SIGN LANGUAGE No.3

Sedna and the Water Babies

In 1863 Charles Kingsley wrote a wonderful moral tale for children, ‘The Water Babies’. Two of the characters whom the young hero, chimney-sweep Tom, meets on his odyssey through the under-sea kingdoms are the resident agents of karma Mrs. Do-as you- would-be done-by and her disconcerting sister Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did.

Sedna, whose official arrival as probably our 10th planet was announced from Caltech, Pasadena at 10h00 am PST (18h00 UT) on Monday March 15th 2004, and previously known only as Kuiper Object 2003 VB12, is likely to have many of the qualities of these good ladies.

She has been named for the Inuit goddess of the sea, and as usual heralds another significant shift in the collective development of humankind. You see, up till now all the planets have been named for members of the Roman pantheon, and Sedna is the first ‘foreigner’. All these other deities have never been other than divine, even Chiron being a demi-god; Sedna, according to her legend, began life as an ordinary, if strikingly beautiful and strong-willed mortal, but became a goddess after her traumatic fall to the bottom of the sea. Moreover, her realm lies beyond that of the powerful all-male outer trinity of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - woman has truly come into her own!

As her position at her ‘coming-out party’ was 17 Taurus 39 (many, many thanks to AstroDienst for the swiftly-available Swiss Ephemeris!) not too far from the Moon’s N.Node and Venus, we would do well to follow  where Sedna’s severed fingers are pointing...

...namely toward the proper respect for the world’s peoples and shared resources of food and water.

You see, Sedna was the daughter of a widower, a great hunter, who failed to honour her refusal to marry any of the many suitors of his choice. This insensitive father paid her back by marrying her to the family dog - which shamed him even further when the dog’s deep love for Sedna resulted in a litter of canine and human children, so he drowned the devoted creature. The children  went on respectively to found the white-skinned and red-skinned peoples, but the guilt-ridden father and his daughter were alienated. Sedna was alone until seduced into marriage by a fascinating stranger; however this too ended in tears when he dropped his disguise to reveal his true nature, an air-spirit manifesting as a great sea-bird, the Fulmar. Though he cared for her in their nest, she left in her father’s kayak when he eventually found her. The Fulmar pursued them, raising a mighty storm. Sedna’s father was so terrified that he threw the poor girl out of the boat, and when she clung to the bows he hacked off all her fingers with his ivory knife so that she slipped away into the deep waters of the Arctic Ocean. The severed joints turned into the seals, walruses and whales which ever since can only be caught for food if Sedna the sea-spirit, their mother, is propitiated. One-eyed, fish-tailed Sedna rules the deep ocean kingdom together with her husband the Dog, and her penitent father. If humans abuse each other, violating human rights or those of the creatures upon which they depend, Sedna takes powerful revenge with storms and famines until humanity mends its ways and treats her realm with gratitude and respect. When men are kind to her and brush her weed-tangled hair, her hatred is cooled and she rewards then with all her bounty.

All kinds of related issues are united in this rich story - the motherless and lonely child, emotional and physical abuse, disobedience, the prodigal, rejection and revenge; miscegenation and genetic manipulation, biodiversity, the origin of species, the unity and interdependence of creation, the bond between mankind and the dog, hunting and meat-eating, ecology, prodigality versus sustainability of food and water resources; climate change, basic survival, generations making  way for each other, reconciling differences and finding love for the stranger, the empowerment of women and the marginalised - in fact the whole spectrum of human rights, and the horrible backlash of nature upon humanity’s technological hybris.

The feminine soul triumphs and rules at last over masculinity and the created material world; may I suggest that a simple and suitable glyph for Sedna would be a cross (matter) within a circle (masculine spirit) surmounted by the crescent of soul? It is effectively the symbol of Taurus, where Sedna and the Moon’s North Node now reign, combined with the symbol of planet Earth.

We might expect to find Sedna strong in the charts of ecologists, geneticists, conservationists, dog-lovers, peacemakers, women in authority and the priesthood, and feminists. Certainly she makes her presence powerfully felt where Human Rights are dominant in a destiny; already we can cite the following  famous women from Lois Rodden’s database, and one remarkable man -

Coretta Scott King - 27/04/1927 4h00 pm CST Marion AL - Civil Rights activist -    Sedna 15AR56 conj. Mercury

Betty Friedan - 4/02/1921 4h00 am CST Peoria IL - feminist activist/writer - Sedna 13AR30 conj. IC

Camille Paglia - 2/04/1947 6h57 pm EST Endicott NY - radical feminist - Sedna 22AR19 setting & square MC

Maureen & Mavourneen O’Connor, Twins - 14/07/1946 11h32 am PST San Diego CA - politician, and campaign manager - Sedna 22AR42 setting, square Sun & Moon

Margaret Thatcher - 13/10/1925 9h00 am GMT Grantham UK - 1st UK woman Prime Minister - Sedna 15AR16 opp. Sun

Edwina Currie - 13/10/1946 11h30 pm GMT Liverpool UK - politician, activist - Sedna 22AR 16 opp. Sun

Anais Nin - 21/02/1903 8h25 pm local time, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France - self-absorbed cult writer - Sedna 8AR37 setting, square MC & Moon (also dwad Sedna 8AR37 conj. MC)

Brigitte Bardot - 28/09/1934 1h15 pm CET Paris, France - animal rights activist - Sedna 18AR16 conj. IC (draconic Sedna 9GE43 conj. Moon & Desc)

Diana Guerrero - 24/04.1960 2h22 pm PDT San Pedro CA - ocean life; animal trainer - Sedna 27AR25 =Sun/Moon (draconic Sedna 3SC15 opp. Sun; Dwad Sedna 29AQ00 conj. Desc)

k d lang - 9/11/1961 02h03 am MST Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - sexual & musical radical - Sedna 27AR48 opp. Mercury & Venus

Martina Navratilova - 18/10/1956 4h40 pm MET Prague, Czechoslovakia - tennis champion - Sedna 26AR00 in 1st, opp. Sun

Bob Geldof - 5/10/1951 2h20 pm BST Dublin, Ireland - Band Aid, and more - Sedna 24AR13 conj. IC & trine ASC.

Does Sedna’s ‘birth-chart’ (her first image timed at 06h32 UT on November 14th 2003, at Caltech’s Mt. Palomar Observatory) show us the story and its lessons? Oh yes! Man’s fall from grace is clear - the Sun is self-destructive, in Scorpio in the 4th conjunct the Dragon’s Tail, while the lonely, determined woman, lover of the natural world and longed-for peace, confronts him from the Moon’s North node (conjunct her planet at 17TA56) in her draconic manifestation of Moon conj. Saturn in Taurus. Dwad Venus is also there at 19TA36, drawing us toward the Feminine Idea. As Queen of the deep ocean, Leo rises opposite setting Neptune; and this is even stronger sidereally, where the Ascendant falls in Cancer’s cosmic sea on the same degree as the chart’s Tropical Moon! Bear in mind that the Sidereal chart addresses collective, historical issues and is therefore an important dimension in studies of this nature, even where there is no such dramatic alignment with a Tropical or Draconic planet. The depth and scope of Sedna’s extraordinary power, however, is only fully revealed in the Dwad: aligned with that forbidding Moon is now a cataclysmic trinity of Sun/Midheaven/Pluto with Uranus/IC opposite. The Dwad Aquarian Moon joins setting Neptune. Even an ‘ordinary mortal’ with such a configuration would be fully conscious of their divine power to make or break a world!

There could never be the need for a stronger statement that “I am the cold, strict Goddess of the Sea” than you find in the above configuration, and yet it is repeated and emphasised three times over even in the radix wheel - a classic reiteration in any language! - first on this identifying Cancer-Capricorn Moon/Asc/Desc&Neptune/Chiron/Venus axis (A), secondly across the karmic Moon & Saturn/ N.Node/S.Node & Sun/Chiron/Pluto from Taurus to Scorpio (B), and thirdly in the ruthless Gemini-Sagittarius chain of Moon & Saturn /Asc/ Pluto/ Desc & Neptune /Chiron /Pluto ( C ). Recalling again the Sidereal’s role as the ‘history-maker’ and you can see here the fateful story of Sedna’s severed fingers, her suffering as she loses hold of mortal life and slips into the divinely empowering ocean of regenerative life.

The three Midheaven axes are also important: two ( D and E )carry Mercury at the IC (MC/Mercury and MC/Mercury), while the Draconic MC is in Pisces with Mars and opposite Jupiter (F). Lastly we need to take note of a seventh axis where Sun/S.Node meets Venus/Pluto in Libra, opposite Aries Mars (G).

The reason why I want simply to pinpoint these patterns at this stage is because, as you will see from what follows, they are a classic example of definitive asteroid placement. What should happen, happens. Asteroids chosen out of the nowadays encyclopaedic database for their relevance to the story in hand, should stamp the chart as authentic by the strength of their positions, aligned closely with the  angles, Moon and Sun. They do. Here is the evidence, in axis order; there are also many tight squares, but for simplicity I have limited the following list to direct alignments, with orbs from 0 to 4 degrees on either side -

(A) Storm (e. conjunct Moon in coelo), Byrd, Eugenia (controlled breeding), Bella, Sirene, Aurora, Atlantis, Doggett, Maritima, Barker, ArcticTern, Marina, United Nations.

(B) Storm, Maritima, Dobermann, Atropos, Gaea, Hekate, Palomaa (Mt. Palomar whose telescope found her), Doggett, Cerberus, Eugenisis, Nemesis, Oceana, Flood, United Nations, Gaea, Hekate .

( C ) Storm, Maritima, Phocaea (seals born from her Gemini fingers), Doggett, Flood, Barks, United Nations, Palomaa, Cerberus, Beaufort (wind scale), Couteau (the knife!), Défi,  (Defiance), Nemesis, Flood, Palomaa, Storm.

(D - Tropical MC/IC) Reddish (planet Sedna’s colour!!!), Beaufort, Aquamarine, Hyperborea (Far North), Atropos, Hunten, Wild, Wolff, Stern, Repunit (she repeatedly punishes), Seaborg.

(E - Sidereal MC/IC) Kaali, Reddish, Hunten, Hyperborea, Aquamarine, Malin (malign), Stern,  Weathers, Repunit, Seaborg, Atropos, Darwin, Wolff, Spitzer (Arctic dog, also NASA’s new telescope that confirmed Sedna’s motion), Huntress.

(F - Draconic MC/IC) Weathers, Waterman, Boreas (the North), Spitzer, Malin, Charybdis.

(G) Cetacea (whales), Flood, Stern.

After all that excitement, let’s go back and look at the basic chart. Here is the gorgeous, charismatic and wilful young woman, well provided-for and besieged by suitors as Venus/Pluto in the 5th, squared by Mars in 8th and Jupiter in 2nd. And there is Sedna’s fulfilment as the severe Ocean Goddess, hidden in the depths of the 12th opposite Chiron, her eternal journey of pain. But from her secret place she trines the gentle hunter of 8th-house Piscean Mars; she even trines poor fallen Man in the Dragon’s Tail in 4th-house Scorpio. Draconically, spiritually she confronts and confounds him, but emotionally she truly cares for him as a stern mother for her wayward child (echoing the ambivalence and distress in her relationship with her father.) Sedna will teach Mankind as tenderly and firmly as she can how to face up to his mistakes, put right his wrongs, honour his debts, let go of a selfish and destructive past to build with her support a kinder, more peaceable future for the precious and finite world upon which he depends. As a girl she threw away her assets; as the Goddess, she is once again - in her sextile to Jupiter - mistress of a great bounty, which she is willing to share with those who are good to her.        

A glance at the Draconic chart will confirm it; with a Libra Sun in the Tropical 2nd and a further three planets in Libra, a fair division of the spoils is everything to her - all the more reason to fear her revenge for injustice, cruelty or crime. She will restore the balance of nature, whatever it takes to achieve it, whatever the consequences for us. As the planet, not much smaller than Pluto, has an estimated orbital period of 10,500 years, she has been part of the Taurus experience for nearly forty years, and will remain so, according to the available ephemerides,  for another twenty. In fact, for the next 72 years she will apparently remain closer to us than she has been since the end of the last Ice Age, before heading back out to her dark and bitter home.

That Moon/Saturn in Draconic Taurus, aligned with the Dragon’s Head in 10th, and Sedna herself at 17TA56, is an ancient being who knows the Earth and knows the Way, and expects us to follow. Uranus electrified us, Neptune transported us, Pluto tempted us, Chiron tested us, the asteroids have blown our minds with more minutiae than we can assimilate - and now comes grave, uncompromising  Sedna, asking us to step back and look seriously at the big picture, our whole environment, to get our bearings, and weep at the wreckage strewn everywhere in our wake. Her airy/watery sidereal chart is all about fingers, pain, retribution, rebirth ... we have to hang on somehow in our self-inflicted storms and find wiser things for our minds to think, our lips to speak, our fingers to write and to do. We have to become as harmless, as innocent again as the Water Babies, and learn our painful lessons obediently . Or we will sink. Without trace.

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