VIRGO - a witty, discreet soul!

Qualities of the sign Virgo   It’s an earthly, cold, melancholly, barren, feminine, nocturnall, Southerne Signe; the house and exaltation of Mercury, of the earthly triplicity.

Places Virgo Signifieth    It signifieth a Study where Books are, a Closet, a Dairy-house, Corne-fields, Granaries, Malt-houses, Hayricks or of Barley, Wheat or Pease, or a place where Cheese and Butter is preserved and stored up. 

Diseases   The Wormes, Winde, Cholicke, all Obstructions in the bowels and miseraics, croking of the Guts, infirmesse in the Stones, any disease in the belly.

Kingdoms, Countries and Cities subject to Virgo   Greece, the south part thereof, Croatia, the Athenian territory, Messopotamia, Affrica, the South-West of France, Paris, Hierusalem, Rhodes, Lyons, Thoulouse, Basil, Heidelberg.

Shape and Description   A slender Body of mean height, but decently composed; a ruddy browne complexion, blacke hayre, well-pfavoured or lovely, but no beautifull creature, a small shrill voyce, all members inclining to brevity; a witty discreet soule, judicious and excellently well spoken, studious and given to History, whether Man or Woman; it produceth a care, understanding, if Mercury be in this Signe, and Moon in Cancer, but somewhat unstable.

-          William Lilly, Christian Astrology (1647)

Hiroshima

DIRGE FOR THE NEW SUNRISE
(Fifteen minutes past eight o'clock, on the morning of Monday and 6th of August, 1945)

Bound to my heart as Ixion to the wheel,
Nailed to my heart as the Thief upon the Cross,
I hang between our Christ and the gap where the world was lost

And watch the phantom Sun in Famine Street
- The ghost of the heart of Man . . . red Cain
And the more murderous brain
Of Man, still redder Nero that conceived that death
Of his mother Earth, and tore
Her womb, to know the place where he was conceived.

But no eyes grieved -
For none were left for tears:
They were blinded as the years
Since Christ was born. Mother or Murderer, you have given or taken life -
Now all is one!

There was a morning when the holy Light
Was young. The beautiful First Creature came
To our water-springs, and thought us without blame,.
Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the Light -
The marrow in the bone
We dreamed was safe . . . the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree
Were springs of Deity.

But I saw the little Ant-men as they ran
Carrying the world's weight of the world's filth
And the filth in the heart of Man -
Compressed till that heat came soundless, shook the sky
As if in search of food, and squeezed the stems
Of all that grows on the earth till they were dry
- And drank the marrow of the bone:
The eyes that saw, the lips that kissed, are gone
Or black as thunder lie and grin at the murdered Sun.

The living blind and seeing Dead together lie
As if in love . . . There was no more hating then,
And no more love: Gone is the heart of Man.

- Edith Sitwell.

Many happy returns, Julia!

Hi, guys! Well, yes, that's what folk are saying to me today because -  obviously-  it's my birthday (Happy Birthday yesterday,  Helen Mirren)  When we mention 'returns', we send lot of good wishes or positive feed-back.    However. . .   here's another slant on this pleasant greeting.   On our birthdays the Sun returns to the precise position in its Zodiac Sun-sign it was in on the day when we were born.   Serious astrologers use this astronomical phenomenon as one interesting background factor to what we might usefully focus on during the coming twelve months. It's a sort of twelve months snap- shot.   In this context it is our  Solar Return.  It's not going to tell us what will happen - that's just not on - but it's useful, and the 'Solar Return chart' is cast for when 'the return' is exact in the individual's location.   Sometimes this particular 'return' is stunningly important.   Yonks before I became interested  in - let alone a serious student of - astrology Derek and I were married on my birthday - it was also the time of the Leo New Moon  but I didn't know that at the time. . .  Well guys, that was. . . 58 years ago today!!!
  If all this sort of thing fascinates you, very soon I'll be blogging on about Jupiter.  That's another fascinating story,   Today we're celebrating, so wish me   a 'Happy Solar Return!  cheers from Julia

Latest inventions on trial

Dr Strabismus of Utrecht is working hard on about fourteen thousand and fifty new inventions. These include a collapsible salt-bag, a bottle with its neck in the middle, a rice-sifter, a stanchion to prop up other stanchions, a suet-container, a fog-horn key, a leather grape, a new method of stencilling on ivory, basalt cubes for roofing swimming baths,  a fox-trap, a dummy jelly-fish, waterproof onions, false teeth for swordfish, a method of freezing meat-skewers, a hand-woven esparto grass egg-cosy which plays Thora when released from the egg, a glass stilt, a revlving wheel-barrow, an iron thumb for postmen, a hash-pricker, a beer-swivel with blunt flanges and a red go-by, a fish-detector, a screw for screwing screws into other screws, hot pliers, a plush sausage-sharpener, a rope-soled skate for use in mountain quarries, an oiled cork for use in rabbit-hutches, a cheese anchor and a chivet for screaming radishes.

Leo's trembling passion . . .

Qualities of the Sign Leo   Is the onely house of the Sun, by nature Fiery, Hot, Dry, Cholericke, Diurnal, Commanding, Bestial, Barren, of the East, and Fiery Triplicity, Masculine.

Diseases   All sicknesses in the ribs and sides, as Pluricies, Convulsions, paines in the backe, trembling or passion of the heart, violent burning feavers, all weaknesse or diseases in the heart, sore eyes, the Plague, the Pestilence, the yellow-Jaundice.

Places Leo Signifieth   A place where wilde Beasts frequent, Woods, Forrests, Desert places, steep rocky places, unacceptable places, Kings Palaces, Castles, Forts, Parks, in houses where fire is kept, neer a Chimney.

Shape and Description   Great round Head, big Eyes starting or staring out, or goggle-eyes, quick-sighted, a full and large body and it more then of middle stature, broad Shoulders, narrow Sides, yellow or darke flaxen haire and it much curling or turning up, a fierce Countenance, but ruddy, high sanguine complexion, strong, valiant and active.

Kingdoms, Countries and Cities subject to Leo   Italy, Bohemia, the Alpes, Turkie, Sicilia. Apulia, Rome,Syracuse, Cremona, Ravenna. Damascus, Prague, Lintz, Bristol.

-          William Lilly, Christian Astrology (1647)

Hurrah for Pooh! (tiddlely-pom)

Auntie Phyllis gave me A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner for Christmas 1941, and the thing is that it's as entrancing and funny in 2015 as it was when I was nine. It is, after all, the best children's book ever written - and pretty nearly the best book for adults. It radiates humour - good humour - and joy, and captures childhood on the page as no other book does - and re-reading it rejuvenates the oldest reader. Much of the delight of course is in the characters: the ultimate pessimist, Eeyore, the simple, charming Alan Bennett-like Piglet, the brash, bouncy Tigger, the Wise Owl, Wol, and of course Pooh himself, the resident Bear with a poem for every occasion: (sometimes dropping into vers libre):

'I could spend a happy morning
   Seeing Piglet.
And I couldn't spend a happy morning
   Not seeing Piglet.
And it doesn't seem to matter
If I don't see Owl and Eeyore (or any of the others),
And I'm not going to see Owl or Eeyore (or any of the others)
   Or Christopher Robin.'

Scene after scene is etched in the memory - Pooh's encounter with the Horrible Heffalump was the first piece of prose which, read to me, reduced me to helpless hysterical laughing. But every scene in the book has its own laughter, as when Eeyor first encounters Tigger:

'Hallo, Eeyore,' said Pooh. 'This is Tigger.'
'What is?' said Eeyore.
'This,' said Pooh and Pioglet together, and Tigger smiled his happiest smile and said nothing.
Eeyore walked all round Tigger one way, and then turned and walked all around him the other way.
'What did you say it was?' he asked.
'Tigger.'
'Ah!' said Eeyore.
'He's just come,' explained Piglet.
'Ah!' said Eeyore again.
He thought for a long time and then said:
'When is he going?'

I don't think I could love anyone who doesn't love The House at Poor Corner.

Hi, Pluto! - where's Mickey?

Well, it's all very extraordinary, and I'm sure scientists will be poring over all the new information they'll be receiving about Pluto as a result of the fly-past. My problem is that I don't really believe that Pluto is there. Of course I know that it's there, just as I know the other planets are there, and that there is an infinite number of platenary systems elsewhere in space as the great vacancy goes on towards infinity. The trouble is, I con't accept it, emotionally. I look up at the sky, and it's very pretty, and obviously considerable time and trouble has been expended in setting all the lights out and moving them around for our pleasure - but as for them all being actual physical places - oh, come on, pull the other one.
I don't mean to give comfort to those who still believe that the Moon landing was an exercise carefully contrived by the US government and filmed in a studio just south of Disneyland, or that the earth is flat (obvious though that is the case: just look at the horizon, and planes diving over it). But, actually, I can see where they're coming from - they share my own difficulty in believing that man could have stood on the face of the Moon, the problem being that they don't accept, as I do, that actual fact, as suppoorted by rational evidence - just the same as the evidence that proves that Goofie, I mean Pluto, does exict. And where's Mickey, may I ask? Now him, I do believe in.