Friday, December 16, 2011

The Birth of An Arabic Part

In the 40-1/2 years since I began my study of astrology, many cultural and attitudinal changes have taken place. Some are good; others are not as good. One aspect of of an astrological study that I truly miss is the willingness to share new ideas with others. Back in the day, people shared new ideas most willingly. If a new idea had merit, it skyrocketed. If a new idea was bunk, it would peter out and just fade away. The marketplace of ideas would separate the wheat from the chaff. Nowadays, astrologers look on new ideas as ways to make money, and people are reluctant to share lest they get lost in the lurch, especially if they have put some substantial time and effort to introduce a new technique to the astrological community.
Now, more than ever, astrologers have become obsessed with mathematical rigor. I suppose that is necessary, but I truly hate to see how such stilted formality is stifling creativity. I think new ideas should be pursued with enthusiasm and joie de vivre at the outset. Once the new idea starts to take root only then should it be formalized. In the meantime, astrological creativity should not be stifled.
Nowadays, if some object has some astronomical significance, astrologers will assume that it must have some astrological significance, whether it does or not. Some astrologers will toss anything into a chart, even the kitchen sink. (I don't know for sure, but I am tempted to bet money that someone has probably gone so far as to name an asteroid “Kitchen Sink” by now.) In fact, Pluto had been known for 40 years when I took up our craft, and yet even then, many astrologers were afraid of committing themselves to adding Pluto to their astrological pallette. Pluto was generally ignored until Sakoian and Acker first published The Astrologer's Handbook in 1973.
Back in the early 1970's, I was a lonely, unloved man, and I truly envied all the people in my life who were sexually fulfilled. I spent far too much time and effort trying to ascertain when I would join the ranks of the sexually active. I noticed that my most fulfilled peers tended to have Pluto and Venus in a harmonious aspect—usually a trine where Pluto was 4 signs ahead of Venus. My choices of Venus, as the planet of romantic love and sensuality and of Pluto, as the planet of pure sex were fairly straightforward. Then I experimented with how to combine Venus and Pluto in a meaningful manner. If I went with Venus and Pluto in the other direction, my new Arabic Part would show up in the 9th house, tather than the 5th for those fulfilled people. By Jove, I then realized that I was onto a brilliant idea. When I computed this new Arabic Part for my own chart, I found it to fall in my first house. Oh well, it was plenty obvious what that meant.
I promoted my finding in the letters column of the March, 1974 issue of American Astrology magazine. I kept on promoting it every chance I got. When Press and Ima and I wrote Signs and Parts in Plain English, I included the Part of Sex Drive along with all the other Arabic Parts that had been known and used for centuries. Then when Astro Computing Services offered lists of all the possible Arabic Parts, I suggested to them that the formula of Asc. + Pluto – Venus be called the Part of Sex Drive, they adopted that name for it. Now my work is an official part of the astrological literarure. It figures that I have not been given the recognition that I deserve. But the right people do know from whence it comes.
Don Borkowski
dgborkowski@msn.com

No comments:

Post a Comment