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Home , Ascendant, Book of Fixed Stars, Fixed stars, Heliacal rising, Star lore

Sylvia Plath’s Fixed by Catherine Rankovic

Sylvia Plath’s Fixed Stars Sylvia Plath’s birth. Plath was born October 27, 1932 at 2:10 p.m. in Boston, Massachusetts. “Fixed stars” are all the stars in the assigned Mathematical formulae and atlases terrestrial to the units called . The brighter and sidereal permit astrologers to draw up from this information an astronomically accurate, - two-dimensional 360-degree diagram called a acter and life events. Given the resonance of natal chart or birth chart, uniquely Plath’s and the concluding words “[f]ixed stars / Govern a forever hers. [Fig. 1] It will lead us to Plath’s na- life,” in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Words,” I wanted - Western , the type practiced by Plath’s husband Ted Hughes, who all his adult life used astrology as an augury and for character analy- sis. Plath’s readership will then be familiar with Plath’s natal chart, information neither Plath nor Hughes left in writing.

In our century, the only excuse for attention to astrology is that there appears to be some- do “govern a life,” or whether Plath or Hughes 1 Taking the subject about as seriously as Hughes did, and using, as he did, ’s classic geocentric method, we begin with the facts of 1 Ted Hughes in the poem “A Dream,” p. 118 in Birthday Let-

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- was “psychic” or intuitive, requiring a knack, but that is never true: Chart interpretation and prognostication are skills and arts anyone can acquire through instruction, readings, case stud- ies, and practice; one might even add to the lit- erature by becoming a scholar.4 Astrologers use Plath’s natal was in the sign case studies as jurists use precedents. Hughes and the in . Popular astrology calls in his notebook calculated and sketched the the Sun sign fundamental, but to an astrologer natal charts of celebrities such as T.S. Eliot and Sigmund Freud apparently seeking to uncover degree of the zodiac sign that happened to 5 be rising, or ascendant, at the eastern horizon Hughes later began and then abandoned a at the moment of birth. The and minute study of celebrities born with the Sun in Capri- of birth determine this ascendant point, from corn.6 He was well-informed, but nothing indi- which the rest of the chart unfolds. Plath’s rising cates Ted Hughes as an astrologer had a unique sign was , and her ascendant point was approach or as a prognosticator was better or 29 degrees 22 minutes of Aquarius. Modern worse than average, and he did not claim to be astrological computer software compared with so.7 Astrology was for him a tool, guide, and Ted Hughes’s analog calculations produces the inspiration. same ascendant degree, the same 12 zodiacal signs and “houses,” each with 30 degrees of Like every astrologer, Hughes was obsessed arc, and the same planetary placements.2 Ted with his own natal chart and by May 1956 had Hughes’s rough sketch of Plath’s natal chart, plus compared it, for compatibility, with that of an at- a second chart labeled “Her book accepted / tractive American poetess he had met, crowing at 9 a.m. 6 Feb. 1960,” appear on a notebook in a letter to his sister Olwyn, a fellow astrologer, page shown on the ’s website.3 “[h]er Mars smack on my Sun . . . very appropri- “Her” book was Plath’s The Colossus, its manu- ate.”8 This “appropriate” Mars-Sun alignment in script accepted for publication at that date and the sign augured, for Sylvia Plath, her ideal , and Hughes drew up the equivalent of its male, and for Hughes, energy to make good on natal chart. his inclinations. Plath supplied the labor re- quired to win for Hughes recognition as a poet. After establishing the chart, astrologers step In turn Hughes introduced to Plath fascinating back from and geometry into the - older, symbolic science of astrology that holds trology, Tarot-card reading, and occultism of the that conditions on and in the heavens are Victorian parlor-game type: Ouija, hypnosis. A correspondent. Exactly how rests on traditional recent astrological reference book calls a Mars- lore 4000 deep, back to the union of the Sun , such as the couple had, “a dy- - 4 Sylvia Plath to Aurelia S. Plath, letter of October 28, 1956. nians, inventors of the zodiac. Like many laypeo- 5 Op. cit., British Library website. Along with Freud’s birth chart Hughes drew Freud’s death chart. 2 Ted Hughes to Olwyn Hughes, October 1956, Letters of Ted 6 Ted Hughes Papers, 1940-2002. Emory University, Stuart Hughes, p. 77-78. The hand-drawn astrological chart reproduced with A. Rose , Archives, and Rare Book Library, Box 115, Folder the letter is Olwyn’s conception chart. 11. The celebrities are Mao Tse-tung [sic], Albert Schweitzer, 3 The British Library’s website displays a selection of charts Marlene Dietrich, and Galina Ulanova, ballet dancer. Hughes drew up for individuals including Sylvia Plath at https://www. 7 Hughes called his younger self a “wait-and-see astrologer.” bl.uk/collection-items/astrological-charts-by-ted-hughes, retrieved May Birthday Letters, p. 14. 7, 2020. 8 Ted Hughes to Olwyn Hughes, May 22, 1956.

16 namic comparative combination which can lead astrology is not able to reveal everything and to much mutual accomplishment. It can also that people own their own futures except when - are to get along harmoniously, they must re- na, has the last word.11 For example, volcanoes spect each other’s independence and free will.”9 and earthquakes, generated by earthly and not cosmic forces, are not astrologically predictable. Lines and phrases in Plath’s earlier poems, such Swim out beyond the limit of your strength and as “The asteroids turn traitor in the air, / And you will drown, not because stars and planets plot with old elliptic cunning” do not prove Plath “knew astrology” before she met body’s natural limitations. Hughes knew well Hughes or had more than a layman’s interest the works of Dante and Shakespeare, and both in it.10 She learned from Hughes that her na- of them paraphrased a universally recognized tal Venus occupied 7 of her birth chart, astrological dictum, its exact English wording because the surviving typescripts of Plath’s credited to Sir Francis Bacon: “The stars impel; they do not compel.” “As above, so below” is a titled “Venus in the Seventh,” short for “seventh Hermetic axiom, not an astrological one. Sylvia astrological house.” Plath seems not to have Plath might have believed in astrological “fate” absorbed any further the imagery or language and foreordination, but Hughes knew better. of astrology. Astrological references are absent He did not leave his completed to from the poems in The Colossus (1960) and an “inevitable” “fate” “compelled” by stars or Plath’s edit of Ariel (2004). Plath’s poems men- tion the Moon so frequently it has been called his publishers astrologically auspicious publica- her totem, but astrology has no totems. tion dates.12

One’s natal chart never alters, but far from de- While not incorrect, a person’s Sun sign alone is creeing “a fate set in stone,” a natal chart, like a meager basis for character analysis.13 Put suc- a map, reveals a donnée, the lay of the land. An cinctly, the Sun sign shows what the individual astrologer can read from a natal chart the cli- wants, the Moon sign what they feel they need, ent’s inclinations, gifts, and weaknesses, and can and the rising sign how they go about getting point to and explain the telling factors. Clients it.14 In reference to Sylvia Plath, a Sun in Scor- are then free to choose how to act on their as- pio native is sensual, intense, possessive, and trological givens. Neither occult, meaning “hid- driven. A Libra Moon native tends to be artistic, den,” nor mystical, from a root word meaning judgmental, and critical. A person with Aquarius “eyes and lips closed,” the maps and mechanics rising presents as chilly, cerebral, focused, and of the are plain for all to see, and 4000 less interested in people than in attention or years of testimony is open to anyone wanting acclaim. The odds of being born with Aquari- to know what it means and how to get the best us rising are 1 in 12, so that is not special, but Western astrology says an ascendant point at 29 degrees, in Plath’s case 29 degrees of Aquarius, decree a particular and inevitable “fate.” Being helplessly -crossed happens only in drama. 11 Claudius , Book 1, sections 2 and 3. Claudius Ptolemy, founder of Western astrol- 12 As one example of many, see Ted Hughes’s letter to Charles Monteith, January 17, 1967. ogy and author of its “bible,” cautioned that 13 In the United Kingdom, the Sun sign is often called the “star 9 Sakoian and Acker, p. 69. sign.” 10 Sylvia Plath, “To Eva Descending the Stair,” Collected Poems, 14 Rocks, Damian. Stars Like You. https://www.starslikeyou.com. p. 303. . Web. Retrieved May 2, 2020.

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of any zodiac sign, an ascendant point or a plan- mous of 379,” the oldest textual source. Aus- et is said to approaching the end of its journey tralian astrologer Bernadette Brady in 1998 through the sign’s 30 degrees and is weak and depleted, to be refreshed only by its upcoming with her authoritative Brady’s Book of Fixed entry into 0 degrees of the following sign, which Stars, synthesizing data from the most promi- in Plath’s case would have been . - A natal ascendant point at 29 degrees is like a natal chart when positioned within one degree tire with a slow leak. It destabilizes the entire of a natal or within one degree of a chart and correspondingly the native and their chart’s four cardinal points—ascendant, descen- prospects. Had Sylvia Plath been born at 2:14 dant, , or nadir. An allowance of one p.m. instead of 2:10 she would have had 0 degree out of 360 so restricts the possibilities degrees of Pisces rising, a fresh and invigorated - ascendant degree. Plath in print and online—her natal chart is a popular case degrees apart from the sweet spot. In my opin- study—sometimes argue that Plath’s birth time ion, one degree of separation merits attention. of 2:10 must be wrong, that the sign Pisces was Two degrees is an indicator. Fixed stars three surely rising at her birth because Pisces is “the degrees from conjunction are too far from a sign of the poet.” That neglects the fact that conjunction to count; we are, after all, crediting Plath was not solely a poet. The odds of being born with an ascendant at a critical degree are 1 away.16 in 30. Fixed stars of greater magnitude have greater - tial by position or eminence. Fixed stars, out among what 18th-century astronomers styled beyond the planets, provide a layer of infor- “The Four Royal Stars of Persia”: Aldebaran, , Antares, and Fomalhaut.17 Absent any proof they were ever “royal” or “Persian,” , the notorious Demon Star, Eye of the astrologers still honor these stars’ historical role , in the sign . Plath’s chart has an as heralds of the four seasons and also the ev- Algol contact we will discuss. Fixed stars were to idence drawn from case studies indicating that the ancient Egyptians and Greeks a chart’s most these stars wield power as tradition says they important elements, but Western astrology, do. This matters because the “royal star” Regu- - tication. Fixed stars gradually became no more than a “dressy backcloth” for the planets, which zodiac’s constellations on predictable tracks and schedules.15 Regulus on Plath’s Descendant Point

- for scraps such as the manuscript by “Anony- 16 15 From Plath’s “Stars Over the Dordogne,” Collected Poems, 17 Davis, George A. “The So-Called Royal Stars of Persia.” Pop- pp. 165-166. ular Astronomy, Volume LIII, No. 4, April 1945, pp. 149-158.

18 nitude star, “the heart of the Lion,” in the con- diamond tiara, like royalty.19 stellation Leo. Regulus at 28 degrees 53 min- utes of Leo was on Plath’s descendant point, Tradition promises those with a prominent Reg- opposite Plath’s ascendant. The star Regulus ulus worldly success, with the hazard of a sud- had set in the west less than one clock minute before her birth. is the temptation to take revenge (Brady, 263). Sylvia Plath was spiteful and could be venge- Regulus, meaning “prince” or “little king,” ful, and did not spare herself.20 Her suicide in when present at any chart’s any cardinal point 1963 and the highly irregular publication of her creative works conjured from critics fantastical President Donald Trump has Regulus on his reinventions of Plath as a “priestess cultivating - her hysteria,”21 a “literary dragon,”22 “psychot- ic,” a feminist martyr, a man-hater, a woman-hat- or in youth, and a star at the descendant in old er, a Briton, bathing beauty, poster child for age or after death. An astrologer might then be tempted to interpret Plath’s Regulus as fame and mother, a witch, and so on. Hepburn had bestowed posthumously, as in fact it was. Yet a the time, money, and support to craft her own good astrologer always wants more light on the image and legacy. Plath did not. subject, and perhaps turns to comparative stud- Also born with Regulus descendant: the multira- cial Hollywood actress Merle Oberon, a fabulous beauty who played Cathy to Laurence Olivier’s Regulus on the descendant. One was movie ac- Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939). She was tress and Plath contemporary Audrey Hepburn, born February 19, 1911, in India to a 12-- born May 4, 1929. Apart from their Regulus old and had to hide and lie about her origins placements, Plath’s and Hepburn’s natal charts all of her life, only to be “outed” by a nephew’s are not alike. Hepburn lived a full life, and while roman à clef and, after her death, a documenta- living won for her artistry and charitable work acclaim that has long survived her (she died Alexander Korda, and when he was knighted in 1993). Fixed stars identify Audrey Hepburn rather than Marilyn Monroe as Plath’s Hollywood noblewoman. counterpart, and their biographical parallels, such as absent fathers with rightist politics, are Rukbat and Deneb Algedi at Plath’s Ascen- fascinating.18 A critic pointed out that Hepburn dant Point on re-invention”: The princess in Roman Holi- day pretends to be a commoner; the nun in The Plath’s ascendant point. Third-magnitude star Nun’s Story embraces and then rejects religious Rukbat was nearest it. Arab astronomers named life; petty crook Holly Golightly in Breakfast at 19 Nittle, Nadra. “The Nun’s Story: Revisiting Audrey Hepburn’s Tiffany’s pines for money and status, and in the Most Overlooked Film.” Post at AmericaMagazine.org dated January 24, 2020, issue of February 3, 2020, retrieved May 2, 2020. Web. most iconic Hepburn photograph wears a 20 Frieda Hughes in her Foreword to Ariel: The Restored Edition (p. xx) wrote: “When she died leaving Ariel as her last book, she was caught in the act of revenge.” 18 Biographer Carl Rollyson (2013) styled Plath as literature’s 21 Stephen Spender, “Warnings from the Grave,” reprinted in “Marilyn Monroe.” Plath wrote in her journal entry of December 12, Newman, pp. 199-203. 1958 that her father Otto “heiled Hitler in the privacy of his home” 22 Unsigned [Rosalind Constable], Time magazine review of (Journals, 430). Ariel, June 10, 1966, pp. 118-120.

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this star in the for the For the birth of Sylvia Plath one might have stellar archer’s knee. Brady says Rukbat rep- expected more prominent and distinguished resents the archer’s armpit, a locus of strength ascendant stars. The royal star Fomalhaut, as he draws back his bow. An individual with granter of creative genius and mental instability, Rukbat rising might be a “rock of Gibraltar” for at Plath’s birth was about to rise, yet was far- others, yet also stubborn, to their own detri- ther than three degrees from Plath’s ascendant ment (Brady, 296). point.24 Consider then how the two humbler - Rukbat was Deneb Algedi, for “tail of the kid goat,” a second-magnitude star nonetheless unyielding core, such as a competitive athlete the brightest in the dim constellation Capricorn. relies on. One source says Deneb Algedi as a Interpretations of Deneb Algedi rising are con- rising star grants the ability to wring joy from tradictory and inconclusive, and when this is so, comparative studies can again be helpful. Pres- astronomers have learned about these stars. ident Abraham Lincoln was born with Deneb Rukbat and Deneb Algedi are both binary stars Algedi at 1 degree 12 minutes from his ascen- emitting inexplicably extreme amounts of radia- dant. Brady says this star, although not strong, tion. “bestows a sense of justice, of wanting to be a ‘savior’,” adding that Saint Teresa of Calcutta, a Fixed Star Pollux in Conjunction with Pluto Roman Catholic missionary nun who cared for the poor and dying, had Deneb Algedi rising - (304). Saint Teresa and self-obsessed “save me” of the constellation , the zodiac’s scene-maker Plath seem like polar opposites, Twins, but through precession (the Earth’s axis 23 Born in turning on its own axis, so slowly that its motion Albania on August 26, 1910, the world-famous is not apparent during a human lifetime) Pollux and picturesque Nobel Peace Prize-winning Te- is now astrologically in the zodiac sign . resa shrewdly banked billions of dollars in dona- Sylvia Plath’s natal Pluto was at 23 degrees 27 tions, and while publicly doctrinaire had a crisis minutes of Cancer, just past conjunction with na- of faith that tortured her for years. Had Plath tal Pollux at 22 degrees 16 minutes; within one and Teresa met, I think they would have found commonalities, but besides white skin, what the on her Pluto, and through Pluto, on her chart two women might have had in common one and character. astrologer will not pretend to know. Fixed-star We now face the fact that Pluto, the solar astrologer Elisabeth Ebertin-Hoffmann in the system’s most threatening, obscure and slow- 1930s wrote that Deneb Algedi indicates integ- est-moving planet, takes 248 years to circle the rity and inventiveness, and gives as an example zodiac once, and was cheek-to-cheek with the Berthold Brecht, a radical, contrarian, “nihilistic” playwright. Brecht, however, had Deneb Algedi in conjunction with his natal Sun, not his natal born in and around that time seem to share, in ascendant point (Ebertin-Hoffman, 77). their formative years, only the unprecedented background hum and gripping dramatic tension 23 For “scene-maker Sylvia Plath,” see, for example, Plath’s own journal writings, and memoirs by Nancy Hunter Steiner and Dido Merwin 24 recounting Plath’s dramatic “save me” scenes.

20 of radio programming. It happens that everyone second to third magnitude and back every 69 born from July 1914 to August 1938, a span of , “winking” as does no other star. twenty-four years, was born, like Plath, with Plu- Algol activated by an astrological conjunction to be less personal than generational or tran- has always meant bad news. Natives might liter- spersonal, granting each generation a discern- ally lose their heads, as did the mythical Medu- ible preoccupation and a legacy. For those born with Pluto in Cancer, including Plath’s husband representative Anthony Weiner, born Septem- and friends, and maybe your grandparents, that ber 4, 1964, with his natal Jupiter in conjunc- tion with Algol. In 2011 Weiner sent women insecurity. photographs showing his unclothed body from the neck down only, then denied doing it. He A reading of Sylvia Plath’s Pollux from an astrol- at last surrendered to the FBI in 2017, on May oger well-schooled in classical mythology who 19, a day the Sun was aligned with Algol, put- had never heard of Plath might be thus: “Pollux, ting the guillotine to his reputation and career.25 the twin of Castor, was a boxer, a pugilist, so The many gruesome Algol case studies seem to lend substance to this star’s association with an a natal planet or cardinal point, is to prod the early and violent end. Princess Diana of Wales, born July 1, 1961, her natal Venus in conjunc- planet Pluto in conjunction with Pollux, the na- tion with Algol, died at age 36 in a car wreck. As to be life or death, because Pluto, named for born April 19, 1933, had Algol in conjunction the lord of the underworld, destroys and re- with her natal Chiron (Chiron, pronounced “kye- generates, poisons and cures, and is associated culturally with the phoenix bird and historically 1967 car wreck and rumor said she had been with nuclear power.” decapitated. Yet thousands of people with Algol contacts live long and successfully. Every natal I have somewhere read a passage blaming chart has 10 planets and four cardinal points, Plath’s Pluto-Pollux conjunction for Plath’s dis- so the chances of a natal contact with Algol are plays of bad temper. I would venture that ev- relatively high. Hating to tell clients anything eryone born between 1914 and 1938 had that distasteful or distressing, today’s astrologers same potential close to the surface, with reason. are rethinking Algol as a portent of “mischief” rather than disaster, and are rehabilitating - Fixed Star Algol in Conjunction with Plath’s ical as the unjustly murdered symbol of Chiron women’s primal power and righteous rage.

Algol is the “winking eye” star in the severed Exactly two degrees from Plath’s Algol, at 25 head of the monster Medusa, carried in the sky degrees 14 minutes of Taurus, was Chiron.26 by the constellation of her killer, . It is Discovered in 1977, Chiron is a burnt-out comet orbiting completing a circuit of our solar sys- Arabic means “head of the demon”; the word tem every 50 years. This type of orbiting body, “alcohol” shares its root. Telescopes prove 25 Michelson and Pottenger, The American Ephemeris of the Algol to be a triple , two of its stars 21st Century, Expanded Second Edition, ACS Publications, 1997, table regularly eclipsing each other. Appearing to the for May 2017. 26 This was Algol’s position in 1932. Because of precession, human eye to be a single star, Algol dims from Algol’s position in 2020 is 26 degrees 10 minutes of Taurus.

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neither planet nor asteroid, is called a centaur. baseless, purely metaphorical line of thinking Plath of course never heard of Chiron, but as- called Freudian, Plath came to believe, and her trologers embraced Chiron so swiftly and fully fans still argue, that this wound haunted and that by 1988 a catalog of planetary positions crippled Plath’s emotional life and determined valid for the entire twentieth century was revised her future. Based on case studies there does and reprinted to include the position of Chiron. seem to be something to it.28

Astrologers take very seriously astronomers’ Plath’s Heliacal Fixed Stars namings of newly discovered orbiting bodies such as centaurs and asteroids and draw astro- logical correspondences from the names and the day of one’s birth and on every birth anni- their classical associations. Thus the asteroid versary thereafter. All people born on October Juno (a potent factor in Sylvia Plath’s natal chart) 27, of any year, worldwide, at the of represents marriage; the asteroid Eris represents Boston, Massachusetts, have the same helia- - cal stars as Sylvia Plath. Heliacal stars need not stead of the usual incorrigible hybrid of man belong to the constellations of the zodiac. The and beast, was a healer and teacher, but had his own wound that all his art could not heal. Chiron’s discovery in 1977, it is said, represents the awareness emerging in the 1970s that all interest. They do, however, award Sylvia Plath humans are inwardly wounded and in need.27 Ted Hughes’s natal Moon was in exact conjunc- star. is universally called a giver of gifts tion with Chiron, signifying a twice-gifted but and talent, often world-class artistic talent. wounded psyche driven by a hybrid nature. Plath’s heliacal setting star was Alpheratz, its Algol suggests violence stemming from fem- name in Arabic “meaning “navel of the mare.”29 inine rage or outrage and a tragic inability to It marks one of the corners of the Great Square heal herself. Because Algol is Medusa’s winking in the constellation . In 1922 astron- eye, it is tempting to conclude that Plath’s inner omers, who do not consult with astrologers, wound was dealt by her mother, the subject assigned Alpheratz to the constellation Androm- of Plath’s poem “Medusa,” but saying so does eda, and as that constellation’s brightest star it not make it so. The poem “Medusa” makes no is nicknamed “head of the princess.” reference to anything remotely like Algol. Ptolemy said Alpheratz has thoroughly positive As of 2015 a on the planet is energy. Alpheratz through its association with named “Plath,” for Sylvia Plath, and doubtless Pegasus is related to freedom and speed. Eber- - tin-Hoffman links Alpheratz with popularity.30 bolizes something about the real Sylvia Plath. In While Plath lived, popularity was a project she case you think I am making fun only of astrolo- managed with effort and expense. With Alpher- atz as her heliacal setting star, governing later Plath suffered terribly from the psychological 28 The speaker of Hughes’s poem “” in Birthday Letters (p. 64) explicitly replaces an astrological explanation for Plath’s troubles with a Freudian “Mummy-Daddy” explanation. 29 Ebertin-Hoffman calls this star “Sirrah,” p. 13. 27 One typical gloss: “[w]e are all one in this wounding.” Pamela 30 - Cuccinell, https://insightoasis.com/mythology-chiron/, retrieved May 9, atz”, Fixed Star Info. Blog. - 2020. Web. pretations.html. Web. Retrieved May 3, 2020.

22 life and after, she won popularity as a writer to name. “Fixed” and nothing else implies that and icon only after her death. “Anonymous of these stars, earthbound, no longer part of the 379” calls Alpheratz, rising or setting, a positive celestial clockwork, cannot move or be moved. - How they became earthbound is not said. atlantic travels in the 1950s were opportunities Nonetheless, they govern “a life” from where unusual for a woman in her early twenties who they are. was not born rich. Her married life was largely Plath’s poem “Years,” written November 16, 1962, jeers stars as “bright stupid confetti.” In by weightier factors in her natal chart and in her the poems Plath wrote between that poem and husband’s. Had she known that, she might have “Words,” written February 1, 1963, the phrases made other choices. “Starless and fatherless” (“Sheep in Fog”) and “Ceiling without a star” (“Child”) suggest that To return to Sylvia Plath’s poem “Words,” which without stars, guidance is absent. The usage is metaphorical, but it is literally true that stars serve humans as useful navigational guides. stars / Govern a life.” Hughes’s poem “The Bee “Fixed” and “govern” peg the stars in “Words” God” says, “[f]ixed stars / At the bottom of the well” (Birthday Letters, 152). A folk belief says agency. “Words” seems to say that the grandly that from the bottom of a well the stars directly overhead are visible even in daylight. That is have been grounded and stilled, and only ch- untrue. But the two poets are in accord on the thonic forces such as death and decay now gov- govern not from the vault of heaven but from Meanwhile, words travel at will and pay no mind underwater (Plath’s “from the bottom of the to matters such as lifespan. pool”) and underground (Hughes). Despite this radical displacement the stars continue to gov- ern. The only change is that they shine upward, toward the earth’s surface, where humans dwell with the forces of nature.

In “Words,” speechless natural forms such as tree trunks and a pool suffer deliberate blows and disruptions that make them ring, echo, well with tears, and ripple. These vibrations, struck in all directions like unbridled horses. Years later their maker encounters on a road the same words, “dry and riderless,” perhaps printed. They continue to circulate and resound while “a life,” unnamed, an entity without identity, is - en and submerged rather than heavenly. These

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Works Cited for the 21st Century: Ptolemy’s Bible of Astrolo- - Brady, Bernadette. Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars. gers, 2020. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1998. Reid, Christopher, ed. Letters of Ted Hughes. Ebertin-Hoffmann, Elisabeth., trans. Banks, I. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation. Tempe, AZ: American Federation of Astrologers, 1971. Rollyson, Carl. American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013. Hughes, Ted. Birthday Letters. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998. Sakoian, F., and Acker, L., The Astrology of Hu- man Relationships. New York: Harper and Row, Michelson, Neil F. The American Ephemeris of 1989. the 20th Century at Noon, Revised Edition. San Diego: ACS Publications, 1988. Steiner, Nancy Hunter. A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath. New York: Harper’s Newman, Charles, ed. The Art of Sylvia Plath. Magazine Press, 1973. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1970. Stevenson, Anne. Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia. Ariel. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.

Plath, Sylvia. Ariel: The Restored Edition. Fore- word by Frieda Hughes. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

Plath, Sylvia. Collected Poems. New York: Harp- er and Row, 1982.

Plath, Sylvia, Karen V. Kukil, ed. The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962. Faber and Faber, 2000.

Plath, Sylvia, Steinberg and Kukil, eds. Letters of Sylvia Plath, volume 1. London: Faber and Faber, 2017.

Plath, Sylvia, Steinberg and Kukil, eds. Letters of Sylvia Plath, volume 2. London: Faber and Faber, 2018.

Claudius Ptolemy, trans. F.E. Robbins, Tetra- biblos, Harvard University Press, 1940.

Claudius Ptolemy, trans. Sylvia Sky. Tetrabiblos

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