Full Moon in Sagittarius — June 07, 2009, 18:12 UT
Polarity is a quintessential principle in astrology. It is one of the keystones of Hermetic philosophy. This principle embodies the idea that everything is dual; there are two sides to everything. Good and evil, for example, are the two extremes of the same thing, and there are many varying degrees between them.
Another Hermetic principle is that of gender. Everything in the cosmos has its masculine and feminine principles. All things rise and fall; sometimes the masculine aspect is manifesting itself more clearly, and at other times the feminine.
In astrology these principles are at work in the opposite signs of the zodiac, in the house polarity, and also on the plane of the planet symbolism.
In the Sagittarius Full Moon chart, the Sun and the Moon, a pair of masculine and feminine symbols are opposite each other, as they are at the moment of any Full Moon. Another pair of planets representing the principle of gender are Venus and Mars, this time conjoined in the early degrees of Taurus. They are trining Pluto in Capricorn.
Isabel M. Hickey was emphasizing the dual nature of Pluto in her pamphlet Pluto or Minerva: The Choice is Yours in 1973. She proposed that there was what we normally think of as the Plutonian aspect of Pluto, and then the wisdom aspect, which she described as Minerva. Quoting Hickey: “Every energy that challenges us has two poles that act as attracting forces. As individuals we are pulled by both of them until we find the balancing force in the third force which is the center between the two opposing pulls.”
It turned out later that Pluto is a binary planet. In 1978 Pluto’s companion Charon was discovered. A binary planet is a pair of worlds that are usually roughly similar in mass. They orbit around their common center of mass, called the barycenter. The barycenter is the point between two objects where they balance each other.
Typhon is another binary planet. In Greek mythology Typhon was a son of Gaia and Tartaros, a monster who was the source of destructive storm winds and volcanic eruptions. He lived beneath Mount Etna in Sicily. Typhon was so huge that his head was said to brush the stars.
The Full Moon of June is square to the Saturn-Typhon conjunction in Virgo. The Sun squared Typhon the day before the Full Moon. It is intriguing that the Sabian symbol for the degree that Typhon is currently occupying is Virgo 17, A volcano in eruption. Marc Edmund Jones writes: “This is a symbol of that constant expansion of self and nature which constitutes reality in its most fundamental terms, emphasized here on the side of physical force and the blind urge of life to continue to be.”
There is a tendency in astrology to assume that new planets have a negative meaning. They are typically seen in their shadow expression first. There are always two sides to the story though. This is crucial to remember, especially when a binary is involved.
I have written about Typhon and told the grim Greek myth many times before. I have mentioned some major natural disasters in the connection of this destructive monsterous force. I’ve been aware that this can’t be the whole truth about the astrological symbolism of Typhon.
I was thrilled last week when I came across Internet sources referring to ancient Egyptian mythologies which include in their pantheon of gods a female deity called Typhon, the Great Mother.
From the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary I found out that Typhon was associated with the crocodile. The ancient Egyptians did not regard Typhon as the enemy, the destroyer. Typhon was one of the most powerful and venerated of the divinities, giving blessings, life, and inspiration to the people, and in especial perhaps to rulers of Egypt.
Quoting The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky: “The Crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis.”
According to Gerald Massey, an English poet and self-taught Egyptologist: “The Old Dragon of Chaos and the Abyss is the same whether called Tiamat, Tavthe, or Typhon. By Typhon I mean the beast that imaged the first Great Mother, hippopotamus in front and crocodile behind, who therefore is the Dragon of Egypt. Her name of Tep, Teb, or Tept is the original of Typhon. Tiamat = Tavthe represents that abyss of the beginning which is the Egyptian Tepht. This Tepht is the abyss, the source, the void, the hole of the snake, the habitat of the dragon, the outrance or uterus of birth as place which preceded personification.”
Then I found an interesting e-book called Celestial Ship of the North, by E. Valentia Straiton, published originally in 1927. She writes:
“The Abyss, in Egypt is a name of the North, and the original mother of this Abyss, which was Space, was called Typhon, the Mother of Beginnings, the Mother of the Fields of Heaven, the Mother of Revolutions (time cycles), as well as the Mother of Gods and Men… We read that from one Mother the Universe was born. This was the Mother Typhon, a primordial figure of Power. A very ancient form of Typhon was the Water Horse, the “Bearer of the Waters” which was the Hippopotamus. This animal has four toes on each of its four feet, and therefore was considered a type of the four corners of the earth.”
The minor planet Typhon is a binary. Now we have both sides of the coin represented in the mythology: the huge and destructive Greek Typhon, and the powerful Egyptian Mother of Beginnings.
In the Egyptian mythology Typhon in the form of the crocodile is connected to Osiris, the god of the afterlife. In the Full Moon chart asteroid Osiris is sharing the same degree with the Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune conjunction at 26+ Aquarius and drawing our attention to the feminine principle of Typhon. We need to start searching this balancing force of the Great Mother now.
References:
Kirsti Melto, Kuiper Belt Binaries, Small World Stories, 2008
Isabel M. Hickey, Astrology, A Cosmic Science, CRCS Publications, 1992
Dr. Marc Edmund Jones, The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Aurora Press, 1993
Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary, Theosophical University Press Online Edition
Gerald Massey, In Reply to Professor A. H. Sayce, Originally published in a private edition c. 1900
February 10th, 2010 at 5:48 am
Hi Kirsti,
Better late than never, I’ve just read your notes on Typhon. Thank you so much, s/he’s been puzzling me for quite a while now and you’ve given me a whole new approach.
February 16th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Hi Kim,
Thank you for your response!