Sadesati

On the peak of the Saturn's transit over my natal Moon, I found my mother dead. I arranged a modest funeral and spent two weeks cleaning the flat from old newspapers, worn clothes and brick-a-brac. How symbolic. 

Knowledge, information, data

I have been talking to a colleague about philosophy of science. The colleague's opinions are generally materialistic (one may know only what is material), whereas I try to prove (by some examples) that knowledge may be obtained without (or prior to) information, and in the areas which cannot be quantified, yet objectively existing. 

A week ago, after many years of pondering, I attempted to resolve a question that had been stuck on my mind since I first read Sonnet 66 by Shakespeare:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 

etc.

I saw similar examples in the works of Marlowe as well, and I could not understand how these two most melodic poets would allow unrhymed 'cry' and 'jollity' to form their stanzas. Unless... unless that time those words sounded somehow else? 

Could it be that 400 years ago English pronunciation was different? What if 'jollity' did rhyme with 'cry', with 'ai' at the end?  

I asked this question a couple of contemporary English poets, and they replied that this was an example of a 'loose rhyme', which is 'allowed in English poetry'. 

Still, I could not believe that was the case of the great bards. I emailed an eminent specialist in English, and, to my surprise, he kindly replied that "the -y ending did have a diphthongal pronunciation in the 16th century, so cry and jollity would have rhymed".

Look again at that stanza and read it with 'jollitai'. Isn't it perfect?

I, a non-native English speaker, somehow realised what Shakespeare meant melodically in his sonnets, despite incorrect advice and without any evidence to support my linguistic hypothesis. I knew this without information. Truth was verified by harmony. 

Astrologically, that is my Venus in 9th natal house. 9th house denotes learning and faith, and people have different planets in that house (or none). Sometimes it is Moon, sometimes Mars, Mercury or Jupiter - and that defines the type of learning of a person. I am often envious of people with Mercury in 9th: they are prolific intellectuals. But I would not trade my Venus in 9th for anything else, since it opens up with cases like the Shakespearean 'jollity'. Such discoveries are very jolly indeed!

Knowledge is broader than information; data is broader than information; the difference is in the identified structure that produces knowledge. To perceive the universe in a meaningful way, we need to obtain knowledge by all possible means. 

Update of 17 September 2020: found this amazing Youtube video that confirms the cry-jollity rhyme.

Lorelei

              

Preparing for the cycling marathon Munich-Vienna, I selected the departure day with a nice Moon in Libra as the best possible option (avoiding Moon in Scorpio for the trip). I was still worried about the conjunction Saturn-Mars falling into my 3rd house of short journeys, as that could signify problems on the way. 

Despite all my worries about the bike (which flew with pumped tyres but survived all the pressure fluctuations), chain/brakes/wheels managed to stand all the 600km without a single issue. 

What did happen, however, is that during the week of cycling, I had, first, 100km of gravel path in the forest, and then in the last two days (fortunately, with only short remaining distance to Vienna) I had all the way extremely strong frontal wind, which made my progress very slow and tiresome. 

Good lesson for me regarding the 3rd house signification. 

Still, I saw the most beautiful pristine places on Danube, which made all the trouble easy to forget! 

If you observe the happy cyclists 
With silly grins upon their muzzles,
If all the human sins and vices
Look as remote and pointless puzzles,
 
If you can stop and call in forest 
For legendary Lorelei, 
And forest, as a perfect florist,
Sends buds and whispers in reply,
 
If every minute lasts forever,
And you aren't eager to arrive, 
Despite the miles and freezing weather,
You feel again as twenty five, - 
 
Without a guide or a noisy group, 
You're cycling on the blue Danube!

154 English sonnets

New book:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbZ0lqLVFyOEFhZ0U/view?usp=sharing

Why? Most likely, because of the slow transit Jupiter on ascendent in sextile to natal Mercury and in trines to natal Moon and Venus. Very productive year, indeed.

Two new books

Strangely enough, Saturn may be useful in speech, as it has happened to me in the past few months.

The results are as follows.

Collection in English "Shards":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbRklWUEhwLVJKejg/view?usp=sharing

Collection in Russian "Второе дыхание":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbMGpkTUtCNHJvd0U/view?usp=sharing

New book

New poetry collection

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbRXQwV0ZkQ043RVE/view

First e-book appeared in 2006, when Saturn was transiting my natal Mectury. In 2015, with Jupiter transiting there, the second e-book appeared - easier and more swift.

There are a few English poems there, just scroll the pages.

Friendship, genotypes homophily, and astrology

In the new PNAS paper, the authors report DNA similarities among friends. Apparently, biochemical processes of different friendly organisms have similarities imprinted in their genotypes.

As Cardano wrote in the 16th century, "When several children have the same accidents and fortune, if it be in their childhood, it may be shown by the genitures of their parents; or if in their old age, we may conclude the Nativities of their Parents were so powerful that they assimilate their Nativities between themselves and suit them to the disposition of Children in the Paternal Figure" (aphorism 2.59).

I know numerous examples of puzzling "coincidences" in astrological charts of people forming groups and families. A leader of a group of 10 employees that hires  them after short interviews has the same zodiacal sign as three of his subordinates. A family of five has three Scorpios among them, and two children find partners who are born within days from each other. A pregnant woman with Sun in Cancer expects a child under Gemini, but delivery is delayed and delayed, for almost two weeks, until the child is born... with Sun in Cancer.

Modern genetics can explain this by homophilic genotypes. Astrology did this with natal charts, centuries earlier.

We are our brains

When back in 2006 I wrote my book of commentaries on the Cardano's aphorisms, where I argued that the free will is an illusion, I expected that sooner or later science would prove it at the level of biochemistry. Well, this has happened when Dick Swaab published his book recently.

This is a rather dry summary of the clinical work of the famous neurobiologist speaking about hormones, brain departments and mental disorders. If you are brave to dive into 400 pages of such reading, your reward will be evidence-based fatalism.

Which is very important for any astrologer who has had experience of successful predictions, as well as to any person interested in real philosophy.

In fact, I already got a vivid philosophical discussion in my Russian LiveJournal, and with a colleague physicist at work.

Good reading!

Leos

I was watching Troy film, and the soundtrack was so recognisable in style that I stopped following the plot and instead started scrolling my sound memories. Was it another film? If film, then which one? In a few seconds, cascades of firing neurons delivered the same key tune, do-re-mi-re, from another film. It was Avatar! Yes, the same dramatic do-re-mi-re, like a signature of a composer.

Obviously, I had no idea about the composers of Troy and Avatar, so I checked the web. You know I am writing this to report the finding, so as you can imagine, both have the same composer, James Horner.

Just like the director of Avatar Cameron, Horner is a Leo. Cameron was born on August 16, Horner on August 14. Then I recalled that the main actor in Avatar was another Leo, Sam Worthington. I went to see the Avatar wiki-page and found yet another Leo, producer Jon Landau. Somehow the Leo got the core-team for his most successful movie made of Leos. Not to mention Cameron's Terminator with Schwarzenegger (Leo).

But this post is not even about Leos, it is about the unquantifiable objectivity. There is truth that one can feel. This truth may not be quantifiable or not derivable by reason. Still, it exists.

Life patterns

When I was about 7, my mother took me to visit a music teacher in the city centre. The teacher lived on the top floor in a 5-storey building, and while they were having a chat, I decided to explore the surroundings. I was fascinated to see the open way to the loft (health & safety were not an issue then). I climbed there, walked in the loft and found a door to the roof, where I got a perfect city panorama, jolly good.

After a while, I decided to get back before anybody realised my absence. Alas, the roof was huge and I could not find the door that let me get to the roof from the loft, several attempts to find it failed. I was terrified by thoughts about the consequences: not only my mother would be in great distress, which I just could not allow, but also it would be very humiliating if they started searching for me asking for help from public and police. That would be a huge fuss, and I could not allow that!

Suddenly I saw a fire stairs running all the way from the roof to the ground, the very basic piece of metal that was a standard construction that time. However scary it looked (especially the first move, when one has to step on it and turn around to face the stairs while descending), I forced myself to begin descending. I remember very clearly how I was talking to myself convincing that nothing bad would happen if I keep moving carefully and stay focussed at every step.

Obviously, a descending child attracted lots of attention on the ground! I realised that when I heard an increasing noise of a gathering crowd, but I still kept myself focussed on the task in my hands (quite literally in the circumstances). 

I finally reached the ground, and got my portion of attention there, they almost cheered me as a little hero... They brought me back to my mother, who was still peacefully chatting not expecting any heroism from her daughter meanwhile.

I am fascinated to see this event as an yet another manifestation of the life patterns that are clearly indicated in my chart. I still like exploring places (Venus in 9th house), in all kind of adventurous (trine Sun-Mars) and strange (sextile Uranus-Sun) ways. I then get into trouble (square Saturn-Sun from 7th house), but manange to find a solution, which may be strong and publicly noticeable (Sun in 10th in Leo) with some blessed help (sextile Jupiter-Sun from 12th house).

It is all the same, nothing has changed...