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Hi Waybread

What you wrote is all valid and true on some level. At first, I meant to address your statements one by one. But then I decided it might be more worthwhile to tell you a story. You could call it the story of my inner life.

My parents were devout Christians. I sympathized with the strength they obviously drew from their faith, however, from a rather early age on, I stopped sharing their beliefs as I considered the latter to be naive and restrictive. And those moralistic ferry tales I was indoctrinated with in religion class put me over the edge!

The interest that singularly dominated my early days was natural science in all its forms. While my age-mates were climbing up trees or playing soccer, I was reading books generally considered much too advanced for my age, or gazing through a microscope or a telescope, or investigating chemical phenomena in my little home lab. Insofar you found me out there in nature, it was for discovering minerals and fossils. Everybody around me believed I was going to be an academic scientist of renown one day. However, my mind was one-sidedly analytical and so overactive that it almost drove me insane at times. Something was profound was missing in my life.

The martial arts practice I took up at age 13 helped me feeling physically grounded, while it also led me to meditation and Eastern philosophy. I would absorb the teachings of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, familiarize myself with the I-ching, and sit in zazen for countless hours together with practising Buddhists, first in my home country and later in Japan.

At some stage, my interest in my own culture's metaphysical heritage awoke. I would learn about Tarot, Bach Flower therapy, astrology, Jungian psychology, Silva mind control, the Seth literature and so on. All of this helped me gradually figure out my complex psyche and find a degree of inner peace. Not least, my studies made me revisit the Christian ideas I was taught in my childhood from a new perspective as I learned about gnostics, apocrypha and the many metaphysical truths contained in the good old Bible.

With all of this, I never abandoned my interest in science. I learned about its historical development and understood that with the Scientific Revolution, something fundamental had gone down the drain.

The cosmos of the ancients was an integrated whole uniting the physical with the metaphysical in a singular coherent system. The natural sciences (in their early form), the occult sciences, philosophy, mysticism - they all had found their place in the Pythagorean/Platonic/Aristotelian/Hermetic world view of the day.

All of which changed with the arrival of the materialistic and mechanistic world view, starting with Copernicus. Yes, our knowledge in certain fields grew immensely, and its technological application opened up countless pathways hitherto undreamt of. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad - in many ways, we are far better off than our ancestors! And yet we are faced with issues like environmental destruction and digitalized enslavement on a global level - the results of an applied science that had lost its soul. Certainly the increasingly popular philosophy of "transhumanism" is the epitome of that.

I concluded that what was needed was a return to the natural philosophy of yore - however, on a new level that would integrate all our modern knowledge. If my own story in some ways microcosmically reflected the story of my kind, then that was the way to go.

So here you have my message in a nutshell. That's what I am trying to support and take part in - to whatever degree I am priviledged to do so.

That's the inner story of my life.

What is yours? :)
_________________

Visit my blog:
https://michaelsternbach.wordpress.com/

109
Michael, thanks for sharing your story.

Too often forum members simply exchange posts, without interacting as two actual people with life histories.

In some ways, I seem to be your mirror image.

I was born in 1949 in the United States, but moved to Canada in 1992. I am a dual citizen. I grew up in a world where I was expected to become a housewife and mother, but the feminist revolution of ca 1970 intersected with those plans. I eventually became a university faculty member, a career I held for 31 years.

My parents called themselves "free thinkers." They did not go to church. I was never baptized. For children of my era, this was highly unusual. I attended a Protestant church Sunday school with some neighborhood children, however (probably so my mother got the kids out of the house,) and was presented with a Bible, at some point. At the age of 13, I decided to read it, cover to cover. It took me 2.5 years, but I finished it.

From a young age, I was fascinated both by fairy tales and children's literature as well as botany. Clearly they were different, but I didn't see them as enemies.

The Great Outdoors has been my abiding passion. (I am fortunate to live in the Canadian Rockies.) I realized as a graduate student, however, that I did not have the math and hard science skills to make it as a "hard" biologist. My love is more akin to the extinct field of natural history. My Ph. D. and academic career are in a field usually classified as a social science.

At age 24 I converted to Judaism in order to marry my ex-husband who is Jewish. I was active in Judaism for 20 years, until our separation and divorce. Since then I have been inactive in this faith. At one point I probed deeply into Germanic paganism, but the group who are involved with this lore today in the US have a pretty bad reputation.

I've pursued any number of other interests over the years, such as western mythology. Because of my academic background, I think the study of mythology should pay attention to original sources (translations OK) plus relevant scholarship.

I remarried, and my (atheist) husband and I have been married for 25 years. I have two adult children from my first marriage, and one adorable grandson.

I first got into astrology around 1990. (Transiting Pluto square sun, square Mars, &c, &c.) This was a dark night of the soul, when I realized that I had no idea why I was on the planet. Not me as a generic human being, but me as an individual. Astrology tries to address this question. Careerism doesn't. I never did find out why I was on the planet, but I learned a lot of astrology in the process.

I keep what I regard as a healthy skepticism about astrology, but when I first joined some on-line astrology forums, I discovered that I had learned a fair bit about astrology, and could use it to be helpful to people.

[Anna, asteroid Skepticus is not a meaningful horoscope point for me, though.]

I took a very early retirement. These days, with some mobility impairments, I can indulge my astrology hobby without feeling I should be doing something else.

My horoscope: Aquarian sun trine Uranus, Leo moon, Virgo rising. I have a wide Pluto opposition to my sun.

And that's probably more than you wanted to know.

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Hi Waybread

Thanks for those insights into your background. And no, it's not more than I wanted to know!

I agree that, as forum participants, we may sometimes come across as two-dimensional as the surface of the screen in front of us. Providing that kind of information about ourselves might help us avoid projecting our preconceived notions on the person we are having a discussion with. :)

Talking about our topic of Pluto and Aries, I am currently exploring a possible link to the myth of the Golden Fleece. Will be back with more on this when ready.
_________________

Visit my blog:
https://michaelsternbach.wordpress.com/

111
I have always felt the power of Pluto deeply, being a Leo with Scorpio rising and Pluto and Regulus on the M.C.

He is angry, he has been demoted to a dwarf planet and some astrologers don't now use him and think of him as a large asteroid, yet he is very powerful and will hit back hard!

I often get the cane from him LOL.

He didn't like his judgement day!

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=pl ... &FORM=VIRE
Spinal injury gives lots of time for research.
Other interests include the paranormal.

112
Hmmm..

The astronomers demoted him, but not the modern astrologers. The mods always knew his influence was powerful.

I think it makes sense to discriminate between astronomical planets and astrological planets.

I've really tried to make sense of (now dwarf planet) Ceres but don't (yet) see her functioning as a planet, in the sense of working as a house cusp lord.

I think dwarf-planet Eris has real interpretive value, probably as co-ruler of Aries. (Sorry, Michael.)

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waybread wrote:The astronomers demoted him, but not the modern astrologers. The mods always knew his influence was powerful. I think it makes sense to discriminate between astronomical planets and astrological planets.
Pluto may be called a "Dwarf planet" (at least for now) by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) but some astronomers think Pluto (and Eris) is a full planet and therefore shouldn't be called a Dwarf planet in the first place. For example, this article says the proper definition of a "planet" is anything more than 1000 km in radius: https://www.space.com/29571-why-pluto-i ... s-too.html
waybread wrote:I think dwarf-planet Eris has real interpretive value, probably as co-ruler of Aries.
If Pluto is a planet, then Eris is too. Eris is 98% of Pluto’s diameter, but also 27% denser, and unlike Pluto Eris is fully outside of Neptune's orbit, so there are reasons to consider Eris at least as if not more astrologically significant then Pluto. Pluto just has more popularity and established meaning in astrology since we've known about it for nearly 100 years, while we've only known about Eris for less than 20.
waybread wrote:I've really tried to make sense of (now dwarf planet) Ceres but don't (yet) see her functioning as a planet, in the sense of working as a house cusp lord.
Even if one doesn't have it rule a sign or house, Ceres is still very significant. Ceres is the only asteroid in the main belt that's large enough to be spherical under its own gravity. For example, it's 3.5 times the diameter of Chiron, and many astrologers use Chiron. (Chiron is irregularly shaped and therefore definitely not a Dwarf planet.)

However, note there are various other Dwarf planets or Dwarf planet candidates that are larger than Ceres: Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, and Orcus (i.e. what I call the "Seven Dwarfs") are all larger than Ceres (or about equal to the size of Ceres in the case of Orcus). Size isn't the only thing that matters in astrology of course, however if Ceres were a bit larger we'd definitely consider it a planet, especially since it nicely fits in with "Bode's Law" of planetary distributions.
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Astrolog 7.60 freeware downloads: http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm :)

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In my system I don't have Pluto as ruler of anything, but exalted in Scorpio. He/she is Kali, messenger of Death, not some responsible ruler (I have Lilith as an alternative manifestation of Pluto). The highly erratic orbit of Pluto (in latitude) also suggests it's not a normal planet. (I'm between traditional and modern as I don't use any other asteroids or dwarf planets, I have come to believe there may have been a regular planet between Mars and Jupiter and that's why Pluto should now be considered.) However certainly change is necessary in personal lives and world affairs, and sometimes could even be regarded as something positive or at least with a positive end result.

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I'm refreshed that we have soo many mods here, Pluto can be a "Hot subject" on some astrology forums.

I'm a mixture, i'm a specialist in the oldest of all astrology being Mundane parans, but also are with the mods with asteroids!

I don't think of myself as the Prince of Darkness though, being a Leo, with Scorpio rising with a Pluto M.C. LOL!

Even if i have an up-side down pentagram, oops!


https://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/ ... c73a81.png
Spinal injury gives lots of time for research.
Other interests include the paranormal.