Football is a Scorpio

Is anyone surprised to hear that football, the game, is a Scorpio? That intense sign that is all about sex, death and transformation? Ruled by Mars, the god of war, in a game that is played like a military exercise? Scorpio is the sign that describes this peculiar American sport, which was first played one afternoon in New Jersey 145 years ago — the same state where Super Bowl 48 is being played.

The modern sport of the gladiators, football sets aside many of the usual ideas of sportsmanship and balance, in favor of a game where violence and injury are part of the entertainment.

A morph of rugby and soccer, the first football match was played without cheerleaders, sponsorship or the NCAA, between Princeton University and Rutgers University on the Rutgers campus on Nov. 6, 1869. Rutgers won, according to the Princeton coach I talked to last week. Then a week later, they traveled to Princeton and lost by a wider margin. The first two games favored the home team.

“The rules were still considered in flux, and were decided on in a game-to-game basis. However, the rules used likely did not resemble anything that a modern football observer would recognize,” we learn from Wikipedia’s editors on the topic.

Football also has a lot in Sagittarius and in Taurus — especially a somewhat violent conjunction of Mars and Saturn. The Moon is also in Sagittarius, as is Venus, so from the look of the chart, this was a visionary endeavor, perhaps unintentionally. Four planets in Sagittarius shows the global nature of the appeal, as well as its tendency to high-glamor. And Sagittarius is the original sign of the party animal.

Though it may seem like an unusual mix, Sagittarius is also about cults and religion, qualities that football definitely possesses. We also see this in the condition of Jupiter, the ruling planet of Sagittarius, which is in a close conjunction to Pluto. This game has infinitely more cult followers than The Rev. Moon and the 700 Club combined. This has a way of making it a sport with potential appeal to everyone from any walk of life, and many people who favor other sports as well. This also reveals the stunning financial potential that would start to come out in the 20th century.

All of the charts for football (such as the founding of the NFL and the first Super Bowl) have a common theme — a prominent Mars, and in nearly every case, prominent expression of the sign Aries. Football is a martial sport, meaning that it has a violent and militarist quality (that word being derived from Mars, the Roman god of war). These placements are also significant in that both Mars and Aries are associated with the head, as well as with injuries to the head.

Another example is in the chart for the founding of the NFL. This chart is one of the most interesting corporate charts I’ve ever seen (it rivals that of the NRA, which I promise to write about soon).

The NFL chart has Chiron conjunct Nessus in Aries. Chiron often indicates where there is an injury, or a persistent point of re-injury. In the chart of an individual, it can also show a point of growth and awareness, though that seems not to be the case with the NFL — they are working on the shadow side of Chiron.

Nessus can also indicate an injury — with the added theme of a breach of trust or some kind of subversive activity. Nessus often points to sexual injuries and traumas; it’s within reason to describe all of football as the acting-out of repressed male homosexuality. What Nessus almost always indicates is that there will be consequences involved. Nessus can point to who is responsible or who will end up taking responsibility.

In the chart for the first Super Bowl, Mars makes aspects to 10 different planets, including the Sun, Mercury and centaur Pholus.

“Football is a dangerous sport, and based on the charts for the founding of the NFL, and for the first Super Bowl, it is precisely that danger which has added to the league’s success. This is exactly what these charts proclaim,” said Lee Lehman, a leader in the field of classical astrology, and a pioneer in the development of asteroids as astrological tools.

Based on the position of Mars in these charts, she said, “We have literally the story of the gladiators, who are just as compelling crumpled up on a heap on the playing field as making a spectacular catch. That is what the arena is for: the winners triumph, and the losers are carried out on a stretcher.” [You can read Lee Lehman’s full comments here.]