Mythic Zodiac

February 2015 Forecast

Read my latest article, Bill Cosby and the Goat-God Pan

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Here is a blog post from a witch in my home state of Maryland giving the archetypal goddesses of Downton Abby. Now why didn't I think of that? Well, it may be because I hate Downton Abby. I tried to watch it but the whining got to me and Mary's monotone voice drove me nuts. There is nothing worse than to hear someone whine in monotone. But I know there are a lot of Downton Abby fans out there so enjoy. 

Since Saturn has been in Sagittarius since Dec 23, 2014, I am hearing a lot of whining from Sagittarians, the sign of fun, freedom, gypsies, vagabonds and travelers. Dear Sadges, all Saturn wants to see is WORK. This is a time where you can get some really important work done. With your natural creative talent plus Saturn, I expect some really great original output during this 2 ½ year period. Saturn left Scorpio on Dec 23 and there were big sighs of relief from the Scorpios out there. Scorpip's life is hard enough without Saturn being in their sign. But dear Scorpios, Saturn will move back into your sign on June 14 to Sep 17, 2015. So you have some leftover work to do. 

Saturn Transit in Sagittarius is Dec 23, 2014 to June 14, 2015 and Sept 17, 2015 to December 19, 2017. 

This is a fairly calm month, but we are still in orb of the 7^th and last Pluto Square Uranus which will be exact on March 17. This month they are only 1 degree away from being exact. So we will see more battles between freedom and oppression this month and next. 

Mercury is retrograde until Feb 11. Mercury went retrograde in Aquarius on January 21. All of you Aquarians out there have been running back and forth, not knowing what you were doing or where you were going. Aquarians are usually this way anyway, but Mercury is making it worse.

 But the good news just in time for Valentines Day is Mars and Venus doing the hoochie coochie early this month in Pisces. Now Pisces is an emotional, sensitive sign that can be a little shy. But with Venus and Mars in their sign, they could pull off the Great Seduction of the 21^st Century. Don't put it past them. On the 21^st of this month, Mars and Venus continue their tango in Aries. There is no stopping Aries, they don't need Mars or Venus to increase their libido, it is out of control anyway. 

Dates to Watch: 

Feb 1 – Venus Conjunct Neptune at 6 Pisces. Now I am an equal opportunity astrologer and try to treat all of the planets as equal, but just between the two of us, I really don't like Neptune. He can cause confusion, self-delusion, illusions and all kinds of nasty stuff. On Venus he can be a real problem. You can fall hopelessly in love today with a Pisces, an artist, a dreamer or all three. Wait a few days before flying off to Vegas to get married. 

Feb 3 – Full Moon at 14 Leo/Aquarius at 6 PM. This is a Full Moon of opportunity since the Moon trines Uranus. This is great for original creative work. 

Feb 6 – Sun Opposite Jupiter at 17 Aquarius/Leo. You may exaggerate today in the stories you tell others. Something that you thought was a bargain may turn out to be a wild extravagance. You may be totally out of control with unrealistic expectations especially if you have personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) or the ascendant at 17 Leo or Aquarius. 

Feb 11 – Mercury goes direct at 9:47 AM at 1 degrees of Aquarius. If you have personal planets or the Ascendant at 1 degree of Aquarius, you may be confused today, losing your keeps, locking yourself out of the house and just generally walking around in circles. 

Feb 14 – Valentines Day. Put off the romantic dinner until Feb 22. 

Feb 18 - New Moon at 6:47 PM at 29 Aquarius. A New Moon is a perfect time to do a ritual and plant the seeds of what you want to bring into your life. 

Sun enters Pisces until Mar 20. A time of the year where we want to retreat. We are extra sensitive to other people and to animals. Watch out for being victimized during this sign. 

Feb 19 – Mars enters Aries until March 31. Check the house of your birth chart that contains the sign of Aries. During this transit of Mars you will get activated and can accomplish a lot in the are of life that the house rules. Check here for the meaning of the houses. 

Feb 20 – Venus enters Aries until March 17. Venus is joining Mars in a seductive dance. Look at your Aries house, this is area of life you will want to beatify and where you may meet the love of your life. 

Feb 22 – Venus conjunct Mars at 1 degree of Aries. The goddess of Love and the God of sex are meeting up here. If you have personal planets or the Ascendant at 1 degree of Aries, don't stay home! Go out and circulate. 

Feb 23 – Sun Square Saturn at 3 degrees of Pisces/Sagittarius. This is a downer today. Don't take risks You may become disillusioned by someone. But it is a good day to challenge authority but you could lose. 

Feb 24 – Venus trine Saturn. You may hear from a friend you haven't seen in quite a long time. A good day for commitment in a relationship.

Feb 25 – Mars trine Saturn. You may tackle an important job today that takes concentration and discipline. You can do it. 

Sun conjunct Neptune at 7 Pisces. Neptune rules escape from reality, so if the weather is OK today, take a trip to the beach or a lake. Neptune likes the water. 

OUTER PLANET TRANSITS: 

JUPITER is in Leo until August 2015. This month Jupiter is retrograde will move from 18 Leo to 14 Leo. Jupiter is about growth and expansion. Look to the house in your natal chart that holds 14 to 18 degrees of Leo. During Jupiter Retrograde we are more interested in inner growth than we are in outward expansion. 

SATURN is in Sagittarius until Dec 2018. (He will move back into Scorpio on June 16, 2015 until Sep 19, 2015.) This month Saturn moves from 3 degrees of Sagittarius to 4 degrees of Sagittarius. If you have the ascendant or any personal planets 3 to 4 degrees of Sagittarius or Gemini in your natal chart, you may be in store for some hard lessons around the issues ruled by the planet and the house the planet is in or rules. While Saturn is in Sagittarius, Saturn is asking about your plans for the future, your religious beliefs and what meaning have you found for your life. 

URANUS is in Aries until 2018.  This month Uranus will move from 13 t0 14 degrees of Aries all month. We all feel a need to rebel; we want more freedom and want to make some radical changes in our life.  I believe in “cooperating with the inevitable”.  If you have Uranus in a challenging aspect to your ascendant or personal planets, go on a long vacation, move, or make some major changes in your life. 

NEPTUNE (creativity, sensitivity, escapism, dreams) is in Pisces until 2026. He will move from 6 to 7 degrees of Pisces this month. A lack of focus, a sense of drifting or an inability to see a betrayal or disappointment until it's too late can be experienced by those of you with the Sun or Personal Planets at 6 to 7 degrees of Pisces or Virgo. For the enlightened out there, Neptune can also bring artistic, musical, creative expression, increased dreams and spiritual insights. Watch for some really inspired films to come out during the time Neptune is in Pisces. 

PLUTO is in Capricorn until 2023.  This month Pluto is moving direct and will stay at 14 degrees of Capricorn. Everyone is feeling the urge to purge and to find his or her truth.  Profound changes will be felt especially by those with Sun, ascendant or personal planets at 14 degrees of Capricorn or Cancer. 

 

Have a good month,

 

Janet Kane

Bill Cosby and the Goat-God Pan

 

We must know the archetypal substructures which govern our reactions; we must recognize the Gods and the myths in which we are embroiled. Without this awareness, our behavior becomes wholly mythic and consciousness a delusion.

--James Hillman

 

There has been a lot of news about rape lately on college campuses and especially the allegations against Bill Cosby. That has set me musing about the meaning and archetype of rape. One of the gods, symbolized by the planet Pluto is Pan. I equate Pluto with Pan because Pan's epithets are lecherous, barbarous, ferocious, rough, unwashed, hairy, black Pan is the god of rape, masturbation, pornography and bestiality. Because of the Uranus/Pluto square, Uranus has been shocking us by revealing one of the the shadow sides of Pluto (Pan).

Pan is half-goat, half-god. He lives in the grottoes and wanders in the mountains and roams the country hunting, dancing, singing and playing his pipe. He has horns, goat legs and a horse's tail and represents the fertility of nature. He is not a god of love--that belongs to Eros. Pan is lewd and lascivious and is the god of lust.

In old Paganism, every part of nature was the domain of a deity. People dreaded walking through the scary woods at night and if they had a sudden fright, they may have believed Pan was around. They called the resultantfeeling “panic”. Pan's stories are full of descriptions of rape and his use of disguises in his pursuits.

 

Mythology without its 'moral depravities' would become a book-religion, a construction or an inspired revelation of ethical dogmas and not the ongoing embodiment of human experience in which pathological patterns cannot help but be incorporated. So it seems myth condones rape as one of the events that must be portrayed by any system adequate to the true range of the soul

--James Hillman

 

There is a Christian tradition that when the heavenly host told the shepherds at Bethlehem of the birth of Christ, there was a deep groan heard through all the isles of Greece that told that the great God Pan was dead, and that all the royalty of Olympus was dethroned and that several deities were sent wandering in cold and darkness. Maybe the rise of “love” foretold the death of Pan. Love has no part in Pan's world. 

 

In “On the Failure of the Oracles” Plutarch reported that The Great God Pan is dead..... The death of Pan coincided with the rise of Christianity. Nature has been deprived of its creative voice..... Pan still lives and not merely in the literary imagination. He lives in the repressed which returns in the psycho-pathologies of instinct which assert themselves….

--James Hillman

 

Pan spent most of his time chasing and raping nymphs if he could catch them.A nymph is a a mythological divine spirit usually depicted as beautifulyoungmaidens who love to dance and sing. Their amorous freedom sets them apart from the restricted and chaste daughters of the ancient Greeks. They are believed to dwell in mountains, groves by springs and rivers, and also in trees and in valleys and pools. The word nymph is where we get the word nymphomaniac because the nymphs were sexually free, but they all rejected Pan because of his ugliness and animal nature. 

 

..Man is not only Western, modern, secular, civilized and sane, but also primitive, archaic, mythical, magical and mad.

--James Hillman

 

Three stories have come down to us that depict Pan's archetypal nature. In the first story, there lived a pretty nymph in the Arcadia mountains by the name of Strinx. She dressed herself to look like Dianna the goddess so that she would be safe in the woods. But her bow was of horn rather than gold. Pan spotted that and started to chase her. The nymph implored the river to come to her aid and change her form and Pan caught up with her and held out his arms to clutch her, but found himself holding reeds. He was disappointed but he joined the reeds together and made them into pipes.

Echo was a nymph who was rejected by Narcissus and lived alone in the woods. Pan chased after her but she ran away from him. He became so angry when she refused him that he created such a "panic" causing a group of shepherds to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over the Earth. The goddess of the Earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. 

Selene was the moon goddess and in order to seduce her Pan covered his hairy animal parts with white sheepskin and in this case the seduction was successful. 

The Christians often use Pan's horns and goat legs in their image of the devil. As the devil, we sent Pan to the underworld where his lewd and lecherous messages are felt in the body and reinterpreted as calls from the devil. But as every good Jungian knows, just because we have buried an archetype it doesn't mean it's gone forever. .

 

The repressed Gods return as the archetypal core of symptom complexes.            –James Hillman

 

Lets see if we can spot Pan in Bill Cosby's natal chart. His chart promises a very successful career because he has Jupiter in the 10^th house. This shows the promise of success and abundance from his chosen vocation. 

Saturn, the ruler of the 10^th house resides in the 12^th house. His public reputation may be totally different from who he really is as he keeps that locked up, hidden and secret in the 12^th house. Saturn rules shameful issues as well as being in denial about them.

 

Bill Cosby has a Sun/Mercury conjunction in Cancer in the 4^th house of home and family. He has an archetype of a home loving, father image. His Mercury in Cancer in the 4^th of home gives him a very easy way of communicating. We feel comfortable with him. Also Mars trines all of his Cancer planets which gives him charm and luck and helps him elicit trust from others. But hidden in the 4^th and sitting right next to the Sun and Mercury is Pluto (Pan). Pluto is also opposing good luck Jupiter in the house of career, which can indicate a potential challenge.

 

The origins and source of myth are as much in the psyche today as in that of the past.

--James Hillman

 

As I mentioned above, we have been experiencing this Uranus Square Pluto since 2011 and it will last until 2016. What I have noticed is that this square has the greatest impact on a person's life if it hits the angles of the natal chart, namely, the Ascendant,( our environment) the IC (our home) the Descendant (our relationships) and the MC (our career). Since 2011, this square has been occurring in the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) between 8 and 15 degrees. 

When Mars (the activator) came along to conjunct Pluto back in Nov 2014, the conjunction hit Bill Cosby's MC at 11 Degrees of Capricorn. This is when the allegations of rape came to the public's attention. The MC is the top angle of the chart and rules the career, our standing in the outer world, and our public face. Rarely have we seen such a sudden and dramatic fall from the limelight. The angles are square each other so when a heavy duty planet hits one angle it reverberates throughout all the angles like a pinball machine. Having Pluto and Mars on the MC affected his surroundings (Ascendant), his family life (IC) and his marriage (Descendant) but the cause of all the disruption was the angle that was hit by the Pluto/Mars conjunction and that was the MC. 

There have been rape allegations against Mr. Cosby for many years, but it did not come out in public until the Pluto/Mars conjunction hit his MC. The date was Nov 10 when Hannibal Buress, a comedian mentioned the rumors on one of his standup comic routines. He had been saying that about Bill Cosby for 6 months, but it didn't go viral until his performance on Nov 11. Barbara Bowman, one of Cosby's alleged victims stated in the Washington Post that she had been telling her story publicly for years, but it took the Mars/Pluto conjunction on the MC to trigger it all. Having transiting Mars and Pluto hit the MC does not mean he is guilty. That aspect can spell death to the reputation for any number of reasons. 

In the other part of the squareUranus is closing in on Cosby's Ascendant and will station there in June, July and August, 2015. Uranus is revelations and shocks. There will be more information about rape allegations against him in the future. 

Transiting Saturn just entered Cosby's 8^th house in December 2014 and Saturn always makes us take responsibility in the area the house rules. The 8^th house rules sex, violence, blackmail and extortion. Saturn says its payback time. 

Rape is always with us. Since it is an archetypal energy it represents psychological rape as well has physical rape. How do we then deal with Pan energy in a civilized world? Rape and other aggressive acts toward women by men are and should be crimes, but we will never eliminate them. We can't send Pan to the underworld. He will escape and keep manifesting in our world. The Greeks and other civilizations immortalized him because he exists and always has existed and probably always will. Yes, we have to deal with this energy. There needs to be a continuing discussion on how to face, acknowledge and respond to this archetype.

 

Janet Kane

 

References:

All James Hillman quotes from Pan and the Nightmare – Two Essays Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher and James Hillman 1972 – Spring Publications 

Bill Cosby, Birth Data, July 12, 1937 at 12:30 AM, Philadelphia, PA