Today we are at the midpoint of the Mercury retrograde cycle, having just met the same cazimi moment of the Venus cycle. Time for a little publishing update from the Centaur Space! With the recent forward movement of Jupiter in Gemini, we prepare to experience a final tense aspect between major movers Jupiter and Saturn in their present signs before they move on to Cardinal climes this summer. Remembering back to their Great Conjunction in December 2020 feels like an aeon ago. Their back and forth square in mutable signs has felt like Sisyphus on a Slip’n’slide. Much will change when Neptune enters Aries next week, and Jupiter settles into Cancer like a happy hippo, this June.
Jupiter in Gemini is many things, many-ness, manifold ideas, proliferation of ideation… and happened to be in the sky when some great astrologers were born. For example, Robert P. Blaschke, Dane Rudhyar, and Lynda Hill: all of whom were involved in the method and the madness of Sabian Aspect Orbs, Vol. 2 in RPB’s Astrology: A Language of Life series. Somehow yours truly, lacking any planets in Gemini (but rich in the Sagittarian!), found his way into the pages of the second edition of this unusual text. Gemini does host my Immum Coeli, the place where roots are formed and ancestral lineages reached: hence my joy in serving my astrological lineage.
Sabian Aspect Orbs by Robert Blaschke, second edition
Publisher and editrix Dr. Jenn Zahrt invited me to make like a Gemini and wax prolix about degree symbols in a foreword. Such a blessing for my debut into astrological print, which Jenn has supported in so many ways already: publishing an essay in The Ascendant (about TNO Borasisi), making sure I was quoted in The Mountain Astrologer (about TNO Borasisi), having me on as a guest on Within Orb (to discuss our top astro books), and now in the pages of a series whose first editions I have long treasured. In my first years as an astrology student in Berkeley CA I happened to be guided to degree symbols (through Ellias Lonsdale’s Inside Degrees), Sabian Aspect Orbs, and Jenn herself, who was teaching astrology classes downtown while finishing her doctorate. Check it out at Revelore Press (where you can also read the Foreword).
And yes, our own book nears completion too on this same mutable wave. Head over to Praesepe.Press to pre-order while you can (lock in a low price, and get the ebook for free). Now, in Spring 2025: It is Actually, Truly, Coming Soon! Thanks for your patience and support along the way.
UPDATED TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR SIDEWAYS FROM SATURN: Foreword by Louise Edington 1. Introducing the Centaurs by Melanie Reinhart 2. The Walkers by Andrew Smith 3. The Cycle of Chiron: Accepting the Wound of Incarnation by Brian Clark 4. Being Chiron by Hugh Smiley 5. Pholus: Agony and Ecstasy, Secrets and Lies by Vicky Maloney 6. Nessus Catalyzing Heroic Change by Jenny Kellogg 7. Chariklo: Wife of Chiron by Melanie Reinhart 8. Chariklo: Holding the Space For Transformation by Shellie Enteen 9. Okyrhoe: Her Call and Her Consciousness by Anandita Simon 10. Cycles of Okyrhoe in Discovery by Anandita Simon and David Leskowitz 11. Visionary Astrology of the Ecstatic Centaurs by David Leskowitz 12. Asbolus: Fire on the Mountain by Jenny Kellogg and David Leskowitz 13. The Centaurs Speak by Bobbi Rose Williams
In honor of the presently forming sextile between Queen Chariklo and King Chiron, I spent some time this winter creating my first talismanic series made out of metals. A bronze series honoring the Nymph and Centaur, when Venus conjoined Chariklo just after Chiron met the North Node; and a copper and silver series of Chiron, made prior to the Great Chiron Eclipse of April 2024.
The sextile building in the sky now between Chiron and Chariklo stems from their synodic conjunction of 1949. The present aspect is an echo of their first sextile, which formed briefly in 1994, before nearly reaching the trine in 2012. Then the pair “descended” back to their present climb, to hover in this gentle harmony for about two years, before a swift traverse toward opposition in the late 2040s. (This info gleaned from the inimitable Centaur sage Robert von Heeren’s Centaur Research site).
There is obviously much to say about the harmony between these healing guides, and their greater cycles, which I have been meaning to write about. In the constant maelstrom of unfolding trauma and tragedy, I hesitate to apply the astrological lens too quickly. But of course patterns in the sky do relate to what we experience, and the Centaurs’ rhythms may offer us a repose from the planetary energies. More on this later, especially as the aspect sharpens in the next year ahead.
As an aspiring healer and “mage”, I’ve come to find the application of their healing energies to be an even more direct route than discussion of their astrology. And while I’m happy how the clay talismans I’ve created over the past five years have brought many into connection with these Centaur friends, the use of metals to carry energy is a more well-established magical practice. These talismans of bronze, copper, and silver are made from a kind of clay that cures into a pure metal, in an alchemy that is easy to work with and very artistically satisfying. I admit that holding these new talismans in my hand brings in their now-familiar vibrations even more robustly! It appears that they “hold their charge” better than other materials, too.
Asbolus is a centaur we encounter at pivotal moments in the Centaur Cycle of Greek mythology. Presently, the shadowy seer of omens is near the spotlight, astrologically: conjunct our Moon’s North Node, or Dragon’s Head. This places him in mid-Gemini, where a crew of planetary bodies transmit solar light to several layers of the solar system at once – all along the nodal axis of Uranus. The groove carved into cosmic space by the Nodes of Uranus run deep: his long orbit traces cycles of our transformation from trauma into enlightenment. At Uranus’ heliocentric North Node, we now have an unusual connection between that crossing and our Moon’s own Node.
Something in the collective is tuning in to a larger process of introspection, purification, and understanding. Asbolus is joined by asteroid Psyche (a large metallic body) and Trans-Neptunian Object Altjira, all in mid-Gemini for many months: from September 2020 through this month of March 2021, when they are joined and activated by Mars. Altjira (Austro-aboriginal god of timelessness) and Psyche each have their own band of consciousness-raising to do, which I hope to explore elsewhere.
Despite being known as one of the “wise centaurs”, Asbolus has only recently entered my vision as a centaur healer. I noticed that this year’s New Moon of Lunar New Year (Tibetan and Chinese) fell in exact trine to the mysterious planet. As I tuned in and welcomed this centaur into awareness, I began to feel a distinct vibration. Then a large mass of snow slipped from my roof in a minor avalanche. Since the Greek word asbolos refers to soot or ash, I felt this to be a welcome sign of his arrival, in purified form as snow. Asbolus the centaur planet was discovered on April 5, 1995 at 7° Libra 46 (8° Libra): “Secretly a torch burns for thousands of years in the ruins of an ancient city.” This Pleiadian Degree symbol, as usual, cuts right to the heart of a centaur’s discovery degree: the mythos of a name blends into its first entrance into our sight. Asbolus then holds the Centaurs’ torch, keeping their light safe through the millennia ’til now.
Benjamin Adamah, one of the few astrologers who has addressed this centaur, writes that asteroid #8405 was named for Asbolos after “its dark surface,” which itself is due to a “large impact crater”. He notes “Asbolos was seer, whose correct warnings not to fight the Lapiths were ignored.” This resulted in a violent battle, recounted by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, in which many centaurs were killed by Theseus. This moment in mythic time (Centauromachy) is crucial as it followed the death of King Ixion, who had fathered those brutish centaurs including Nessus, and was also King of the Lapiths, who fought off their king’s interloping offspring to retain sovereignty over their land.
While he tried to prevent that first massacre, it was Asbolos, conversely, who then “provoked a bloodbath in which the centaurs Chiron and Pholus met their deaths at Heracles’ hands. Asbolos was crucified by the demigod who shot arrows through his limbs.” The Centaur Cycle met its climax at Pholus’ cave, when the immortal centaur Chiron is wounded and begins his healing crisis by way of Prometheus’ liver and Zeus’ begrudging grace.
Adamah analyzed six levels of this centaur in a chart. In sum, he writes that “Asbolus is a heavyweight in the horoscope; sombre, pessimistic, with a lot of depth – but tangled in a vortex-like manner of information processing.” Asbolos (spelled with an o to denote the mythic character, modernized as Asbolus for the planet) was known by Hesiod as “an augurist from bird flight” – that is, one who read signs from the birds. Pholos divined from entrails, Okyrhoe received prophetic visions. Asbolus then completes a Centauric Triad of visionaries.
Nick Anthony Fiorenza’s diagram of Centaur Orbits. Note how Asbolus links us from Jupiter to Neptune
Synchronistic with Asbolus’ entry into my sights, a book I had been perusing since last year (Bottoming Out The Universe by Richard Grossinger) turned up a fascinating case study, one that becomes clear when seen in the light of Asbolus. As usual with these planets of grace, when we plug the right centaur into the equation, all kinds of mysteries are solved. Grossinger recounts the well-known story (new to me) of one James Leininger, a young American man who is (convincingly) believed to be the reincarnation of another James, one killed in action in World War II at Iwo Jima. This story is proper to Asbolus as it deals with ancestral healing and reincarnation (themes of all the male-archetype Centaurs) but moreover, because of this planet’s specific motif of ashes and fire.
Born on April 10, 1998 to Christian parents in San Francisco, James Leininger was an ordinary boy until he started to have increasingly vicious nightmares as a toddler. In May 2000 his mother woke to screams of “Airplane crash! Plane on fire! Little man can’t get out!” Mr. Leininger eventually tracked down the identity of the “little man”, and the young James would shake hands with his surviving squadron, and befriend his remaining family.
James Huston, Jr. was killed on March 3, 1945 when his plane was shot down, the only member of his squadron to die in that battle – tragically it would have been his final mission anyway, as they were scheduled to go home. The 21-year old fighter pilot would apparently reincarnate 53 years after falling to the sea. We thus have the astrological data needed to compare death with rebirth, rare in a modern context.
It is most notable that at this time of research, Asbolus, with its 76.5 year cycle (near to an average human life expectancy) is in exact return to its place at Huston’s death (Gemini 21° 52 in 1945, and Gemini 21° 36 at present).
Activations to young James’ natal chart
Asbolus in James L’s Nightmares, May 1 2000:
transiting Asbolus to natal Pluto: a fiery vision of death is seen
transiting Pholus to Asbolus (applying 1.25°): a visionary explosion leading to deep ancestral healing & knowledge
transiting Mercury and Venus opposite natal Asbolus: (fine-tuning the timing of a slower centaur transit)
transiting Okyrhoe to natal Mercury, applying 2°: visionary ability to communicate
transiting Jupiter-Saturn opposite natal Chiron: healing events began which led to his father’s quest for truth leading to grappling with own religious tolerance of reincarnation, etc.
James L and his first nightmares as transit to natal, no time
Transit: death of JH to “re-birth” as JL
Transit chart as Iwo Jima inside, James L natal outside. No time given, no houses, Moon approx.
Inner: Outer (death chart receiving transits of rebirth)
Mars: Uranus: catalyzing an inspiring life from a battle’s death
Mars: opposite Chariklo: from war, a spiritual rebirth – Chariklo holds space for reincarnation
Pluto: Chariklo: the soul’s literal rebirth into a new body
Uranus: opposite Pluto: the traumatic sudden death finds its trajectory of ensoulment
Thus a Mars-Pluto opposition receiving a Chariklo-Pluto (edit 2024: -Uranus) opposition by transit.
Pluto opposite Uranus: with a 4° orb, there is a reciprocal transit of Uranus and Pluto (Pluto-Uranus opposition, Uranus-Pluto opposition, linking signifiers of generational trauma and spiritual embodiment.
Chariklo: Asbolus: from this fiery melee, the astral body travels through the purifying flames of Asbolus – a phoenix into rebirth
Asbolus: opposite Nessus: the centaurs of ancestral healing aligning – a fiery emissary of future love, as Nessus connects with the funeral pyre of Heracles the wounded hero, Asbolus is the purified ashes that remain.
Here is just an overview of basic Centaur alignments at play in the dramatic story of one James taking rebirth as another. Asbolus has much to teach us about the mysteries of life and death it seems. There is also a new film out this year called Surviving Death that includes James’ story, which I haven’t yet watched! Shall I tell Netflix they released it on the Asbolus return of the original protagonist?
During a consultation with one of my clients today, I received more insight into the metaphysical framework of spirit / spiritual entities. A multi-tiered diamond appeared in my mind’s eye to represent the various levels of spiritual being, as pictured above.
I saw this in the context of conveying the nature of certain spiritual entities, where spirit showed me that enlightened centaurs (like Chiron) reside on Level 4, along with other “pagan spirits” like Cernunnos, gods and goddesses, ascended masters, and the like.
I had heard of there being a sort of spiritual hierarchy before, but this was my first time sensing it directly from spirit. Interestingly, spirit relayed that Archangels operate on Level 3, above the deities that I mentioned previously. I also saw that humans / earthly human reality is at Level 7, but didn’t sense what exactly is on all the other levels. I suspect that elementals and other such lower-level spirits reside on Level 6.
The spiritual hierarchy, so to speak, is about different levels of vibration, and souls are essentially particularized forms of consciousness.
In receiving these insights I also saw the opposite triangle of the diamond, representative of the shadow realm, the other side, our shadow selves, demons, etc. Crucially – I saw a circle drawn around the entire diamond, connecting these two halves as part of a singular unit.
This is to say that shadows are just as much a part of the cosmos as perceived light, and that a vast spectrum of spiritual phenomena tends to come in pairs, duality, and opposites. All that is, is of God; everything simply operates at a different energetic, vibrational level. There are indeed “lower” and “higher” vibrations; this is simply a part of the metaphysical framework of spirit / cosmos.
I say this to emphasize that on an ultimate level of consciousness / reality, it doesn’t seem possible to make value judgments of good vs. evil in there being one better than the other. Everything is whole; each part is unified in divine consciousness.
This also resonates with my increasing understanding of overall reality as nonlinear, as a multiversal composite of many realms, worlds, and timelines existing simultaneously. Life as spirit is not about linear evolution, but about totality of experience. Souls experience a multitude of incarnations in order to experience the many sides of themselves, to be both villain and hero, rich and poor, to experience as many different perspectives as possible.
The higher self is a composite of these versions, encompassing both shadow and light. Our higher selves are the best and worst of ourselves, our many faces, the accumulated wisdom of every incarnation experienced by a particular soul.
As such – we would do well to remember that all things exist in harmony, and that all facets of existence belong together as part of a greater unity. Our souls, as well as the cosmos at large, ultimately speak to balance and the divinity of union.
Travellers of the interweb, welcome to an Interconnection.
Photography by Capucine 2015
I’m a guest blogger on David’s Centauric Space – my name is Capucine, I’m a Reiki Master Teacher, I shapeshift with the energies which I educate myself with, and what the Universe gives towards my involution. In December 2019, I registered for my first Centaur Attunement, and it’s now June 2020. To hear what I could share about this first meeting with the Centaurs and David’s ceremony listen to our interview on my podcast.
What first called me to transform my «spiritual side» to my «public» side was Chiron. I healed myself for two years, silently, behind my teachers, writers, magicians.
Photography by Capucine 2015
But I became a guide for others once a major part of my healing required that I protect others from what I had experienced (enter my world at The Shapeshifter Club).
And that first entry publicly about this vocation was my book Anchor (linked below). So a few years later, when I became a Reiki Master Teacher, when I was fully in the world of energy and I saw David’s work, I needed to join. (In fact my guides told me to!)
Through the past months and meeting with Chiron, Chariklo, Pholus, and Okhyroe, through ceremonially calling on the Centaurs with David and his community, I have found a nest, or more like my own cave where healing continues to happen for me, not only for what I can bring others. It’s a fine balance, to know when one is ready, rested, and ready to give more.
Photography by Capucine 2015
The way I experience these interdimensional beings feels like next of kin. My own evolving field is social, yet solitary, giving yet creating. The Centaurs are highly sovereign and free in spirit.
They evolve within their environments, from the elements and their own physical bodies (half horse half human): skilful hands, graceful spinners, swift rivers, earth dwellers.
They operate multidimensionally and they made me feel surer of my own relation to this reality. I love meeting them again and again and can’t wait to meet more of them.
Photography by Capucine 2015
They also evolve as their own storylines cross new aspects in astrology, as these beings are linked to their respective asteroids – one aspect of the ceremonies I enjoy a lot – and they meet us, our Sun, our Moon and our houses.
As Mars in Aries approaches Chiron, and my own 8th house, I wanted to gift you a moment of softness. Enter this cave and get your rest, your support now: Meet Chiron, travel with me to his Inner Earth and meet his guidance and healing before our summer’s astrology tumbles us down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt_GIKGQz5E
Photography by Capucine 2015
My book is solely about this healer’s archetype: Anchor: a class in soul archeology.I have another meditation about the horse themes (discipline, tamed, freedom), it’s a Reiki infused video available here.
I hope you enjoyed this special interdimensionality, connect with the Centaurs, give yourself a moment with their mentorship, maybe you are one, and let me know on social media if you loved it or want to work with me!
The Centaur Space 