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Mercury-Neptune: Spelling Bees and 'blindness'


What makes astrology supremely relevant is that it discloses an unsuspected dimension of the world we think we know so well. It is as though we have become accustomed to see only the horizontal yarn of the weaving, the weft, and are largely unaware of the warp. We are accustomed to break down our world, in order to understand it, into certain categories, recognizing what belongs to this category, what belongs to that. That is ‘scientific’. However, astrology is about learning to think in new categories. It embodies a system of new categories that are as different from the ones to which we are habituated, as the warp is from the weft. In this system objects and events that at first sight appear to have nothing whatever to do with each other are shown to be intimately connected. Conversely, things we naturally tend to associate may be distributed otherwise in the astrological scheme. Understanding the world around us depends on our power to perceive patterns of meaning, to make the right connections, recognize what belongs with what. It is not easy. Unaided, it is as if we are looking at the weaving from the wrong side, and it seems a mess, but with the help of astrology we can see the design as it is meant to be. As the shuttle of the cosmic loom ceaselessly weaves its intricate design, astrologers have the responsibility, or rather the awesome privilege, to work towards restoring to humanity the sense of high meaning it has all but lost.”

Dennis Elwell, The Cosmic Loom



What do you do if you’re in a spelling bee, you spell a word correctly, and the judges claim you spelled it wrong anyway? “B-r-a-i-l-l-e” — that’s how 12-year-old Sierra Shoemaker of Indianola, Calif., spelled the word referring to the written language designed for those unable to see, formed by patterns of raised dots and read with your fingertips. The sixth-grader was competing in the Selma Unified School District’s spelling bee held at Garfield Elementary School last Friday, March 8.




Shown above is the current New Moon chart at Indianola. Notice a Mercury-Neptune conjunction on the MC in Pisces.

Here is an extract from reference  [1] which explains why we make errors of judgement during a Mercury-Neptune conjunction.


With the Mercury-Neptune contacts, it is the mind level that is primarily sensitised and activated, so that the imaginative quality is emphasised and the main focus of life appreciation is through mental receptivity. The conjunction indicates a channel between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, and both the energy and information flowing through this conduit need to be carefully integrated if a variety of imbalances and distortions is not to be created.

The faculty of imagination will be highly stimulated and developed, and this will certainly require appropriate channels to be focused on so that other problems of perception are not created. The issue of mental realities is one which can make you unsettled, especially as you can tend to make mistakes in judgement based on misinterpreting facts and suggestive information.



Also worth noting is the Kronos-Hades-Pluto [2] opposition on the horizon axis

Kronos-Pluto:  Evaluation of knowledge, competency or expertise
Kronos-Hades: Leaders or authorities make mistakes

From  reference [3] list of things ruled by Neptune it is interesting to note that it also rules ‘blindness’ . Is it a mere coincidence that the word whose spelling the judges had wrong was ‘Braille’?  Louis Braille, after whom the word has been coined, was the inventor of braille, a system of reading and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired.

[2]The Orders of Light; Martha-Lang Wescott; p.97,106

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