AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #57

 

City of Persepolis

c650 BCE    ACHAEMENES establishes a royal line of the clan Pasargadae, the most noble tribe of the Persians (from Persis or Persia). His country of Elam was over-taken by Ashurbanipal (Assyrian King) in 7^th century BCE. Achaemenes took part of Elam, called Anshan, and made its capital Susa. Susa is the Biblical Shushan which had been founded c4000 BCE at the head of the Persian Gulf. Elam then disappears as an independent state at this point.

                      Achaemenes’ son Teispes will be followed to the throne by his son Cyrus I, then by his grandson Cambyses I, followed by Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great, who will be known in history as the ‘Empire Builder’. (73)

Sappho the Poet

c630 BCE      SAPPHO of Eressos on Lesbos Island, near Turkey/Greece. A female poet she produced 9 books, of which only fragments remain, some based on more ancient Egyptian papyri. Some poems invoke Greek Aphrodite, some give passionate depictions of flowers, moon, sea and night. Sappho was regarded as the 10^th muse and looked upon as a goddess. She had a literary circle of female disciples of strong emotional attachment and they conducted and took part in the ‘Thesmophoria’ fertility rituals at the sanctuary of Demeta/Kore at Mitaleni on the island of Lesbos.  Sappho’s work was subsequently suppressed by the Christian religion and it was eventually lost in the destruction of the Alexandrian library. (102. 345)

Aphrodite goddess of the Sea and Love

                   Under the force of the Medes coming from the north and the Persians coming from the east, the fall of the Assyrian Empire is brought about, whilst in the south there is a resurgence of Chaldean thought in the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Jeremiah the weeping Prophet [Bottecelli]

c626 BCE     JEREMIAH second of the major Hebrew Prophets. ‘The Book of Jeremiah’ of the Old Testament is a collection of prophesies named after him. Jeremiah lived in Anathoth on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the seat of orthodox Yahweh worship. He condemned the Baal worship of Canaan which had degenerated into licentiousness. In the face of political and religious crisis, Jeremiah called for moral reform and repentance so that the turning to God might lead to a new creation. Jeremiah thus prefigured the New Testament in prophesizing the notion of the “new covenant.” Jeremiah felt called to bring a new social and religious understanding to the people and carried the message of a universal God. He considered it to be an act of God when the Babylonians captured his people. Jeremiah’s prophetic career ranged from about 626 BCE, during the reign of Josiah, at least to the fall of Jerusalem (586 BCE) and the deportation of its population. At this time, Jeremiah was taken by the remaining Jewish community to Egypt, where he died. The career of Jeremiah thus embraced the period of Josiah’s Reformation (626-622 BCE); the years of resurgent Judaic nationalism (608-597 BCE); the period leading to the final demise of Judah (597-586 BCE); and his time spent in Egypt. The Monastery of Saint Jeremiah, located at the Serapeum northwest of Saqqara, Egypt, will be founded by the Copts in the 5^thcentury CE. It will include two churches, a refectory, and various workshops. (102. 99) The monastery will be located not far from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Unas. It was at this period of history that the Great Mother Goddess met her final demise.

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DREAMY NEPTUNE

 The planet Neptune is closely associated with the sign Pisces who has a dual rulership like the previous two signs of Scorpio and Aquarius. Poseidon is the other name for Neptune and he is the brother of Jupiter the original and traditional ruler of Pisces.

Roman Floor Mosaic of Neptune with his Trident

Neptune rules the sea; the deep dark depths of silence that only the fishes understand, and perhaps those humans who are nearly fishes anyway. Because of the silence and hidden qualities of the god and his watery medium, it is very hard to know much about him or his world. We do know that his energy causes chaos on earth and works best in the spiritual world or in the intangible energy aura that surrounds us. The warning here is that one should get to know Jupiter first, and then the Neptune energies will follow in their own good time. In the everyday world it is easier to relate to the energies symbolised by the planetary god Jupiter.

Zeus/Jupiter [Larousse]

The great god Zeus or Jupiter rules the world from his heavenly abode. The stars are his hair and the rocks of Earth his feet; in between is the belly of the world that produces everything. So the Orphic Hymn tells us. This probably means that Pisceans, and Sagittarians too for that matter, need to expand their world, but this should be done in a controlled way. Thus, these people can know more than anyone else, but the hubris is an over-full belly or a mental indigestion – depending on whether the concentration is on the world of senses and food, or the world of the mind and knowledge.

 

Jupiter always brings a spirit of generosity and benevolence. However, under this influence a person must be willing to give way in the end to the dissolving powers of his brother Neptune so that the material world becomes less dominant and one is allowed to see beyond into the world of spirit. Those who let Neptune in too soon, in the belief that dreaming and psychic powers are all that is, are also bound to let muddle and even chaos rule their lives.  If one is not sufficiently grounded in the ways and necessities of life on Earth; are not sufficiently grounded in this world and the arena for our physical living then life can run out of control. On the other hand, those who deny Neptune, deny the magic of the world. Once the practical foundations of living and projects have been established, then Neptune should be allowed to bring inspiration for those conceived art forms and for solving complications. Neptune is not as a solution to life’s difficulties through fantasy escape roots; but he may be the avatar of the Pisces Age which is coming to a close and to be replaced by a new dispensation of the Aquarian Age.

Salvador Mundi by Titian.

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #57

SEVENTH CENTURY BCE (699-600)

 

7^th C BCE        Etruria (land of Etruscans) was at its zenith during the 7-6 century BCE and was comprised of 12 city-states including Veii, Bolsena, Tarquinia, Volterra and Perugia. The Etruscan culture had the same gods as the Greeks who had colonised southern Italy. The Etruscan culture formed the basis of one branch of the Latin civilization. (182)

Etruscan Sarcophagi

689 BCE          The Assyrians invade and destroy the Babylonian culture.

The Babylonia text MUl Apin is the first known Mesopotamian star catalogue, a copy of which is to be held in the Library of Nineveh. The original probably dates from 1000 BCE.  The title is taken from the first line of the text and refers to the ‘star Apin’ which is the constellation Triangulum, together with gamma Andromedae. The text records astronomical events including the heliacal rising, culmination and setting of certain fixed stars. The Assyrians extended this work into the text known as ‘Enuma Anu Enlil’. (46)

                    Velikovsky said that this is the time that the length of the year changed from 360 days to 365 ¼ days. (344)Previously, according to the ancient Egyptians, there were 360 days in the human year and five days dedicated to the gods.

Triangulum & Andromeda. 

[Sky Walk 15.2.24]

675             ESARHADDON (r. 681-68) son of Assyrian King Sargon II, captures the Egyptian capital Memphis, rebuilds Babylon and expands the Assyrian Empire. Egypt becomes a Persian province.

                   The original Sargon, ‘Sargon the Great’ [c2340 BCE] was the founder of the great nation of Mesopotamia.

 

650 BCE      ASHURBANIPAL II (Ashurbanapal/Asurbanipal) (668 - d.c.627BC) son of Sargon II and last great king of the Assyrian Empire. He runs a lavish court at Nineveh, which will be captured in 612 BCE by the Medes and Babylonians.  

 

                       ASSYRIA is a large empire based on the city of Ashur or Assur, which is located on the River Tigris of Mesopotamia. The Assyrian Empire came into being in 3^rd millennium BCE, to reach its peak in 9-7^th centuries BCE. It will eventually be absorbed into what is to become known as the Persian Empire.  

 

                     Assurbanipal collected contemporary historical records, hymns, poems, scientific and religious texts from the archives of the ancient seats of learning, that is from Babylon, Uruk and Nippur.  Copies and translations where also made of the even older Sumerian language of Mesopotamia. All these works were rendered into the contemporary Akkadian Semitic language for Assurbanipal’s library. (188)

 

              The library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh contained most of the Assyrian and Babylonian religious and magical texts collected from ancient temple cities. The Assyrian scribes copied from very ancient texts and the Sumerian language was still largely employed. In the library was a great collection of astrological omens called the ‘Enuma Anu Enlil’. (1)

      

      Examples from Ashurbanipal’s Library

                 Assurbanipal’s library contained the last known recension of the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, a cycle of poems about Gilgamesh, [see 2,700 BCE] king and hero of the ancient city state of Uruk in Mesopotamia.  This mythic cycle probably originates in the time between Abraham and Noah (3^rd millennium BCE). The themes are of the human concern with mortality, the search for knowledge and escape from the common lot. The most important elements of this relatively complete work existed as separate poems in the older Sumerian literature. Tradition takes the story back into a preliterate age on the borderline of legend and history, a little later than the Deluge when gods were replaced by mortals on the thrones of the city-states in the age of Archaic Sumerian civilizations. (188. 13.)

 

Valentine Waves

 

[photo credit: Dudley Simpson@baerenwald.exporer. December 2023]

The 14^th February is Valentine’s Day, a special day for bringing love to planet Earth. This year it is a particularly powerful astrological/astronomical time centring around this date. This is because of the activity of many minor planets are heralding Pluto’s move into the sign of the future, Aquarius. Between the 13^th and 17^thFebruary be aware that here is a chance to change things around radically, in the world and in our personal lives. Will we lose our temper and blow things apart? Or will we act in mature ways, over-come our little personal woes and wants, and thus transmute all that built up energy into something new and useful. Can we turn that energy into waves of healing rather than waves of destruction? 

Are these sound or light waves?

How many of us can think positively and with love, remembering that as we think we also speak, so thus we create the world that we live in – an old cliché but one well worth thinking about. Once set in motion, these energy waves ripple out into the environment, like the ripples on a pond creating a soothing ambiance or a disturbing tide of movement.

Sound Waves

The planetary formations of this time could well herald the Aquarian beginnings at a more tangible level and what we do now could end up governing the next twenty or so years of our personal, cultural, social, political, scientific and spiritual life.

 

Can we make this an Aquarian time of our best efforts, as following on from the transit of Sun and Mercury, the planets Mars and Venus bunch up with Pluto at the very cusp of Aquarius, and all-around Valentines’ day?

 

The glossy side of the next 20 or so years of Pluto in Aquarius is likely to see an increase in intellectual, humanitarian, ingenious, unconventional behaviour and love of freedom. The search for truth goes on at an increased pace indicating more important scientific and spiritual discoveries and development. An emphasis may also be given to how we communicate our dreams and ideas, all under the guidance of the radical planet Uranus.  But we must remember that the planet Saturn also has rulership of Aquarius and is important for giving a practical outcome to Uranian innovation, and not be like Pisces, just lost in dreams and imagination. Will Aquarius bring that longed for brotherhood of humans? Or will it just encase us in more surveillance, control and forced groupings? Or indeed a new type of slavery driven by out of control AI as we all work for a central ‘cause’. The interesting thing is that, undeveloped countries are somewhat immune from all this, for they do not have the technology or the problems of western development – so do indeed ‘the meek inherit the earth’?

Cosmic Waves

Once the planet Pluto has entered into the sign of Aquarius, it will dance with the planet Neptune for many years to come, and in the process offer us the opportunity of creative dreaming or the opposite scenario of weird and wonderful psychic mental states and bizarre behaviour. It will offer the opportunity for populations en-masse to develop clear sighted intuition that can be harnessed to sort out the knotty life problems that we have got ourselves into. Or we can descend into debauched, malicious behaviour centred around control and dominance, a little spoken of side to Aquarius unusual, eccentric and rebellious behaviour. If we know the truth of potential, that groups and communities have more power than radical individuals, then we can be more awake to our latent mistakes and go some way to avoiding them. This is a time for team effort, balanced belief systems and not the individual ego; a time for moving on to new ways of doing things but with wisdom, not under the impetus of inflexible ambition.

 

AI, artificial or alien intelligence, is gathering speed and feeding on itself just like the Ouroborus. The Ouroborus is that ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail and thus depicting the endless cycle of generation and regeneration until finally wisdom is obtained. Nothing is new, all goes around in cycles, perhaps with a different surface expression.

Ouroboros 1478

Can we use love to bring more harmony to the world and our personal lives? Happy Valentine who can.

Botticelli ‘Birth of Venus’ 1485

or the love of a new beginning.  

On the 14^th February our Sun aligns with the star Sador. 

This star marks the heart of the Swan, the constellation Cygnus.

Radical Uranus

 The planet Uranus has a special affinity with the sign of Aquarius. Saturn was the traditional ruler of this sign and still maintains its influence, for not all can respond positively to the rarefied atmosphere of Uranus, well not until they have passed the tests of Saturn. The Uranian influence was consciously added to our living experience of the planet Saturn, when it was rediscovered in 1781.

Kronos, reaper, time keeper and boundary marker

Saturn experience, and labour, lays down the much needed preparations and foundations for life and action so that the Uranian genius and inspiration has a solid platform to work from – the engineer needs good training in theoretical mathematics before reaching the point of being able to make the inventions and designs functional; the artist and writer needs to practise their techniques to give form to their dreams and imagination; the astrologer/astronomer needs years of observing and perfecting calculations before being able to apply the information intuitively to his/her understanding of people, events and the world; a successful revolution driven by Uranian forces needs the careful planning and organization of Saturn if it is to meet its intended purpose, that is to overthrow what used to be. Can you see the potentially useful balance of Saturn and Uranus energies combined? Without Saturn discipline and hard work, Uranus cannot manifest the change, the genius, in any positive and sustained way that is of use to use in our material world.

 

Uranus, deity of the starry sky, can fly because although he doesn’t like or observe boundaries, he has to utilise them, for unfortunately that is the way our material world works. The Female polarity of Uranus is the Egyptian sky goddess Nut.

The Egyptian Nut goddess of the starry night overarching creation. 

Related to the Greek/Roman god Uranus the smasher of boundaries.

Saturn lays the boundaries and the rules and then a Uranian influence comes along and wakens us up to greater possibilities, either accepted or not. Imaginative ideas need a structure within which to work. Have you ever tried flying without wings; have you ever had wonderful ideas that you couldn’t catch; have you only thought about the idea of doing good for the group? If you have then perhaps you need a little more Saturn structure and application in your life to define and execute these wonderful ideas. Combine the principles of these two planetary influences and you have unique rhythms and potential of extraordinary output.

The Tarot Magician

As Dione Fortune says, ‘If we try to escape from the discipline of matter before we have mastered the lessons of matter, we are not advancing heavenwards but suffering from arrested development.’

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #56

c703 BCE        NUMA POMPILIUS (715-673 BCE) second king of Rome is credited with building the first temple to Vesta and establishing the institution of the Vestal Virgins. The temple is round to represent earth, has a domed ceiling to represent the celestial vault and in it a perpetual flame burns, symbol of the earthly hearth and heavenly spirit. (9)

Vestal Virgins of the Goddess Vesta

[historyhogs.com] 

                 Numa established most of the priesthoods of ancient Rome, particularly those of the gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, known as the 3 Flamines. He also established the Salii, the priests who danced through the city twice a year carrying their special sacred shields, one of which had fallen from the sky as a gift from Jupiter. Numa also organized the first systematic Roman ritual calendar (324) and began the calendar year from when the sun reached the mid-point of the constellation Capricorn, following on from the winter solstice that is marked by the sun entering into the sign of Capricorn.(11)  The constellations and similarly named Ecliptic signs have not yet been distinguished or separated, this will occur in the third century.

King Numa is the recipient of a magical shield from the planetary god Jupiter, similar to that given by Zeus to Dardanus the first king of Troy (3000 BCE).  This shield is a copy of the Palladium or aegis worn by the goddess of wisdom, Minerva or Athena of Greece. To protect the valuable shield, Numa made 11 copies of it and appointed the above mentioned 12 priests of the Salii as their guardians. (247]

Numa Pompilius 

[sculptor Moitte 1806]

c700 BCE    HESIOD: Greek poet who in his work called ‘Theogony’, records and systemizes the Olympian pantheon along with Greek stories of creation. In this creation, first came the ‘gods’ Chaos and Gaia with their son Kronos, to be followed by second generation of ‘gods’ made up of Kronos and his wife Rhea, with their son Zeus who is born on the island of Crete. Zeus devours his own pregnant wife Metis, goddess of wisdom, and gives birth to Athena out of his head. Athena will become the patron and protector of the city state of Athens. This switch of genders some authors think symbolizes a growing male domination over female. (9)

Is this Hesiod?

                    Hesiod’s introduction of personifications of the gods recalls the Egyptian concept of ‘Maat’ expressed through the interaction of their gods. This is similar to the ‘Wisdom of God’ as recorded by the Hebrews in their ‘Book of Proverbs’. [185]

 

                Many Greek mythologies were set is Italy where the Greeks had established colonies. Here were located the ‘Phlegrean Fields’ that hid the entrance to the Kingdom of Hades near Naples. Etna in Sicily is regarded as the site where Zeus, who with the help of Hercules, fought the Titans, the ancient old gods. Etna is also the abode of the Cyclops and Hephaestus or Vulcan, god of Fire. The Tartara River near Etna is nominated as the site of Greek Kore’s kidnap by Pluto god of Hades or the underworld. The River Po which runs through Turin, the plane of Lombardy and exits in the Adriatic, is also the site of many Greek myths. (182]

Phlegrean Fields

Entrance to Hades, world of Vulcan and Pluto

                    Western thought is systemized by the Greeks around the end of this century and into the next and will reach its high point with Plato (365 BCE) in the fourth century of this era.  The ancients conceived the essences of life as gods, and Plato in the future will give these gods archetypal form. (19)

Vulcan, god of Fire

[detail from ‘Parnassus’ by Mantegna 1497]

                Around the turn of the century, the first kingdom of Media is established from a federation of Iranian tribes. From these tribes will arise the Achaemenid dynasty of the future. (102) In the European Late Bronze Age development, it is the time of the ‘Urn-field Culture’ of the Celtic people.

SOMBER SATURN

The planet strongly associated with the sign of Capricorn is Saturn; and well does Saturn, alias Chronos, reflect the qualities and character of that sign. Saturn marks the edge of the Universe, as the ancients knew it, the edge of the space-time continuum, from here it is a leap out into the unknown where the constraints of time and space no longer apply. Umm, so do you fall out of the tree, so to speak, or do you embrace with open arms the magnificent, if a little scary, vistas of the far beyond that are the prize of giving homage to necessity, duty, responsibility and hard work, according to Saturn’s demands.

Chronos looking a little wearily upon

capricious foolishness of mankind.

Saturn in history was known as the planet that guarded the limits of our universe and therefore provided the boundary to our experiences. Saturn only provides a boundary to keep mere mortals safe, but this boundary is not impenetrable and if there is the courage to peek into the unknown, beyond everyday life and thinking, then the magic can be wonderful. The compatriot of Capricorn is Aquarius, who is also ruled by Saturn. However, in this latter sign, due to its dual rulership of both Saturn and the radical planet Uranus, it is probably easier for the Aquarian to accept alternative possibilities than it is for the Capricorn person.

Without the influence of Saturn there would be no structure in our world, no form to anything, no skin to keep you contained, no deep thinking, no constructive accomplishment in the material world. Now these serious aspects of life can appear to many as limitations and restrictions but without them life would be but chaos, everything floating around without form! Such conditions only seem like barriers to achievement when we don’t pay homage to Saturn’s needs, or our own. There is a hidden side to Saturn that guides us on to discover our soul. Perhaps sometimes found in those precious moments of time, cut off from the hectic pace of modern life. Some might be ahead of the pack and take pondering in isolation very seriously, and even follow the life of the hermit.

Is this an hermit’s house?

Life can be a struggle under the influence of a too heavy Saturn influence but that struggle has the purpose of building stronger and deeper foundations of life and character, without too much self-interest or lack of recognition of the beauty in life. If those foundations are not made from the point of view of pure motive then you can be sure that they will dissolve at some later point in time and not be as productive as they could have been. If foundations are laid solid through life experience and contemplation, then these foundations will be the platform from which to shoot for the stars via Uranus.

The well known first publication of the famous astrologer Liz Greene, is called, “Saturn: a new look at an old Devil’ and is certainly worth a read if you are studying astrology.

A beautiful luminous Saturn from online Astronomy Magazine 30.7.10

 And to crack Saturn and begin your journey to the stars, try Robyn Sharma’s ‘’Leadership without Title’. A weekend read won’t get you there, but it will open your mind to possibilities and sign post the first steps.