Note, if you want to know how these aspects influence your birth sign or rising sign, that’s what my horoscope is for. I covered this chart in this past Friday’s subscriber edition (available here), and give additional details in the monthly horoscope that’s coming out this week. –efc
The Sun entered Leo early Sunday morning, immediately forming a conjunction with an asteroid called Dionysus. I’ll come back to that in a moment. As the week begins, the Moon is in Virgo, and will be visible as a waxing crescent in the evening sky. We’re at the beginning of the lunar cycle; the New Moon was this past Wednesday or Thursday depending on your time zone.
Mercury is still retrograde. We will reach the peak of that cycle with the Sun-Mercury conjunction on Saturday, July 28. That, by the way, happens somewhat ominously just hours after the official opening of the 2012 Olympics in London. There seems to be a message implied, as is always the case when Mercury is making a prominent aspect coinciding with a big event. I will be covering that chart in Friday’s subscriber edition.
Dionysus was one of the most revered figures of the ancient Greek pantheon, though he barely seems to get the recognition he deserves today. Mainstream astrology has no equivalent for this point; his Roman counterpart Bacchus also has an asteroid though that too is rarely used.
Dionysus was a god of resurrection; in other words, in his myth he dies and comes back to life. That’s a nice image after what Aurora, Colorado went through last week — and all the death that we were confronted with in the news. Events like this compel us to contemplate the transience of life, and the meaning of what we’re told are ‘senseless’ events. Note, there are some interesting discussions about this incident developing on my personal Facebook page, on the topic of gun control and the perpetrator’s chart.
Dionysus has another interesting property — he shows up from somewhere else. “His origins are uncertain,” Wikipedia’s editors tell us, “and his cults took many forms … In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, ‘the god that comes’, and his ‘foreignness’ as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults.”
I think of Dionysus as representing the means by which we transcend ordinary consciousness. The human mind seems inherently uptight, bound in fear, preoccupied with competition and obsessed with death. Whatever Dionysus represents frees us up for more liberated states of awareness. There seem to be limited options for how we do that — note the list of banned substances on the federal drug prosecution schedules, with cannabis ridiculously showing up on Schedule 1 (Nixon didn’t like hippies).
Dionysus is known as the god of grapes and wine; we all have our methods. This astrology is a reminder that transcending ordinary consciousness is a time-honored tradition. It may go back to the beginning of what we think of as ‘human’. Incidentally, for those who would do this with what we think of as ‘illicit’ substances, I highly recommend spending time on a website called The Vaults of Erowid to get your bearings. (I also recommend this if you’re concerned about a younger member of your family who may be experimenting.)
One last thing — Dionysus cautions against falling for cult-like thinking. Said another way, account for where your beliefs come from and think for yourself. Note, if you’re actually thinking for yourself, you may feel extremely nervous for at least an hour. By Wednesday, the Sun will be square a point called Kassandra (an asteroid). This is a reminder of the tendency that so many people have to believe what is not true, and to deny what is true. You may decide you’ve had enough of that.
Very interesting thought Eric on Dionysus, Saturday I have been witness to a clash of car, one of the two men was driving under the State of drunkenness…
Thank you, Eric. Nourishment for my questioning mind.
I just noted, reading the article: ‘Aurora’ is a very bitter name for the site where all that happened, in a sum of darknesses. But if we want to see symbolism in names… it means Dawn. Isn’t the darkest hour just before dawn – at least in literature?
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html
The Theoi site is fascinating, with many stories of the characters who are lending their names to the asteroids in our solar system. Spent hours on this site reading their stories.
An aside, my first teacher affectionately called the RWS 3 of Cups “Bacchus’ birthday”. 🙂
Eric: Thank you, not only for today’s Daily Astrology gem, but for the values you example.
Melinda, DivaCarla and Sam: Wow, thank you for sharing the rich and nourishing erudition in your elaborations.
I think it would be appropriate to provide citations for these descriptions of Dionysus, whether we believe them mythical or real.
Here’s my contribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bacchae
Dionysus wishes to punish Pentheus for not worshipping him or paying him libations. He uses Pentheus’ clear desire to see the ecstatic women to convince the king to dress as a female Maenad to avoid detection and go to the rites:
Stranger: Ah! Would you like to see them in their gatherings upon the mountain?
Pentheus: Very much. Ay, and pay uncounted gold for the pleasure.
Stranger: Why have you conceived so strong a desire?
Pentheus: Though it would pain me to see them drunk with wine-
Stranger: Yet you would like to see them, pain and all.[2]
Dionysus dresses Pentheus as a woman and gives him a thyrsus and fawn skins, then leads him out of the house. Pentheus begins to see double, perceiving two Thebes and two bulls (Dionysus often took the form of a bull) leading him.
A messenger arrives at the palace to report that once they reached Cithaeron, Pentheus wanted to climb up an evergreen tree to get a better view of the Bacchants. The blond stranger used his divine power to bend the tall tree and place the king at its highest branches. However, once he was safely at the top, Dionysus called out to his followers and showed the man sitting atop the tree. This, of course, drove the Bacchants wild, and they tore the trapped Pentheus down and ripped his body apart piece by piece.
After the messenger has relayed this news, Pentheus’ mother, Agave, arrives carrying the head of her son. In her possessed state she believed it was the head of a mountain lion, and she killed him with her bare hands and pulled his head off. She proudly displays her son’s head to her father, believing it to be a hunting trophy. She is confused when Cadmus does not delight in her trophy, his face contorting in horror. By that time, however, Dionysus’ possession is beginning to wear off, and as Cadmus reels from the horror of his grandson’s death, Agave slowly realizes what she has done. The family is destroyed, with Agave and her sisters sent into exile. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were actually honored by Dionysus when he turns them into snakes. Tiresias, the old, blind Theban prophet, is the only one not to suffer.
Dionysius has Christ-like qualities, first cousin or ancestor to Yeshua, who even turned water into wine as his first public “miracle”. Thank you Melinda for your extra information on Dionysius. Rescuing our Ancestors from the underworld is powerful medicine to take into the sunlight of Leo. Can we walk and act in the light unless we bring our whole history with us into the light -and unconditional love!
Thanks for focusing on the fascinating Dionysus, Eric. Some other interesting stuff about him:
1. He is the conception of Zeus and a mortal, Semele, who was arguably naive, though thoroughly fucked over by both Hera (Zeus’ Goddess wife) and Zeus himself. While pregnant with Dionysus, Semele was tricked by Hera into asking Zeus to reveal himself (for Zeus slept with her in disguise).
When Zeus showed himself, Semele burned to a crisp due to her mortality. Zeus saved Dionysus by pouching him in his thigh until birth, conferring immortality upon him. Semele, the mortal mother, was conveniently “gone,” thanks to Hera; Dionysus was then repeatedly persecuted and learned to overcome death.
Dionysus was followed around by a band of fierce young women who drank wine, made their own clothing, and fought with animals. Picture some hot burner bi girls in animal skins. Being good with women, he realized his mother had been treated unjustly and traveled to the underworld to fight and deliver her to Mt. Olympus.
2. Dionysus represents courage in the face of being a half-breed bastard. S/he who has no generally understood (or legitimized) heritage must forge a role that is heretofore unformed. This requires courage. Dionysus challenged his karma and ancestry by continually defeating death.
He took it a step further and time-traveled to rescue the very woman who could have been conveniently ignored, his naive mother. In present day, we’re conditioned to load a lot of blame onto our parents and ancestors. It’s a convenient (and often therapeutic) way to explore and understand psyche. Parents are conditioned to accept the blame, too. But eventually, we’re led into romantic relationships and parenthood ourselves, coming into the realization that we are our parents and we cannot transcend them until we love the parts of them who are ourselves.
Dionysus is a full-circle being: One who challenges his culture, stands strong against persecution, develops a chosen family/following, and then chases his roots down to embrace them and preserve their legacy.
3. Dionysus calls us to take a mature inventory of our karmic baggage in all its glory and perceived shame. How have we carried our parents’ and grandparents’ curses into our present day life? What are the ways (and there are *always* many) that we’ve managed to overcome those family patterns? Most important, how are we to embrace and respect our foremothers/fathers’ path, recognizing that while we may have more awareness, we are not here but for them? To rescue our ancestors from the dark underworld is surely a task that requires self-understanding and a willingness to love unconditionally. Dionysus did it.
: )