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This book studies several hundred astrological birth charts and wedding charts, separated into two groups; one set belong to the happily married and the other to the divorced. The aim is to see in what manner and to what extent the charts differ. The differences may be useful as a guide book for those who travel in hope of a quality partnership. For those who arrived at their destination long ago, only to find it resembled a third world prison, where you have to sleep with the guard, there may be useful insights to improve their subsequent experience of pair bonding. Astrology offers one way to understand more about the guard, the self and how others have made the thing called marriage work. Those who regard a legal tie as unnecessary will find that the skills to argue about sex, the price of shoes and the rubbish bin are not.


This much should be of interest to normal people, then there are astrologers, who ought to derive extra benefits. By studying the charts of things that we know have worked well and comparing them with charts of things that we know have not we are able to observe where our methods are good and appropriate and where they need revision. Furthermore, since this book is based on the experiences of real people, none of whom own a tropical island, what we learn should be more useful in our own lives than either theory alone or the observation of partnerships made and broken in Hollywood.


This volume concentrates on the character and condition of Juno and Jupiter, who offer a wonderful early model of getting it wrong; between them they symbolise the two extremes of giving up everything and surrendering nothing for the partnership. Other perils and pitfalls are being investigated, ready for a second volume


 

 

 

                           Summary of Findings

The aim of Binary Stars was not to support any particular school or technique within astrology but to be led on a journey by the evidence within the charts available. The first results indicate that traditional and new ideas both have value. The conclusions in brief are:

  
Juno is what is given up for the partnership before it can be formed and, or what it is necessary to put into the relationship for it to survive. Jupiter shows the rewards that come as a result of the efforts of Juno. These two are the essential balance of a pair bond.


Jupiter may be viewed as the symbol for Husband in a chart and compared with the Sun as the symbol of Man, the two are not necessarily the same. Similarly Juno is wife and Moon Woman. Therefore some degree of harmony between Juno and Moon and Jupiter and Sun is generally as helpful as harmony between the two spouses.


It is necessary to know the occupations or major life activities of the people concerned to weigh the charts. A ‘bad’ placement or three may be explained as descriptive of these other activities. Jupiter in Capricorn is a case in point.
The condition of the two rulers is as important as the state of the two bodies themselves.


The old rulers seem preferable to the new
Rulership is not an automatic benefit, it confers strength, which may be abused. One of the signs of rulership may be preferable because it is a better fit for the circumstances.

 
Exaltation is not simply a weaker form of rulership but has a character of its own. In this context it often fails because it is difficult to manage. 
Detriment seems preferable to fall. In certain situations detriment actually appears beneficial, by curbing excess power. Jupiter in marriage often falls into this category.


Technically Juno cannot have dignity but her comfort zones seem to be Scorpio and Virgo. Capricorn will do. Libra is where she is forced to make the best of it, not her first choice.


By nature neither archetype likes Libra or Taurus.  Aries is the nearest thing the two have to common ground and Virgo / Pisces the best polarity for their positive expression.


Juno and Jupiter in some signs suit men and women differently.


Placements that work well in a natal chart may do less well at a wedding and vice versa. This is because there is a shift of position and, in theory, a bargain formed by two humans at the point of the ceremony.


A wedding chart that might have been elected because it is so ‘ good ’ may still fail because it is not a description of the two individuals. Similarly there may be danger in a marriage abroad because the entity born during that lavish once-in-a-lifetime trip is likely to be a very bad fit for the normal life of the pair. The transits associated with the trip pass and the angles and emphasis in the houses of the wedding chart shift at home.


In a wedding chart, in the sample tested, the best aspects involving Juno, Jupiter, their rulers and the lights were the conjunction and opposition. (Oneness or balance)  The trine was no guarantee of success. The sextile was more often in the divorces (perhaps a shallower approach). The square was more prone to failure but the worst indicator was the semi- square followed by the inconjunct. It was usually possible to see what mitigated the ‘bad’ aspects in the happy pairs. Mutual reception seemed positive, sometimes even with detriment.


Some mundane work showed that Juno is active and significant in areas outside matrimony. She may represent the underdog, who is nevertheless significant because she has something of value to the other party or she is capable of long-term guerrilla warfare. This is just as tiresome for a business or government as it is for a husband.
 

 

                  

Sneak Peeks from Binary Stars....

Introduction
It is a reasonable bet that the subject of human relationships has consumed more ink, celluloid and guitar strings than were ever spent in disseminating the wisdom of all the philosophers and the biography of all the generals who have shaped the world. When human beings are left with nothing but the dog and hard liquor to keep them warm at night they tend not to be entirely consoled by an evening in with an exceptionally well-argued thesis, elegantly analysed and with helpful footnotes, or The Blues would not have been invented. This is because, as most of us witness daily, human beings tend to feel more automatically and more often than they tend to think. This tendency has many unfortunate consequences but the one of concern here is the conclusion that since feeling is the first language of the common woman and man it must naturally be inferior to thinking.
     Despite the fact that feeling is the essential core of the human experience it is judged inappropriate as a mechanism for evaluating the world. The proper mind rises above the toxins of the subjective. The proper mind is honed to concern itself with the ideas and actions of great men and mighty empires. The educated individual knows that western civilisation stands firmly upon the ‘I think, therefore I am’ thing and everybody knows the silent bit goes; ‘I feel, therefore I need to get my roots redone to go with the new bag.’
     If ecstasy and misery belong only in the repertoire of the teenaged girl, the addict  (and the strange young man who could not survive the showers) and romance is no more than a passing illusion then it follows that ‘relationships’ must be consigned to the box labelled inappropriate to study, if one wants to be taken seriously. Astrologers, who have an uphill task, on the best day, just to be considered sane, know this and are away fashioning another new Trojan horse, in an effort to get behind the big oak doors of respectability. As they do so the rest of humanity are chasing the ecstasy and suffering the misery of human relationships and need some answers. This book is an attempt to find a few…

Whatever ones attitude towards the formation of a legal tie there is a distinct advantage offered to astrologers in studying a formal marriage…… where there is a clear intent to form a binding partnership, at a specific time and place we have a chart.…

The appeal of gossiping about the rich and famous has been sacrificed in order to study the more mundane lives of the Smiths and Browns because they are more likely to be relevant to the rest of us……For those of you who are now disappointed there are no good stories coming – fear not, I discovered that regular folk in these parts employ considerably more imagination than might be expected in pursuit of enriching their evenings.  

……..the decision to compute the various tables was made for several reasons…… It is not essential to understand all the figures; they are included for those who find them useful and who may wish to assess the methods employed.
     Numbers are used because they are not subjective. It is possible to see various patterns in a collection of charts because one already has a desire to confirm a theory …….it is  easier to notice Jupiter in rulership, amid happy trines, in the charts of happy people and to see only Jupiter in detriment, square Saturn and Pluto, in the charts of those who are divorced. Counting everything properly is simply more reliable.
     In addition, by subjecting everything to the unflinching eye of mathematics we may discover that some of our prized techniques are exposed as failing so often that we might want to reconsider them. My view is that astrology belongs with neither science nor art, it is a craft requiring fusion of and respect for both. We all agree chart reading is not physics but the results are probably improved on those occasions where it does not rest solely on deep, personal intuition, tutored to the level of infant handpainting. Art has rules too. Hamlet is allowed to interpret the well known bits in his own style, but not to make it all up as he goes. (That is called jazz.) 
 

 

Juno

Juno is the heavenly body that astrologers have most specifically associated with marriage. However to assume that one therefore looks to her position in a chart for an indication of the route to conjugal bliss or even a degree of domestic comfort, can be a grave mistake. Anyone who has either a concept or an experience of pair bonding that can be described largely by their natal Juno may find that contemplation of the Universe from the safety of a religious order is an attractive option.
     Juno as an archetype cannot describe marriage. She is only one half of what is a totally dysfunctional pair. The asteroid may contribute towards an image of the partner or the ideas about partnership but the mythology of Juno is concerned rather with those things that are necessarily lost or sacrificed, in order to enter and maintain a relationship …. All close ties require compromise and will encompass conflict of varying degrees. ….there must be relinquishment of parts of the former lifestyle and a shift in priorities and loyalty. Juno in a natal chart may be looked to for an indication of what is lost or modified, in exchange for or as a result of, union with the partner.

Juno is not simply the pair bond; it is the price that is paid for the pair bond. It may be recognised and accepted before the match takes place or it may be something unseen and unexpected, which is required some time after. This price will be extracted whether or not a person enters into a formal marriage; the same issues will affect the couple that live in an equivalent state.

 

Jupiter as Conqueror
Those astrologers who have considered Juno worth any time will not have much argument with her being associated with marriage. However despite knowing her mythology few, if any, have considered that she is bound up with Jupiter when it comes to the actual reading of a chart. ……Juno is….all the inconvenient bits of partnership…. Jupiter is the symbol for the advantages that come in exchange for the effort. However this is not the beginning and end of what either of them are. …..Jupiter married is still Jupiter. Left to his own devices, he does not do fair; he takes and moves on to more and bigger pastures. Juno and Jupiter form a polarity because one loses everything and gains nothing, the other takes everything and gives nothing. Jupiter is a conqueror and Juno the conquered…

   To say we need to re-examine feminine symbolism is now far from a new idea but it is also inappropriate to freeze the male symbols as they were in Greece. …

     However complex and positive Jupiter has become, since he was Zeus the treacherous philanderer, to some extent men remain tainted with the early archetype and may suffer for it. They are still frequently viewed as less faithful, more sexually predatory and even more selfish in general than women. Women are more often seen as victims. It suits many to conclude that Hera behaves appallingly because she has been attacked, deposed and cheated, while Jupiter behaves appallingly because he, and men, are just like that. Before we condemn only Jupiter and insist the feminine must be allowed to re-emerge from its perpetually innocent and crushed state, we need to remember that men once lived under women’s rule. Jupiter in the myth is all conquering perhaps not only because he represents the historical tribe who worshipped him and waged war on the weak but because he is also a representative of Men’s Lib at that time. Both men and women are liable to seek revenge if their rights and power are stolen and both are capable of imbalance and unfairness. As much as they are enemies equally Hera and Zeus, Jupiter and Juno, man and woman are each the prize the other seeks and fair terms must be established for the benefit of both. In a good pair bond they are…