Part Five
The Seven visible Planets moving through the Circle of the Zodiac
The crucial difference between planets and zodiacal signs is: the planets move, while the zodiacal signs are steady. And it is especially this combination of steadiness of signs and dynamic of planets which brings the decisive unique character of every single star constellation, because this combination guarantees that never the exact same constellation on the sky can return. Always there is something new. This fact is very important for any horoscope to take into account.
It is spoken about ‚the seven planets‘, as it is spoken about ‚the seven days of the week‘ (or of creation). But still: this ‚Seven-ness‘, be it that ‚of days of the week‘ (or of creation), or be it that ‚of the planets‘, is only a part of a greater ’10-ness‘: just as there are the 8th, 9th and 10th day of SALVATION, too, after the seven of creation, there also are an 8th, 9th and 10th planet beside the 7 visible ones. So the ‚Seven‘ generally only represents the ‚visible‘ part of a greater wholeness. This is also illustrated in the Sephiroth spoken about in the third part of this introduction, where it was said that the 7 Sephiroth actually are only the seven lower ones, while 3 upper Sephiroth are ‚before (visible) creation‘ already.
The 7 is to be experienced as ‚the way‘, whereon the 8, 9 and 10 are not yet visible.
At this point we should look at another distinctive aspect of the Hebrew approach to Astrology in general, which illustrates its opposition to the ‚Babylonian‘ or any other ‚worldly‘ approach. It concerns the actual ‚dating‘ of the (lunar) months, which are ruled by the respective zodiacal signs. These lunar months in the Hebrew approach are only counted from the day on, when at least ‚two witnesses‘ proclaim to have sighted the crescent of the New Moon. And these two witnesses have to be independent from each other. By this method it is made sure that ‚the human factor‘ is integrated into the calculation and that this human factor is established even as having a certain ’superiority over time‘ in this world; ‚Mankind decides, what is counted to have happened in this world‘ – from a one-sided rational point of view this may sound strange, even crazy … but it is the case nevertheless for human reality. And the fact that it shall be ‚two witnesses, independent from each other‘, who have to testify for the new moon sighting, bears the deeper meaning that this method of judging represents the insight that the two sides of reality (the appearing and the hidden) are independent from each other and only can be (and have to be) brought together by Mankind.
This ’not taking into account‘ of the human factor, that humanity indeed is a decisive factor in the ongoing of this whole creation, is the main reason, why all the ‚babylonian‘ approaches to Astrology mostly fail actually at some point. They are only calculating with ‚the steady‘, with the perfectly calculateable. But that is, like ‚looking at the light of the Moon as identical with the light of the Sun, and at the light of the Sun as identical with the eternal Light of Creation …‘
The order of the days of the week with their planetary correspondences is nothing which could be explained astronomically, by ’natural science‘, because there is no such order of the planets like in the week’s days. But in the mythical realm there indeed is such an order: we know it as the ‚7 days of creation‘ (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn).
In the english language the planet’s ‚popular‘ names (which are – except for Sun and Moon – the Roman/Latin versions of these names) are not so visible anymore in the naming of the week’s days (accept for Sun, Moon and Saturn: Sunday, Monday, Saturday), because the germanic languages use names of certain ‚gods‘ of the germanic/nordic pantheon instead, which were perceived as corresponding to the Roman names of the planets (which were seen as ‚gods‘, too, by the ancient Germanians as well as by the Romans). But in the french or italian language for example the planets from ‚tuesday‘ until ‚friday‘ are still better traceable as stemming from the original Roman pantheon: Mardi/Martedi, Mercredi/Mercoledi, Jeudi/Giovedi, Vendredi/Venerdi (= Mars-day, Mercury-day, Jupiter-day and Venus-day).
Now, when we begin describing the planets one after another, it should always be considered that the visible lights on the sky do not represent firstly ‚themselves‘ in the perspective of the Hebrew Astrology, but they represent certain aspects of reality. The Sun on our sky for example does not represent solely this one lightest light on the sky which is bringing the brightness of the day on Earth, but this visible Sun represents ‚light‘ itself, the ‚true Sun‘, so to speak, the original, primordial light created on the first day of creation week (which would be the ‚cosmic Sunday‘). This ‚true Sun‘ of the first day is not yet the visible Sun on the sky; the ladder is only created on the 4th day of creation, when the ‚female‘, the concrete side of it appears.
We will now go through the seven visible planets for a first time, with the ambition to ‚paint a picture‘ of their respective characteristics, often by means of telling a biblical story dealing with the major topic of this respective ‚level of existence‘. And this ‚painting a picture‘ will be the main section of this fifth part. After that we will try to find some deeper ’systematic‘ in the character of the single planets, as well as in their specific order from Sun till Saturn and their inter-connectedness.
As already mentioned in the description of the zodiacal sign of Leo, the Hebrew word for ’sun‘ means ’servant‘, too. Here we get another layer of this meaning: the Sun ’serves‘ to show certain things, serves to ’signify‘ (as the prototype of ALL the planets and stars actually, since they all serve to signify something, being ’signs‘, like stated on the fourth day of creation in the Bible, see Genesis 1,14).
The mythical Sun, for which the visible one is a symbol in the Hebrew Astrology, is the ‚breakthrough out of chaos‘, the birth out of the ‚toho wa bohu‘ of the beginning (a wording in the biblical language of creation week, see Genesis 1,2; meaning something like ‚empty and void‘, but also translateable as ‚marveling and wondering‘!). Thus the Sun is very important for every horoscope. In the horoscope it is the signifier for the basic question, in which sign(s) something fundamentally expresses itself, where it firstly ‚enters reality, existence‘. In any beginning of an entity inside this creation of our world, a certain ‚crisis‘, an individual desperation is present, from that the light and order of this mythical Sun then can come out of, from which it can ‚resurrect‘ out of. So the Sun stands for ‚Resurrection out of Death‘, too, as a spontaneous restoration of ‚order out of chaos‘.
It is only ‚light‘ that shows borders, contours, outlines of objects; by this, the light shows ‚order‘ in creation. That means: even IF there is order already in the dark, it is not seen and thus not perceived as such, we still would stumble over the ‚orderly present things‘, as long as we do not see them before our feet. Only the light brings the actual experience of order. In this sense the Sun, or rather the light it represents, stands on the beginning of what we call ‚reason‘, ‚rationality‘.
In the horoscope the ‚Sun-sign‘ is describing the point, where the individual comes into existence out of a pressuring manifoldness of this world, which would be crushing, if it was not brought to a birth finally at this point; it is like the coming together of sperm and ovum in an atmosphere of chaos (in the ‚matrix‘, the uterus; also compare this correspondence to what was already said about the 9th day and the ‚underworld‘ being a ‚womb‘), when suddenly from then on the inseminated egg begins to orderly develop inside the womb towards unique individual life.
Here we touch an interesting point for a horoscope in the Hebrew tradition. There are actually TWO points of interest, of which the star constellations are looked at: the date of the actual birth AND the date of the conception, too (which is calculated as exactly 271 days backwards from birth, because this is what the numeric value of the word ‚pregnancy‘ is in Hebrew (‚hareyon‘: 5-200-10-6-50).
This double perspective on the genesis of an individual (especially concerning the standing of the Sun) is explained with the following: at conception as well as at birth you get ‚redeemed from darkness to light‘. And indeed: creation itself IS a redemption; a redemption out of chaos, out of the ‚tohu wa bohu‘ of the primal state of the world.
In the words of the fourth creation day in the biblical account, the ‚planets‘ (and the zodiacal signs, too; all the ’stars‘) are also described as ’signs‘. And the letters of a language, especially of the Hebrew, are called ’signs‘, too (the Hebrew word for the ’signs‘ in the sense of stars is ‚othoth‘ and for the signs in the sense of the letters is ‚othioth‘). So the stars as well as the letters of a language are signifying something that comes to visibility, which is ’not from here‘ actually, which is brought into this reality of our world by means of these ’signs‘.
The horoscope shows a causality in the seemingly ‚mere coincidence‘ of your birth at a specific point in time, and of the whole situation you are born into: whether you are born as a Chinese or as a Swiss, as an Azerbaijanian or as a German, is NOT a coincidence at all, but it expresses something out of the harmonic wholeness of creation, which we human beings cannot comprehend in its totality, but which nevertheless is heavily important even unitl down into its assumedly ‚lowest‘ details.
Summarizing it: the Sun is the ‚planet of breakthrough‘; in the sign of the Sun there is a breaking through out of chaos, out of death and a bringing to resurrection; it is life born (again) out of corruption. After this initial breakthrough the second, third, fourth stage, and so on, ‚consequently‘, almost ,easily‘ follow after; after the breakthrough out of nothing there begins ‚continuity‘. But the breakthrough itself is out of a sudden, compareable to nothing.
The planet Moon represents the happenings on the second day of creation week: the ’separation of the waters above and the waters below‘. And here we remember: ‚water‘ mythically always means ‚time‘, too. So: from here on there exist two ‚kinds of time‘, one ‚male time‘ above, and one ‚female time‘ below. That is: ‚time‘ is ’not definite‘, it is ambiguous; the ‚male time above‘ is not measurable for us: the ’40 years in the wilderness‘ of the Israelites after the Exodus out of Egypt, or the ‚400 years of slavery in Egypt‘ are not to be found on our ’normal‘ calendars or historical timelines. Such a try would be like ‚dressing up a woman as a man, putting onto her the garments of a man‘ (see the biblical ‚prohibition‘ of such practices, as well as the other way around, men dressing up as women: Deuteronomy 22,5). Doing such would mean: the woman would not be recognized as being female anymore, possibly leading people astray by this!
What is the most primitive purpose of ‚Woman and Man‘ in nature? The man shall impregnate the woman – so the ‚male time‘ spoken of in the stories of the Bible shall impregnate the ‚female time‘ of our own lives down here. Again we can refer to the New Testament, to the birth of Jesus, to that famous ‚virgin birth‘, to exemplify this principle of the ‚female‘ down here being impregnated by the ‚male‘ from above: Only by the impregnation of the ‚female time of our lives down here‘ by the ‚biblically told male time and the happenings in it‘ we can ‚give birth to the Messiah‘ in ourselves, we can experience salvation in our lives.
In the sign of the Sun, the ‚waters above and below‘ are still together; in the sign of the Moon they are separated. The Moon represents the female principle and is traditionally placed ‚in the left column‘, while the Sun as the male principle is placed ‚in the right column‘. And again concerning this split in ‚male and female‘ in a more principle dimension: in every human being there is equally present BOTH; only the appearence of each individual down here on Earth has a slight tendency to one or another, to male or to female; but spiritually (and that means: ‚actually‘) every human being is clearly ‚male AND female‘, as stated in creation-story in Genesis 1,27: ‚zakhar uneqabah‘ (by the way, a term having the exact same numeric value as the word ’shamayim‘, ‚heavens‘ = 390).
During the last parts of this introduction we already touched on the fact that the Moon is, contrary to the Sun, a symbol of development, of movement, change. The light of the Moon is not the ‚full‘ light of the Sun, like it is only ‚a reflection‘, an indirect kind of light. The same is the case for the ‚left side of the world‘, our world down here, compared to the ‚right side‘, the male aspect of our world, ‚the heavens‘: our light, our understanding down here is always only ‚Moon light‘, indirect. The Sun is active, too. But only from the background, we can perceive it not yet in totality; this will only be the case, as soon as we reach the ‚day half‘ of our day. Now we are still in the ’night half‘.
In a horoscope, the Moon is understood as especially representing the bodily side of existence. The body has its ‚phases‘ like the moon has, the waves of changing moods and feelings. And in the female body this is especially visible: at some times ‚the fruit is likely‘, fertility is high, at some times it is even almost sure; but at other times it is impossible for the body to conceive, then it is ‚renewing itself‘ for a new, fresh cycle. Such is it in any other bodily regard, too, for females as well as for males (only for other bodily functions not as obvious as in the specific female ovulation cycle).
In times of a decreasing Moon our body is weakened, at Full Moon on the other hand it is especially strenghtened. Full Moon even tends to make people kind of ‚over-ambitious‘, carefree; a Full Moon can be perceived as a call to be ‚audacious‘, boldfaced, impertinent even.
But when looking at the Moon and its effect on the human body it must be always remembered: the Moon is NOT the Sun, the Moon ‚always changes‘. So even the root-horoscope may show a certain Moon-state, signifying for example a general bodily weakness – then this is to be understood ONLY as a beginning, it WILL certainly change during the course of life in this world, it will move in waves up and down, to and fro during life, like the Moon itself does in its monthly change of shape and lightness. Beside this, the shape of the Moon at the time of conception of an individual is equally to be drawn into consideration while looking at his/her root-horoscope (due to the symbolic 271 days from conception until birth, this conception-Moon in the monthly lunar cycle is always exactly ‚5 days earlier‘ in its shape than the Moon shape at the day of birth).
There is (or at least used to be) a certain practice in Judaism, but in other ancient cultures, too: no name is given to an illness of the body, to a disease somebody is suffering of. Because the naming of it would ‚fixate‘ it. It is okay to state that the respective man or woman is ’not doing so well right now‘ in his/her bodily condition, and of course it can be talked about the symptoms and searched for reasons and possible healing methods – but no definite name is given to the state of the ill person. In contrary: rather it is given a new name to the ill person him- or herself, with an explanation like: Under your old name, yes, you ARE really in a bad condition. But now you get a new name, a ’new essence‘, and a new beginning this shall be for you! … and by this practice the illness indeed (sometimes) can be coped with in surprisingly effective new ways.
In the Hebrew Astrology that specific point in the lunar cycle, when the Moon completely disappears into the darkness for one to two nights, the so-called ‚New Moon‘, is understood as a symbol of the moment of dying. And by this, it shows that ‚dying‘ is actually a renewing!
Not a surprise: biblically New Moon is recommended to be celebrated as a feast day; it is called ‚rosh chodesh‘ in Hebrew, literally ‚head of the month, head of the moon‘, and ‚moon‘ would be even more literally translated as ‚the (re-)new(ing one)‘. And the word for ‚head‘ (‚rosh‘) is the same as the word ‚principle‘; so the whole name of the feast of New Moon can be translated more abstractly as the ‚principle of renewing‘. And this ‚principle of renewing‘, which is celebrated in the feast, expresses itself in this world of the seventh day as what we perceive as ‚Death‘.
This symbolic ‚moment of dying‘ is not meant to be ONLY speaking of the actual ‚bodily‘ death. Especially it refers also to any great ‚revolution‘ in your life’s circumstances, essential changes in your perspectives on life. And every moment in life is a little bit of ‚dying‘ anyway …
In this world of ours, in physical nature around us, all ’seed‘ is always ‚a wasting of potential‘. Because the very most of the ’seeds‘ (the seeds of plants, as well as the semen of animals and sperm of human beings) will ‚die‘ without ever bringing fruit, just corrupting in infertile grounds. But in the Ancient Wisdom this fact of nature is commented: Well, yes – but in other levels of reality, all these ‚lost‘ seeds DO bring fruit; this world here is NOT only meant for itself, but it has an effect on uncountable other realities, too! So nothing is ‚wasted‘ here, even if it may seem like that sometimes (or even very often …). What corrupts and gets lost HERE, will live nonetheless on another level of existence. We may be remembered of the symbol of a burning down candle here, which we mentioned in the third part dealing with the male signs, when the sign of Virgo was introduced.
The beginning of a biblical ‚day‘ is always in the night half of that day (see Genesis 1). We now still are living in the bodily realm, where ‚the moon is ruling and reigning‘: we only see ‚indirectly‘, the light of the mythical Moon is our only enlightening lamp in this world. The mythical Sun IS having its effect in all of it – but solely from the background for now. The light of the Moon only enlightens to a certain degree; when the actual ‚day‘ with the Sun will break through, then we will finally see reality in all clarity.
Mars is the third of the seven planets, so the corresponding day of creation week is the third day. By now it should be exhaustingly established that the ‚third in a row‘ always is of a ‚twin character‘. In the case of creation week this means: on the third day (as well as later also on the ’second third‘, the sixth day) we have two creation-deeds, two words of God beginning with ‚it shall be …‘. On the ‚day of Mars‘ the dry land is becoming visible after the waters assemble to ‚one spot‘; and plant life emerges, that is: ‚growth‘, a first form of ‚life‘ begins on the dry land.
Iron, the typical metal of swords and weapons, is traditionally perceived as the ‚Mars-metal‘; and Mars has indeed to do with ‚war‘, with battle and with fight. But it would be far too simplified to see in Mars only a ‚god of war‘, especially when we understand the word ‚war‘ only in the very material, worldly sense.
A very important aspect of the stage of ‚Mars‘ is: it is the ‚day of the child‘: the ‚father‘ is the first day, the ‚mother‘ is the second day, and then the child appears in the middle of them both (see again the ‚Sephiroth‘-scheme in the third part of this introduction, where the third Sephirah also appears under the first two in a centric position). The ‚child‘ thereby is having something of both parents integrated inside itself. So is the character of ‚planet Mars‘, too: it integrates the ‚male‘, eternal, steady character of the first day (the ‚dry land‘), as well as the ‚female‘, timely, changing character of the second day (the ‚ocean‘) to something new (the actual ‚earthly landscape‘, as we know it, with both: dry lands AND waters).
Namely ‚the two trees‘ appear on this third day. The ‚tree‘ is in the mythical world always to be grasped as a symbol for growth, for development, for the experience that ‚from the other side something is growing into appearance here‘.
The ‚Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil)‘ means: something is challenging Mankind to form an opinion on the things which are visible, touchable, senseable; but while doing so, still not necessarily to JUDGE (only) after those factors! We should be seeing the crucial side of the things nevertheless in the other half of reality, in the ‚qualitative‘, instead of the ‚quantitative‘.
But well, as we know from the further happenings of the story … Mankind choses the ‚Moon World‘, the world of quantity, of change and development, of causal chains – and by this, the ‚long path‘ (remember the sign of Libra …) begins for us.
There are especially two basic types of people in the sign of Mars: the extrovert and the introvert. The former is directly fascinated by the appearing things, he is feeling good in this ‚world to touch‘. The ladder on the other side is feeling always a little bit ‚wrong here‘ in this world, he is never arriving completely in this world, prefers ’staying a guest‘ here.
But BOTH parts of character should be experienced in oneself, both should learn to know each other, become a unity inside the human being! That is the actual ‚war‘ in Mars: introvert versus extrovert. This battle could be a respective longing for the other side of character (like a desire to ‚capture‘ that other side for oneself), or it could be a feeling of being irritated by the mere possibility of coming in contact with the other side (and thus the wish to ultimately get rid of ‚the enemy‘); then there of course will be an inner (and sometimes even an outer) conflict, aiming to destroy the respective other side. It is not so much the question here, WHICH of the two sides of character is the stronger present inside you. The crucial factor is the way how the two sides in yourself are able to connect to each other.
The ‚third day‘ is characterized as the point, where ‚the two first days‘ come to confrontation: as the ‚hidden‘ (spiritual) beginning of creation (of ‚the world‘, as well as of ‚yourself‘) being confronted with the ‚appearing‘ (physical) beginning of it (a conflict represented in Jacob and Esau, as already discussed in the sign of Gemini). But there is no decision yet, in this world (also like in the life-long confrontation of Jacob and Esau, where the decision happens only in another realm, ‚in the Angel-fight at the Jabbok-river‘, and only is expressed in certain happenings ‚on the ground‘ afterwards, as ‚Esau not being able to actually fight Jacob, making peace with him – but still not beginning to live together with him in one land‘).
And one fact should be stressed: This confrontation in the sign of Mars is nothing bad. In Judaism there is even a tradition to celebrate a wedding specifically on this third day of the week (that is: on ‚Tuesday‘). It is explained: when the opposition is at its strongest, the coming together of an opposite should be celebrated! Then ‚the two trees‘ are connected again, and the connection becomes ‚the path‘ on which we achieve to experience indeed ‚the hidden integrated into the appearing‘!
We shall long and desire for this uniting of the opposites in any regard, when we are under the challenging influence of an inner conflict in this sign of the planet Mars.
Mercury, as the 4th planet, is in tight connection with the first one, with the Sun. The ancient and medieval ‚alchemists‘ are said to have desired to ‚make gold‘ with Mercury’s help; in this we can see that there indeed WAS some kind of understanding of the connection between the fourth and the first, between Mercury and the Sun (because the specific metal corresponding to the Sun is ‚gold‘, like iron corresponds to Mars and silver corresponds to Moon). Only these medieval alchemists (or at least many of them) may have been a little bit too fixated solely on the material expression of spiritual truth, searching more for benefit inside this world than for their connection back to the Source of all Being … But let us not forget: Our modern scientific discipline of ‚chemistry‘ has its historical origins in exactly this ‚alchemy‘ of the medieval era (bringing us inventions like ‚porcelain/chinaware‘ and ‚black powder‘).
In Hebrew the name of the fourth planet is ‚kokhav‘, basically meaning just ’star‘ in the broadest sense; and on the 4th day indeed all the (‚physically visible‘) stars are made, according to the biblical account of creation week (see Genesis 1,14-18).
So on ‚Mercury’s day‘ the ‚original light‘ of the first day gets into appearance in the physical realm; we could say: there is a ‚concretisation‘ on this fourth day (remember: the 4 is perceived as the number of the ‚female‘, of the ‚concrete‘).
With Mercury ‚a new message‘ comes into the world: the message expressed in the ’signs‘ of the sky, the ‚message of the stars‘, as it is written: ‚the heavens are proclaiming the glory of God‘ (Psalm 19,1). That is why biblically it is Moses, who is associated with this planet: Moses, the bringer of the message of redemption out of Egypt’s enslavement, and of the message of ‚God’s will‘, given to His people at Mount Sinai, beginning with the so-called ’10 Commandments‘ (Exodus 20,1ff). We can say that with the mythical ‚Moses‘ in this world the ‚public‘ knowledge of ‚the Word (of God)‘ begins. Equally, the planet Mercury in a horoscope can signify the ‚direction‘ (= the zodiacal sign in which it stands), from where this ’new message‘ is (primarily) reaching the individual human being under this constellation as a ’second breakthrough‘ in life.
In ancient mythology Mercury or ‚Hermes‘ is primarily just ‚the messenger‘ (of ‚the gods‘) – Moses is more than only a messenger, he is himself the leader out of captivity, too, bringing the children of Israel until the border of the ‚Promised Land‘. INTO this Promised Land it will be only ‚Joshua‘ (same Hebrew name in the original language as ‚Jesus‘) who leads them.
There is a strong connection between Moses and the famous prophet Elijah (for Elijah’s story, see 1 Kings 17,1 – 2 Kings 2,18): both are messengers of ‚good news‘. Beside this, Elijah is said to ’never have died‘ (but to ‚have been taken away alive‘ from this Earth by God); so, it is explained, the messenger of Good News ‚does not know death‘, has ’never tasted the grave‘ – he lives eternally.
On the 4th day, like on the 1st, happens a breakthrough, too. The second 3 days are a repetition of the first three on a higher level. On the end of the 3rd day there is established the opposition of ‚the two trees‘; and we know: Mankind is going to be taking of the ‚wrong tree‘, thus being in danger to ‚get lost for ever‘, perishing in the manifoldness of creation. But with the 4th day now there begins the impact of the ‚direction back‘ being shown. And connected with this 4th day is ’netzach‘, the name of the fourth of the 7 Sephiroth, meaning ‚victory‘ (see part 3). On the fourth day it is not a breakthrough out of nothing, out of chaos (like in the beginning on the first day), but it still is a breakthrough: one out of the feeling of being lost, a sudden liberation out of captivity.
Mercury brings the good news, it is the ’star‘ which is showing, ‚how far we are‘, where we stand (and what has to come now, to not get lost). We can compare this to a certain passage in the New Testament: a ’star‘ is leading the ‚wise men‘, the ‚magicians‘, to the new born Jesus (see Matthew 2,2+9ff).
The Hebrew word ‚kokhab‘ has a numeric value of 42 (20+20+2); and there are exactly 42 generations listed in the beginning of the gospel of Matthew, thereby describing ‚the physical development‘ from Abraham until Jesus (see Matthew 1,1-17). So Jesus ‚fulfills‘ this ’42‘. And the ’star‘, which the magicians observe, finally stands still over the location where Jesus is born.
And it is also exactly 42 stations on the wandering of the children of Israel through the wilderness after their exodus out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses (see Deuteronomy 33,3-49).
‚Hermes‘, the greek version of Mercury, is said to be the ‚hurrying messenger‘ with ‚wings on his shoes and his helmet‘; and the metal associated with this fourth of the planets is ‚quicksilver‘ (indeed traditionally called by the name ‚mercury’/’mercurius‘, too): a metal, so fluid and thus ‚quick‘, we cannot really grasp it as a metal …
The planet Jupiter, representing the fifth day of creation week, is called ‚tzedeq‘ in the Hebrew tradition, which means ‚justice; just, righteous‘. We already thoroughly looked at this concept of the ‚Tzaddiq‘, the ‚Proven One‘ or ‚Wise One‘, which actually is associated with the ‚tzade‘, the ‚fishhook‘ as the tool to ‚fish out the fish out of the water-world up to the dry land‘, symbolically referring for the ability of the ‚Proven One‘ to bring someone to an experience of Eternity (see again the paragraph about Pisces in the second part of this introduction).
And on the fifth day animal life appears: birds flying up to the firmament, fish swimming down in the waters of the earth. So finally life is created as something moving freely in space, not ‚only‘ the steady plant life (like it is present since day 3), but now the warm and cold blood of birds and fish is bringing this movement towards both vertical directions, up and down.
‚Blood is a very special juice‘, how the famous german poet Goethe once wrote … Blood is connecting the organs of a living body to a unity of the whole organism. And in the Hebrew language the word for ‚blood‘ is ‚dam‘, which is derived from the verb ‚domeh‘, meaning ‚to be similar, resemble‘; thus it is especially the blood, which is making the ‚resemblance of God‘ in any form of life – but especially later in human life. Like God’s presence in His creation is connecting every single part of this manifold world of nature to one united wholeness, it is the blood in a body that is connecting the organs, all the single cells to one united organism.
The so-called ‚Lord’s Supper‘ of the New Testament (see for example Matthew 26,17ff; 1 Corinthians 11,23ff) is to be understood from this point of view, too: the wine as the blood, connecting all the servants of the living God, the disciples of Jesus, with each other, like they are organs of one whole great organism, the ‚Body of Christ‘ (see for example 1 Corinthians 12,12ff).
And to stay in this picture: What has NO connection to the wholeness of the body through a healthy flowing of blood, will die, it corrupts and becomes even a danger for the rest of the body, so that it must be amputated to save the healthy rest of the body (see John 15,1ff).
So in this fifth planet and its corresponding day of creation week, ‚the blood appears‘, and ‚connects‘, brings new (forms of) life. In a similar way, on this 5th place of the Sephiroth-scheme, Aaron appears, to ‚give Moses an appearance‘: Aaron is used ‚as Moses‘ mouth‘ (because Moses himself is ’not a good speaker‘, as he says of himself; see Exodus 4,10-16), Aaron is the ‚left side‘ pronouncing, what on the ‚right side‘ is implemented; so again we have this harmonic complementarity of male and female principle, of right and left column. When the Bible states ‚Moses speaks‘, it means actually: Aaron speaks FOR Moses; although it still IS Moses who essentially speaks, only now the appearance of Aaron is expressing it for us ‚down here‘, in this world of form and matter.
This is a fundamental principle to be understood: life on this ‚left side‘, in this ‚Moon World‘, can only express what is there already on the ‚right side‘, in the ‚eternal blueprint‘ of time and space reality. So the ‚life of the blood, of the physical body‘ on the 5th day is seen as the corresponding ‚left side‘ of the ’stars, sun and moon‘ on the 4th day, being the ‚right side‘; and THAT is exactly, why ‚Astrology‘ has its right to exist – because moving life on the physical Earth is indeed the expression of the movements of the stars in the sky.
Like the 1st and the 4th day (and planet), also the 2nd and the 5th day (and planet) have a strong connection: Jupiter can be seen as a repetition of the Moon on another level. The Moon (its shape during the lunar cycle and its place in the zodiacal signs) builds the foundation of the appearance of your body; then Jupiter determines the actual life of that body, the movement of the body through the surrounding world, its connectedness to the cycles and circumstances of nature around you.
In every human being both is present: the movement of the birds, and the movement of the fish; like the both ‚waters‘, both kinds of time, the ‚lower‘ AND the ‚upper‘ time, are present in the life of all of us. And the connection of both sides is being mediated by the stars. Here we should remember what has been said about the ‚two souls‘ of Mankind (see the first part of this introduction), of the ‚divine soul‘ and the ‚animal(istic) soul‘: between both souls there are the zodiacal signs with the planets as ‚the spirit‘, ‚ruach‘, that mediates, and brings the messages from the ‚divine‘ root of our being down to the ‚animalistic, earthly‘ existence of our body.
Important questions for a horoscope concerning this fifth planet are: Which side, the ‚bird‘ or the ‚fish‘, is stronger inside you? Or is there already the perfect equilibrium?
How is Mercury coming into play, as the right side, the heavenly source of the bodily processes? What about the Moon, as the foundation of your bodily appearance? Such questions help finding out strenghts and weaknesses of the human being under the influence of a certain constellation.
The biblical ’sacrificial system‘ is to be grasped from this astrological point of view as a detailed description of the Jupiter-aspects of human life; ‚animals‘ to be ’sacrificed‘ are thus representing certain bodily functions and body parts to be applied as ‚qurban‘, for specific ‚approaches‘ to the Eternal. The biblical book of Leviticus is from this perspective indeed a ‚book of human anatomy‘ – only not described it from the physical side, from the side of ‚Becoming‘, but from the point of view of the ‚Being‘, describing the conditions of human bodily life ‚from the other side‘.
Venus, the planet of the sixth day, is called ’nogah‘ in the Hebrew tradition, a word meaning something like ’shining; appearing one‘. And as we know, Mankind is created on this sixth day; Mankind is thus practically ‚appearing‘ through the influence of this sixth planet – just as Mankind’s more abstract ‚possibility‘ in general, ‚in principle‘, Mankind’s theoretical potential, is rooted (as something ’steady‘) in the zodiacal sign of Virgo (see part three again for the details). Under the influence of Venus now the individual human being actually appears, is ‚born into the world‘ as one unique single entity (and thus is not so ’steady‘ anymore, as abstract humanity is ‚in principle‘, but now being rather ‚fluctuant‘ in his/her concrete state of being).
By means of Venus the individual human being can express itself well in this world of the appearing, and it can easily be known by the surrounding world. This brings forth certain negative consequences, too …
As we know well, ‚the snake‘ does appear on this 6th day, beginning to speak to the human, and to be more precise: to its ‚female‘, to its ‚appearing side‘ – and by this, the LONG path begins. This long path, which on the first glance is looking like it will end in a total perishing of the individual through ‚death‘. But still: in the very end there WILL be the ‚return home‘ nevertheless. And then even with the priceless additional joy of having regained something already thought to be lost for ever!
But we cannot deny: ‚Where the snake speaks to Mankind, the long, rough journey begins‘ …
In the sign of Venus a human being CAN find some sympathy of the surrounding world, but almost even more likely it will be, that the individual inflicts upon him- or herself the antipathy of the ‚adversary side‘: in the sign of Venus every doing of good, every unselfish GIVING, is NOT being appreciated by the world, the world paradoxically even ‚gets angry‘ for being granted such an unselfish gift.
So on the one side, in the sign of Venus the possibility is experienced, that ‚giving yourself away completely‘ is indeed possible – but also on the other side it is experienced, that this ‚giving yourself away‘ can trigger the horrific anger of the one receiving this gift. It is like God giving Himself away totally for the purpose of original creation (‚out of nothing‘): the world just cannot appreciate this ineffable gift, even hates God for it unconsciously.
A bad positioning of Venus thus can bring aggression and anger against a being under this constellation; but explicitly NOT as a consequence of ‚bad deeds‘ commited by that being, but exactly as a response to the GOOD ones. And still: in the end, the long suffering will lead to the ‚happy ending‘ of the story, even making clear, that it HAD to come like this.
The biblical figure of Joseph (who is associated with this general ’sixth‘ of the seven, with the 6th planet, 6th day and 6th Sephirah) shows us some aspects of this phenomenon: Both, from his brothers as well as in Egypt, Joseph is attacked because he is doing good, doing the right things, because he is honest.
Let’s imagine for a moment what possibly would have happened, if he would have been more ’normal‘, and would have ‚just given in‘ to the wishes of the world around him …
For instance, in the one crucial situation, when the wife of his master Potifar in Egypt tries to seduce him to adultery (Genesis 39,7-20) – what would have been, if Joseph would have done with her, what she desired? From the ongoing of the story as we know it we must say: it was very good, that Joseph stayed honest, that he did not let her seduce him, and that he in consequence got innocently accused for doing it – because exactly by this, Joseph in the end becomes the great interpreter of dreams in prison, and by means of that, since Josephs dream-interpreting art finally becomes known to Pharao, Joseph becomes even the second mightiest man in Egypt after Pharao. But it is of course a looong way until then, with much suffering for Joseph, he is forced to spend many years in captivity, being forgotten in there and as so often: being under-estimated (compare this to what was said about Virgo in the third part, too).
We typically ask here: why HAS to be at first that whole long way with all the suffering? Why can’t it be good from the beginning on?
As already seen, here in Venus we have a reflection of the sixth zodiacal sign: here, too, the ‚olive has to be picked first‘ (= the growth in this world has to have an end), before it gets pressed and can give the oil for the 8th day of anointment of Messiah. This ‚anointing‘ to come IS a sure thing, ‚on the 8th day‘. On the 6th day nevertheless there must be a perishing first.
Now we want to look at another interesting aspect of this ‚6th out of the 7′: the planet Venus is associated with the ‚hind‘, that is the ‚female deer‘; and it is specifically interpreted as ‚the hind on the late night sky‘, the ‚hind of the morning‘ (in Hebrew: ‚ayeleth ha shakhar‘), as what western world would call the ‚morning star‘.
In this sense Venus is an important sign of redemption: the suffering that is being experienced until the end is suddenly understood as evidence of the own devotion!
But this sentence probably has to be explained in some more detail: It is the same principle like that in which the world is created: God gives Himself away for the world totally, He draws Himself back ‚into a nothingness‘, thereby making space for the world to exist; and exactly this drawing back and giving Himself away totally is experienced by the world, which is created through this act of devotion, as a suffering – because it is not known as such, nor acknowledged, nor appreciated.
But let us look a little deeper into this picture of the ‚morning hind‘. The famous Psalm 22 in Hebrew begins with the words: ‚la menetzeach al ayeleth ha shakhar‘, usually translated as ‚to the chief musician, upon the morning hind‘. But ‚la menetzeach‘ stems from the word ’netzach‘, the word for ‚victory‘ in the sense of the fourth Sephirah, thus meaning a ‚victory in the breaking through‘. So ‚la menetzeach al ayeleth ha shakhar‘ should be translated more appropriately as ‚to the winning one on the morning hind‘. And then, still in the first verse of that Psalm 22, there follow the famous words ‚Eli, Eli lama azabthani?‘, ‚my God, my God, for what purpose have you forsaken me?‘, which Jesus is told to have cried out hanging on the cross, citing this verse of the Psalms.
Now the symbol of the ‚hind‘, too, should be elaborated on a little bit more: the (male) ‚deer‘, in Hebrew ‚tzevi‘ or ‚tz’vi‘, is typically combined with the name ‚David‘, when this name ‚David‘ is given to jewish children. That is the case, because traditionally King David, as the prototype for the expected redeemer and saviour, is associated with the deer – and that again is, because the deer is associated with great speed, agility. So the name combination ‚Dawid Tzvi‘ actually means: ‚Dawid‘ (= the Beloved One, the Messiah, the Redeemer and Saviour) is so fast, He is already nearer as you think! And especially when applied in this sense to the Messiah as a symbol of (the experience of) Salvation, it is explained: the Messiah, although from the beginning of the world already ’sitting to the right hand of the Father in Heaven‘, is also already down here with us all the time, and He will be again ‚at His Fathers right hand in Heaven‘ in the end. HE, and with Him, the ’salvation‘ he represents, is so ‚quick‘ that it happens before we can grasp it; it is in the future, but already here. He ‚binds the beginning and the end together‘, making it one unity, inseparable. This ’speed‘ of the Messiah, of salvation, is symbolically expressed in the picture of the deer and the hind, because these animals are for the human eye very fast and disappear in a moment, as soon as they realize to be seen by anyone.
The ‚morning star‘ appears, when the night is in her darkest hour. But it is the time when the night is beginning to come to an end, too. Remember the story of Adam and the terror he feels, after he lost the Paradise, when he is experiencing the first night (see again part three of this introduction) … This darkest hour of the night, right before the ‚Hind of the Morning‘ appears out of the blackness of the sky as the relieving sign of a soon ending of this thick darkness – this darkest hour is a tough test for Mankind in many regards, be it in its symbolic associations, be it in the very ‚hard physical‘ facts of life: For statistically it is proven that in the darkest hour of the night the ‚death rate‘ of people significantly increases. Like their heart is feeling at this point of the night: oh, it is sooo dark, if this darkness won’t come to an end right now, I cannot survive this! As a consequence from the Ancient Wisdom it is thus recommended, especially for the practice in hospitals, to have no surgeries in the darkest hour of the night (if possible – emergencies of course excluded from this rule), between around 5 and 6 a.m.
The Hebrew word ’shakhar‘ means ‚early morning‘, as well as it means ‚black‘ – so in the language there is a strong consciousness for the fact that the early morning actually begins exactly at the darkest point of the night.
The ‚ayeleth ha shakhar‘ is an instrument, too, similar to a harp. And a ‚mizmor‘, a ’song‘ (we are still looking at the very first verse of that 22nd Psalm), is actually derived from ‚zamar‘, meaning ‚grapevine‘ (as already mentioned above, the symbol of wine often refers to ‚blood‘, especially as ‚connecting all the organs of an organism‘, see the paragraph concerning Jupiter; and see the 15th chapter of the biblical Gospel of John, too). So a true ’song‘ in this Hebrew sense of ‚mizmor‘ is connecting us with all that exists, like the wine, and like the blood; and especially it connects ‚the Beloved One (= dawid)‘ with all creation.
The ‚Eli, Eli‘ that follows now is traditionally interpreted as referring to the ‚double nature of an experience of the Eternal‘: two times ‚my God‘ it says, once ‚here in the appearing‘, and once ‚in the hidden side of life‘; and this God in both His possibilities of experiencing Him is experienced in this Psalm as having ‚completely forsaken‘ us … ‚Lamah azabthani?!‘ For what purpose?!
In these words Jesus experiences what seems to be the great ‚miscalculation‘ of the Eternal One: the world does not appreciate the love God is giving her, so that God is being rejected by this world, by His own beloved creation (so the ‚Fallen Ones‘, Azazel and Semchasi, seem to have been indeed ‚right‘ in their assumption concerning the ungratefulness of God’s most honoured creation …). But: this experience of being rejected for the love one is willing to give is nothing ‚worthless‘ either. Like God took on Himself this rejection by His most beloved creature, to experience the even greater joy of nevertheless being appreciated in the end after all the rejection – so is Mankind offered the opportunity now to experience this aspect of being made ‚in the resemblance of the Eternal‘, too.
And in the sign of Venus it becomes clear finally: IF a human being experiences THIS, to ’stand at the abyss‘ and to see his/her own desperate lonliness in this regard – and IF he or she can BEAR that feeling … then (and ONLY then) salvation can happen.
Let us not forget that the ’sixth fruit‘ is the olive, which has to be pressed to give her precious oil necessary for the ‚anointment‘ of the ‚Anointed One‘ (= ‚Messiah‘, ‚Christ‘). And by the way: the olive, contrary to the first five fruits, has only ONE core, one seed, not many seeds. There is only this ONE way leading to true salvation, to true ‚fruit‘.
Beautiful and shining is the human being in this sign of his/her (actual) appearing to the surrounding world; like Joseph is described (as the only male figure in the Bible) as ‚handsome in form and handsome in appearance‘ (Genesis 39,6; instead of ‚handsome‘ a more literal translation here would be indeed ‚beautiful‘, meaning originally something like ‚to radiate one’s inner light as a shining splendour into the surrounding world‘). And this is the purpose of the suffering: to still ’shine‘, radiate splendour, while experiencing to be cruelly rejected, by this, becoming a living testimony to the surrounding world for the fact that Mankind indeed IS made in the resemblance of the Eternal, being capable of essentially the same divine grace like He grants it to us.
To come to an end now of the description of this very important one of the seven planets, we summarize: the sign of Venus WILL bring salvation, but especially by the experience of being rejected and innocently attacked. That is a necessary step when coming closer to the end of the path through this world, following the trail ‚out of it‘, approaching the Source of All, as bringing the own actual physical existence as a ‚qurban‘, while staying amongst the surrounding fellow human beings, who are not understanding this ambition and are not WANTING to get involved – not even by receiving the gift of being loved.
The last of the seven planets, corresponding to the last of the seven days, to the ‚Sabbath‘, is Saturn, or in Hebrew ‚Shabtai‘ (meaning something like ‚ending one; sabbathical‘). In every more worldly, ‚babylonian‘ approach to astronomy, Saturn is typically seen very negative. But in the Hebrew perspective on it this is not necessarily the case. Like always, it depends on whether we look at it ‚holistically‘, from both sides of reality, or only one-sidedly. So any negative look on Saturn and its influence in the horoscope is only half of the truth.
On this seventh day ‚of Saturn‘, in this ’stage‘ of the world we live in now, while ‚God is resting‘, Mankind COULD experience that the world indeed ‚is very good‘ (as stated by God Himself in Genesis 1,31). But there is a strange ambiguity on this 7th day: it is a resting as a preparation for being saved afterwards, for being redeemed out of this world. But it is very hard to accept this ‚resting‘ to be necessary …
The name of the 7th ‚fruit of the Promised Land‘ is the ‚date‘, in Hebrew ‚thamar‘ (we already looked at this fruit, and especially at this Hebrew word for the fruit, in the context of the male sign of Libra in the third part). And ‚Thamar‘ also is the name of a biblical figure (actually not only of one, but let us look at only the first of them for now; see Genesis chapter 38):
This woman with the name of Thamar appears as the wife for Judah’s son(s): Firstly she gets married to Judah’s firstborn called Er; but he ‚was evil in the eyes of the Lord‘ and dies. So Thamar is given instead to Judah’s second oldest son, to Onan; but Onan does not want to give ‚his‘ sons for being raised under the name of his brother Er (because this would have been the case according to the biblical recommendations, when they are reduced to the superficial interpretation of the so-called ‚levirate marriage‘), so Onan ‚is spilling it down to the earth‘, everytime when he is going to Thamar (that is, he deliberately avoids to impregnate her, engaging in a form of ‚contraception‘); he only wants ‚his seed‘ to be in THIS world, as an earthly ‚gain‘, bearing ‚his name‘, not as ‚heavenly fruit‘ realized in this world down here as something for the benefit of ’someone else‘.
By the way: This whole episode of Onan is not to be understood in the modern ‚psychological sense‘ as condemning ‚masturbation‘ or any form of ‚contraception‘, or more general, as condemning the ‚wasting of seed‘ in any form (we already mentioned the apparent ‚wasting‘ of seed in all living nature, that nevertheless is having its purpose from a spiritual point of view).
The third (and at this point the last one) of Judah’s sons, is Shelah. And Judah does not want to give him to Thamar, because Judah is afraid that Shelah may die, too, like his two older brothers (‚because‘ of Thamar, as Judah may be thinking at this point …).
And what happens next is the crucial point of this biblical story: Thamar hides herself under a veil, sits on the road side and waits for Judah; he comes along, thinks she is a ‚prostitute‘ (paradoxically literally called a ‚Holy One‘ on many scriptures of the Bible …) – and goes to her for the promise of ‚one little goat from the flock‘; and he is leaving a pawn there (his staff, his ring and his girdle). But when he tries to bring her the promised ‚little goat‘ afterwards as payment, he cannot find her.
Then some time later, in the household of Judah there is a scandal happening: Thamar, the widow, is pregnant! That cannot be, she must have committed adultery!! So Judah wants to let her burn to death for that ’sin‘ in his eyes. But she shows him the pawn, the staff, ring and girdle he left her, and says: the owner of these things is the father of my unborn child! And at that point Judah understands and sees, that HE is the unrighteous one in the whole story, because he denied her the right to marry his last living son! So he forgives her, lets her live – but Judah does not marry her himself.
Thamar then gives birth to twins, and the happening of this birth is told us to be a little bit strange (Genesis 38,28f): first there comes the hand of one of them and they bind a red string to his wrist, but then the arm is retreated and the other child comes out first. And they name the one with the red string attached to his wrist ‚Zerach‘ (which means ’shining red‘) and the other one ‚Peretz‘ (which means ‚breakthrough‘); and Peretz becomes the ‚chosen one‘, he is the one through whom the chain of generations goes on from Adam over Abraham and Judah until King David – and from David of course the Messiah Jesus arrives later on. So Peretz is indeed the ‚breakthrough‘ during the generation of Judah (when due to the deaths of Judah’s sons Er and Onan the danger arose for the ‚messianic lineage‘ to cease), the one who makes sure that Judah’s fate will be fulfilled at the appointed time later on (concerning this ‚fate of Judah‘ see the prophecy of Judah’s father Jacob about him in Genesis 49,8-12; to ‚bring forth the Peacemaker at one day out of his descendants‘).
So: Er dies, Onan dies, Shelah stays alone and thereby childless – and Zerach’s lineage, too, perishes later like his older brothers‘ (at an occasion in Joshua’s times, when the last descendant of Zerach is stealing ‚banned booty‘ from the Israelites‘ defeated enemies and gets destroyed by God for doing so; see Joshua chapter 7, the story of ‚Achan, Son of Zerach‘).
That means: only Peretz with his descendants actually survives; and in this we can see the 1-4-principle again: the ‚four‘ are important, too, because without them being part of the story and by this, establishing certain circumstances, the fifth, the ‚One‘ coming along with the four, would not even have existed as such.
Let’s look slightly deeper into the character of the ‚four‘ and of the ‚One‘ in this constellation of Thamar and her husbands: ‚Er‘ means ‚consciousness‘, ‚Onan‘ means ‚power, potency‘, ‚Shelah‘ means ’security, rest; to be carefree‘ – but all of this won’t be ‚enough‘, to bring forth fruit with ‚Thamar‘. It is only ‚Judah‘, meaning ‚praise of God‘, who – without consciously trying to! – impregnates her in the end and by this finally establishing for himself a lasting lineage of descendants!
So ‚consciousness, potency and security‘ indeed ARE an important condition in the encounter with ‚the bitterness of this world‘, with ‚Thamar‘ (= ’she is bitter‘; as the name of the ‚7th fruit of the Promised Land‘ referring to the ‚bitterness of this world of the seventh day‘), for the things happening as they happen – but in the end it is only the purposeless ‚praise of God‘ that brings the ‚breakthrough‘ for ‚this bitter world‘.
From this biblical story of Thamar and the sons of Judah we learn that it is a ‚fear of the fruit‘, which bears the potential of a negative effect of the ‚Saturn‘-layer in the individual’s life. And in this insight we finally have the explanation for the babylonian approach to this seventh planet, looking at Saturn only as something ‚bad‘ or even ‚evil‘. From the babylonian, purely worldly point of view the ‚fruit‘ is only to be expected as something ‚causal‘ following regularly out of the happenings of this world, as something appearing IN this world and being FROM this world. If the true fruit now rather comes as something ‚acausal‘ NOT from this world, threatening the ‚regular‘, accustomed perception of human reality … then indeed this TRUE fruit will let us tremble in fear of it, as something with the potential to crush our ’normal‘ everyday life with our worldly hopes and expectations for our future down here …
Thamar in this story comes along as a perfect symbol of THIS world: no real husband, the father of her dying husbands is being unfair to her; and she just LONGS for fruit: for a true husband and for getting children from him. But she is only achieving it on a very unexpected way … not by being ‚openly honest‘, but by ‚veiling herself‘, and by being willing to even DIE trying to achieve fruit, on the way of a ‚Holy One‘ looked at as a ‚prostitute‘ by the surrounding world.
Always when the redemption is feared (and be it only unconsciously), ‚the children are getting killed‘ (see for example the happenings around Jesus‘ and Moses‘ birth, when King Herodes and Pharao are trying to kill every male child of a certain age to prevent the rise of the predicted redeemer). And be it in our life today ‚only‘ the ‚child in ourselves‘, that we try to kill …
So the best advice in the sign of Saturn is: Veil yourself, as Thamar does, to achieve fruit in this world of the seventh day!! That means: Become a mystery, a secret! And believe: the world already was created perfect, on ‚day 6‘; now, on day 7, it just has to be WAITED, waited in patience for the 8th day. Where we try to enforce anything, we fail. Where we try to improve anything inside this world, we will only do damage to it. Our duty is ‚only‘ to behave as the perfectly created human being in the resemblance of the Eternal One. With this ambition we already have PLENTY enough to do with ourselves and can leave the world around us to be just as it is.
Now, after having encountered the seven planets in this more ’story-telling‘ mode of approach, we can try to find out their stricter systematic structure, which already has been laid a foundation for in the third part of this introduction, as the description of the so-called Sephiroth. Now we will repeat some of the then mentioned aspects of the seven in short keywords and combine them with the characteristics of the seven planets and ‚days‘ established in this fifth part. It will be for every one of the 7 in the following order: name of the planet in english; name of the planet in Hebrew; translation of the Hebrew name; correspondence to creation week (and creation deed); name of the corresponding Sephirah; keyword of the corresponding ‚happening‘ in the Ancient tale of ‚My Father bought me a little Lamb‘ (told in part 3); corresponding biblical figure; corresponding fruit of the Promised Land; traditionally associated metal (with Hebrew name for that metal; and literal translation)
1. Sun; Chamah; ‚Hot One‘; first day of creation (light); chesed; ‚the cat‘; Abraham; Wheath; Gold (zahab; ‚devotion‘)
2. Moon; Levanah; ‚White One‘; second day of creation (firmament; separation between waters above and waters below); geburah; ‚the dog‘; Isaac; Barley; Silver (kheseph; ‚longing, desire‘)
3. Mars; Moadim; ‚Forces/Powers‘; third day of creation (waters assemble to show dry land + dry land brings forth plant life); tiphereth; ‚the wooden stick‘; Jacob/Esau; Vineyard/Grape; Iron (barzel; ‚piercing‘)
4. Mercury; Kokhab; ‚Star‘; fourth day of creation (sun, moon and stars); netzach; ‚the fire‘; Moses; Fig; Quicksilver (no direct mentioning of this metal in the Bible)
5. Jupiter; Tzedeq; ‚Just(ice)/Righteous(ness)‘; fifth day of creation (birds and fish; life in sky and life in water); hod; ‚the water‘; Aaron; Pomegranate; Tin (bediyl; ’separate; dividing‘)
6. Venus; Nogah; ‚Shining One/Appearing One‘; sixth day of creation (land animals, cattle + Mankind as male and female); jesod; ‚the ox‘; Joseph/Zaphenath-Paneach; Olive; Copper/Bronze (nechosheth; ’snakeyness, serpentine‘)
7. Saturn; Shabtai; ‚Ending One; Sabbathical‘; seventh day of creation (finishing of all work, blessing this day and resting of God); malkhuth; ‚the man‘; David; Honey/Date; Lead (ophereth; ‚dustiness‘)
Finally, to tie back this great load of information concerning the seven planets to the ambition to apply it onto an actual horoscope, we should search for the specific meaning of each planet for the individual human being under a certain constellation. So that ‚a certain planet in a certain zodiacal sign‘ can be read as ‚a certain level of existence of the individual (= planet) having a specific challenge by destiny (= zodiacal sign).
The ’specific challenges by destiny‘ represented in the 12 signs have already been put into a scheme in the very beginning of describing them, namely in part two of this introduction, before starting with the female signs (the ‚triangle‘ of human experience of reality).
Now something similar shall be tried with the seven planets, generally as being the seven basic levels of human existence (as described in the shape of the ‚7 Sephiroth‘), and in their specific constellation in a horoscope as being the fundamental anchors of an individual by which this individual is connected to several particular signs out of the general wholeness of the 12 signs of the Zodiac.
In general it can be stated: the first three planets represent aspects more regarding the individual in itself; and the second three represent aspects especially regarding the individual in its connection to the surrounding world.
While the Sun is determining the sudden breakthrough of the individual from the spiritual realm INTO existence in this world down here, in Mercury this individual down here is called to find his specific way THROUGH existence in this world. While the Moon is representing the basic physical state of the body IN ITSELF, in the corresponding Jupiter the life of this body in its connection TO ALL OF CREATION and to the cycles of nature is being represented. And while in Mars the conflict ‚of the two trees‘ is played out INWARDLY inside the character of the individual, in Venus the determining conflict is MATERIALIZED in a ‚re-enactment‘ of the fate of God at creation, and therewith this conflict is happening very much ‚outwardly‘, between the individual and the surrounding world.
On this background we perceive the Sun as the most important planet for the basic character of the individual under the constellation looked at, representing the primal breakthrough from non-existence into being.
The Moon we identify as the first impact of a bodily existence, as the potential of a certain form and state of being and of physically experiencing oneself.
Mars we recognize as the decisive factor for the crucial inner conflict between the opposing tendencies inside oneself towards either an inwardly or an outwardly orientation.
Mercury again we perceive as a breakthrough, a breakthrough happening INSIDE this world, calling and leading us towards the ‚path of return‘, to a path of consciousness of a life for the Eternal.
Jupiter then we experience as determining the bodily realization of our consciousness in the physical world, structuring our life and its biological processes according to our respective situation.
Venus finally determines the character of the actual appearing of the individual inside this world as ‚a spiritual being manifest in a body‘, being challenged by the surrounding world and respectively challenging that surrounding world.
Ultimately, Saturn is understood as the way of realization of ‚the fruit‘ in this world: the ‚odd way‘ on which the return back to the source will be essentially accomplished – surprisingly AGAINST all ‚regular‘ assumptions.
לתלמידים - eLog - LaThalmidim 