Asbolus, the Seer
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ASBOLUS, THE SEER © by Juan Antonio Revilla, Mem ber of the Centaur Research Project San José, Costa Rica, October 4, 1999 Astrologically, I think the Centaurs have the quality of being "outside of tim e", or in other words, m ore universal --like Neptune and Pluto--, encom passing basic spiritual categories, such as "light and darkness", "life and death", "sin and salvation", "pain and forgiveness", etc. These are all exem plified in the "passion, death, and resurrection" of Christ. This is Neptune/Pluto sym bolism , and the centaurs, in m y present understanding of them , bring this sym bolism to our daily lives, like dards piercing our heart, both in joy as in pain. Neptune and Pluto are riddles, big question m arks, like life and death are. They are transpersonal forces that wash us away, as if knowing nothing about our basic needs and hum an fragility. This is where Christ appears, standing before us, saying "com e, you are m y friend". Christ becam e hum an, and through this he becam e an answer, not an intellectual or philosphical, m etaphysical, and theological proposition, but a hum an "Yes, com e, m y friend". This is what Saint Peter represents, standing in the m iddle, holding "the keys", like a door. Probably m ost of you would accept that this is represented by Pluto and Neptune in m ore traditional astrology... so m aybe what we m ay have with the centaurs is the "hum anization" of this sym bolism : they are indicators of our m ore "norm al" deaths and resurrections. Pluto and Neptune are not "norm al" in this respect, we always have to "go there" when they are active. W ith the centaurs, it seem s to m e that their "m iddle" light/shadow realm is right here with us, as if they "com e to us", very m uch like the hidden spots or secret passages of our own house. This ligh and darkness sym bolism , which we will see present in Asbolus throughout the m aterial that follows, m akes m e associate it with John the Evangelist, in the sam e way that I associate Nessus with Paul and Peter with Pholus. The centaurs can build bridges in tim e and space, like plutonian vortices, "tunneling" through our lives with their ascension and descension m otion, in contrast with the planets that m ove horizontally. They show us all the light and darkness together. This is especially true of the "winged centaurs", i.e., those that have a very large eccentricity; and Asbolus, in particular, is m ore eccentric than Pholus and Nessus, it has "wider" wings. THE SCARLET LETTER I have always been fascinated by "The Scarlett Letter", from a 1979 TV series with Meg Foster as Hester Pryne; the series was heavily narrated with long passages from the original book by Hawthorne, and you could feel the spiritual atm osphere that the narration was able to create. It isn't difficult to find there what are stronly centaurean them es, which I usually would associate with Pluto... Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4th, 1804, in Salem (tim e unknown), and died June 19th, 1864. At Noon GMT, we have: Sun = 12°12' Cancer Asbolus = 11°40' Cancer Uranus = 12°11' Libra Since we are talking of the Sun here, these aspects should be very basic in his spiritual constitution, his vision of life and of him self, the subject-m atter of his literary production, etc. Mercury is also involved: Mercury = 21° Gem ini 1994TA = 21°17' Gem ini From this, it is certain then that the Centaurs are strong in his life, his thoughts, his words, etc. So there's no place better to study them than his works. This is how the Britannica speaks of him : <<His greater short stories and 'The Scarlett Letter' are marked by a depth of psychological and moral insight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any American writer.>> This assesm ent of the work of a m an that died in 1864, is im pressive indeed. It m akes m e feel the creative power of a stregthened Sun, here com ing as a result of Uranus, and especially of Asbolus, technically speaking. Hawthorne's ancestors had always lived in Salem . The first one, W illiam , was a m agistrate who had sentenced a Quaker wom an to public whipping, and the son, John, was one of the three judges in the fam ous witch trials of 1692. Here is a sum m ary, taken from the Encyclopedia, of "The Scarlett Letter": "This novel tells the story of two lovers kept apart by the ironies of fate, their own mingled strengths and weaknesses, and the Puritan community's interpretation of moral law, until at last death unites them under a single headstone. The book made him famous and was eventually recognized as one of the greatest of American novels... "The main character of The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne, a young married woman who has borne an illegitimate child while living away from her husband in a village in Puritan New England. The husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England to find his wife pilloried and made to wear the letter A (meaning adulteress) in scarlet on her dress as punishment for her illicit affair and for her refusal to reveal the name of the child's father. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife's former lover. He learns that Hester's paramour is a saintly young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth then proceeds to revenge himself by mentally tormenting the guilt-stricken young man. Hester herself is revealed to be a compassionate and splendidly self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for the act of adultery committed with the minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other. In the end Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniac pursuit of revenge, and Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt and publicly confesses his adultery before dying in Hester's arms. Only Hester can face the future optimistically, as she plans to ensure the future of her beloved little girl by taking her to Europe." Here is the action of Asbolus, the ultim ate trespasser am ong the known centaurs... See the words that appear: young girl... illegitimate child... pilloried... adulteress... punishment... illicit... refusal... obsessed... saintly... revenge... tormenting... guilt... compassionate... self-reliant heroine [conjunct Sun]... never repentant... consecrated... morally degraded... monomaniac... broken... confession... dying in her arms... her beloved little girl... JULES VERNE Louis Rodden A.B.C (and also IHL Taeger) has Jules Verne's chart. He was born February 8th, 1828, at 12:06 UT: MC = 15° Aquarius Sun = 18°46' Aquarius Mercury = 22°44' Aquarius He has Asbolus in 18°45' Leo -- in exact opposition (1') to his Sun. This m akes Asbolus very powerful, the m ain key to his destiny, his genius, his creativity, his transcendence... Maybe we wouldn't be wrong in describing Jules Verne as a visionary and clairvoyant, a "seer". He is the father of m odern science fiction. According to the Britannica, <<he foresaw a number of scientific devices and developments, including the submarine, the aqualung, television, and space travel.>> Verne *broke through* the cognitive lim its of his generation and *foresaw* the future, as if his creativity and visionary capacity had no boundaries. He died when Asbolus was in 21°27' Leo (March 24th, 1905, precession-corrected). In conjunction with its natal place. This is m eaningful, and "rounds" his life. The titles of som e of his books are very telling regarding this farthest-reaching (m axim um eccentricity) of the Centaurs: "Journey to the Center of The Earth", "From the Earth to The Moon", "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", "Five W eeks in a Ballon", "The Mysterious Island", "Around The W orld in Eighty Days", etc. All of them are related: the farthest you can go, the deepest, the highest, the fastest, the widest, etc. I don't have Jules Verne's "20 000 Leagues Under the Sea Bottom " to quote from , but I have a cd with a striking com position for organ and soprano by a British nam ed Gavin Bryars, called "The Black River", with a text from Jules Verne's description in that book about journeying over the tenebrous ocean bed. The cd notes rem ark that <<it entails first and last things, and Bryars is in the mark in pointing out that in this passage Verne's prose, far from descending to the descriptive fact-finding and name-and-number-listing it was accused of, is a very "pure" poetry, awakening awe, if not exactly transcendence. Unsurprisingly, the marvels and mysteries revealed to the encapsulated travellers through the unconscious waters provoke musical techniques...>> Then, we take this symbolism and apply it to everyday's lives. Not "pretty" or "happy" things, for sure. MABEL COLLINS The writer Mabel Collins, born Sept 9th, 1851 at 8h40m GMT (according to Alan Leo in "Notable Nativities", who knew her personally), has the Moon in 2°52' Pisces and Asbolus in 4°44'R Pisces. This is a strong doubly applying conjunction!. She was a clairvoyant, theosophist and writer, author of an emotionally appalling little book: "A Light on The Path", which is an occult classic. Here are the first few sentences when you open it: <<These rules are written for all disciples. Attend you to them: Before the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears.