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Sylvia Leonora, Lady Brett, Born Today, Tres Piscean

February 25, 2010 in Birthdays by Mystic Medusa | 10 comments

How Piscean was this woman?!

Today is her birthday…This is just glimmerings from the Wiki:

“…Sylvia Leonora, Lady Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak, born The Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett, (25 February 1885 – 11 November 1971), was the consort to Vyner of Sarawak, last of the White Rajah…Her paternal grandmother…was thought to be an illegitimate daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte…by the age of 12 she had made two attempts at suicide, the first by eating rotten sardines, and the second by lying naked in the snow…

She and His Highness Rajah Vyner of Sarawak first met in 1909 when she joined an all-female choral orchestra, established by Vyner’s mother. Sylvia was distraught that her daughter could not take the throne; as a result she hatched various plots to blacken the name of the heir apparent…Richard Halliburton, the celebrated adventurer, met her as he circumnavigated the globe in 1932  She became the first woman in Sarawak to fly…

She was described by her brother as “a female Iago“, and by the Colonial Office as “a dangerous woman, full of Machiavellian schemes to alter the succession, and spectacularly vulgar in her behaviour”. She was the author of eleven books, including “Sylvia of Sarawak” and “Queen of the Head-Hunters”…”

She has a Mata-Hari vibe about her & she reminds me of the Scorpio Adventuress & Mystic...Or This One. Maybe mad,  perhaps a debauched megalomaniac aristocrat but what if she was just born before her time, making the most of whatever was there, penning loads of books before everyone did, trying  like crazy to change what…a society comprising of headhunters and ancient patriarchal types?

Alessandro Cagliostro – tres Gemini Man

September 18, 2009 in Astro-Cliches, Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 8 comments

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Gemini magician, conman, forger, seducer & general cad. Casanova was said to be madly jealous of him. This – below – is just a tiny bit from his Encylopedia Britannica entry. DO admit he sounds deeply Gemini…

“….Count, Italian alchemist and impostor, was born at Palermo on the 8th of June 1743. Giuseppe Balsamo – for such was the “count’s” real name – gave early indications of those talents which afterwards gained for him so wide a notoriety. He received the rudiments of his education at the monastery of Caltagirone in Sicily, but was expelled from it for misconduct and disowned by his relations. He now signalized himself by his dissolute life and the ingenuity with which he contrived to perpetrate forgeries and other crimes without exposing himself to the risk of detection. Having at last got into trouble with the authorities he fled from Sicily, and visited in succession Greece, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Rhodes – where he took lessons in alchemy and the cognate sciences from the Greek Althotas – and Malta. There he presented himself to the grand master of the Maltese order as Count Cagliostro, and curried favour with him as a fellow alchemist, for the grand master’s tastes lay in the same direction…

“…At Rome he married a beautiful but unprincipled woman, Lorenza Feliciani, with whom he travelled, under different names, through many parts of Europe. It is unnecessary to recount the various infamous means which he employed to pay his expenses during these journeys. He visited London and Paris in 1771, selling love-philtres, elixirs of youth, mixtures for making ugly women beautiful, alchemistic powders, etc., and deriving large profits from his trade. After further travels on the continent he returned to London, where he posed as the founder of a new system of freemasonry, and was well received in the best society, being adored by the ladies. He went to Germany and Holland once more, and to Russia, Poland, and then again to Paris, where, in 1785, he was implicated in the affair of the Diamond Necklace (q.v.); and although Cagliostro escaped conviction by the matchless impudence of his defence, he was imprisoned for other reasons in the Bastille….”

He was most likely friends with the fascinating Count St Germaine

The Piscean Pirate

September 9, 2009 in Astro-Cliches, Astro-Fiends by Mystic Medusa | 37 comments

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Anne Bonny was a rebel, a beauty and an amazingly resourceful pirate of her day. Plus she was a Piscean. Born on March 8 1700, her Dad was the married employer of a household in Ireland, her mother the maid. Anne Bonny was raised in Carolina, where she married a small time pirate but ran off with another one, the infamous Calico Jack Rackham.

There are SO many stories about this woman: Some say that her husband offered to “sell” her (a then-existent quickie divorce fee) to her pirate lover but she refused and was thus sentenced to be flogged for infidelity. But she escaped and became a notorious pirate, plunderer and raider. The only other female pirate of the era (ever?) was Mary Read, her rumoured lover. At one point, Anne Bonny was captured and sentenced to be executed but again, she mysteriously escaped & nothing was ever heard of her again.

Her astro:  Sun, Mercury and Saturn in Pisces…trined by Mars in Scorpio…Jupiter in Capricorn, Lilith in Aquarius opposite Pluto in Leo, Venus/Neptune in Aries square Uranus in Cancer…

Thoughts; Did she actually storm ships with her tits out or is that just how the artists liked to depict her???  A la her unconventional lifestyle. And really, for a woman of that time,  her lifestyle was about as non-trad as you can possibly get. I am thinking she had her Uranus in Cancer rising, as she also had children. Fancy combining THAT with pirating. Then.

And Mars in Scorpio is the same as would-be-teen solo round the world yachter Laura Dekker – try to stop these chicks doing anything and WEEP. Mars LOVES to be in Scorpio….Remember that Mars ruled Scorpio before Pluto was discovered.

Planet-Struck

September 8, 2009 in Astro-Fiends, Astro-Weird by Mystic Medusa | 7 comments

phpRE2pplAMTycho Brahe

“A blighted tree is said to be planet-struck. Epilepsy, paralysis, lunacy, etc., are attributed to the malignant aspects of the planets. Horses are said to be planet-struck when they seem stupefied, whether from want of food, colic, or stoppage. The Latin word is sidertus…”
From the 17th Century Bills Of Mortality, when “planet-struck” was considered an official form of demise.

Constellations Of Words

August 20, 2009 in Astro-Fiends by Mystic Medusa | 11 comments

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Constellations of Words is the most fascinating site!  If  you’re an Astro-Fiend & into words, history, mythology et al – check it out. It’s a serious time-suck though. I could wile away hours on it. And have a look at this HORRENDOUS description of our Leo from the 1st Century…

“…The astrological influences of the constellation given by Manilius:

“Who can doubt the nature of the monstrous Lion, and the pursuits he prescribes for those born beneath his sign? The lion ever devises fresh fights and fresh warfare on animals, and lives on spoil and pillaging of flocks. The sons of the Lion are filled with the urge to adorn their proud portals with pelts and to hang up on their walls the captured prey, to bring the peace of terror to the woods, and to live upon plunder. There are those whose like bent is not checked by the city-gates, but they swagger about in the heart of the capital with droves of beasts; they display mangled limbs at the shop-front, slaughter to meet the demands of luxury, and count it gain to kill. Their temper is equally prone to fitful wrath and ready withdrawal, and guileless are the sentiments of their honest hearts” [Manilius, Astronomica, 1st century AD, p.237.]…”

Ancient Astro-Spin

August 19, 2009 in Astro In Books, Astro-Fiends by Mystic Medusa | 3 comments

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Astrology In Ancient Rome: Poetry, Prophecy & Power.

“Whatever form the so-called publication of his horoscope took, we can be completely certain that Augustus wanted the world to know what sign he was born under. Let me refer you to the three images you’ve seen in this article. The first one is a coin, one of several Augustan coins featuring Capricorn. You can see the name “Augustus,” and the sea-goat holding the globe of the world. Augustus is Capricorn, in other words, and as the cosmocrator (master of the universe), he’s got the whole world in his hands. While Augustus’ rhetoric in words was putting forward an image of himself as “first among equals,” the astrological imagery of this coin is putting forward an unmistakable bid for autocracy and even kingship.

“The next image is the most famous cameo portrait of Augustus, the so-called “Gemma Augustea.” The woman placing the crown on Augustus’ head almost certainly represents the oikoumene, a Greek word meaning “the inhabited world” (we know this from similar representations on coins where the image bears a caption). Just behind Augustus’ head is a round lozenge containing a small image of Capricorn the sea-goat. We have a fair number of other Capricorn artifacts that probably belonged to private individuals, and these have been found throughout the empire. My third image, another cameo, is an example. The young man swimming the waves is both riding on Capricorn and probably also to be identified with Capricorn. His features, shown in profile, are recognizably those of the young Augustus.

“Why Capricorn? We don’t really know. Augustus’ sun sign was Libra. Capricorn was probably either his rising sign or, more likely, his Moon sign. What particular qualities of the sea-goat made this sign especially appropriate for Augustus? Again, we don’t know for sure. Possibly because Capricorn, then as now, was associated with stern moral authority.“

Imagine being a Libran Emperor and going to such pains to ensure you were branded Capricorn – i love this tale and it’s totally from astro-sceptical historians


What In Her Horoscope Would Have Had Her In a Nunnery?

August 13, 2009 in Astro-Cliches, Astro-Fiends, Planets by Mystic Medusa | 17 comments

bespoke_img“…In 1661, the Italian furniture maker Schor, who worked with the sculptor Bernini, made a splendid State bed for the Princess Marie Mancini in Rome. Commissioned to celebrate her firstborn son’s public presentation, it was documented in her writings, “I lay in a new bed prepared for my first son’s birth … and the magnificence of it excited admiration everywhere…”

So, I am sent this by a sweet person who clearly groks my interest & I am oh-my-godding at what is this woman’s SIGN? One thinks Libra, one thinks Leo…Maybe Pisces overdoing the nectar every lunchtime.

So I Wiki the woman and she is a Virgo. Yes. But it gets better!

“She was born in Rome, the daughter of Michele Lorenzo Mancini and Geronima Mazzarini. “Dark, vivacious and beautiful,”[1] Marie captured the biggest prize of the French court: the love of Louis XIV. According to Antonia Fraser’s biography Love and Louis XIV, Marie’s mother, Hieronyma (or Geronima) was told by a horoscope that Marie would cause trouble and demanded on her deathbed that Cardinal Mazarin should “shut Marie up in a convent and keep her there.“

200px-Marie-mancini

So, she is a Virgo & that’s not enough to have people wanting to whack you away in a nunnery…Her Venus in Libra is conjunct Uranus (very much the individualist and free love exponent) but as Uranus was not discovered until 1781, that cannot have been the “problem” with her horoscope.  And besides, her Venus is trine Saturn, which would be welcomed as a stability inducer for sure.

Her Moon is in Leo and if she were born in the morning, it’s conjunct Mars. Moon-Mars in Leo, given the cultural values of the time, was most likely looked upon as the potential trouble….Hot-headed, libidinal, attention seeking and an intense inner life. She would have gone mental in a nunnery & thankfully was not consigned to one after all. Is not her bed pure Mars-Moon in Leo???

Ye Olde Astro F.Y.I.

April 30, 2009 in Astro-Fiends, Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 3 comments

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The seven planets with their associated symbols, within the four winds. 15th century astrological woodcut.

“Astrological forecasts fortified conspirators, heightened their courage and so made them more likely to succeed in their plots. Thus laws making it a statutory felony to calculate the life expectancy of a ruling monarch had to be enforced. Astrologer John Gadbury confessed that he was ask to cast Charles II’s horoscope as part of a plot to murder the king, but denied any wrong doing…

“Authorities were not fully convinced of his innocence. His report that the comet of 1521 presaged Henry VIII’s condemnation of the papacy and his prophecy of an “eternal settlement in England of the Romanists” helped to fuel allegations of his role in Catholic conspiracies and won him two trips to prison. Astrological politicing from the bottom up could be dangerous….

“There also was astrological politicing from the top down. In addition to trying to keep the prognosticative activities of dissident groups in check, the ruling powers were interested in astrology and cometary portents as tools they could themselves use for good government. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 to 1527) observed “Whence it comes, I know not, but both ancient and modern instances prove that no great events ever occur in any city or country that have not been predicted by soothsayers, revelations or by portents and other celestial signs.”

Comets, Popular Culture & The Birth Of Modern Cosmology by Sara Schechner Genuth

Astraea – The Star Maiden & Virgo

April 14, 2009 in Astro-Fiends, Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 37 comments

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Fernando Gallego

“…The Age Of Gold was the first age of the world, without hardship or toil for those who dwelt on Earth, and was without crime. The most recent age of the world, full of troubles and evils, is called The Age of Iron, but perhaps it would be better to call it the Second Age of Gold, for many of its troubles began when gold first tempted humankind to wickedness and war. through the Ages of Gold, Silver and Bronze, Astraea – the goddess of justice – still remain on Earth, but when the Age Of Iron began, she found she could stay here no longer. Now she shines down from the sky as the constellation Virgo, the virgin.  Astraea once carried a pair of scales with which she weighed up the rights and wrongs of any dispute. Now Astraea’s scales shine close by Virgo as the constellation of Libra…Astraea, whose name means Star Maiden, was the last deity to leave Earth…”

Mythology – Myths, Legends & Fantasies

In Ancient Greek & Roman parlance, they say that the return of Astraea to Earth heralds the return of the Golden Age. The Ancient Sumerians knew the constellation of Virgo as Ishtar…their Aphrodite/creation goddess. And, every now & then, someone steps forward to say that ‘virgin’ in this context refers to a temple virgin…ie; women who did not marry but initiated men into the worship of Aphrodite via sex magic.

I think that Mercury as ruler of Virgo does fit them – Virgo Rising with Gemini Midheaven is still very much the astro-signature of a writer & Virgo Suns disproportionately swell the ranks of published/acclaimed novelists – but i love the idea of Virgos also getting lovely Astraea, the Star Maiden as their sponsor. Even if she DID give away her scales to Libra in disgust. It is interesting how so many cultures have the idea of some deity coming back & beginning a fabulous new age. Whether it be aliens, Mayans, Christ, King Arthur, Astraea or other versions of the Divine Feminine.

Cosmique

March 25, 2009 in Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 29 comments

cel-alphabetb_wCelestial Alphabet by scherer and  ouporov

“According to the Hebrew rabbis, the letters of their alphabet are formed from the figures of the stars and are thus full of heavenly mysteries, both because of their shape, form and meaning and also because of the numbers contained herein…”

Agrippa Von Netteheim 1788

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