Why All This Nonsense?

 

February 17, 2006

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/feb17.html

 

Dear Eric,

I stumbled on your Q & A section via Jonathan's website today and read with interest what you were cooking up there, especially relating to Eric H., the guy who thought his grandfather was living through him and responsible for his sexual issues.

 

Now, as a fellow professional astrologer, I have just one question: why all this nonsense about Nessus and Quaoar, one an asteroid among the thousands and the other a planet not researched at all as of yet?

 

Simple astrology would have done very nicely: father signified by the 4th house with Aries on IC > Mars in 8th, sextile Pluto in the 10th house of conscious identification. Grandfather: 4th house away from the 4th > DC > Gemini > ruler Mercury in Scorpio in the 10th (again, that with which we consciously identify) and in out-of-sign conjunction with said Pluto.

 

Just a thought…

 

Best wishes

 

Helene

 

 

Dear Helene,

 

Thanks for your explanation of Eric H.'s chart using traditional astrology.

 

One of the themes of this column is the minor planets. But a more dominant theme is that we practice client-centered astrology. In other words, the responses are about the clients, their lives and experiences, rather than exclusively focusing on the technical points of the astrology. We do not merely point out the astrological aspects involved.

 

There are many ways to approach a chart. Personally, I use minor planets because of their specificity to subject matter, their depth, and their ability to address newly defined ideas and issues that we are looking at in current times.

 

Nessus is not an asteroid. It is the third Centaur planet, discovered in 1993. The Centaur class began with Chiron, though it was not designated until the discovery of the second Centaur, Pholus, in 1992. Nessus was the first planetary body that was named by a committee of astrologers, who recommended the name to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the organization that approves planetary names.

 

From an astrological standpoint, Nessus is one of the best researched minor planets, and has received considerable attention on these pages, as well as in the writing and research of astrologers who specialize in working with clients on subject matters like Eric H. described -- family of origin situations and the effects of family legacies. Nessus is 'reclaiming the soul' country.

 

Nessus is also about power dynamics and the dynamics of abuse, very important themes today in the Western world, particularly as we discover we were all abused as kids (and I mean it). Power and abuse dynamics always appear in relationships first, then they appear in one's inner emotional patterning, and the relationship pattern of that lifetime. Nessus tells us that physical abuse and psychological abuse work about the same way, and reminds us that quite often psychological abuse is more insidious because so often we don't know it's happening and then as a result, we don't think it happened.

 

Consequently, one question of Nessus is, "Did the abuse happen?" In my view, one of the central issues of this planet, indeed the crux of the issue, is the vagueness of certainty about what happened.

 

Nessus can point to the circumstances that surround rape, incest, sexually transmitted diseases and, moreover, the relationship and energetic patterns that create these things. Put two charts together, look at Nessus, and you can see something about how these dynamics appear between people. Nessus can also be used to investigate the lives of our parents and their relationships to others in the family. It can point to information, people and circumstances that help lift the veil.

 

Quaoar is not your ordinary minor planet, either (none really are, but Quaoar has some significant distinctions). Discovered in 2002, this planet was considered so important that it was given the honor of minor planet catalogue number 50,000.

 

At the time of its discovery, Quaoar was the largest known world beyond Pluto (this distinction is now held by Xena), and is a billion miles further from the Sun than Pluto right now, orbiting the sun once in just over 284 years. The imagery of Quaoar is the dance of the creation of the gods, goddesses and humanity. It is about the creation of the family of life. Hence, as I see it, it's about personal creation myth.

 

Named for a Native American creation deity of the Tongva people, who lived in what is now southern California, Quaoar's placement gives an intimate portrait of the dance of the family's emotional process and its impact on us. Quaoar speaks to the rhythms and choreography into which we were born, as these manifest within the family pattern going back generations. It points to how we dance to the music of our own creation more or less unconsciously, and suggests that we create a conscious relationship with our personal creation mythology. It is very helpful in doing family-of-origin work because it reveals something about the total picture of the family, not just our specific branch of the tree.

 

As a result, Quaoar introduces the vitally important theme of family patterns, of any shade. This is to say, any family pattern can come under the purview of Quaoar. These existed before we were born and into which, as members of a family system, we were integrated without really noticing. When you think of Quaoar, think of picking up a dance by feeling the rhythm of the music. The movements are natural, we learn by feeling, example and experience, and that is how we integrate emotionally into our family of origin.

 

One of the distortions of Quaoar is that we think what we're experiencing around us began with us; with our birth; that we (in being born) are the point of beginning. In reality, the dance goes back countless generations, to the beginning of humanity, and embraces all of humanity. The other distortion of Quaoar is an inner-outer boundary question: what plays out in the life of an adult is a picture of what has happened around that child growing up.

 

These patterns may relate to circumstances and emotions surrounding our mother's pregnancy (particularly in situations involving adoption), feelings about sex that permeate the family, attitudes toward children, and the general psychological climate of the household.

 

More often than not, in our societies these circumstances are mean and negligent toward children, and at worst, outright contemptuous.

 

This vibe is more Nessus territory than Quaoar, but the family pattern aspect is Quaoar. Simply put, we grow up feeling abandoned and neglected (often indirectly, by the circumstances of our parents' lives), thus not only expecting to be abused but emotionally set up for it. Then it 'just seems to happen' later in life. I define abuse here broadly; author Alice Miller points out that all of Western society is inherently abusive to children. Thus we all carry the resulting patterns and act them out in our lives unconsciously (or not) -- until we do not.

 

Abuse can be overt. But it can also involve being left unparented for long periods of time when you needed help, love or warmth; it can include being made to sleep in a crib in a separate room from your parents as an infant. It can involve the way you are spoken to, or violence you are exposed to in your environment.

 

Abuse passes guilt from the guilty to the innocent. It's often those who are innocent of any specific wrongdoing who suffer from guilt complexes, and it's very often the attackers of various shades who seem to live with impunity and free of remorse; this is what happens to their guilt complex -- it becomes attack rather than guilt. It is projected. Fundamentally, guilt and attack are the same thing, played out two ways. Guilt is self-attack. In a sense, this is what Eric H. was describing.

 

In choosing Nessus and Quaoar, I chose planets with the most germane themes, which showed up in relevant ways in the chart. Quaoar was conjunct Juno, an asteroid that is about marriage partnerships; and Nessus was prominent in the sign Cancer, conjunct the North Node. I hope this clarifies the issues you raised in your question and sheds some light on why I chose to use these planets to help clarify Eric H.'s chart.

 

Thank you for your letter.