Challenge Corner: Gemini Answers

Zip Dobyns

We have an embarrassment of riches for this issue. Expressing our regrets at the lack of response to earlier challenges has brought in three brave souls, all of whom chose correctly! There may be others writing in later but this is being written immediately after the Gemini issue reached its readers. The fascinating result of this game is that all who sent in guesses were right, and all used different methods to reach their conclusions! Don’t let anyone tell you to close your options. Astrology should be wide open to new techniques and methods.

My own reasons for choosing the first born twin as the aggressive male who ended up with the alcohol problem include the closer conjunction of his Antivertex (similar to an auxiliary Ascendant) with Uranus, showing his greater tendency to be a rebel. Note that Werner Erhardt has the same aspect, mentioned in the discussion of his chart in another article in this issue. The twin with the problems also has his East Point (still another auxiliary Ascendant) in position to receive the progressed conjunction of the south node of the Moon, since the nodes move retrograde. The female twin actually has a closer conjunction of south node and East Point, but they are separating, suggesting early self-doubt that diminishes with maturity. Individuals may react to the anxiety symbolized by the south node with either over-drive or with self-blocking, until they learn to handle it. For the male twin, the node moves back to maintain a one-degree orb conjunction with the East Point for many years, indicating some sort of lesson connected to the personal confidence and action associated with any form of letter one.

The earlier twin also has the Aries dwad rising, indicating an increased potential for aggression in contrast to the later twin with the Taurus dwad. The earlier twin also has the south node of Neptune sesqui-square (tri-octile) the Ascendant within a one degree orb, and the north node of Neptune is just over one degree from octile the Ascendant. His MC is also tri-octile the north node of Pluto and octile the south within one degree orb, and missing in the later twin. For one further, fascinating note, the Arabic Part often called the Part of Karma, Ascendant plus Saturn minus Sun, is conjunct the south node of Neptune within one degree for the first twin and not for the second. The contact is just one more clue to a challenge involving power, self-discipline, escapism, idealism, etc. Other factors I might mention are covered by correspondents, so I will let them speak for themselves.

Carol Tebbs chose the first twin as the one with the stress life because of the strong aspects to cusps, including the Sun square and Jupiter sextile-trine the 6-12 axis, Venus square the 5-11 axis, Moon square and Neptune sextile-trine the 2-8 axis. She also noted the Aries dwad rising, and Venus trine the MC.

Jim Eshelman mentioned the Antivertex closely conjunct Ascendant for the first-born twin, giving a well-written description of the associated character tendencies. “I project myself assertively into the world to establish freedom, bring about change, renovate, and do other fabulous Uranian things.” Jim also commented that through the Vertex axis we tend to project motivations into the world and then experience the results as “happening” to us without apparent cause. “Therefore, Uranus on the Antivertex would indicate a person who is prone to have disruptive things ‘happen to him’ suddenly and without apparent warning.” Ceres trine the Ascendant could indicate involvement in domesticity or concern with work, and was not too helpful. Although he indicated a personal preference for Campanus, Jim did note the house changes in Placidus which moved Jupiter from the 8th to the 7th house, and Juno from the 5th to the 4th house, in the interval between the two births. Jim comments that this gives the first-born individual “more power-energy” while the second-born has more “domestic” energy. The closer aspects of the nodes of the Moon are also listed as supporting concern with relationships for the second-born twin. Readers might enjoy a longer quote from Jim to give the flavor of his contribution:

I would read Jupiter in the 8th as much more of a business-oriented placement than Jupiter in the 7th (which generally wants personal reinforcement of self-worth from others to too great an extent to seriously rock the boat, although with Moon square Jupiter with this sign placement we can expect ambition). In the sense that the 8th house deals with other people’s resources, the most successful Jupiter-in-8th people I have known have put considerable energy into trying to improve the way other people use or experience their resources. The less successful ones seem often to do the same thing, only less successfully and less popularly: they expect perfection from others in certain key areas and wonder why their advice isn’t heeded since it seems to them that said advice would obviously save the day!

David Cochrane of Florida, who is using harmonics extensively in his research in astrology, used his specialty to also choose the first twin as the problem one. He wrote:

Uranus is 3/16 the earlier MC (orb of 18’) which fits with the more erratic life style. Looking to see if Uranus makes any aspects with planets, I find that it is 11/32 Neptune with a 9’ orb. I allow about 1 degree orb for the 16th harmonic, 1/2 degree orb for the 32nd harmonic, 1/4 degree orb for the 64th harmonic, 1/8th degree orb for the 128th harmonic. These harmonics I call octave harmonics and they are particularly important. Neptune is 1/32 the 4th house cusp with a 27’ orb. Thus the earlier birth time gives a Uranus-Neptune-MC 32nd harmonic triangle (i.e. 3 planets aspected to each other in the same harmonic). This gives a tendency to psychic instability which fits with the drinking. Looking to see if any other planets might be involved I find Mercury involved in very high octave harmonics—Mercury is 43/128 Uranus with about a 4’ orb and it is 1/128 Neptune with about a 5’ orb. Mercury is out of orb of being in 128 harmonic with the MC, the orb being 22’ from an exact 3/128 aspect and the allowable orb is only about 7.5’. The birth time could be off a minute, but even if Mercury is out of orb with the MC, Uranus and Neptune are within orb and this is enough to make one quite unstable or inspired.

How about that for a varied set of approaches? Geoffrey Dean’s book (to be reviewed later) ridiculed the multiplicity of factors brought into use by astrologers, and totally missed the point. If more factors are giving you the same message, they are further confirmation of the basic theme in the chart. Maybe you could do the job without them, but isn’t that sense of extra reassurance nice? In case you’re wondering how David got those harmonic figures, that is what computers can do for you, if you know how to instruct them.

Copyright © 1978 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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