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SAGITTARIUS The Ninth Sign

"The Centaur-Archer who is half man, half beast. The man-half aims his arrow at the highest skies in aspiration for greater things."

Ruled by Jupiter. A dual-natured sign.

A Mutable Fire sign, masculine/positive

Sagittarius says: “I EXPAND, ” “I SEE THE BIG PICTURE”

As the 9th sign, it correlates with the 9th house where Jupiter is accidentally dignified.

Body parts: thighs, hips

Concept : “I seek, therefore I am,” the Centaur: seeking to rise from the animal lower half to the human upper half, expansion of the self towards the higher mind, - thus involved with education and culture, foreign travel and outdoors activity; social consciousness is extended to development of moral, legal and religious codes; idealistic, expansive, zealous. Needs freedom to move. Dualistic sign, -two types are gambler/sportsman/bigot and guru/philosopher/professor. Outgoing and expressive. “More!”

Qualities : vast inspired mind, philosophical, sees larger issues of human kind, generous, bold, straightforward, teacher, judge, optimistic, religious/spiritual, idealistic, freedom-loving, active, extroverted, traveller, promoter, intuitive, direct.

Liabilities : exaggeration, appetite, propagandist, bigotry, blunt, loud and coarse, “too much.”

Needs to learn : moderation, toleration, diplomacy.

Handling the Sagittarian : don't fence them in!

Key Words for Sagittarius:

seeks truth optimistic expansive

outgoing expressive philosophical

righteous religious far-sighted

idealistic ‘big picture' freedom-lovers

faith beliefs conceptual thinkers

travellers sporting risk-takers

zealous speculative bigoted

outdoors-lovers

The Sagittarian leader is like the team coach who is always urging his players to greater levels of excellence.
The Sagittarian consumer likes the biggest and most opulent things, OR as the most spiritually attuned consumer, says less is best. He's always up on the latest trends.

How is Sagittarius mutable?

This is an expansive sign, ever-focussed on growth – which cannot proceed without change. The symbol itself, the centaur, implies that the Sagittarian native must rise from the animal lower half to the human upper half – and this too is mutability.

Mythic Sagittarius:

Zeus/Jupiter: the bombastic philanderer and King of the Gods on Mount Olympus is the mythical model for Sagittarians. Zeus possessed the thunderbolt, both a weapon and an instrument of light. At his best, he represents the ceaseless quest for Spirit.

Mythically he was known for his endless philandering – much to the displeasure of his vengeful wife Hera/Juno, with whom he eternally battled and yet remained wedded. Zeus was ever rebellious against the dominance of woman, but never quite free of it. The same archetypal female he sought to free himself from, was the very element he was driven to bond with in his zeal for conquering scores of ladies. Thus his bonded link with the feminine continued unabated, although he imagined himself to be free. And his eternal battles on behalf of his lusty liberties served him well, because they kept him on his toes, - not allowing him to ever relax into lazy habits and useless reverie. As a true mutable, Zeus was ever on the move.

The lineage of Zeus is thus: he was fathered by Kronos/Saturn and mothered by Rhea – two Titans. Just as Saturn overcame his own father, Ouranus, who cruelly hid away his children out of fear of being usurped, so Saturn did an equal deed to disempower his own children by swallowing them – lest he be usurped in turn. But Rhea tricked the old man by offering him a stone in place of the just-born Zeus – sparing our king-to-be and enabling him to rise up against Kronos to become the new King of Olympus.

Chiron: the wise but wounded healer is the actual Sagittarius figure in the sky, according to the Greeks. Chiron was a centaur who lived on Mt Pelion with his wife Chariklo, a gentleman amongst the other wild and raucous centaurs, and an able healer. In one version of his birth story, he was fathered by Kronos, and therefore a half-brother to Zeus. Chiron tutored and raised many of the gods and was a benefactor to mankind.

One day, whilst entertaining Herakles, Chiron sustained an accidental wound from one of the hero's arrows. The arrow bore a poison distilled from the blood of the Hydra, and the stricken centaur retired in agony to his cave. Because he was immortal, he could not die, but neither could the wound be healed. Everything was tried, and Chiron became even more expert in the various arts of healing, but could heal only others, - never himself.

Ultimately Chiron was allowed to die, when it was determined that he could take the place of the mortal Prometheus – who was at last being released from his endless punishment at the hands of Zeus for giving fire to mankind. Chiron died immediately when he became mortal, only to be raised to heaven again by the gods, who made him into the starry figure of Sagittarius, the Archer.

Why should such a kindly centaur have such a dark fate? Liz Greene speculates upon this in The Astrology of Fate [p.240++]. She feels that this wound to the animal part of the centaur, in fact – to the leg, the part we must stand upon in the world - is perhaps what makes the Sagittarian so manic in his optimism. Greene says:

“Zeus creates lightening and thunder in heaven, and there is no sign more positive or resilient. But hidden in the cave is the suffering centaur, who can heal and give wise, prophetic advice to every man's ills save his own, and who is poisoned by the collision of his benign nature with the darkness and poison of the world. Perhaps because of this wound, Sagittarius is able to offer hope and optimism to himself and others, rather than despite it.”

Another thought is this: the healer could not heal himself, but could only gain release and relief through the grace of the gods. In like manner, how many gifted healers have this same experience, where they cannot deal with their own wound, and must go through the humbling process of having to depend upon the grace of another person [or god] for healing?

Study Resources - Orion Academy of Astrology

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