Astrology and the Greek Sphinx ()

 

Let me tell you a story that you already know: Oedipus meeting the Sphinx. This will lead us to astrological principles, you’ll see.  

The sphinx had the body of a lioness, a human face and wings. Her job as a monster was to ask a riddle to passers by, which they couldn’t answer and as a result they were killed. 

The riddle was:  “What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?” 

Imagine the random passerby cornered by the sphinx; he is in a state of panic, he is thinking of all the animals he knows, tries to remember the weird ones, like the frogs who start their life as tadpoles, but with frogs the legs count doesn’t match, it must be an insect,what insects do I know? Spiders, flies, caterpillars…  

Time’s up! What’s your answer? Huh… A butterfly? Wrong! 

And the sphinx jumps at the poor guy’s throat… 

Like all previous victims of the sphinx, this one used his mind as if he knew only the Mercury side of it. He had been to school, he had a functioning third house, he could count and classify according to rational criteria, but with this kind of mind, he couldn’t save his life. 

Then comes Oedipus. He is in a modified state of consciousness. How come? He had recently heard, from an oracle, that he would kill his father and marry his mother. 

This prediction is uttered twice in Oedipus’ story: the first time, his real parents, the King and Queen of Thebes heard it. They abandoned baby Oedipus to a certain death. However, he was saved by a shepherd and eventually adopted by the sovereigns of Corinth. 

Oedipus believed that the King and the Queen of Corinths were his real parents. He loved them. In that mythical time, oracles were taken very seriously. How shocked he must have been when he heard about killing one and marrying the other!

He had decided not to return to Corinth ever. He would never see his parents again. He heard about the sphinx; he decided to try to solve the enigma, thinking that if he died, it would be just as well. 

He was not in an ordinary state of consciousness that’s for sure. When you really despair, when you believe there is nothing you can do,  you become calm, and as it happens, stillness of mind is a key. 

Not only Mercury rules the mind, but also Jupiter.

Jupiter rules the opposite signs to the Mercury ruled ones. A key word for the Ninth house is “Higher Knowledge”. This may mean more than going to university as opposed to primary school. It means thinking the other way round so to speak. 

(For those who don’t like associating Jupiter and the Ninth House because it’s too modern for their taste, just consider that knowledge is a common theme to Jupiter and to the Ninth House in traditional astrology. However I could have made my point opposing Mercury and the Sun, which has its joy in the Ninth House, and also means consciousness or intelligence, “the instrument of perception of the soul” according to Valens).

In front of the sphinx, Oedipus doesn’t search his mind. He remains still. He is not afraid of dying. He holds the question in abeyance… 

A picture comes up. 

At the centre of the picture… It's him! Of course, we always look away from ourselves, but the essential answers point towards our own chest! 

Four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening… it’s not the rational mind that was needed, but the one that knows poetry. The morning is not a literal morning, it’s the dawn of life; the legs are not literal legs either. 

In another version of the myths, morning, noon and evening are not mentioned. The question of the sphinx is just: “What walks on four legs, then on two, and then on three?” 

Those who are stuck with literal thinking are like dead, like killed by the sphinx. Those who can see are alive. The sphinx could tell us: Look at me: I have the body of a lion, wings, and a human head. If I am not a metaphor, what can I be? Some signs of the zodiac, in particular the goat with a fishtail or the centaur that shoots an arrow say it as well: Don’t take anything too literally or you’re dead to the Mystery. 

We need this analogical way to look at life to solve riddles, and in our particular case, to read astrological symbols and charts. This involves being able to still the mind. It’s a spiritual quest, in the sense that we need to understand the spirit, rather than the letter. 

In spirit, poetry is a valid way to describe reality. Poetry is made of analogies. Life is like a day. Our own personal morning is characterised by the sign which was rising when we were born.  That’s how we appear, which does not mean “how we look” only, but how we transition from not being there to become present. Pick-a-boo, here we are. 

We may be souls, but on earth, we appear thanks to our body.  The First House rules the body. It’s not logical, it’s analogical. We are like the Sun, our life is like a day, the Ascendant describes how we rise from absence to presence... The Descendant shows how we disappear. The MC how we culminate, when we reach maturity and the IC is a hidden place where beginnings and endings are one and the same.

Astrology is a language of symbols. Symbols are the language of the Great Mystery. When the sphinx asks: “What has four legs, then two legs, then three legs?”, it also shows (rather than says) that nothing is permanent. Forms are transitory. Can we silence the ordinary mind, look with the eyes of the soul and remember that which has no form within ourselves? When we  do, we are closer to the stars, and more apt to interpret their language. 

As William Lilly put it: “...for the more holy thou art, and more near to God, the purer judgement thou shalt give.”

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, Storyteller, Writer etc

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