Sagittarius sign

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Mythology

Zeus is the supreme god in the Olympic god hierarchy, worshipped throughout all of Greece. The city Olympia, where the regular Olympic Games were held and where one of his temples stood, is most associated with him than other cities. Plato, and later the German philosopher Hegel, claimed that Zeus is first and foremost the god of sovereign intelligence, and his supremacy derives from his unique weapon, lightning, symbolizing speed, and thunder, symbolizing great power. His bird is the eagle and the Oak tree is considered sacred to Zeus (Rodin 1982). In artworks, Zeus is portrayed as a ruler with an athletic body, a man in his peak physical and mental strength. He commands the events of the world and society and decides when and how things will turn out. Despite his power, he is not omnipotent and is bound to three forces: fate, sleep and lust. In the deterministic Greek ideology, man cannot change the decree of fate and Zeus is no exception. Zeus many times succumbed to his lust. There is a contradiction in Zeus’ tale: He is the protector of justice and social structure however he is filled with sexuality and vengeance, a sovereign of the world but a slave to his body’s ravenous demands. Another constellation in the mythology is expressed with the centaurs, creatures with a human upper body and a lower body of a horse. Centaurs were usually described as ruthless savages and symbolized anarchy, greed, inebriety and carnal beings. The centaur is an excellent archer. In many of the mythological tales they would chase after helpless girls to rape them. An exception was Chiron, a centaur who was considered kind and wise. He ran a school where they taught music, medicine and hunting. Like many mythological heroes, Chiron also studied sciences. After his death, he received from Zeus an eternal existence within the constellation Sagittarius. Another constellation is the winged horse Pegasus. Hercules owned this kind of horse.

Journeys and Nomads – Geographical, or Spiritual?

The German philosopher Heidegger once said: “When you are wandering, you are at home”. For a Sagittarius, the saying “wiser the path than those who walk it” is relevant. Sagittarius’ are ready to venture and their nature for traveling, to move, to know more, to be curious and to experience first-hand is ingrained in their sign. This was the way of thinking for Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Amerigo Vespucci. They all wagered in Sagittarius fashion and traversed an unknown path. The Sagittarius asks many questions, and a question is a type of initial motive, a curiosity towards landscape, and a deeper curiosity towards the mind. We don’t know the birth date of our ancestor Abraham (from the Bible), who is likely the first Sagittarius wanderer that connects the meaning of physical space and philosophical mental space (Lech-Lecha portion, Genesis 12:1). Abraham is commanded by God to leave his homeland, and to go “unto the land that I will show thee”, to abandon all he is related to and to drift into solitude and loneliness. This is a monotheistic message, since only a man who has experienced such solitude can grasp the singularity of God. In abandoning all, the only thing left is to acknowledge God exclusively. Being a Sagittarius is an entry ticket to a new mindset that begins with the abandonment of everything in order to reach the goal of a new reality. This also describes the decades long journey of Moses into the desert. The point of the journey is spiritual and therefore he cannot stay in one place. This is where another dimension of the Sagittarius comes into play, and it is hope. Alone, homeless and in solitude, the Sagittarius is on a journey and it is the path that grants him great hope for the future. In the case of Abraham, there is an explicit promise by God: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make your name great; and be thou a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2). The journey starts with solitude but does not end in Israel but rather it reaches Egypt. Later on, the Israelites left Egypt in pursuit of spirituality: from the pyramids to Biblical Mount Sinai, from self-recognition to religious, collective and moral recognition. God, who is aware of Abraham’s difficult situation, point towards the stars and shows to Abraham the sky, to show Abraham that like the sky he is destined to become infinite. In Sagittarius fashion, solitude and loneliness become hope and optimism as Abraham is showed a great and impressive spectacle. Abraham was sent to deepen his relationship to God. He is the last of individuals and the first of believers. The Israelites’ journey started with the “Lech-Lecha” command and ended where the tribes safely settle down in the Promised Land. This journey is a representation of the Sagittarius as it is the abolishment of one home and the uprising of a new home for body, and mind. Abraham’s journey and the exodus of Moses are representatives of man’s free will to choose, to venture, to disconnect from the past and to look out into the future, into a new hope. The journey is a change in mental spatial dimention; such a change is seen in Odysseus, in the humorous epos “Gulliver” by swift (Jonathan Swift is a Sagittarius – 10.12.1667), and Robinson Crusoe in Daniel Defoe’s novel. Robinson is a Sagittarius rebel, that instead of acquiring an established profession, he sails across the sea in an adventure, his ship sinks, and he finds himself in a survival situation to build himself a new world, without fear of nature but rather controlling it and making use of it. Marcel Proust ventures in his mind and conscience without treading a single step outside of his room. The Sagittarius understands that in order for change to occur, you must venture elsewhere. You are required to be distant from physical, political and cognitive dimensions. This distance allows a new perspective that could not be observed beforehand. In a journey like this, the venture outwards is observed in the growing separation between one’s original identity, and their new identity born within the journey. The same can be said for author Robert M. Pirsig’s book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, where the physical journey throughout America on a motorcycle is actually a philosophical and psychological journey that leads to changes in human nature and subconscious. Therefore, there is a psychological meaning in the change occurring for the Sagittarius rider. Behind the territorial change of traversing from a place to another there is not only a geographical map, but also a mental map. In other words, it is two simultaneous journeys in a single journey. The distance of the venture is set by the inner change of the rider and by his acceptance of meeting the unknown. The Sagittarius space is found within Jack Kerouac’s book “On the road” (1955), it is to be constantly in perpetual motion, and the road is a place you aspire to be in. More American artworks have been dedicated to the Sagittarius way, like “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan’s songs and “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. The road itself is the last thing that is left after everything else expires. “On the road” gives a voice to many people who are searching for themselves. The reasons that lead a Sagittarius to wander seemingly are connected to domestic troubles in their youth. A feeling of lacking structure, perhaps a dysfunctional home, as for a man to leave his home there must have been some change in the home itself. The Sagittarius journey is derived originally from some defect (Professor Hana Nave, “Travellers” 2002), perhaps mental or material diminution at home, and forceful extrapolation from the old home. This loss cannot be made up for. Ingrained in the idea of nomadism is the inability to create a permanent space. If so, the meaning of Sagittarius is perpetual motion. This motion causes multiple perspectives, places, states and people. It is a freeing sense of liberty, from the travesty of the old home, from your old soul, and from your biological and historical roots. It is liberation from obligations to the family, social conventions and frameworks. To a Sagittarius nomad, there are no territorial aspirations, and therefore he is free of those conventions and obligations that determine countries and nations. The Sagittarius questions the conventional worth of land and materialism. The liberation is perpetual and therefore creates an endless journey. The immigration is vital, and so is the choice to go somewhere new. But as the Sagittarius immigrant takes on journeys, he cannot replace or get rid of himself. In travels, nomadism and immigration lies a paradox: The more you move forward, the more you move backwards. The nomad bears with him the same broken burden forever. It’s hard and maybe even impossible to let go of the past. The physical movement from place to place has not the ability to change the psychological past, and it is not certain the journey will reach the wanted liberating finale. The Sagittarius is in a state of homelessness, being always on the road, as we said, the road is the home. It is a Jupiter therapy of two types of liberation: liberation from, and liberation to. Something twists within itself the idea of hope towards something new. Perhaps the road leads to a better destination, far beyond the original identity. A stranger in a new environment who’s locating its weakness points. That’s how Deleuze and Guattari described the nomad in their book “A Thousand Plateaus”, he does not choose to go out on a journey, rather he lives when he is on the journey and chooses to be either in it or outside of it. Liberated and always towards some sort of physical movement, leaving him always “nowhere” but “towards somewhere”. The Sagittarius moves us from his geographical nomadism into a far psychological depth of a wandering soul. The travels are a journey from outer reality into conscious change which cannot occur without meeting new aspects, strangers. Without strangers, and the different, one cannot change and will stay put in his personality. Meeting the stranger is the motive to change and form a new identity. The physical becomes mental. One cannot return home from the journey, the Sagittarius has already transformed and is no longer wanted in the psychological state of the old home. Even if he goes back to the same place from which he left, it is no longer the same. The lack of a home might not be a hindrance, but rather liberation from a blockade stopping change and the creation of new identities. “Panta rhei” said Hercalitus, “Everything flows”, “No man ever steps in the same river twice”. The Sagittarius returns home (Nave, “Travellers” 125) after he has changed, but home is no longer the home he remembers. For the departure of the old home is the loss of a previous identity, or more accurately, liberation from it. The addiction to nomadism is the acquiring of new identities that reflect on the environment around. The loss of an identity is liberation of the original home’s norms. The immigration plays on the aspect of compensation of the Gemini. Immigration is adaptation, change of language, and that is the Gemini in their essence. The Sagittarius, therefore, is much more like Agnon (Shai Agnon) than Odysseus. Mythological Odysseus returns after his travels to rule his land. Agnon claims that in his tales, there is no returning home, the moment of departure is deterministic because of the lack of mental ability to return. Of course it requires a large amount of past events for a Sagittarius to depart on a journey, where he sees an adventure full of hope and answers. Moreover, the journey keeps the traveller always young. Maybe here the polarity of Gemini appears within the Sagittarius. Travelling is also a sort of mental mechanism to allow one to stay young, to stay expecting, a sort of optimism towards the future and new places, to start anew. Like a child, the Sagittarius will forever be young as long as he is on a journey. It is a sort of psychological warfare with time. The issue is that the past will never return, and the future may never be, as it might be an illusionary future of hope, feeding off the childhood pain in the previous home. The journey is a coping mechanism. To the peak of distance reaches Don Quixote by Cervantes, where his departure manifested with his disillusioned ties with reality. After reading books of knights and becoming mad, he continued the justice war of the Sagittarius knight, thus his journey becomes the extreme of astrological limits, a Sagittarius where space and imaginary objects are complete insanity, a mental illness. It might not be surprising that a Sagittarius named Joseph Conrad (3.12.1857) in his famous novel “Heart of Darkness” (1899) describes a journey along an African river into the heart of the wild jungle. It is the search for mysterious and terrifying Kurtz. It is definitely a Sagittarius journey, but the time on the ship down the river is actually a deep dive into the depths of the soul and an attempt to find the questions surrounding identity. The further the ship sails into the black continent, so does deeper the psychological dive of Conrad’s hero, Charles Marlow, on his ship, “Nellie”. The crusades of the Christians are a Sagittarius journey binding geographical space with religion.

Rome – Knights and Cavalry

The communal characteristic of the Sagittarius gives an interesting point of view over the Roman Empire. Justice manifests in the legacy of Emperor Justinian, who bestowed the earth with a judicial tradition of a thousand years. This judicial system in its western version basically began in Rome. It is this tradition that served as a basis of political and state theory that judges were trained on. Edward Gibbon, an English historian, once commented on Augustinian Rome: “If man were called to choose between all knowledge the period of time where humanity knew of the most wealth and happiness, he will be strong not to unresistingly turn to that time”. Gambling and Nature bonded together in Rome over in the Stadiums: Gladiators vs. lions and tigers. The emperor or senator would consider the battle over when they signaled thumbs down to kill the gladiator, or thumbs up to let the gladiator live. Imperial Rome sought after luxury. Exaggeration and arrogance were common and accepted. The territorial expansion of the empire was achieved with sending Roman legions from Italy to England, a fair distance at the time. Julius Caesar arrogantly and in Sagittarius nature coined the term “Imperium” after a crushing military victory: “I came, I saw, I conquered”. The religious aspect of the Sagittarius was not late to show in Rome, when Christianity enveloped the empire. Missionaries and crusades are another expression of the aspiration to expand imbedded in religion. As we recognize the Sagittarius nature in Rome, we must unveil the duality found in Gemini, for every year there were two councils in the Roman Empire. The Sagittarius is represented by the cavalry who brought forth a new social class – the European Knight. This class was empowered by the mythological Centaur. The medieval knight required skills like bravery, knowledge, and self-identity when he ventured. The Sagittarius Ethos was conveyed in the knight’s brave protection of the weak and justice. In 1215, in the “Magna Karta” the Sagittarius was expressed in the right to freely immigrate to and from the land. It is interesting to note that in the 12th century, the first western European universities such as oxford were founded, as they connect to Sagittarius nature. They taught theology, law, philosophy and medicine in these universities, and the former three are all obviously Sagittarius. These universities put proud in freedom. Already from the dawn of history, students were a founding forge for rebellions. Imperialism is a Sagittarius idea of space and expansion. In the past, by horse, in the present, by technology. But before Rome, Greece was the mark of cultural, social and financial flourish. Pericles’ Athens shows Sagittarius nature in its sophisticated teachers who wandered, teaching for payment.

America – Frontier, Cowboy, and a Gun

Rome isn’t the only representative of the Sagittarius. Sagittarius and Gemini motives come into light in an interesting way in America where immigrants, nomads, cowboys all come in a combo package, filled with optimism and adventure. The European immigrants, are those who left the Capricorn aspect of time in feudal, Christian and authoritarian Europe, and moved to America. A significant change favoring the American highways, motels, and Cadillacs over the conservatism in Europe. In his Frontier Thesis, American historian Frederick Jackson Turner claims the immigrants gave up the aspect of time and replaced it with the aspect of space, and therefore related themselves to something new, open, and optimistic. The Sagittarius aspect of space is the basis of the American soul. It is a dramatic transformation including cutting all ties to traditional identities and replacing them with openness and new opportunities. The settlers saw the giant lands of America as an opportunity for financial success. They dreamed of “The limitless country”. According to Turner, the frontier is not just a geographical term since the infinite space of the Sagittarius changes the idea of European Capricorn limits in our astrological language. The frontier is a promise for a beginning of happiness and success. The frontier is not just a physical place for country borders but also a metaphysical idea binding process, new land, and adaptation into a new reality. The Sagittarius frontier is a totalistic reality of man to his fate, relying only on his own strength and distant from European tradition. The Man who is an entrepreneur, adapts, curious and admires freedom. The American Sagittarius recognizes limits set only by nature. Wild lands form him and shape his identity. The Native-Americans might have contributed to the American lifestyle which is a Sagittarius synthesis of European and Native-American nature alike the synthesis of man and horse in the Centaur. The movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) featuring Redford and Newman continues the travels of Huckleberry Fin – Travels of bravery, adventure, nomadism, guns, and gambling. The immigration west (As Jim Morrison sings “The west is the best”) for three hundred years was a result of the search for land, wealth, adventure and gold. All without supervision. Every person had a chance to lift his status. Free will became the superior value. Although not everyone found gold, those who most definitely got their wealth were the owners of carriages. It’s a polarization that exists in the Gemini as the structure of perfect opposites rules. The theological aspect of the Sagittarius is shows in the Protestant ethos where wealth is a sign of being chosen by god. The first motto printed on the American cent in 1787 was “Mind your own business”. God loves the successful; we see this in the worship of the American way of thinking: The sky is the limit and bank accounts seem like a sportive act of “win and live big”. Gambling around the Casino table in Las Vegas combine faith and optimism in Sagittarius fashion. Gambling represents the idea of whoever wins the pot is godlike, opposing European historic views. The challenges and the open sky create a Sagittarius American ethos of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, James Dean and John Kennedy. Space is a mechanism of optimism. This is expressed in the genre of adventure in the American movie scene since “Easy Rider” (1969) until “Thelma & Louise” (1991). It is a Sagittarius genre – Take everything away from an American, except for his Cadillac, as the moment he pressed the pedal and accelerates into the distance, ripping the asphalt on the highway, the American orgasm, lacking responsibility. Baudrillard in “America” 1986: “The highway leads nowhere, it serves the deepest Sagittarius desire – to move. There are no rules but traffic laws, signs and posts, shelling us from responsibility.” Prior to the highway, horse riding cowboys used to be the rulers of the frontier. The cowboy is a figure, representative of Americanism. In movies such as “Dances with Wolves” (1990) or “Soldier Blue” (1970), or in old movies of Glenn Ford, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Gary Cooper, The Sagittarius Justice appeared together with a gun, a bottle of whisky and a girl, forming a combo with Gemini aspects in the Wild West. The hero rides on a horse, usually homeless, wandering across the massive lands. Gambling his life, Taking risks and moving freely, he has self-confidence and arrogance. He fights for justice; a symbol of bravery and strength, indurance, George Armstrong Caster (5.12.1983) was a legendary Sagittarius general who lost his life in the famous battle at Little Big Horn fighting the Native-Americans. Caster was a commander of cavalry in the civil war and was nicknamed “The Kid General”. He won many commendations for his bravery. And from the horses to the wild space of “Hells Angels” where Harley Davidson riders rebel the authority like Bonnie and Clyde. There is a Sagittarius nature to the American nomads straying from authority and police. It is denying all that tries to define and put borders in the land. It is also the hardwood floor of the basketball court where mythological heroes in the form of NBA superstars play in Boston or the Sunday Morning football. The love for sport is a communal aspect of the Sagittarius. The Gemini polarization is found in the high cost of every minute of advertising on TV. Sport is the closest thing to God in America. It is no longer “Pax Romana” it is “Pax Americana” (Meaning America is everything). The imperialism of America is seen in the worldwide spread of McDonald’s chains and Coca-Cola. It is not surprising that Dutch Sagittarius historian Johan Huizinga (7.12.1872) wrote about the gap between the European world and the new American world. In his diary he writes about the giant billboards and understands the issue of relentlessly expanding space. How the polar Gemini’s sense of reason degrades, the same tension between Sagittarius space and Gemini communication exists in the Astrological cycle. It is a transition from reading to seeing, from text to visualization. That’s how our habits shatter in a Gemini influence of information networks. It is a transition that empties oneself. The geographical change if so, becomes also a change of communication. The polarity of Gemini and Sagittarius comes to expression when the geographical border is emphasized when people are talking a different language.

Famous Sagittarius Personalities

Mark Twain (30.11.1836) – Twain, or his real name Samuel Clemens, was an American author who served as a navigator on a ship in the Mississippi river. Twain would double check the depth of the river to allow passing of the ship. It is a Gemini duality already present in his original name. Twain wrote the masterpiece “Huckleberry Finn” (1884) which became one of the most important books released in the US. Huckleberry Finn expresses the deep Sagittarius nature innate to the collective American soul. In his stories there are the characteristic motives of the Sagittarius. As Jim, Miss Watson’s black slave decides to escape; he triggers a wild adventure, typical for a Sagittarius. But the main issue in the book is in a moral decision, where Huckleberry helps Jim escape despite being black and Miss Watson’s property. Aspects of nature also relate to the escape. Twain releases Huckleberry from his past and from his parents. He is an orphan that discovers himself all by himself with a Sagittarius aspiration. Woody Allen (1.12.1935) – His creations express his Sagittarius nature (despite not being athletic and arrogant). His movies mainly deal with issues of morality and religion, by testing them philosophically, such in his movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989). He challenges the tradition of Yom Kippur, as seen in his movie “Radio Days” (1987) and doubts the necessity of “Seder night of Passover”. Winston Churchill (30.11.1874) – Churchill’s Sagittarius nature came through most during the war, becoming a symbol of bravery as he went into the war against Hitler. His leadership expressed the liberating aspect of the Sagittarius. He was an aristocrat, an astrologically Sagittarius beginning. He was determined, rash and adventurous. His famous photograph, signaling a victory sign with his fingers, is extremely Sagittarius. He was considered a rebel as a young man, and did not obey authorities. Baruch Spinoza (24.11.1632) – Considered a famous philosopher mainly because of his difference perception of God. In his theory there is an expression of liberty and rebellion fit for a Sagittarius, the willingness to doubt and demand answers. Spinoza related God to nature and therefore clashed with Jewish orthodox tradition when he rejected what he was forced to believe, and he had to wander as a Sagittarius away from his community which considered him a heretic. The transcended God is replaced in Spinoza’s mind. A sort of very sophisticated thinking. The world and nature gain Godlike status and are part of God. It is a sort of Sagittarius departure from traditional religion. Jim Morrison (8.12.1943) – Morrison, son of an Admiral in the American navy, wandered a lot in his childhood following his father’s forces in different naval bases. Adult Morrison wandered between women in Los Angeles, and didn’t bother having his own home but used to stay at other people’s places. His rebel nature of the Sagittarius he expressed with songs of his band “The Doors” where he took inspiration from William Blake. Morrison is one of the symbols from the 60’s for breaking agreements, and for guiltless wild rock concerts. He was in typical Sagittarius nature curios and limitless. “I like the idea of escaping and tearing down structured order”, he once said. Morrison knew very well the triad of sex, drugs and rock and roll present in the 60’s. One of his more famous songs was “Riders on the Storm”, reminding you of galloping mustang horses in Sagittarius America. Morrison was a rebel defining new boundaries for the American frontier. As a Sagittarius he invited us to the “Wild West” by White Arp with the stage. A few more Sagittarius personalities: Keith Richards from “The Rolling Stones” (18.12.1943), wild and a rebel. Author Jane Austin (16.12.1775) representing the Sagittarius world in her books who deal with justice and morality. She mocks the traditions of her time in “Sense and Sensibility” and in “Pride and Prejudice”. Jane Fonda (21.12.1937) – a sex symbol from the 60’s, an anarchist of the 70’s and a queen of aerobics in the 80’s. She’s an aristocrat American Sagittarius born on a horse ranch in California. Steven Spielberg is a Sagittarius (18.12.1946) who took us on adventures with Indiana Jones (1981). Bruce lee, Brad Pitt, Walt Disney, Beethoven, Christina Aguilera, Nicki Minaj and Milley Syrus are all Sagittarius.