Lee
Hi --
I'm really enjoying the correspondence course I'm taking (by Joanne Wickenburg). I just completed the third tape, completing the signs. I'm very happy because I was never able in the past to really get a grip on the signs, and now I feel I have a good foundation, at least, for learning them.
I have a question about cookbook interpretations of planets in signs. From my work in Tarot, my inclination is to combine the planet and sign concepts myself; the idea of looking up the combinations in a cookbook is not very appealing. The impression I generally get from what I've read is that this is actually preferable, that one learn to come up with interpretations oneself rather than relying on cookbooks. Although I can see the value in looking up a few combinations if one's mind goes blank, and just to see different ways the concepts can be combined.
But my question is, when different authors write cookbooks, are they simply putting together the concepts the same way anyone could, or is there material there which has become traditional but which contains more than just a sign+planet derivation which one could come up with on one's own? In other words, if I in general do without cookbook interpretations, will I be missing something important?
What got me to thinking about this is, I was reading Robert Wang's handbook to his Jungian Tarot, in which he derives meaning for his unillustrated pip cards by using planet-in-sign meanings, and for his meaning for the 8 of Disks, Mercury in Capricorn, he says it means something like plans which have something hidden in them, something perhaps sinister underneath the stated intentions. After I thought about it awhile, I sort of see where this might fit in with Mercury in Capricorn, but it certainly isn't anything I would come up with if I were combining the meanings of Mercury and Capricorn. This got me to wondering whether there are traditional planet-in-sign meanings which go beyond concepts-of-the-planet-plus-concepts-of-the-sign, in perhaps the same way that the meanings of the signs go beyond the concepts of the quality combined with the concepts of the element.
I hope I'm articulating this clearly... hopefully you all understand what I'm trying to say!
-- Lee
I'm really enjoying the correspondence course I'm taking (by Joanne Wickenburg). I just completed the third tape, completing the signs. I'm very happy because I was never able in the past to really get a grip on the signs, and now I feel I have a good foundation, at least, for learning them.
I have a question about cookbook interpretations of planets in signs. From my work in Tarot, my inclination is to combine the planet and sign concepts myself; the idea of looking up the combinations in a cookbook is not very appealing. The impression I generally get from what I've read is that this is actually preferable, that one learn to come up with interpretations oneself rather than relying on cookbooks. Although I can see the value in looking up a few combinations if one's mind goes blank, and just to see different ways the concepts can be combined.
But my question is, when different authors write cookbooks, are they simply putting together the concepts the same way anyone could, or is there material there which has become traditional but which contains more than just a sign+planet derivation which one could come up with on one's own? In other words, if I in general do without cookbook interpretations, will I be missing something important?
What got me to thinking about this is, I was reading Robert Wang's handbook to his Jungian Tarot, in which he derives meaning for his unillustrated pip cards by using planet-in-sign meanings, and for his meaning for the 8 of Disks, Mercury in Capricorn, he says it means something like plans which have something hidden in them, something perhaps sinister underneath the stated intentions. After I thought about it awhile, I sort of see where this might fit in with Mercury in Capricorn, but it certainly isn't anything I would come up with if I were combining the meanings of Mercury and Capricorn. This got me to wondering whether there are traditional planet-in-sign meanings which go beyond concepts-of-the-planet-plus-concepts-of-the-sign, in perhaps the same way that the meanings of the signs go beyond the concepts of the quality combined with the concepts of the element.
I hope I'm articulating this clearly... hopefully you all understand what I'm trying to say!
-- Lee