ANTINOUS AND THE STARS

JUPITER AND NEPTUNE

FORM THE "ICARUS ASPECT"

JUPITER swings round the Sun in a 12-year cycle that brings it into a "challenging" aspect to nebulous Neptune every three years. Astrologers always use the word "challenging" when they mean "sort of bad."


This week Jupiter is at right angles to Neptune, something that happens only once every six years, and which can be very "challenging" indeed because exuberant Jupiter is at odds with foggy-minded and dreamy Neptune. Both planets are so slow-moving that the effects of this aspect will linger for a couple of weeks.


Since this is Antinoian Astrology, let's use a mythological description for this 90-degree square aspect. Let's call it the ICARUS ASPECT.


Jupiter likes to exaggerate and, preferrably, even over-exaggerate. Have another glass of bubbly. Go ahead! What the heck, have the whole bottle. Down the hatch! Nothing can go wrong! We're the greatest!


And Neptune is the Zodiac's dreamer and bringer of visions. Neptune is the sensitive school boy who sits in the back row and, while the teacher drones on and on about arithmetic, he looks out the window and watches the clouds drifting by, imagining shapes and daydreaming ....


So when Jupiter and Neptune are at right angles, we mortals are subjected to a "challenging" aspect which encourages us to leap to extremes without thinking — to go forth where angels fear to tread. Or to fly too close to the sun like Icarus did.


Everyone knows the story of Icarus. His father Daedalus constructed two sets of wings with feathers afixed to them by means of wax. And while Daedalus flew moderately — not too high, not too low — Icarus' exilharation ran away with him and he didn't think (Jupiter-Square-Neptune) and so he flew too high and the heat of the sun melted the wax so he plummeted to Earth.


This myth has been told to generations of children as an admonishment to obey their elders. The moral has to do with hubris and failed ambition. There is even an "Icarus Complex" in psychology to describe people who take unnecessary risks in their personal and professional lives.


But there is much more to the story. Daedalus and Icarus were imprisoned against their will. An engineering genius, Daedalus had constructed the Minotaur labyrinth for King Minos. But when he realized the horrific purpose to which the labyrinth was to be used, he gave Ariadne a ball of twine to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur and free the sacrificial victims.


King Minos took revenge by sealing Daedalus and his young son inside the labyrinth which, apparently, was open to the sky but otherwise had walls which were unscalable. So Daedalus used his engineering skills to liberate himself and his son.


It was a terrible risk. Both of them knew how dangerous it was. If they remained in the labyrinth, they faced certain death. So they took their chances with those fragile wings.


For a brief few minutes, Icarus was free. He was soaring higher and higher. He had left his prison far beneath him and he would never, never EVER be imprisoned again. He was free!

Usually, this myth is called "The Fall of Icarus" and, at the end, the reader suggests that Icarus had paid for his foolishness and no doubt regretted his actions as he fell to Earth.


But we prefer to call it "The Triumph of Icarus" and we feel that he had no regrets, not even as he plummeted to Earth. 


In ANTINOUS MOON MAGIC the "Icarus Aspect" is very magical. It represents the exilharation of liberation from closetedness. It takes tremendous courage and daring to break out of the prison of closetedness. And, yes, there are terrible risks involved.


Jupiter-Square-Neptune is a "challenging" aspect. Many people will go overboard without thinking about the consequences. But if you keep Icarus in mind, you may just find that you have the courage and daring to take a great giant leap of faith.


Just be careful! But don't be so over-cautious that you never take that leap! Some risks are worth taking ....