Management of Measurement Constructs
The Dignity of ‘Sagittarius’
When I hear the grand word “Sagittarius” abbreviated into colloquialism –‘Sadge”, “Saggie”—I stop cold in my tracks. The strength and dignity of the Sign is lost in order to suit something hip; is it that the astrologer can’t manage a word slightly longer than the average? I think the abbreviation suggests shallowness of understanding and meaning management; astrology retreats nearer to the realm of entertainment.
The corollary: one gains so much by pronouncing the word as it is. It says so much. –Try it. It feels good. Know what you are saying.
The word “Sagittarius” comes from the Latin Sagita, which means “arrow.” –Symbolists point out that the arrow is the weapon of Apollo and Diana, signifying the light of supreme power. The word is traced to Etruscan and Greek origin where it was used to designate the sun’s rays. It has phallic significance as well, especially when graphically configured with a symbol of the ‘mystic Center’… like a heart, e.g. the heart pierced with an arrow = conjoining.
The Sagittarii were Roman mounted archers. They rode determinedly into battle to make their point, literally and figuratively.
Most sensitive astrologer Marcia Moore (in her superb book, Astrology, the Divine Science) leads us to a verse by Emily Dickinson, who had Sun, Mercury, and Venus in Sagittarius, by the way. –As Dickinson writes about the life enhancement, the enrichment from reading, she captures the Sagittarian thrust beautifully:
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. –What liberty
A loosened spirit brings.
The archetypal Sagittarian energy is to guide and instruct –through travels of the mind, through life experiences hither and yon (the loosened spirit). There is an eagerness to be heard, to make a mark. –And as I have focused the Moon in Sagittarius in my work: life is propelled by the reigning need to have one’s opinions respected.
The ruler of Sagittarius is Jupiter, highest god in the Greco-Roman pantheon! Jupiter represents the supreme virtues of the judgment and the will. Jupiter’s attributes are the thunderbolt, the crown, the eagle and the throne … all devices of authority and influence.
“Sadge”?? —Really???
Please respect the understanding and “feel” one gets from these following learning models:
Linda Tripp, momentarily famed in the Clinton justice-scandal, has Sun-Mercury in Sagittarius sextiled by Jupiter! –So clear, her inner motivation and external expression.
Mark Twain –where every sentence of his being was loaded with social commentary—had Sun-Mars-Venus in Sagittarius.
Alexander the Great (Gazis rectification), history’s first famous man, made that history making his point, with the Moon in Sagittarius conjoined with Uranus.
Television discussion moderator and erstwhile politician, Phil Donahue, has the Sun and Jupiter both in Sagittarius! And so did ecstatic poet and artist William Blake, who touched England’s anthem identity for ever … “And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green…”!
Billy Graham and Saddam Hussein both show a Moon-Mars conjunction in Sagittarius –talk about opinionation!
Elizabeth I, the State of Israel, and Lee Iacocca all show Jupiter in Sagittarius.
Einstein had the Moon in Sagittarius, ruling his Ascendant and squaring his Midheaven! The world listened.
***Feel it all? –That’s the noble thrust of life energy with which we deal –when we identify Sagittarius, the arrow of thought streaking into life. Feels good, doesn’t it?
“When I think, I must speak.”
Properly.