Planets that Break Your Face

This is my blood.

Two days ago, at about 3:30 in the afternoon – I broke my face. Well, not really, but that’s a figure of speech I grew up using and which is quite appropriate to what actually happened. See, my 5th grade son wanted me to play this complex version of “tag” with him and about 20 other 5th and 6th graders. I could only catch 1 or 2 of ‘em. They were just too fast for me. So I decided to get on my bike and chase ‘em down.

You see, I’m really good on a bike. I used to be a semi-pro freestyle trickster. But these Japanese bikes are different, they are bigger and, this is the really import part, they get the brakes backwards. Yeah – they put the front brake on the right-hand side. So, I am fully absorbed in irresponsible kid-mode, chasing these 10-11 year olds at super-high speed around turns when, after reaching out to tag one, I suddenly need to stop right away before hitting a wall.

So, I do what instinct tells me – get ready to fishtail the back tire out to the right, and turn left, while “skidding out”. So, of course, I slam on the brakes to start the skid… the right-hand brake.

Oppps…

In about a half a second my face hit the road. I had sunglasses on, to look like this character the kids wanted me to look like. The right side smashed against the street just before my skull. My son was kneeling at my side in about 3 seconds (divine arrangement), “Are you OK dad?”

“I don’t know, am I OK?” I asked and showed him the right side of my face.

“No. You’re not OK at all. It’s really bad. There is blood everywhere.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t really that bad. Just two gashes, no damage to my eye or skull. Tons of blood. More blood than I ever spilled out of a wound before. But it turned out to be fun, and a good way to show my son how dangerous a bike can be, and stuff like that. But anyway, now for the astrology. Let’s see if we can figure out what planets “caused” me to break my face.

Basic Data

I’m:

Vic DiCara

July 27, 1970 at 7:38 pm

Bay Shore, New York, USA

I’m doing this chart as I do with all charts: whole-sign houses, tropical signs, sidereal (lahiri) nakṣatra, degree-specific Indian aspects, and basic viṁśottarī daśā using nakṣatra year-length (359.017 days)

Bear In Mind

Before you jump off explaining how my birth chart is prone to face-breaking, please bear in mind that I don’t usually break my face. In fact in my whole life I never broke a bone – despite being a BMXer, skateboarder, and spending my youth and twenties in really dangerous situations.

Also bear in mind a few other things about this same day.

• It was my janma-tithi (the same lunar phase as the day I was born) – well not exactly it was the same phase, but in the opposite fortnight. I was born on kṛṣṇa-ekādaśī and this face-breaking event happened on gaura-ekādaśī.
• I met my son’s new 5th grade teacher earlier that day for the first time. It was pleasant and she gave a very positive review for him
• A court case was held that I am connected with as the plaintiff.
• Later in the day I received a large parcel from Vṛṇdāvana, India with a super-excellent new mṛdāṅga drum to replace my old one that had broken.

Initial Theories

Where does one look for a physical injury? Well certainly it would be ludicrous to give an explanation that doesn’t involve the first house and lord – since that is the house of physical things like the body. My first house is Capricorn (Asc at 25 degrees), so my first lord is Saturn, who at my birth was at 21 degrees of Taurus.

Besides this there is more standard, fundamental theory: accidents and pain comes from natural malefics and painful, detrimental house lords. Those lords for me might be Mercury (6th lord), Sun (8th lord), and Jupiter (12th lord).

Daśā

My usual astro software malfunctioned and still isn’t fixed, but it appears from my calculations that my face-breaking ceremony happened in the Jupiter / Venus / Rahu / Mercury Daśā. All the natural benefics are involved here, but we can also take note that Jupiter is the 12th lord and Mercury the 6th. Meanwhile Venus is my 5th lord – and the accident did involve children (a 5th house topic).

Transits

Four planets have congregated in Taurus – which is my 5th house (children) and the home of my 1st lord (Body / Physical). Two of them are Malefics: Mars and the Sun. The sun also happens to be my 8th lord. The two of them, Mars and Sun, are nearly 180 degrees away from my natal Jupiter, and thus cast a strong aspect upon it. Jupiter is my daśā lord, and the 12th lord (detraction from physical) and the 3rd lord too (sports, like riding a bike). On that note, Mars is the lord of the 11th house (games, like playing tag).

So the daśā lord has something inherently disposing it towards allowing events that involve detraction from/to the physical being, and can also have to do with sports – and it was at the time influenced both by the 8th lord (unforeseen events) who is also a malefic, and Mars (injury) who is also the 11th lord (games). So it does facilitate the event of getting a sudden physical injury while playing a game involving athletics.

Further, Saturn was in transit of my natal Sun/Mars combo in my eighth house. Additionally, the transiting Sun/Mars previously mentioned are also under the aspect of transiting Saturn.

We’ve seen how the daśā planet, Jupiter was involved (being aspected by Sun/Mars, who themselves are aspected by Saturn). Now, the inner-daśā planet, Venus, is also involved because it is the closest transiting planet to the Sun/Mars transit pair – and also conjoins transiting Ketu. This means transiting Venus was with two malefics (Sun/Mars) and Ketu (a planet who can really amplify and exacerbate malefics in it’s vicinity).  Furthermore transiting Venus and Ketu are not outside the significant influence of transiting Saturn’s 180 degree aspect.

The inner-inner daśā planet, Rahu is also involved, transit-Rahu being conjoined transit Saturn while transit Ketu is conjoined Sun/Mars/Venus.

My first lord and house are also involved. Transiting Saturn has a strong 60 degree aspect to my ascendant, while it’s 270 degree aspect falls upon my Sun/Mars combo in the 8th house, and it’s 180 degree aspect falls upon my natal 1st lord. As mentioned before, the congregation of Sun/Mars/Venus/Ketu also occupies the same sign as my natal 1st lord.

It’s also curious that the ascendant at the time was almost exactly opposite my natal ascendant.

Conclusion

No doubt we can see that there is considerable transiting malefic influence on my natal 1st lord and all the daśā planets, not excluding my 8th house factors and 1st house itself. Therefore we can accept that a physical injury happened at this point. We also see that much of the action in the transit chart focuses on the 5th and 11th houses, so we can accept that an event can arise involving playing games with children. So the event – breaking my face while playing with kids – is quite acceptable from the astrological point of view.

In final conclusion, this is the sort of thing that gives confidence that astrology is a substantial science; yet at the same time demonstrates that the complexity of the science is quite off-putting and daunting. While it is not impossible to reverse engineer the astrological significance after the event occurs, it still seems nearly impossible to look through the nearly infinite possibilities of transits for a given period of time, find this one as being particularly significant, and then correctly predict that an injury will occur while playing with children. It’s not impossible, but it’s similar to finding a needle or two thrown into a haystack.

And that, my friends, is just a fact of how astrology works, and the complexity of life, destiny and karma.

Riding home from soccer practice the next night with my son, he said to me, “Dad, I think Krishna wanted you to pull the wrong break. I mean, when you get a boo-boo like that it’s supposed to hurt a lot. But it didn’t hurt you at all. So Krishna must be doing something. And I think he wanted me to see you fall so I can see how bad I could get hurt if I don’t wear a helmet.”

I love that boy.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Tune-Up Your Astrology with Me! Part 1 – Character

From time to time I return to my own horoscope for a “tune-up” to make sure my astrological methods are still “in alignment.” I thought that persons interested in understanding astrology would benefit from reading my notes, so I did it more systematically this time. If you follow along through this evaluation I think you will enjoy seeing astrology in action.

Here is my horoscope calculated with Lahiri nakṣatra, tropical signs, and whole sign houses for July 27, 1970 at 19:38 in Bay Shore, New York.

Part 1 – Character

Here are a few obvious things anyone would note about me:

• I am heavily spiritual
• I am an astrologer
• I am a writer
• I am a musician
• I have a high level of fame, but amongst limited circles of people
• I am very critical, logical, and not quick to believe

Spirituality

• Jupiter [philosophy & religion] in the 10^th house [obvious/career] as the 12^th lord [spirituality].
• Raja yoga [power/success] in the 9^th house [religion].
  • With Venus [bhakti / love] and Ketu [spirituality / mysticism]
• 10^th lord [career] in 9^th house [philosophy/ religion]
• Jupiter as the biggest aspector to
• the Moon
• the Ascendant
• navāmśa: 9^th and 1^st lords form Raja-yoga in the 10^th [most obvious motivation in life is philosophy and religion].

Astrologer

• Raja yoga  [power/success] in the 8^th house [divination].
• 5^th lord [intelligence] in the 9^th w/ Ketu [mysticism].
• 8^th lord in the 8^th house with Mercury [intellect for divination and mysticism]
• Navāmśa: 8^th and 10^th lords join in Gemini, 11^th house [successful career in intellectual mysticism / divination / astrology]

Writer

• 3^rd lord [communication] in the 10^th house [career] in Libra [arts] and Citrā [fine arts].
• Mercury and Venus [expressive arts] strongly aspect the cusp of the 3^rd house.
• Lord of the Moon is Mercury [writing], who is in the Moon’s 3^rd house [writing] with the 3^rd and 11^th [arts] lord.
• Navāmśa: 3^rd [communication] + 5^th [creativity] lords join in Gemini [communication], 11^th house [arts & entertainment].
• Navāmśa: Mercury [writing] and Sun [career] in mutual aspect

Musician

• Jupiter [sound] as 3^rd lord [expression] in Libra [arts] and Citrā [skill] in the 10^th house [career], with no competition from any other planet in any other Kendra.
• Moon in Gemini [acting/ entertainment] in Rohiṇī [creativity].
• Venus [arts] in 9^th house
• 1^st lord [self] in 5^th house [creativity].
• Mercury and Jupiter powerfully aspect the 2^nd house cusp [singing / orating]
• From the Moon, the 11^th, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th lords [lords of arts] are all sharing houses.
• Navāmśa: 3^rd [communication] + 5^th [creativity] lords join in Gemini [communication], 11^th house [arts & entertainment].
• Navāmśa: 10^th lord [career] in 11^th house [entertainment].

Fame in Limited Circles

• 10^th lord [fame] in the 9^th house [blessed] but debilitated [limited] and with Ketu [underground].
• Raja yoga’s in the 8^th and 9^th house focus the power and success into areas that are not widely popular today.

A Critic

• Capricorn rises.
• Mercury in the 8^th [intellect finds flaws in things]
• With Mars [cutting, independent]
• With 8^th lord Sun [good at it]
• Moon in the 6^th house [problem solving attitude]
• 7^th lord in the 6^th house [not quick to join groups, staying independent]

But there is another side to me, I am not all critical – I also like to see the good in others and encourage them and have faith in people:

• Jupiter [optimism & trust] in the 10^th house [obvious]
• Moon in Gemini [friendly]
• Navāmśa: 5^th lord [intellect] with Venus [generous] in Gemini [friendly] in the 11^th house [friendly].

The end result is that I can often be critical of my friends, friendly to my critics, etc.

Points to Take Away to Your Own Horoscope / Readings

Maybe you have Venus in the 9^th house too, but you aren’t a musician at all. Well that highlights a very important point: It’s not about having one placement, but about having many. There must usually be one placement in a chart that very strongly illustrates a point, and then several other placements that can easily support the same conclusion. Then, if you find these,you have a predictable outcome

For example: “Jupiter [philosophy & religion] in the 10^th house [obvious/career] as the 12^th lord [spirituality].” Is a very strong initial illustration of a very spiritually / religiously oriented person. But there could certainly be people with 12^th lord Jupiter in the 10^th house who are not spiritual. Why? For one thing, in my case this placement has no competition from any other placement in any other Kendra (houses 1, 4, 7, 10 – the cornerstones of the horoscope). And for another thing, equally important, this is not the only indication I have in the horoscope pointing towards spirituality and religion. I have a raja yoga in the 9^th house (itself another key indication, as powerful as the first),  10^th lord in the 9^th house, etc. etc. It’s the “etc. etc.” part that really makes it a sure prediction.

Another point to take away is the importance of the Moon chart and the Navāmśa especially.  If I had the same birth chart, with a different navāmśa (which would happen in my case if I was born about 5 minutes earlier or later) then I would be quite a different person with quite a different character and career.

The Chandra and Navāmśa charts are not totally independent from the main chart. That means that you can’t find your anchoring principle there in those charts, if you don’t find anything substantial to the same effect in the birth chart. In other words, if the Chandra or Navāmśa chart says my skin will be blue, but the birth chart doesn’t say it will be blue – you can’t be confident enough to predict that I will have blue complexion. (I am just using this as a random, fun example, don’t worry about what “blue skin” is). But if the birth chart suggests that my skin is blue and the Chandra and Navāmśa charts show similar indications to the same effect, you can be confident that I will have blue skin.

I will post “Part II” soon, which will be about the more complicated subject of timing important events.

Alignments that make Spiritualists

Here is a quick thought.

There is something called parivrajak-yoga which is an astrological alignment defined as having four or more planets in a single sign. The effect of the yoga is classically defined as “renunciation” and sanyassa. The actual effect is that we lose interest in enjoying the world and prefer to / need to look for deeper relevance and meaning in life. Therefore we wind up giving away or abandoning what most people would want in search for that deeper thing that we truly want.

Why is it that 4 planets in a sign has this effect?

Some people think it’s because it makes you unstable and crazy, to have that many parts of life  (planets) put in the same environment (sign).

Here is what I think:

There are sankhya-yogas and really this parivrajak-yoga is a derivation of those. Sankhya means “count.” The sankhya yogas count how many signs the planet occupy. Now you can see why I say parivrajak-yoga is a derivation of sankhya yogas: because it counts how many planets are in a sign.

There are only seven planets you can deal with (Rahu and Ketu don’t factor in to sankhya-yogas, and classical astrology doesn’t count the multitude of new planets and quasi-planets). So if you have four planets in one sign it means that at most you can only have your planets in a total of four signs (if the other three planets are each in separate signs). So if you have a yoga for renunciation (parivrajak-yoga) you cannot have a sankhya yoga higher than four houses. The higher count yogas produce people who enjoy life and are materially productive. The lower count yogas produce people who struggle to attain something more significant.

The fifth yoga is particularly important to this discussion. When the planets occupy five signs it is called harsha - the effect of which is that we see the world as something fit to enjoy. We are more delighted with life, and see everything as something enjoyable (this is putting it in a bright perspective, it also makes hedonists). If you have four planets in one sign you cannot have this harsha. That means you cannot get excited about exploiting people and objects for your personal enjoyment and pleasure.

If you have four planets in one house you must have either a four, three, two or one count yoga. And these are all yogas which make us dissatisfied with the external world and seek something better.

I think this is the logic behind parivrajak-yoga.

Do Rahu & Ketu Own Any Signs?

Question: What about Rahu and Ketu – being imaginary points they should not own any houses but there has been different school of thoughts regarding this. What is your view?

 

Image via Wikipedia

“Everyone is a doctor and astrologer.” Therefore there are millions of opinions about health and astrology. We don’t concern ourselves with millions of opinions, because the masses are shudra and their opinions are not clear or sharp or accurate. We care for what carefully makes sense and is best supported by the historically recognized experts.

Rahu and Ketu do not own any signs, and that’s that. They are not even planets, they are points derived from the relative positions of two other planets: sun and moon. They did not even exist when the zodiac was formed. They only came to exist later, after the universe was formed, during the churning of the milk ocean. Furthermore they are not devas.

Since they are not real planets they do not have the same privelages of owning property in the heavens as the real planets do.

Since they did not exist as heavenly bodies when the zodiac was formed, all of the zodiac property was divided up and taken charge of by the planets which did exist at the time. By the time Rahu and Ketu came to exist there was no free zodiac space left to take ownership of.

Since they are not devas, they will not be given any property in the heavens by the deva kings, the Sun and Moon. They are enemies of the devas and thus the Sun and Moon do not lend or lease or put in their charge any of their domain in the heavens.

The great respected experts of Indian astrology through history don’t ever treat Rahu and Ketu like planets. They are two extra points with very significant meaning in a birth chart, and an important role to play in the unfolding of the human condition and the timing of events – but they are not planets. Some texts, questionable as interpolations perhaps, allude to Rahu being given shelter in Aquarius and and Ketu in Aries. However in my opinion all of the talk of Rahu and Ketu having dignity and owning signs is a whole lot of “barking up the wrong tree.”

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Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

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