tom - yes to the similarities in their piano playing.. their compositional strengths differed more noticeably.. lush life is such a beautiful song that seems to help describe billy strayhorns life in many respects..

nixx - i think classical and strings more with neptune, and like you say more uranus with the jazz.. how would you define this with just the planets out to saturn? i would go with saturn/venus, but perhaps the heavy emphasis on rhythm could go to the moon which is a strong part to jazz music.. i play drums and i might be mistaken, but i note an usually high degree of drummers with cancer, capricorn more pronounced.. perhaps moon and saturn play an important role for rhythm, and one would think mars might enter the picture too..

an interesting chart to consider would be roy haynes who is still alive and kind of like the godfather of jazz drumming having played with parker on up to the present, remaining very youthful at 87 years of age this march 13 1925.. he is born in boston, but i don't have a time of day for his birth unfortunately.

Deb wrote: I hadn't even noticed until now that Mercury is in strong aspect to the MC and Venus too (MC at 21 Pisces, Venus 23 Cap, Mercury, 24 Scorpio)

FYI, this is what Ptolemy says in his 4th book of the Tetrabiblos (from Ashmand's ed because it was easy to grab the text off the web):

Further, should it happen that two arbiters of employment may be found together, and provided they should be Mercury and Venus, they will then produce musicians, melodists, and persons engaged in music, poetry, and songs.

deb - a few of us noted this on the first couple of pages of this thread.. the funny thing is chart 2 has the same set up if you take a look...

yes to the similarities in their piano playing.. their compositional strengths differed more noticeably.. lush life is such a beautiful song that seems to help describe billy strayhorns life in many respects..

Lush Life is unique.

Jill Elinore wrote:

I think using the outers is completely compatible with traditional astrology excepting using them for rulership. They neednt interfere with the elegant traditonal model of rulerships that way and it isnt a discomfort for me to not use them, just a jigsaw with lots of pieces missing or a drama without the supporting cast. If the ancients had been able to see them with the naked eye (uranus the exception there when opposing the sun), they would surely have used them.

That is surely the point. The outers are essentially invisible to the naked eye. In ancient astrology the visual was far more important than it is today. Hence, the ancient and medieval astrologers considered the brightest fixed stars as the most important. I think that most of the great philosophical astrologers of the past would have argued that the soul perceives divine intent through the images that we see. Kepler in particular wrote a great deal about how the eye is the instrument through which the divine intention of the Creator is received. Other great astrologers influenced by such naturalism were Ptolemy and Morin. The excessive emphasis on the outers in modern astrology symbolizes the breakdown in the ancient focus on the eye as the window of the soul.

The fact we can see the outers with telescopes or track their orbits with computers doesn't change the difference between them and the seven visible planets. While I do work with the outer planets I think that as invisible points they should be treated with more caution than the seven traditional planets in natal astrology.

Mark

But the reality is they are there. The physical existence of something is unarguable; the writings of Kepler, Morin and Ptolemy and all that came before are thoughts based on ideas of reality solely on man making sense of the world to the best of their ability with a smattering of facts based on what they can see and what they perceive or assume. There is no doubt that the ancients had knowledge far beyond our understanding of 'how' they came to the conclusions they did, for example that mars is connected to iron and venus to copper and science has confirmed that those planets have an abundance of those elements in reality. They discovered minutiae by painstakingly observing correllations of how their earthly reality was affected by all sorts of phenomena but man imposing his structure and concept of the universe (see also religion) is limited. The notion that anything that happened beyond saturn (I think they called the space beyond Ouranus) had no affect on the earth was the theory based on probably not very much apart from that was gods territory (whoever s/he is). The philosophers were only philosophising, a love of the pursuit of wisdom doesnt equate to a mastering of it.

deb - a few of us noted this on the first couple of pages of this thread.. the funny thing is chart 2 has the same set up if you take a look...

Hi James - the difference is that Venus and Mercury are not of equal significance to chart 1. Mercury is supporting the music association but Venus is dominating over that angle witha tight aspect, powerful phase and dignity rulership. Nothing like that occurs in chart 2.

Hi Jill

My feeling on this is that if I'd seen Pluto on the asc it would have coloured my view of the chart from the start. I'm glad I didn't approach the chart like that, because I think I understand the chart better for looking more closely at how the 7 planets were arranged by themselves. Afterwards, the knowledge that Pluto is rising adds an extra tone to the chart. The outers have no concepts of accidental modification, so all the rich detail attached to the visible planets cannot be applied to them. Even their retrograde motion offers little meaning since it cannot be observed - the ancients sources explain that in reality, none of the planets are moving backwards. It is a backwards motion that we perceive, like a 'sign', and we take meaning from it because of the way it appears to us. So whilst in reality the outers are there, what matters most in astrology is what we can interpret based on altered states of brilliance, appearance and motion. To me it is important that we understand the elevated role that the luminaries hold above all other astrological planets, and also that the special role that the 7 traditional planets play don't get underestimated by them becoming regarded as just '7 of the 10'.

Hi Deb

If the outers are not personalised in any way, much can be gleaned from a chart without them. I believe a lot can be gleaned from a chart without even the asc/mc. Obviously, some charts are so much more interesting than others and these usually provide us with the most 'interesting' personalities and are easier to read. For me, the relationships between the planets provide the most information. Rulerships are interesting but with the variance in house system usage can become almost pointless because we are all choosing which system/s we prefer and ultimately everything is diluted as a result. I do think though in Brubecks chart, his strength of personality provided by pluto on asc allowed him to express his chart in a way that would have been much harder otherwise. I think cancer rising with moon in scorpio is a very harsh deal, squaring mars could make someone impossible! But pluto so fundamentaly placed is one who can overcome and whether we can see that planet or not, to my mind is irrelevant, its is Personal (with capital p).

I believe outers come into their own though via transits (including those to midpoint). To me, this is undeniable and I am equally as interested in the movement of planets to the natal than the natal itself as a blueprint. That the outers cannot be observed in their slow retrogrades or transits and are therefore less for it is not an idea that I feel is justified but I understand the thought process behind it.

The assertion that the ancients or early modern astrologers would have used the outer planets if they knew about them because "they are there" is by no means certain and in fact the more I think about it, the more I think they wouldn't have used them. We know about other planets or bodies in space and don't use them.

Deb said it best when she noted that

that the special role that the 7 traditional planets play don't get underestimated by them becoming regarded as just '7 of the 10'.

Giving the three outer planets the same significance as the 7 visible planets brings the wrecking ball to the traditional system. Some people may think that's fine. I'm not one of them and this Forum was set up to use that system. But I'll repeat because I think it is worth repeating. Modern astrologers don't simply use the outer three planets, they go after them first and usually to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Noel Tyl teaches this. His method of reading a chart is mostly looking for aspects between the three outers (and Saturn) with the remaining classical planets. Venus - Mercury contacts that we discussed in depth don't merit a yawn. From what I've seen of Modern delineation, Mercury merits about as much attention from them as Chiron does from me.

I think if it was sprung on Morin that there were three planets outside the orbit of Saturn his head would have exploded. Rather than "Oh gee I guess I have to use them," he would have been more likely to rationalize them out of his existence, or he would have given up astrology altogether. OF course I can't possibly know this for a fact any more than anyone else can possibly know the opposite. The idea that these three planets would have been woven seamlessly into the old system displays a lack of understanding of that system and how it applied to the worldview. Astrology was part of a larger and coherent worldview. Modern astrology is a sideshow in today's worldview. That difference alone should send people scurrying from Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Im just on my way out and would like to respond more, Tom but for now will just say I think your reference to 'worldVIEW' is essential here. The worldview from the Greeks onwards should not imo send us scurrying from anything, why should its confines limit us to anything. The planets were there before any worldview or indeed the study of astrology. All unknowns should be a work in progress, shouldnt they?

Jill, I'm very glad you've joined us, but being new you may not have read this yet: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1877

It explains why this forum is reserved for discussion of traditional techniques, so it isn't the right place to develop more discussion on the outer planets than we've already had in this thread. I'm not trying to prohibit you but most members here are aware of the issues and want a place to keep the focus on understanding and applying traditional principles. You are welcome to expand your views and generate a new discussion in the general nativities forum if you want to though.

Deb

deb

thanks for clarifying that for me.. i can see how mercury is more involved in brubecks chart as oriental planet rising ahead of sun, which doesn't happen in chart 2.. the planetary phase relationship which you have articulated previously i can see as well.. i considered the aspects to midheaven, but can see that was incomplete without this additional info..

Okay, apologies.