The eternal inexistence of a Greek Astrological Association!

                                                         (photo by Victor Bayon)

If "actions talk louder than words" then inactions should talk loud too! A single "inaction" is describing vividly the current situation of astrology in Greece: it is 2012 and we still don't have a national Astrological Association (Federation, Union e.t.c.) in our country - which is actually considered the cradle of the modern horoscopic astrology! It has never been formed one, although astrology is extensively practiced in Greece at least for the last 40 years. Why this phenomenon of the "eternal inexistence" of a pan-hellenic association within the Greek astrological community?

Greek painter "Tsarouchis" (an Aquarian) once said: "In modern Greece you are (professionally, socially) whatever you claim to be". Laws are rather loosly applied in my country. Combine this with the fact that Greece is the poorest country in Western Europe - going now through a titanic crisis - and with the fact that astrology renders VERY WELL in Greece - twice to thrice the average wages and in several cases 5 - 10 times the average wages!) and then you will realize why so many crafty people claim today TO BE ASTROLOGERS in Greece! Thus, a huge circuit of lucrative, uncultured "astrologers" is dominating the scene, putting aside, marginalizing, calumniating and even intimidating the (actually few) cultured Astrologers (who are seen as a major threat to these people's' interests).

Maybe you begin to understand now why there is no national Astrological Federation or Association in Greece. Because such an "inexistence" is utterly convenient to the many powerful and largely self-proclaimed "astrologers" and to the various cliques in Greece!

In 2009 an (apparently not very honest - as you can see here and here) attempt was made to establish a pan-hellenic Greek Astrological Association. A seven members preliminary committee was elected in order to pave the way for the establishment of the Association and I was voted - by the Greek astrologers that were present there - as a member of this committee. When we discussed the crucialncertification issue I advocated the view that only those astrologers who would pass the relative exams - proving thus their knowledge and their general formation - should be certified. But the majority of the committee was opposing this proposal of mine, claiming that the basic premise for an astrologer to be certified should be him/her working for more than 5 years in the astrological phone line services or seeing clients for more than 5 years. If somebody covered this premise then s/he should automatically be certified as an astrologer without taking any kind of exams!

The funny thing is that after a few days the (opposing to me) majority of this committee issued - on their own -  a resolution expelling me from the committee on the (utterly false) ground that "Thomas Gazis was not collaborating with the committee but was only promoting his personal interests"! And although they expelled me substituting me with another Greek astrologer, in consequence, this committee did not accomplish any kind of work at all! Instead, after a while, it was "dissolved in silence"  by its members (who in this way they actually sold out the vision of a national Greek Astrological Association)!

I autumn 2011 the very same individuals who were responsible for the "silent dissolution" of the seven members committee established (together with some close "friends" of theirs) a private - and apparently lucrative - astrological club named "Pame Astrologia" (you may read about it here).

The unnerving reality is that there are so many crafty people and "cliques" today controlling the greek astrological scene - and so huge financial and "domination" kind of interests at stake - that I don't think a true/democratic national Greek Astrological Association will be established in the near future - at least not within the the next 20-30 years!

You see, Aquarius is the sign of the zodiac that rules authentic associations (the genuine, democratic ones). Aquarius is a humanistic sign that symbolizes unwavering brotherhood and that represents in general a quite elevated and enlightened state of mind. Thus, when Aquarian associations are absent from a country or community, it suggests two things:

1. that certain vested interests (which represent Capricorn's lower side) are over-dominant in that country, at the expenses of the collective!
   
   
2. the absence in that "community" of a "fraternal spirit", which in its turn implies the absence of elevated and enlightened people within that "community"!

Thomas Gazis
Copyright: Thomas D. Gazis

James Holmes' (the "Joker") horoscope - and the Virgonian Moon of the 3 recent mass murderers!

                                                        (James Holmes at court)

If your astrological idea of a mass murderer is that of a "Martian" individual having a very tough Moon then you should rather revise that idea! James Homes, the 24 years old man that recently killed 12 persons in the Aurora Colorado movie theater apparently has a "placid" horoscope! Very appropriately, the (solar) sign of this so called "Joker" (the fictitious personality Holmes was identifying himself with) is Sagittarius! Sagittariuses are famous for being "good guys"! They are depicted as extroverted, exuberant, moral, well intentioned and ever forgiving to their fellow humans! Apparently, Holmes bears some of these characteristics. As a high school acquaintance of his stated: "Holmes was A SUPER NICE KID!" Well, that description perfectly fits a Sagittarian!

Could his Moon sign be then the culprit? Not really! Actually, neither his Moon nor his Sun sign are the "culprits" - on their own. Although we don't know the exact time of his birth, the "Joker's" Moon is most probably in the sign of Virgo! But Virgo is again considered as one of the less aggressive and belligerent signs of the zodiac! Some even describe it as an "angelic" sign! We are getting confused here! The two basic Holmes' signs are rather "innocent", "refined", frail, placid, moral! How comes then this man turned to be such a monstruous murderer?

In my opinion the "pivotal" configuration in Holmes' chart is the square aspect (90 degrees of distance) between his Sun and his Moon! No matter what time Holmes was born, his Sun is definitely forming a harsh square aspect to his Moon (or the reverse)! And the square aspect between the "Luminaries" (Sun and Moon) is considered one of the heaviest aspects in a chart - because it somehow blocks the energies that should be flawing unhindered in the individual and it causes a clash between the conscious and subconsious layers of him/herself! Under this aspect a sort of "rupture" may manifest within the invidual, a rupture between his core personality and his "psyche" (his inner "Universe" of feelings and states of mind)! And this might ultimately breed a profound sense of alienation in him! (Please note: this does not mean that if you have a square aspect between your Sun and Moon you are going to get "alienated" or become a mass murderer. It means instead that you have to work with yourself in order to transform this difficult aspect and convey such an "expenditure" into creative outlets! You might enormously enrich yourself then and perform miracles!)

Holmes' chart brought to my mind the chart of another mass murderer: the Norwegian's Anders Breivik who in 2011 killed - on a single raid - 77 people! They both have Moon in Virgo - forming a harsh aspect to Saturn! The Virgonian Moon is an earthy and realistic one - not particularly sentimental. And when this Moon forms a harsh aspect to Saturn it becomes even less sentimental - while the person becomes more cold-blooded, somehow loosing - in the most extreme cases - the very human trait of empathy!

The common Virgonian Moons of these two mass murderers contributed to another fundamental attribute of theirs: the high level of their technical expertise! Both Holmes and Breivik became - on their own - two skilled bomb technicians - and that's no easy task at all! Actually, Holmes's apartment was rigged with so many small bombs that his whole condominium could be blown apart!

The similarities between these two mass murderers do not end here: they both have a Mars - Pluto contact! In particular Holmes has a rather "deadly" conjunction between his Mars and Pluto, a conjunction that produces - unless given some creative outlet - TITANIC anger and aggressiveness in an individual's soul! Breivik has a Sun - Mars conjunction and that kind of aspect produces a lot of anger  too (and rebellion in Breivik's case, since both these planets are located in the unconventional sign of Aquarius).

Thomas Gazis
Copyright: Thomas D. Gazis  

P.S. 1) As I said before, if you have any of the here mentioned aspects and configurations it does not mean you will become an unstable person or a mass murderer. If we work with ourselves and maturily deal with our harsh configurations - finding positive outlets for them - then we might turn them to our advantage!

P.S. 2) A couple of weeks after the Aurora tragic event we got to know James Holmes' time of birth. It is 9:04 Pm.  He has a Leo Ascendant (you may see his chart below):

Thus James Holmes has a strong Sagittarius - Leo emphasis. This fact brought to my mind a controversial historical figure that had too a strong Sagittarius - Leo emphasis in his chart: Nero! Apparently, they both exhibited paranoid / megalomaniac traits! They even look alike:

                                                             James Holmes

                                                                     Nero

P.S. 3) This James Holmes article somehow turns into a study on mass murderers. Just two weeks after the Aurora theater tragic events another manic shooter, Wade Michael Page, entered a Sikh temple in Milwaukee and  started shooting indiscriminately the people around him killing 6.

Apparently, Michael Page is joining the "Virgo Moon" club! If he was really born on November 11th (on the veteran's day), 1971 he has then a Virgo Moon - most probably in a square aspect to his Saturn! Actually Page (apart from belonging to an ultra "fixed" sign like Scorpio) has a "mega" T-square - formed between his Moon, Saturn, Mars and Neptune.

As I explained above, the other two recent mass murderers James Holmes and Andres Breivik have their Moon in Virgo too! How comes the placid and "angelic" sign of Virgo is so prominent in the charts of the three recent mass murderers? Maybe because Virgo is "too placid"! Remember we are talking about a "young maiden" here, about a little girl! A young girl has not yet gone through the "full maturity process". It is full of insecurities and it somehow stands on a fragile and unstable soil (no wonder Virgo is a mutable sign).

Virgoneans are in general  ultra-sensitive to the other peoples' criticism. We are dealing here with a "feminine", sensitive, discreet sign that in critical issues prefers to remain deadly implicit rather than become explicit about them! Thus, ultimately a Virgo Moon absorbs any kind of "negativity" stemming out of its environment in a rather "passive way", without RE-ACTING the very moment it receives the negativity (as most people do - and that's quite healthy if properly done)! This means that in the long run the anger in a Virgonean Moon person builds up! And if s/he doesn't "dissipate" this constant anger in a rather healthy manner (usually through hard work and in general by serving his/her fellow humans) the person might reach a point where a morbid layer of "meaniness" forms in his/her soul. And if this is combined with other "volatile" elements in his/her chart (like Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto harsh aspects) then a very explosive mix will be produced!

Breivik's, Holmes' and Page's Virgo Moons are all forming harsh aspects to their Saturns! All the three recent mass murderers having the very same Moon configuration, well that's quite rare!!

Thomas Gazis
Copyright: Thomas D. Gazis

A "birth" on the Moon (Moon-centric astrology)!

The chart above might look pretty ordinary to you. In reality though it is a chart that - most probably - you have never seen before! It refers to a momentous event that took place in 1969 on the Moon: the first step of a human being on another celestial body! What you see above is a "snapshot" of the lunar sky, that shows the configuration of the planets the very moment Neil was stepping on the powderish lunar surface! So, we actually have here the first "Moon-centric" horoscope, an horoscope calculated not with terrestrial but lunar co-ordinates (the ones of the Tranquility Base - "Statio Tranquillitatis")!

As you can see, there is no Moon in this horoscope (the Moon is symbolically located at the center and the "energies" of the entire horoscope are focused on it)! There is an "Earth" instead (you can see it at the top right, in the Eighth House. Its symbol is a cross incribed in a cycle)! But how do we interpret the Earth astrologically? This question has never truly bothered the astrologers of the previous generations. As they were standing on the Earth they were not perceiving it as a celestial body floating in space. Thus, no astrologer ever was forced to figure the astrological properties of the Earth! But we are in the 21st century, things have radically changed and the events have already surpassed us! Twelve human beings have already visited the Moon (four decades ago in fact), they walked and lived on the Moon (some of them for four whole days). In a couple of decades babies will be born on the Moon. And we earthlings have not yet developed a Moon-centric astrology! Thus, we are confronted now with the chart of the first human step on the Moon but we cannot interpret it properly because we actually ignore the astrological meaning of the Earth in a Moon-centric horoscope! All of the sudden our old tools grew inadequate...

It takes a giant leap to move from the Geocentric astrology to the Mooncentric one (and a far smaller leap to move then to a Mars-centric, Plutocentric etc. astrology. Our eventual grandchildren will be accustomed to this kind of astrologies)! Still, we will need another giant leap when we will move to the "Exo-astrology" - the astrology for the planets of those strange Solar Systems we are currently discovering. How will we deal with the alien planets of these systems and their eventual alien zodiacs? But ultimately the zodiacs of these remote to us solar systems are they alien or are they identical to our zodiac? Most probably, when we will go there we will confirm our current assumption that the zodiac is an omnipresent universal principle, exactly the same in every single corner of the Universe...

For the time being, our imperative need is to determine the astrological properties of the Earth! Is the Earth a sort of "Moon" to the Mooncentric astrology, a planet associated to the "cradle", to the roots of the "Mooners", to their past, their "inner world", their soul's particular features? This "riddle" is one of the first we have to solve in order to formulate a proper mooncentric astrology...

To turn back to our horoscope, this "first human step on the Moon" event has (according to my calculations) a Leo Ascendant. A brilliant, regal Ascendant which is further strenghthened by the ultra-propitious trine aspect that the Earth and the planetoid (planet to astrology) Eris are forming with it! Ultimately, this Leo Ascendant is not irrelevant to the fact that the first moon-landing turned to be a glamorous TV show that attracted the largest number of viewers till then - 600,000,000 across the globe!

There is an oddity though regarding the Ascendants of the future Mooners. This oddity stems out of the fact that the Moon is not rotating around its axis as fast as the Earth. It takes almost 28 days for it to perform a full rotation. This fact has some strange implications. I.e. a "day" on the Moon lasts almost fourteen of our days (for 14 whole days the Sun is located constantly either below or above the horizon)! And what is astrologically more important, all the children born within a frame of two days and a half bear the very same Ascendant, ALL of them (that's an interesting "synchronicity" with the fact that - seen from Earth - the Moon spends two days and a half in each zodiacal sign)!

The "synchronous" rotation of the Moon (it rotates around its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth) produces another paradoxical effect: in any given Lunar location the Earth seems to be eternally fixed at approximately the same point of the lunar sky, as if it were "stuck" there! This implies that the Earth is changing alright zodiacal signs every two days and a half but not Houses - in the lunar horoscopes! Therefore, all children born in a particular lunar location would have their Earth in the very same House of their horoscope or - on few occasions - in an adjacent one! And as a result of this "fixity" the Earth almost never "transits" in a Mooncentric horoscope (it does transit actually but just within a few degrees frame)! All these "oddities" must have their own intrinsic astrological meaning which we should decipher!

Why is there - for example - such a "spatial fixity" of the Earth in the Mooncentric horoscopes? Why is the Earth permanently emphasizing a particular House in all the horoscopes of the people born in a particular lunar zone? Why i.e. all the people born in a certain lunar zone should have an Eight House Earth in their horoscopes - regardless of the time period they were born? Is that lunar zone particularly dangerous and life threating, invoking thus the presence there of strong, risky and sexy inhabitants - meaning with an Eighth House Earth in their horoscopes? And how the majority of these "Eighth House people" will be treating the eventual minority of the "Seventh or Ninth House people" living in their zone? These are interesting - probably vital - questions and we must find adequate answers to them.

The position of the Earth in a Mooncentric horoscope can be easily found: it is the opposite of the position that the Moon has in the corresponding Geocentric horoscope. Thus, the first thing we have to do is to cast a Geocentric horoscope for the same "Universal Time" (U.T.) our lunar event took place. Then we should note and write down the position of the Moon in it. In the corresponding Mooncentric horoscope the Earth will be located at the diametrically opposite sign, at about the same degree (i.e. if the terrestrial Moon is in the 11th degree of Libra then the corresponding lunar Earth will be in the 11th degree Aries)! I said "at about the same degree" because on Earth's surface the Moon's position may vary up to a whole degree, depending on the particular terrestrial location we are observing it from. You see the Moon is very close to us - in comparison to the other planets - so its zodiacal position changes slightly if we observe it from two distant terrestrial locations. On the other hand, the zodiacal positions of the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars seen from the Moon are almost the same as seen from the Earth. They vary only by a few tens of minutes. The other planets are so far away that they do not present significant differences.

For the rest, I think we should interpret a Mooncentric horoscope the same way we interpret a Geocentric one. We cannot fail to notice i.e. in this "first human step on another celestial body" chart the tight Jupiter - Uranus conjunction (both planets are in the same degree)! We couldn't get a more ideal planetary configuration for this unique event, a configuration expressing so neatly the expansion of the human species in space! And this conjunction becomes even more important if we observe that it coincides with one of the "fingers" of an impressive planetary formation called "Yod" - composed in this case by Sedna (on the base of Yod), by the Jupiter - Uranus duette at the one "finger" of the Yod and by Mars at its other. All these planets are located at about the first degree of the signs that they are in and they mutually activate each other, participating in the formation of two powerful quincunx aspects (Sedna is forming a quincunx - 150 degrees - aspect to both Jupiter-Uranus and to Mars!

Another important factor in this chart is the tight conjunction of the Earth to the planet Eris (planetoid Eris is actually considered a "planet" in astrology). Although we can make some assumptions, in reality we ignore both the astrological properties of Earth and Eris, thus we cannot say much about this pivotal conjunction. All we can say is that this is a VERY significant conjunction - especially if we take in consideration the fact that Pluto is forming a square aspect to it! Pluto and Eris are two "universal" and somehow "fatal" planets, harboring very strong and "transforming" energies in them. And indeed enormous energies have been consumed for the first man to reach the moon - not to mention that this has been a very transformative event, an event of unprecedented proportions in the evolution of the human species!

Thomas D. Gazis
Copyright: Thomas D. Gazis

P.S. Since there is no Mooncentric astrology program - as far as I know -  I had to calculate the positions of the Mooncentric planets on my own. As I explained before they do not differ much from their - same Universal Time - Geocentric positions. I am using the Equal House system.

Higgs Boson: the astrology of its discovery

An historical scientific discovery was made yesterday, 4th of July! The nuclear physicists of the C.E.R.N. collider confirmed the existence of a mysterious - vital to the fabric of our world - particle called "the Higgs Boson". This particle is actually the agent that bestows mass to the constituents of an atom - thus it is ultimately bestowing mass to all of us humans, to the celestial bodies, to the very Universe! This might be a once in a century discovery!

You can see below the chart set for the moment this remarkable discovery was announced by the "Reuters" news agency: 

The two main astrological factors that "bred" this discovery are - in my opinion - Pluto in Capricorn and Uranus in Aries. Pluto has a lot to do with the nuclear particles and its presence in the "scientific" sign of Capricorn would definitely bring out a new discovery regarding the sub-atomic particles (note that the Moon was too in the scientific sign of Capricorn). Uranus in Aries on the other hand is ever bringing forth new and exciting discoveries (especially when Uranus is perfectly trining Mercury, like it does in our case)! This discovery was made during a perfect (partile) square aspect between Pluto and Uranus (both in the 8th degree now of the respective signs they are in). I don't thing that's a coincidence. This historical Pluto - Uranus configuration is unleashing now tremendous, ground breaking energies!

Another pair of planets that played a fundamental role in this discovery is Saturn - Eris. Eris is an "ultra-universal" planet and its current contact with Saturn (they form a perfect opposition aspect, both being in the 22nd degree of the signs they are in - Aries and Libra) ultimately brought an elusive universal element into our earthy, tangible, laboratory dimensions.

Neptune in Pisces (in the very sign it rules) has its share too in this discovery, since the "Higgs Boson" is the very constituent of the so called "Higgs sea" that permeates the entire Universe - and seas (all kind of them) have a lot to do with Neptune! 

Neptune was squaring both Nodes and Jupiter at the moment of the discovery.

Thomas Gazis