SIGN LANGUAGE No.5

Testing our Reflexes

I was staring at one of my Dad’s handkerchiefs. Nearby lay a swatch of Mum’s favourite colours next to my own. Friends, relatives and the famous surrounded me in a familiar rainbow. It was the early 1990s, and years of people-watching had paid off: the birth chart had been triumphantly translated into colour. I have hundreds now - tiny charts covered in glowing interwoven rectangles, celestial tartans that speak volumes about their owners and can be used  at any level of personal therapy. Few extant colour theories had proved workable or satisfying, only the spin-off insights from my friend Mike Heleus’ work in Astrosonics; so all this was a surprise, a happy accident, and it happened because of the Current Draconic.

5th-house astrological play involves a lot of entertaining “What if...?” and the latest had been “What if we find the difference in longitude between all the natal planets etc and the transiting Moon’s Node instead of the Node at birth? What will we have? Clearly not the Draconic version of the birth chart, but actually a completely new system of Directions, in which the chart moves around the zodiacal circle at the  speed of the transiting Node’s 18-year circuit instead of  the leisurely rate of the progressing Solar arc. Based on the Dragon’s Head, it may even have quite profound spiritual and karmic implications.

So it appeared; these were some of the personal dramas the “Current Draconic” had brought to me when it drew my own radical Nodes together in this way with the Sun:    

SPRING 1961 - was entered for major competition; very ill; won competition.  (5th-house  Sun to 12th-house N.Node.)
AUTUMN 1967 - recovering from near-fatal delivery of first ( autistic ) son.  (6th-house S. Node to  5th-house Sun.)
AUTUMN 1970 - traumatic birth of 2nd son;  death of astrological twin. (Sun to S. Node.)
SPRING 1977 - met an important friend; then Gerard, my future husband.  (N.Node to 5th-house Sun.)
WINTER 1979 - We bought our first home. ( Sun to N.Node.)
SUMMER 1986 - health problems;  moved Mother-in-law to Kent. (Her Sun conj. my S.Node) (S.Node to Sun.)
EARLY 1989 - more health problems;  father very ill;  start of Interdimensional  book. (5th-house Sun to 6th-house S.Node.))

So, next a way had to be found to tweak Solar Fire  to produce Current Draconic, or “CD”, charts for us. In the Progressions menu is an option for User Arc, and in order to do the correct subtraction ( radix planet  minus transiting node ) you have to enter not the absolute longitude of the t. Node but its complement, ie ( 360° - t. Node.)  For example, if the Node were  at 14TA17, ie 44°17', you take that from 360° and use the result, 315°43, as the User Arc in Solar Fire to swing the chart forward through 44°17' into its Current Draconic position. As the transiting Dragon’s Head moves backwards, taking the eclipses with it, so the personal Current Draconic inches forward at about 20° a year.

But working with this started ringing bells. Where had I seen these uniquely complementary degrees before? First, when playing fruitfully with Ron Davison’s idea that “every planet has its own zodiac”,  where for example, Moon in the Sun-zodiac + Sun in the Moon-zodiac = 360°,  simply because the arc of longitude from your Sun to your Moon is of course 360° minus the reverse arc of  Moon to Sun. But secondly, over and over again in old and respected astrology books; for what I was using were also known as “Contrascia.” You may be more familiar with the single term, “Antiscion”, which refers to a degree that reflects a planetary position on the opposite side of the 0° Cancer/Capricorn axis, the line of the Solstices. Our 14TA17 (44°17') and 15AQ43 (315°43') are similar  reflections of each other- but this time equidistant on each side of the Equinox line, 0°Aries/Libra, opposing the Antiscia, and hence the “Contrascia”. Together, Antiscia and Contrascia form a pair of related axes that create a rectangle on the Ecliptic, symmetrical about the Equinoxes and Solstices.It struck me that here was another example, in addition to the energy of Midpoints and Composite charts, of the prime importance of symmetry in astrological patterning. The old astrologers appreciated perhaps even more than we do the inseparability of an occupied degree from the remaining three points on its Ecliptic rectangle. We habitually check for transits etc. by conjunction and opposition to our Lights and Angles - but how often do we remember to see if the Antiscia and Contrascia are under pressure?

Thus reminded, I started drawing birth charts as interwoven coloured rectangles. Each decanate was assigned a colour, based on tradition and observation, and the four sides were drawn in the hue of the decanate in which the planet or angle was natally placed. The nearer the middle of fixed signs the planet was, the closer the shape was to a perfect square; the tighter a planet hugged the 0° Cardinal axes, the longer and thinner the form.  There appeared vivid visual contrasts between the Tropical, Draconic, Sidereal and Helio selves within each person. And the more enchanted I was with these infinitely varying permutations of personal light, the more interesting became the planetary symmetries themselves - which behaved quite differently in the different zodiac dimensions. The Contrascia became my Reflex degrees of choice, simply because of the above-mentioned special mathematical relationships to the ecliptic circle, unshared by the Antiscia.

But as you might guess, other work inexorably took over; I forgot to do my regular homework on the essential ‘flip-side’ of each chart. If only I had carried on being thorough, I wouldn’t have built up a backlog of nativities that puzzled and frustrated me. There were high-profile people and situations that despite the closest interdimensional analysis and dwad fine-tuning never came fully alive. Notable amongst these was one of our most prominent and influential entrepreneurs,  Bill Gates.  Where in heaven’s name was his extraordinary drive? And his achievement? At last I got back to symmetry, and found in this flip-side, this shadow-pattern, this mirror chart, in what I am calling the ‘Reflex’ degrees, the energy-source that had apparently been missing. The entrepreneurial spirit in Bill Gates and others is repeatedly marked by reflex Mars ‘conjunct’ an angle. Gates has it at the IC and Moon (Windows?) on MC, Bob Geldof’s is smack on the MC conjunct Venus (music and fundraising ), Billy Graham - like Geldof born with Chiron rising to engage with the world’s pain - has his elevated Moon/Mars pulled in tightly to the IC near Pluto. Walt Disney’s meridian is crowned by reflex Mars and Chiron the educator, opposite fairytale Neptune and square the imagery of a ‘rising’ reflex Moon. Chiron’s maverick nature, too,  must be a major force in these people. Dolly Parton’s phenomenal drive comes out of the poverty of reflex Mars/Saturn on her IC and soars to MC with singer/song-writer’s Mercury.        

What about a different kind of energy? The awesome impact of world-shaking events, famous days that should be marked by angular Lights and heavyweight planets like Saturn and Pluto?

911 at its fateful hour had nothing like this to show on first inspection - but let that pattern cast its cosmic shadow and now see the rising Sun, the power of culminating Pluto, the misery of Saturn at the IC! And Mars/S.Node with Moon, as a mass of humanity was sacrificed in violence and fire.

Another chart with reflex Sun and Pluto on a conjoined Dragon’s Head and Ascendant, opposed by reflex Saturn, marked the solemn and thrilling moment when Secundo Pia took the first photograph of Christ’s image on the holy shroud in Turin. The meridian was exactly aligned with Jesus’ horizon in 16E Scorpio/Taurus, and angular Mercury on his mid-Taurus Sun/Jupiter. The blood-stained image is shown by the squaring Moon, which with radix Aries Mars completes a Grand Cross with a horizon echoing the Meridian of the Crucifixion at sunset on 3rd April AD33.

A reflex Grand Cross of Pluto/Sun-Mars/Moon also impacted the angles and Uranus/Neptune when Upstairs sprang their amazing surprise, substantiating the birth-data they had revealed for both Jesus and his Mother. (It’s in the book...)

At a purely human level, we are shown Princess Diana’s real historical significance - nothing less than Pluto and Mars reflexing onto the MC with Chiron joining in at the IC, Sun ‘rising’, and reflex Jupiter on 5th-house Venus. Power. Fame. Beauty. Charisma. Compassion. Intimacy with pain. And a world that, having known her, can never be quite the same again.

England (1066) has reflex Sun/MC at 20-21E Sagittarius - right in the firing-line of the USA’s belligerent Mars ... and guess which currently transiting planet!!! And reflex Chiron on the USA MC.   The Saturns conjoin on the mid-Libra Ascendant of 911. Both countries’ leaders join the club of reflex Martians - Bush’s at his IC, Blair’s (natally rising also) on his MC. And he has reflex Chiron conjunct Ascendant. Such a concentration of missionary zeal is scary. The Azores Ultimatum quadwheel graphically shows the Special Relationship in battle dress - and no real end in sight for another year.

A lamentable reflection!

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DATA:

Mother Theresa - 27th August 1910, 14h25 MET, Skopje, Yugoslavia (Rodden AD3 - C)
Bill Gates - 28th October 1955, 21h15, Seattle, Washington State, USA (Clifford 2000 - B)
Billy Graham - 7th November 1918, 15h30 EST, Charlotte, NC, USA (Clifford 2000 - AA)
Bob Geldof - 5th October 1951, 14h20 BST, Dublin, Ireland (Clifford 2000 - A)
Walt Disney - 5th December 1901, 00h35 CST, Chicago, IL USA (Clifford 2000 - A)
Dolly Parton - 19th January 1946, 20h25 CST, Locust Ridge, TN, USA (Clifford 2000 - AA)
911 - 11th September 2001 08h46 EDT Manhattan, NY (Live news reports)
Pia’s Shroud Photograph - 28th May 1898, 23h00 CET, Turin, Italy (Ian Wilson “The Turin Shroud”
Data, Jesus & Mary - 21st May 1995, 17h30 BST, Brighton, UK (personal record, AA)
Princess Diana - 1st July 1961, 19h45 BST, Sandringham, UK (Clifford 2000 - A)
Azores Ultimatum to Saddam - 16th March 2003 18h33 Azores Is. (News Report)
England - 25th December 1066 (OS), Noon, London, England (historical records; Campion)
USA - 4th July 1776, 17h14, Philadelphia, USA (Campion)