Mythology and Astrology
On Tuesday 15th May at 11.47am, we see a New Moon with the Sun and Moon in the same place, at Taurus 24. This is then followed hours later by the arrival of Uranus (YOOR a nus) in Taurus (12th House) at 3.16pm. This happens every seven years (astrological cycle position).
Uranus enters Taurus May 15, 2018, drops back into Aries November 27, 2018, then re-enters Taurus March 7, 2019, to stay until July 7, 2025. It also enters Taurus from November 9, 2025 to March 26, 2026
Uranus, in Roman mythology was Caelus, Central part of a large floor mosaic, from a Roman villa in Sentinum (now known as Sassoferrato, in Marche, Italy), ca. 200–250 C.E. Aion, the god of eternity, is standing inside a celestial sphere decorated with zodiac signs, in between a green tree and a bare tree (summer and winter, respectively). Sitting in front of him is the mother-earth goddess, Tellus (the Roman counterpart of Gaia) with her four children, who possibly represent the four seasons.
Aion (Greek: Αἰών) is a Hellenistic deity associated with time, the orb or circle encompassing the universe, and the zodiac. The "time" represented by Aion is unbounded, in contrast to Chronos as empirical time divided into past, present, and future. He is thus a god of eternity, associated with mystery religions concerned with the afterlife, such as the mysteries of Cybele, Dionysus, Orpheus, and Mithras. In Latin, the concept of the deity may appear as Aevum or Saeculum. He is typically in the company of an earth or mother goddess such as Tellus or Cybele, as on the Parabiago plate.
Father Time - is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man with wings, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or another timekeeping device (which represents time's constant one-way movement, and more generally and abstractly, entropy). This image derives from several sources, including the Grim Reaper and the misattribution of Cronus (not Chronos) as the Greek Titan of human time, reaping and calendars, or the Lord of Time. Time (in his allegorical form) is often depicted revealing or unveiling the allegorical Truth, sometimes at the expense of a personification of Falsehood, Fraud, or Envy. This theme is related to the idea of veritas filia temporis (Time is the father of Truth).
Aether (He, light, embodies the pure upper air that the gods breathe,
as opposed to the normal air (ἀήρ, aer) breathed by mortals) and Uranus.
Taurus (Latin for "the Bull") is one of the constellations of the zodiac, which means it is crossed by the plane of the ecliptic. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere's winter sky, between Aries to the west and Gemini to the east; to the north lies Perseus and Auriga, to the southeast Orion, to the south Eridanus, and to the southwest Cetus.
It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
Aristophanes states that Aether was the son of Erebus. However, Damascius says that Aether, Erebus and Chaos were siblings and the offspring of Chronos (Father Time). According to Epiphanius, the world began as a cosmic egg, encircled by Time and Inevitability (most likely Chronos and Ananke) in serpent fashion. Together they constricted the egg, squeezing its matter with great force until the world divided into two hemispheres. After that, the atoms sorted themselves out. The lighter and finer ones floated above and became the Bright Air (Aether and/or Uranus) and the rarefied Wind (Chaos), while the heavier and denser atoms sank and became the Earth (Gaia) and the Ocean (Pontos and/or Oceanus). See also Plato's Myth of Er. Note: Er did not drink the waters of Lethe, one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified. In Classical Greek, the word lethe literally means "oblivion", "forgetfulness", or "concealment". It is related to the Greek word for "truth", aletheia, which through the privative alpha literally means "un-forgetfulness" or "un-concealment".According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous.
Some ancient Greeks believed that souls were made to drink from the river before being reincarnated so they would not remember their past lives. The Myth of Er in Book X of Plato's Republic tells of the dead arriving at a barren waste called the "plain of Lethe", through which the river Ameles ("careless") runs. "Of this, they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity," Plato wrote, "and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things." A few mystery religions taught the existence of another river, the Mnemosyne; those who drank from the Mnemosyne would remember everything and attain omniscience. Initiates were taught that they would receive a choice of rivers to drink from after death and to drink from Mnemosyne instead of Lethe. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.
Titanide, or Titaness, Mnemosyne was the daughter of the Titans Uranus and Gaia. Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine Muses by Zeus.
These two rivers are attested in several verse inscriptions on gold plates dating to the 4th century BC and onward, found at Thurii in Southern Italy and elsewhere throughout the Greek world. There were rivers of Lethe and Mnemosyne at the oracular shrine of Trophonius in Boeotia, from which worshippers would drink before making oracular consultations with the god.
Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid, in his description of the Underworld in his Metamorphoses, includes a description of Lethe as a stream that puts people to sleep. Aeneas, the protagonist of Virgil's epic Latin poem, Aeneid, travels to Lethe to meet the ghost of his father in Book VI of the poem.
"The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd:
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past."
Aristophanes states that Aether was the son of Erebus. However, Damascius says that Aether, Erebus and Chaos were siblings and the offspring of Chronos (Father Time). According to Epiphanius, the world began as a cosmic egg, encircled by Time and Inevitability (most likely Chronos and Ananke) in serpent fashion. Together they constricted the egg, squeezing its matter with great force until the world divided into two hemispheres. After that, the atoms sorted themselves out. The lighter and finer ones floated above and became the Bright Air (Aether and/or Uranus) and the rarefied Wind (Chaos), while the heavier and denser atoms sank and became the Earth (Gaia) and the Ocean (Pontos and/or Oceanus). See also Plato's Myth of Er. Note: Er did not drink the waters of Lethe, one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified. In Classical Greek, the word lethe literally means "oblivion", "forgetfulness", or "concealment". It is related to the Greek word for "truth", aletheia, which through the privative alpha literally means "un-forgetfulness" or "un-concealment".According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous.
Some ancient Greeks believed that souls were made to drink from the river before being reincarnated so they would not remember their past lives. The Myth of Er in Book X of Plato's Republic tells of the dead arriving at a barren waste called the "plain of Lethe", through which the river Ameles ("careless") runs. "Of this, they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity," Plato wrote, "and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things." A few mystery religions taught the existence of another river, the Mnemosyne; those who drank from the Mnemosyne would remember everything and attain omniscience. Initiates were taught that they would receive a choice of rivers to drink from after death and to drink from Mnemosyne instead of Lethe. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.
Titanide, or Titaness, Mnemosyne was the daughter of the Titans Uranus and Gaia. Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine Muses by Zeus.
These two rivers are attested in several verse inscriptions on gold plates dating to the 4th century BC and onward, found at Thurii in Southern Italy and elsewhere throughout the Greek world. There were rivers of Lethe and Mnemosyne at the oracular shrine of Trophonius in Boeotia, from which worshippers would drink before making oracular consultations with the god.
Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid, in his description of the Underworld in his Metamorphoses, includes a description of Lethe as a stream that puts people to sleep. Aeneas, the protagonist of Virgil's epic Latin poem, Aeneid, travels to Lethe to meet the ghost of his father in Book VI of the poem.
"The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd:
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past."
The identification of the constellation of Taurus with a bull is very old, certainly dating to the Chalcolithic, and perhaps even to the Upper Paleolithic. Michael Rappenglück of the University of Munich believes that Taurus is represented in a cave painting at the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux (dated to roughly 15,000 BC), which he believes is accompanied by a depiction of the Pleiades.
In the northeastern quadrant of the Taurus, constellation lies the Pleiades (M45), one of the best known open clusters, easily visible to the naked eye. The seven most prominent stars in this cluster are at least visual magnitude six, and so the cluster is also named the "Seven Sisters" by indigenous groups of Australia, North America, and Siberia. This suggests that the name may have a common ancient origin. In mythology, the seven divine sisters, a name supposedly derived from that of their mother Pleione, an Oceanid nymph, and effectively meaning "daughters of Pleione".
Triptolemus, "threefold warrior"; also known as Buzyges, in Greek mythology always connected with Demeter of the Eleusinian Mysteries, might be accounted the son of King Celeus of Eleusis in Attica, or, according to the Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca I.V.2), the son of Gaia and Oceanus—another way of saying he was "primordial man".
Demeter chose to teach Triptolemus the art of agriculture and, from him, the rest of Greece learned to plant and reap crops. He flew across the land on a chariot drawn by dragons while Demeter and Persephone, once restored to her mother, cared for him, and helped him complete his mission of educating the whole of Greece in the art of agriculture. Triptolemus was equally associated with the bestowal of hope for the afterlife associated with the expansion of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Kerenyi 1967 p 123).
When Triptolemus taught King Lyncus of the Scythians, the arts of agriculture, Lyncus refused to teach it to his people and then tried to murder Triptolemus. As punishment, Demeter turned Lyncus into a lynx. King Charnabon of the Getae also made an attempt on Triptolemus' life, killing one of his dragons to prevent his escape. Demeter intervened again, replacing the dragon and condemning Charnabon to a life of torment. Upon his death, Charnabon was placed in the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus, said to resemble a man trying to kill a serpent, as a warning to mortals who would think to betray those favoured by the gods.
Triptolemus is also depicted as a young man with a branch or diadem placed in his hair, usually sitting on his chariot, adorned with serpents. His attributes include a plate of grain, a pair of wheat or barley ears and a scepter.
Celeus or the peasant Dysaules may be substituted for Triptolemus as the primordial Eleusinian recipient of the first gifts of the Mysteries.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and it is between Saturn and Neptune.
How did Uranus get its name?
The Romans named the five planets closest to the Sun after their most important gods. These were the only planets that were bright enough for them to see. Later, when telescopes were used, other planets were discovered. Astronomers decided to continue naming the planets after Roman Gods with one exception - Uranus.Uranus is the ancient Greek deity of the Heavens, the earliest supreme god. Uranus was the son and mate of Gaia the father of Cronus (Saturn) and of the Cyclopes and Titans (predecessors of the Olympian gods).
Herschel named it "the Georgium Sidus" (the Georgian Planet) in honour of his patron, the infamous (to Americans) King George III of England; others called it "Herschel".
The Latin Caelus, a son of Gaea, but is also called the husband of Gaea, and by her the father of Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, Cronus, of the Cyclopes — Brontes, Steropes, and Arges — and of the Hecatonchires — Cottus, Aegaeon and Gyges. According to Cicero, he also was the father of Hermes by Dia, and of Aphrodite by Hemera.
Uranus hated his children, and immediately after their birth, he confined them in Tartarus, in consequence of which he was unmanned and dethroned by Cronus at the instigation of Gaea.4 Out of the drops of his blood sprang the Gigantes, the Melian nymphs, and according to some, Silenus, and from the foam gathering around his limbs in the sea, sprang Aphrodite.
Uranus is unique among all the planets of the solar system because it essentially orbits on its side, with its axis tilted nearly perpendicular to the Sun. Now astronomers have finally solved the mystery of why Uranus looks so strange. Uranus's spin axis lies 98 degrees off of its orbital plane with the Sun.
It appears that Uranus does not have a rocky core like Jupiter and Saturn but rather that its material is more or less uniformly distributed. Uranus' atmosphere is about 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane. Like the other gas planets, Uranus has bands of clouds that blow around rapidly. There's no process inside Uranus, like volcanism on Earth, that would give life inside the planet a form of energy.
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo
