn coming together in Sagittarius right now one good question that comes to mind has to do with the acquisition of truth or knowledge. How do we know something to be true, philosophically or even just practically? How much do we lean on traditional figures of authority, doctrines, scriptures, institutions, disciplines or practices versus our own internal sense of authority, prophecy, or truth?
Last night I was finishing CS Lewis’ “The Horse and His Boy” to our little girl, and she started touching my hand through Ashley’s belly when I came to another passages about Centaurs. Maybe this is because she will be coming into the world with three planets lining up in Sagittarius, or maybe with the square to Neptune in the sky right now she loves fantasy as much as her parents do…regardless, I found it so interesting that as soon as I started reading about Centaurs last night she went nuts (as she did last time during the Silver Chair’s passage about Centaurs).
Here is what Lewis writes in “The Horse and His Boy”: “And about a week after we were both born, apparently, they took us to a wise old Centaur in Narnia to be blessed or something. Now this Centaur was a prophet as a good many centaurs are…it seems this Centaur looked at me and said, ‘a day will come when that boy will save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which ever she lay.”
And if you’ve read the book, then you know that the Centaur’s prophecy about the little boy Cor (called Shasta) comes true.
In the Silver Chair Lewis comments that Centaurs know the science of the stars, and then in Horse and His Boy a young child is taken to a centaur for blessings and prophecy after his birth.
Last week we hosted a few astrologers who brought up a variety of very interesting arguments and ideas about traditional astrology, which is something I’ve started studying since the support of my fundraiser last year that allowed me to invest in my own studies at a much deeper level. And since those talks last week I’ve seen a variety of responses from people…engaging with each other, debating, and questioning. At the heart of these conversations I can’t help but see the mysterious figure of the old man centaur from antiquity, Saturn in Sagittarius, and he is just as numinous and appealing as ever…robed as he is by Neptune’s glamorous rays. At the same time there is an aura of suspicion…are we simply worshiping the past? Are traditional ideas in astrology “better” or just “older and more Saturnine?” Are modern ideas more deluded and Neptunian, or are they more appropriately cognizant of the subjectivity or relativity of consciousness and the multivalence of psychic reality. Are we living in a fundamentally more “psychic” reality, or is it fundamentally simpler and more objective than that? What benefits us more as astrologers right now, and why?
Back to the fundamental questions. What is truth? How do I know?
Behind the methods, theories, and their textual support or antiquity or modern progressiveness…are we engaging with honest questions regarding knowledge in general? I find myself stepping back to consider this piece of things just as frequently as I consider the comparisons between the various techniques these days.
Who or what grants knowledge? Is knowledge something to be possessed or is it a way of being? Does true or real knowledge validate US or do we validate IT? Does accurate knowledge conquer ignorance and direct us toward something greater or more satisfying or aligned, or is the acquisition of knowledge the red herring of intellectual elitists bent on war and domination of a subtler order?
In the image of the Centaur…warrior and prophet, anger and wisdom, law and freedom, ground covered and the future wide open.
Prayer: Wise old centaurs….we feel you here with us….open the stars and pour the beauty of creation down upon us…
Last night I was finishing CS Lewis’ “The Horse and His Boy” to our little girl, and she started touching my hand through Ashley’s belly when I came to another passages about Centaurs. Maybe this is because she will be coming into the world with three planets lining up in Sagittarius, or maybe with the square to Neptune in the sky right now she loves fantasy as much as her parents do…regardless, I found it so interesting that as soon as I started reading about Centaurs last night she went nuts (as she did last time during the Silver Chair’s passage about Centaurs).
Here is what Lewis writes in “The Horse and His Boy”: “And about a week after we were both born, apparently, they took us to a wise old Centaur in Narnia to be blessed or something. Now this Centaur was a prophet as a good many centaurs are…it seems this Centaur looked at me and said, ‘a day will come when that boy will save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which ever she lay.”
And if you’ve read the book, then you know that the Centaur’s prophecy about the little boy Cor (called Shasta) comes true.
In the Silver Chair Lewis comments that Centaurs know the science of the stars, and then in Horse and His Boy a young child is taken to a centaur for blessings and prophecy after his birth.
Last week we hosted a few astrologers who brought up a variety of very interesting arguments and ideas about traditional astrology, which is something I’ve started studying since the support of my fundraiser last year that allowed me to invest in my own studies at a much deeper level. And since those talks last week I’ve seen a variety of responses from people…engaging with each other, debating, and questioning. At the heart of these conversations I can’t help but see the mysterious figure of the old man centaur from antiquity, Saturn in Sagittarius, and he is just as numinous and appealing as ever…robed as he is by Neptune’s glamorous rays. At the same time there is an aura of suspicion…are we simply worshiping the past? Are traditional ideas in astrology “better” or just “older and more Saturnine?” Are modern ideas more deluded and Neptunian, or are they more appropriately cognizant of the subjectivity or relativity of consciousness and the multivalence of psychic reality. Are we living in a fundamentally more “psychic” reality, or is it fundamentally simpler and more objective than that? What benefits us more as astrologers right now, and why?
Back to the fundamental questions. What is truth? How do I know?
Behind the methods, theories, and their textual support or antiquity or modern progressiveness…are we engaging with honest questions regarding knowledge in general? I find myself stepping back to consider this piece of things just as frequently as I consider the comparisons between the various techniques these days.
Who or what grants knowledge? Is knowledge something to be possessed or is it a way of being? Does true or real knowledge validate US or do we validate IT? Does accurate knowledge conquer ignorance and direct us toward something greater or more satisfying or aligned, or is the acquisition of knowledge the red herring of intellectual elitists bent on war and domination of a subtler order?
In the image of the Centaur…warrior and prophet, anger and wisdom, law and freedom, ground covered and the future wide open.
Prayer: Wise old centaurs….we feel you here with us….open the stars and pour the beauty of creation down upon us…
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