As events, long distance trips manifest astrology quickly. Due to their length, themes become apparent and can be recognized very quickly. Iceland and Ireland both did so for me. Although I have not written about Iceland or other earlier trips, Iceland will likely appear as a post in the future because of the great meaning it had for me. I was born with Pluto in the ninth house. Actually Libra Ceres-Pluto in the ninth house. The glyph of Persephone. What lies beneath the material world? In the ninth house, travel is one way to unlock that mystery.
In Ireland, death from a famine of underworld potatoes brought out the theme that the dead must be released. Pluto is brutal to those who will not let go of his property. The conception of the trip to Scotland was intially about geology and the forces of nature. The whirlpool of Corryvreckan. The mountains matching Virginia’s Appalachians. The glacial lochs. The extinct volcano that had protected the land under the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. As a ninth house Pluto, I often focus first on what lies beneath and not the obvious material things that lie on the surface. My interest is the volcano and carved glacial valley while others might pay more attention to Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.
The Transit of Leo Jupiter in the Third House
However, the dawning theme of the trip showed itself early; kingly control of the land. From the forces of nature to the forces of people. Making a King for good or ill. The transit of Leo Jupiter. The Royal King. The third house is places of Gemini. The English. Local travel and local roads. Villages. Clues. Libraries. Schools. Shops. Although the chart suggests Jupiter was on 16° Leo it actually on 15°59’39” which is the Sabian symbol “a pageant”. The progress of the Royal King. The English love a Gemini Jupiter. A king in their midst. A king of the English people. The Leo Jupiter is not the English King but is the royal King.
We awoke early the first day to see the whirlpool. Then that day we discovered Dal Riada and the carved footstep. We went from there. Emperor. Hadrian and his wall to be exact. Warriors. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The English. Cyning “the son of the kin” the Old English word that became our word king. A man of our people. Kings. Northumbria and others. Emergence of feudal warriors. –inga “people of”, –ham “settlement of”, Birmingham “the settlement of the people of Beorma”. Who was Beorma? Framlingham “the settlement of the people of Framela”. Who was Framela? Buckingham “the settlement of the people of Bucca”. Who was Bucca? Actually, Bucca was one of the first leaders of the Anglo Saxons to come to England. Warriors, noble lords, small kings – Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Hwicce, Lindsay and smaller, the Tribal Hidage, then the Rex Anglorum – King of the English, Photos of King Charles at the Lochcarron mill in Selkirk. England’s control over Scotland’s North Sea oil. The Labour King ruling the British Isles.
At Dunadd (Dun means fort and Add is the name of the river it overlooks), the Dal Riada kingdom made kings by means of ancient stones. The stone carved footprint that turned a noble into a king. Leo to Sagittarius. The place we stayed claimed that the Stone of Scone, after its kidnapping but before its return, had once sat in a room there.
Kidnapping. Here is Persephone. The glyph of Ceres and Pluto. Persephone is later the Queen of Hell but first she is the goddess of spring. Geology meets kingship.
The stone of Scone is sat upon by English and previously Scottish monarchs at their coronation. Four days before our travels, Prince William with his wife Catherine and Prince George had walked into the schoolyard at Eton. William and George were wearing the same clothing and shoes. The media made a point to note that George was following in his father’s footsteps by attending Eton. The footsteps of kingship. King Charles III, and before him Queen Elizabeth II, were crowned sitting on the stone of Scone.
Retrograde Aquarius Pluto in the Ninth
Now to the main subject, Pluto pointed out the common element of this royal progress. The common people. The best kings remember where they came from. No matter what they may claim the stone of Scone was not a meteor dropped from heaven but hewed from Scottish sandstone. Not divine but raised up by the forces of earth below. Those stones represent the kin, the familiar. The people. Ænglisc not wilisc. English not foreign. The bedrock of their majesty. For all the political theater caused by the machinations of King Offa of Mercia with his demanded anointing of his son, kings existed before they were anointed by the church. Real kings gained their office from carved stones. There were aplenty kings in Scotland and England long before there were Christian kings in England and Scotland and many Anglo Saxon cynings before there was only one king. Bretenanwealda. The world for an overking. Broad forests. Britain.
The Real Mary King’s Close tour has a vignette within the underworld from 1645 when Charles I of England was king. This buried alley was left behind when the government decided to open the Royal Exchange above their heads. In the year 1645, bubonic plague ravaged the city eventually killing close to half of its residents. In those vaults leading onto an enclosed street was a family suffering bubonic plague and pnemonic plague. The father already lay in a bag on the floor. Perishing within days the family was wiped out. One child had been treated with a gruesome cauterization of the boils and thus gained a 50% chance of survival but still succumbed. The bird like figure of the plague doctor who treated them and many others lived but wasn’t paid because the authorities thought he would die and hadn’t set aside any money.
The royal castle that was perched high above the city on its volcanic foundations may have once held a Leo Jupiter but below in Pluto’s underground lay the Aquarian common people afflicted by plague. Pluto in his guise as a plague doctor is trying to heal you. Pushed to the edge by the forces of people, the forces of nature step back in. Lying in an vault filled with Aquarius’ stagnant air, opening onto an enclosed alley filled with raw sewage where barnyard animals were kept to avoid taxes it was inevitable that a natural conflagration would occur such as the plague. The emergence of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and later a medical school during the Scottish enlightment is also Aquarius in action.
No matter their illusions of divine right of kings, English and Scottish kings are from the stones not the sky. A foundation of plagued common people does not a majestic king make. This brings me to a conversation in the Deacon Brodie’s Tavern in the Lawnmarket. We had wanted a dinner at a tavern and unaware of its story we had chosen to eat at this somewhat famous tavern. Unknown until I returned, Deacon Brodie had secrets. A gambling addiction, not one but two secret mistresses with five bastards and a side hustle of burglery to support the lot. A respected man he fixed locks and made keys so he could rob his rich customers to support his secret lives. Possibly part inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They eventually caught and hanged him.
Now to the conversation, we met a Scotsman who wanted to know about Greenland and who desired Scottish independence. America loves hers. I asked why they had not voted for independence. He said that the British Parliament held a veto. He explained that the king owns the seabeds and all of the North Sea oil is Scotland’s but its revenue had gone to England. Scotland would need a massive dowry for independence. Wales once also had something similiar in coal. I told him about Virginia’s rare earths. Geology again. Scotland and Virginia share the Appalachians and, most probably, the rare earths. Virginia’s offshore syncline left our oil in the seabeds of New Jersey. Scotland’s stayed put. There in the tavern of a man infamous for his double life, we talked the geology and the king. Pluto and Jupiter.
Fees and taxes. Taxes and fees. Rationing for good measure. Parking fees, no police but many police cameras for revenue, sugar tax, VAT, ETA, levies on fuel, levies on distance in airplane tickets, trickles of water in the sinks, cheeseparing of bridges, and roads, hotels where the key acts like a fuse to turn the electricity on in the room. The English and the Scottish are sheared like sheep and kept on a vicious diet. As we parted, I told him remember America and grab independence. The dowry he desires is Scotland’s seabeds. Aquarius Pluto. Pluto is concerned with other people’s property. In Aquarius, he is interested in the common people’s property.
The Stones that Make Kings
Almost every morning we dined royally on “Virginia bacon”. The Scots and northern English like Virginia’s bacon. I don’t find it in Virginia restaurants near as much as in Scotland. One waitress asked where we were from. I said Virginia. I also said you like our bacon. She nodded. The fat of Virginia. Ceres is the luscious goddess with the cornucopia and goddess of abundance. She rules Taurus and Virginia is a strong Tauran. I said it is good because we feed the hogs with peanuts. Peanuts like potatoes are also a food of the underworld. Virginia’s hogs are a merger of Pluto and Ceres. Peanuts to hogs to bacon. Geology to stones to kings.
At the Secret Close tour just before the Real Mary King Close tour, we sat underground in the old drunk tank of the city jail drinking coffee. Across from our seats sat a throne like chair inscribed with ERII. Elizabeth Regina II. Queen Elizabeth II who, after her death at Balmoral Scotland, was brought by car up the Royal Mile and lay in state just across the courtyard in St. Giles Church. The ERII seat was the old judge’s chair. Another two Virginians from Lexington who we did not know joined us on the tour and the lady sat in that throne but embarassed moved over to a common seat. At Bamburgh Castle, we saw the throne of Northumbria and at Hexham we drove past the church with its stone bishop’s seat. At Ellenabeich, we stayed at a house with a legend of the Stone of Scone. At Ad Gefrin, two thrones sat in the reconstructed great hall with two persons bolding sitting there. Quietly out of the way just beside a doorway, two coronation chairs were present at Bamburgh as well.
This is what Pluto and Jupiter are telling us. The materialization of the forces of nature make kings. Sitting in a judge’s chair or even a makeshift throne does not make you a king. Cyning, the son of the kin. That which is noble can become a King when combined with Aquarius. The opposition of Leo-Aquarius produces a verdict. A good noble, a son of the kin, can be made King. Virginia bacon is king because Virginia hogs dine on food of the underworld.
True royalty and true majesty come from being seated on the bedrock of the common people. A foreign king is unwanted. A king of foreigners is also unwanted. A king should be wise and not leave the common people with just peanuts. Given such strong underworld food a bad king may very well find that a new son of the kin is set upon the ancient stones.