ASTROLOGERS SHOULD
DENOUNCE ASTRONOMY
by Samuel F. Reynolds
Leading astronomers this past week determined that Pluto
wasn’t a planet, because of its erratic orbit and small mass. So now, according to the 2,500 astronomers,
there are only eight “classical” planets in our solar system. Pluto, the scientists say, isn’t completely
voted off the Solar System show as it will make guest appearances as a minor
planet or a dwarf planet.
I didn’t know that outer space had become an episode from
the TV reality show “Survivor.” I got a
good number of calls and e-mails from clients, friends and cynics about how
Pluto getting the boot will affect astrology.
Short answer: it won’t. But their queries and jabs brought up a lot
of interesting issues that I’d like to share with you.
First, the good and bad news: Astrologers still consider Pluto a
planet. We will continue to use it in
our assessments of charts, and if you have the fortune or misfortune (depending
on how you want to look at it) of having Pluto make some stormy weather in your
chart, you’ll still have to live with it…according to us.
Planets are more to us astrologers than pieces of rock and
gas that orbit around the Sun. They are
symbols of meaning. For instance, Pluto
is commonly associated, for us, with the process of transformation and what
goes on beneath the surface of our lives.
It bestows purpose and meaning in our lives. It is also the modern ruler or spiritual
guardian of the Zodiac sign Scorpio. However,
I like to call Pluto “The Gravedigger” for short and for fun. I call it that based on a blues song by Olu
Dara, rapper Nas’s father. He said, “The
gravedigger is your very best friend.
He’ll only let you down once, no matter where you’ve been.” Before I heard that song, I never thought of
a gravedigger as a friend. But she or he
could be. Pluto, like the gravedigger,
digs into us to make us deeper and stronger, though it feels like he’s killing
us when we’re going through some strong challenges from him in our birth
charts. If we didn’t have Pluto, as a
symbol in our lives, we would have no astrological significator for finding
depth and meaning in our lives.
That’s why I found it interesting that astronomers have cast
Pluto off the Planetary Survivor show, even after wanting to extend the number
of planets the week before. It all
seemed so whimsical and superficial. So
when people came to me and asked “What’s going to happen to Pluto?,” I started
thinking about something that’s been on my mind for awhile concerning
astronomers in particular. Astronomers
are very fond, every 20 years or so, of denouncing astrology publicly. We’ll ignore the fact that the early
astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were astrologers. Here’s where now we astrologers should take
the offensive:
ASTROLOGY DENOUNCES ASTRONOMY
At first, you might laugh at this, but allow me to have you entertain something: when was the last time an astronomer did anything for you? Astronomy with its laudable aims of having science create a better world for humanity has had over 400 years (compared to Astrology’s 6,000) to do such a thing. Besides landing on the moon and Mars; launching loads of failed space mission (and wasting billions of dollars); orbiting satellites to watch a million channels and to take photos of your car in your driveway; and identifying some new stars and galaxies (many of which astrologers had identified millennia before), what has astronomy actually done? Astrology uses outer space to probe the depth of inner space for human life and well-being. Astronomers have shown us the infinite expanse of space, but haven’t provided us with one shred of hard evidence or faith that we can have a better world. Like the gods themselves, they can deem a hunk of rock a planet or not, but they can’t tell us what it means. Of course, they would and could say it means nothing. Then why argue whether it’s a planet or not for over a week? It must mean something. What’s more, if astronomers can be so flip, from our perspective at least, on its “scientific” designations and still yet disagree, why fault astrologers for the fact that one can talk to ten different astrologers and get about 20 different insights?
Admittedly, we aren’t scientific. Astrologers should never purport to be
scientists. I don’t believe astrology is
a science. It is an art and craft, but
the demands of science are concerned with replicable results in the physical
universe…only. For us, the inner
universe is just as important, but much harder to measure and replicate. It seems like a lot of intellectual pursuits,
for which you can get a Bachelor of Science degree from a college, fall
in the same vein, like psychology or Radio-Television-Film. These forms, like astrology, are based on
elements of the physical universe, but probe much deeper into the meaning of
them. It becomes harder to prove
intangibles, like the mind or what makes for a good film, and even harder to
replicate these intangibles as the universe is always changing…from the inside
out.
So, to have meaning and depth in our lives, we, astrologers,
will continue to use Pluto. Perhaps
astronomy can dispense with Pluto and several other heavenly bodies so handily,
because it has failed to establish its own meaning, depth and even relevance to
us. Yes, it’s exciting to watch a
satellite or space shuttle launch, but besides good science fiction and a few
exciting photos from space, what else does it all mean? Perhaps these astronomers should reconsider
their Planetary Survivor show. Thank
God, it’s not on satellite or cable yet.
Might be as shallow as much of the rest of television.