Minderwitz said:
Oops - my post above seems to have come through twice!! perhaps Isthmus or Paradoxx can delete it.
On Pluto and Chiron, my reference was to ASTRONOMERS, not Astrologers. However, not all Astrologers recognise the three outer planets as being of Astrological significance - virtually all Vedic Astrologers don't use them and a small but significant and growing minority of Traditional Western Astrologers don't use them.
My point on the number of 'planets' or other bodies that are used is actually a rephrase of Stephen Arroyo's view - if you increase the number of 'significant' bodies then you exponentially increase the number of possible contacts between them. Arroyo reckons that to treat all these contacts as significant is a major danger because we could well end up treating the third Kuiper belt object from the left as being as important as, say, Venus or Mars.
LOL. I had thought that you had intentionally reposted your first reply in response to my last post, as a way to say that my points were irrelevant.
Yes, I understood your point about it being astronomers who were making the distinction between planets and asteroids. My point was to call into question whether that distinction mattered astrologically.
I was not aware that any western astrologers didn't use the outer planets. Vedic astrology I've never looked into.
It really does become mind boggling to open astrology to the idea of using massive amounts of named asteroids, taking into account their contacts.
I myself am no astrological professional, and doubt I ever will devote the time necessary to become one. But I do know that I am very glad that some who devote time to astrological research have chosen to study Chiron; that they found it worthy of study rather than something to be kept out of astrology- because from what I have gleaned of those studies, I have gained much insight into myself. I have not found it necessary or fruitul yet to pay much attention to other asteroids, though I have put a lot of them into my natal chart out of curiosity. Most seem to hold the meaning they are claimed to hold, but don't really matter that much to me. (My natal chiron is in the first house- that may be part of why I find it so significant- also, Astrodienst put Chiron in its formerly free daily horoscopes, so I could easily pay attention to what it was doing daily and see how that held up with my experience. [But I rarely pay attention to my daily horoscope anymore. I only check it if something unusual seems to be going on.])
At this point the way I view it is that there may be an almost infinite amount of knowledge to be gained by correlating even less prominent astrological bodies into charts, but of course focusing too much upon too many of them for any individual is prohibitive in practicality.
It could just be that people will find what they need to know personally about the astrological meaning of particular asteroids in a synchronistic fashion, just as so much else in life happens synchronistically. All of astrology could be seen as one giant synchronicity, in a way- given that it is not known how it works, but the correlations obviously hold up anyway.
The asteroids would never subsume the importance of the main planets, but I do think they are worthy of consideration, possibly to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the specifics of a person's chart. I have found that my "empty houses" are interesting to look at in regard to what asteroids fall there, though as I said I have not found great personal importance or use for most asteroids at this point.
There is a lot to be said for the traditions and history of astrology, but I think it would be tragic to prevent the aquisition of practical useful astrological knowledge due to too much reliance on tradition. I really find it surprising that any astrologers don't use pluto. It seems such an obviously real and important influence in my experience, unless I've been misinterpreting things. I say, get the basics of one's chart first, a good basis, and then try out any other things experimentally to see what fits and has importance. That has worked for me, in any case.
I wonder a lot about what really causes astrology to work. If it is about fields and forces from planets (or fields and forces from something else), or if it is about ideas which somehow have real existence, or if it is just about mirroring between the human and the cosmos- but that last does not tell why. But regardless of why, I must trust my own experience, and look at anything which I might find possibly useful.
bladeraven said:
Many asteroids are named by the person who discovers them. We need to get someone with a telescope to name the next one "asteroid Tarot". (It really can be surprising and amusing to see where a lot of seemingly randomly named asteroids fall in a chart- such as surnames and country names, simple nouns, mythological figures, names of famous people, etc. They really seem to have meaning, though it is not earth shattering. I actually went on an obsessive curiosity based spree of casting asteroids into my chart (and a few into the charts of a handful of people who I know well) a couple of years ago- I did about 160 of them, aspects and all, wrote it down, filed it away, then promptly forgot about them.)
If there is a full fleged life supporting planet anywhere called planet Tarot, I want to live there.
But AT is the metaphorical planet tarot.
