The Significance of Asteroids
by Jacob Schwartz
Ida and Her Moon. NASA/JPL
The thousands of named asteroids signals a revolution
that will bring astrologers into the new millennium of enlightenment. The
discovery of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto symbolized the transition from the
Medieval Ages into the Industrial and Technological eras which broke down
time/space barriers. Today's revolution, says Demetra George in her foreword
to Jacob Schwartz's Asteroid Name Encyclopedia, resonating to the
vibrations of the Age of Aquarius, is that of Information. Information of all kinds is racing along electronic superhighways at lightning speed, crashing through the corporate frontier, breaking down barriers that segment multi-national empires such as computer and telephone companies, cable systems, film studios, and media conglomerates. Our challenge is how to adapt so we receive, understand, integrate and act upon this vast explosion of information without being overwhelmed and incapacitated. The consideration of the asteroids, all 5000 of them with names so far, can lead astrologers to developing a language that will address, in very specific ways, how this information explosion is impacting and forever changing the evolving psyche of humanity.
Astrology wasn't always so complicated. Our professional ancestors learned their craft in a world described by only seven planets. Saturn, the farthest planet then seen with the naked eye symbolize the limits of what we could perceive. But then William and Caroline Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781 and the ancient cosmology based upon seven sacred planets, seven chakras, seven musical notes, the seven days of the week, etc. was shattered. From a metaphysical perspective a planet represents an aspect of consciousness. The naming of a new planet reflects a simultaneous activation of a consciousness in the human psyche.
Uranus spoke to an awareness that each person had a right to be free and equal. This awareness led people all over the world to revolt against oppressors to obtain their freedom. Similar social changes occurred with the discoveries of Neptune and Pluto. Neptune was discovered when anesthetics, nursing, homeopathy and medical healing became more systematic. Pluto correlated to the economic depression, a world war, and the discovery of nuclear energy promising to transform humanity in a process of alchemical evolution. The timing and naming of newly discovered planets is synchronistic with new eras in history, and new responses by individuals who change society and are changed by it. The astrological language, with the naming of asteroids two centuries ago, grew to recognize and explain the parts of personality that were new to human drama. They carried the awareness that was necessary for people to enter and participate in a new era.
New Year's Eve of 1800 marked the sighting of Ceres, the first asteroid. Soon after, more asteroids were found and named after other goddesses of ancient mythology: Pallas, Vesta and Juno. By the end of the 19th century, more than 400 asteroids were known. And a century later, over 14,000 asteroid orbits have been computed and over 5000 have been named not only after mythological gods and goddesses like Bacchus, Apollo, Hera, Artemis but also places like California and Ohio, Toronto and Tucson, historical persons like Kleopatra and Copernicus, Bach and Bernstein, and things like Beer and Bus, Universitas and United Nations, and people names like Diana and Donna, Anna and Arthur, James and Johanna. The vast majority of asteroids are orbiting around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, although a few come close to Venus and Earth, with an impact 65 million years ago of one credited with the extinction of dinosaurs upon the Earth. An asteroid about the size of a city block approached Earth in 1994 within half the distance of the Moon, closer than any other potentially destructive space object. A near collision with another asteroid is expected in the 22nd century. Many scientists now agree that the mysterious 1908 explosion over Tonguska, Siberia, flattening hundreds of square miles of land, resulted from an asteroid exploding just before impact with Earth.
Ephemerides were not available for asteroids until the late 20th century, so studying the implications of asteroids was not possible for almost two centuries after the discovery of Ceres. The vast majority of astrologers did not know they existed, or those who knew about them said they were "cosmic gravel," not real planets, unimportant, insignificant; the ten regular planets were enough. And those who might have considered using four new points like the four largest asteroids Ceres, Juno, Pallas and Vesta, plus the comet Chiron were shocked with the realization that it didn't stop with those, but there were thousands of them. At the very moment skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by Shane Stant in her dressing room in Detroit, 6 January 1994, 2:20 p.m., asteroid Tanya was conjunct lord of the underworld Pluto on the descendent, asteroid Harding was on the eastern horizon, and asteroid Shane formed a perfect triangle on the nadir of the chart.
Asteroids point to an evolutionary breakthrough for humanity. If we accept the premise that the naming of new planetary bodies correlates with new centers of consciousness within us, then suddenly there are thousands of new centers of consciousness lighting up in the cosmos and in our minds. If we are on the precipice of a quantum leap of consciousness where a greater proportion of the brain will be utilized, then the awareness of asteroid relevance can stimulate those newly utilized brain cells. Is asteroid symbolism the next step in our evolution? Are the thousands of asteroid names in our language assisting us to communicate the new response we all must develop to cope with the vast changes in technology, communication, and the information age now upon us?
Peter, Paul and Mary first performed as a singing group in the summer of 1961. The asteroids Peter (#1716), Paul (3525) and Mary (#2779) were also together then too, in the theatrical sign of Leo. When Fidel Castro established the first Marxist government in the Americas, the asteroid Karl Marx (#2807) was conjunct the asteroid America (#916). The asteroids Adolphine (#608) and Germania (#241), discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, have almost the same orbit around the Sun and conjunctions are rare, but long; well, they were traveling together both in longitude and declination throughout the twenty-year period when Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany, separating in the summer of 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed!
While there's no asteroid named O J, there is a like sounding asteroid Oja (#5080), and asteroids for each of the characters in the murder trial where O J Simpson (#4788) was prosecuted for murdering Nicole (#1343) Brown (#1643) and Ron (Ronan, #4024) Goldman. When Brown was born, asteroids Nicole and Oja were conjunct at 0 and 6 degrees of Leo opposite the asteroid Oja in O J's chart at 2 degrees of Aquarius, and conjunct Oja at the time of the murder at 8 degrees Aquarius, opposite the Moon at 7 degrees Leo!
Since astronomers have done so well in choosing names for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, can their unintentional expertise in channeling appropriate names extend to the thousand of asteroids they name? Sometimes the names are chosen seemingly whimsically to honor colleagues, family members, familiar places, ideas, and even cats and dogs and birds as well as historical figures. Currently names are chosen by a board of astronomers meeting regularly at the Smithsonian Astrophysics Department at Harvard University. Astronomers generally do not connect what's in the cosmos with experiences on Earth. Naming asteroids is perhaps the only time an astronomer relates what's up there to what's down here on Earth. Asteroids thus can form a bridge between the astronomical and astrological communities!
Since the names work so well, could it be that the asteroid carries its own name? A name can be reduced to a number, and that number carries the vibration of a specific wave pattern. Our astrological knowledge of aspects and harmonics, which is based on the vibrational patterns of numbers, confirms that certain aspect series resonate with one another, and that planets in resonant aspects interact with each other. These interactive vibrational forces draw energies into connection. Perhaps the physical properties of the asteroid: its name, apparent shape, chemical composition, spectroscope, orbit carries a vibrational frequency, or sound, which the discoverer unconsciously connects with a name.
So few astronomers understand astrology or the archetypal power of names. Is their seeming arbitrary naming the factor in creating the vibration? Or is the vibration already there, waiting to be acknowledged, and so strong that the asteroid itself dictates its name to the astronomer via the circuitry of the unconscious mind that links one to the holographic mysteries of the universe?
Asteroids add real people and real places to our lives and our horoscopes. Connecting them with planets, zodiacal signs and houses, and with each other, produces patterns of relationships describing the persons and places in our life. The asteroids bearing names relevant to your life become your asteroids because the collected names of people and places in your life carry a unique expression of your identity no less meaningful than your birth data.
Because they are so small and so abundant, asteroids can focus upon explicit relationships between people, places and things; they simply identify the name of the who, the name of the place, the name of the what, and when these names connect.
Most of the important whos, wheres, and whats in your life have a body in space with the same name. In the vast majority of instances, the names were decided upon and approved by professional scientists, usually individual astronomers or astrophysicists, or sometimes committees of them. The sounds of names ascribed by these astronomers carry a cycle of meaning relating to events and experiences far beyond the meaning intended by the scientists who named them.
What is a name? A name is a collection of sounds, of letters, of phonemes which gives someone or something an identity. In a mysterious and profound way not fully understood, it appears as though whatever energy motivated the namer to name the asteroid carries an energy through times before the asteroid was discovered, and thereafter. That same energy motivated parents to name their children and motivates humans in establishing relationships or when they change their names. How very common it is for people to establish friendships with several persons sharing the same name. And how common it is to hear people say I never did get along well with people named .... Asteroids can explain why.
The name of the asteroid simply formalizes the energy pattern in a mysterious and profound relevance. The name now has a cycle, it travels through signs and houses, the name now has aspects with planets, nodes and points. Suddenly the horoscope blossoms with people, places and things by name! And these names now have cosmic interactions with each other! Relating the cosmos to specific people, to specific places, is what the wholeness of geocosmic astrology is really about. The difference here is that instead of using a horoscope with only abstract planetary symbols, we now relate the cosmos with the name.
If you would like to explore asteroids further,
here are a few resources:
Demetra George and the Asteroid SIG of NCGR; P. O. Box 405, Waldport OR
97394; to subscribe to GAIA, a bulletin of the Asteroid SIG contact Lorraine
Welsh, 42 Gayland Road, Needham MA 02192.
Check out the following books: Asteroid Name Encyclopedia by Jacob
Schwartz published by Llewellyn, P.O. Box 64383-K609, St. Paul MN 55164;
New Insights Into Astrology by Nona Press published by ACS, P.O.Box
34487, San Diego CA 92163; and Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
by Lutz Schmadel published by Springer-Verlag; Mechanics of the Future,
Asteroids by Martha Lang-Wescott published by Treehouse Mountain,
Conway MA 01341; Asteroid Goddesses by Demetra George and Douglas
Bloch published by ACS, P. O. Box 34487, San Diego CA 92163; and The
Ultimate Asteroid Book by J Lee Lehman, published by Whitford Press,
West Chester PA 19380. Also, subscribe to The Mutable Dilemma,
published by the Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, 838
5th Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90005.
For asteroid services, horoscopes with asteroids containing personal names,
connect with Jacob Schwartz by email at BQVT83A@prodigy.com,
or at P.O.Box 176, Oreland PA 19075, telephone and fax 215-233-0858, or
Llewellyn Worldwide for a horoscope and interpretive report, www.llewellyn.com.
For asteroid software, contact Mark Pottenger, 838 Fifth Avenue, Los Angeles
CA 90005, telephone 213-487-1000, fax 213-487-7853; or ARC Software's
Dance of the Planets, Loveland CO
Copyright © 1995 Jacob Schwartz BQVT83A@prodigy.com
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