Category Archives: Astrology

The Scales of Justice (September 23 — October 22)

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The infant Narcissus is presented to the aged prophet Tiresias. Tiresias the prophet was placed in the sky as the constellation Libra by Hera.

The scales of Libra are sometimes associated with Tiresias, the aged prophet — shown here being presented with the child Narcissus. Tiresias is presented as a complexly liminal figure, with a foot in each of many oppositions, mediating between the gods and mankind, male and female, blind and seeing, present and future, and this world and the Underworld.

Libra, the scales of justice, is the astrological sign that governs those born September 23 to October 22 each year.

It has been suggested that the scales are an allusion to the fact that when the sun enters this part of the ecliptic at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal. In Roman mythology, Libra is considered to depict the scales held by Astraea (identified as Virgo, the previous sign of the zodiac), the goddess of justice. Because scales always seek balance, they are associated with oppositions: life/death, earth/otherworld, sight/blindness, ignorance/foreknowledge, male/female, humanity/divinity, and so on. Because the mythological prophet Tiresias was said to be both blind and foreknowing as well as having lived for 7 years as a woman who had 3 children (the result of a curse by Athena or Hera), he was also associated with these oppositions and balances.

In one version of the sex-change story, Tiresias sees 2 snakes copulating and he strikes them with his staff. For some reason, this offends Hera who punishes him by changing him into a woman. The association of his staff with the 2 snakes has also led to his association with the caduceus (the 2 snakes winding about a staff, a symbol of communication but often confused with the single-snaked symbol of healing).

“Happy Beltane / May Day!”

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Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Considered the first day of the summer season in traditional European societies, the first day of May has been celebrated in many ways over many centuries. May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls half a year from November 1 (Samhain, Hallowe’en, and All Saints’ Day) and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of “May baskets”, small baskets of sweets and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbors’ doorsteps. (I remember making May Baskets in school and field day Maypoles on the playground.)

The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer.

In Oxford, it is traditional for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6:00 a.m. to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night’s celebrations.

On May Day, the Romanians celebrate the arminden (or armindeni), the beginning of summer, symbolically tied with the protection of crops and farm animals. The name comes from Slavonic Jeremiinŭ dĭnĭ, meaning the prophet Jeremiah’s feast day, but the celebration rites and habits of this day are apotropaic and pagan, possibly originating in the cult of the god Pan.

The day is also called ziua pelinului (mugwort day) or ziua bețivilor (drunkards’ day) and it is celebrated to insure good wine in autumn and, for people and farm animals alike, good health and protection from the elements of nature (storms, hail, illness, pests). People would have parties outdoors with fiddlers and it was customary to eat roast lamb, as well as new mutton cheese and drink mugwort-flavoured wine to refresh the blood and get protection from diseases. On the way back from the parties, the men wear lilac or mugwort flowers on their hats.

Other May Day practices in many places include people washing their faces with the morning dew (for good health) and adorning the gates for good luck and abundance with green branches or with birch saplings (for the houses with maiden girls). The entries to the animals’ shelters are also adorned with green branches. All branches are left in place until the wheat harvest when they are used in the fire which will bake the first bread from the new wheat.

Aquarius (January 20 — February 18)

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Aquarius is associated with the tarot card The Star, often interpreted in terms of generosity, hope, inspiration, and serenity.

Aquarius is associated with the tarot card The Star, often interpreted in terms of generosity, hope, inspiration, and serenity.

Aquarius was known to the Babylonian astrologers who associated the constellation with the god Ea, who is commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase. Aquarius was also associated with the destructive floods that the Babylonians regularly experienced, and thus was negatively connoted. In Ancient Egypt, Aquarius was associated with the annual flood of the Nile; the banks were said to flood when Aquarius put his jar into the river, beginning spring.

In the Greek tradition, the constellation became represented as simply a single vase from which a stream poured down to Piscis Austrinus.

In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. Aquarius is also sometimes identified with beautiful Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology and the son of Trojan king Tros, who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods. Neighboring Aquila represents the eagle, under Zeus’ command, that snatched the young boy; some versions of the myth indicate that the eagle was in fact Zeus transformed. An alternative version of the tale recounts Ganymede’s kidnapping by the goddess of the dawn, Eos, motivated by her affection for young men; Zeus then stole him from Eos and employed him as cup-bearer. Yet another figure associated with the water bearer is Cecrops I, a king of Athens who sacrificed water instead of wine to the gods.