Melanie Reinhart

Jupiter’s Forward Feeling

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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
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

Nessus Guide of Redemption

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NESSUS: The Master of Shadows

The collective story of the Centaurs condenses several myths that span the spectrum of life and death, nectar and poison.

We meet the Astrological Centaurs first through their namesakes in these myths. The Greek epics such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses record generations of interaction between people and the gods. Here we learn there are two bands of Centaurs: the wild, and the wise. The wild, such as Nessus, are sons of King Ixion, a villainous figure. The wise include Chiron, son of Kronos the titan, and Pholus, son of Silenus. Pholus is half-foster-brother to Dionysus himself. Intoxication is a theme of his story. Mythical cohort of the others, Nessus brings the shadow (and its redemption) to the Centaurs’ portfolio.

A client of mine once unearthed repressed trauma during a reciprocal transit of Okyrhoe to Nessus/Nessus to Okyrhoe. Another contemplated how to deal with news of abuse in her church when Nessus had stationed retrograde on her Ascendant. It amazed us both when the phone rang during our session—confirming that her donations were canceled: “the buck” stopped here, as Reinhart says about Nessus.

Musee de Louvre

Nessus reaches farther than the other centaurs into Pluto’s realm, as he makes a 123-year journey around the Sun. As a Centaur guide, he brings us situations that incite maturity. This suits his myth, as he died at the hand of Hercules, after repeating the “sins of his father,” King Ixion. 

Nessus guides us to redemption from wounds caused by misusing power. His myth completes the circle from wounding to healing. After the scuffle in Pholus’ cave, Nessus escaped to a distant river. We meet him during Hercules’ travels with his wife Deianira following the twelve labors. The heroic couple meets Nessus, who deviously offers to help them cross a flooded river. Carrying Deianira on his back, Nessus attempts to repeat his father’s crime. Hercules kills him with an arrow, setting off a chain of events that will destroy him, too.

Deianira is tricked by the dying Centaur, and saves his blood as a love-charm. Years later, she tries to apply this charm to her wayward husband. The poison burns Hercules, so he throws himself on a pyre to end his pain. The gods accept this self-immolation as purification. In a roundabout way, then, Hercules’ tangle with Nessus allows him to redeem his heroic destiny, becoming an immortal. (As an Olympian, he marries immortal Hebe. Sorry, Deianira!)

This unusual process of redemption might be foretold in the sky: planet Nessus was discovered at 5° Scorpio, a point opposite Chiron’s own DD of 4° Taurus. Such astrology implies how these Centaurs together offer tandem guidance along the Taurus/Scorpio polarity of natural (Taurus) healing (Centaurs) of trauma (Scorpio).

Nessus’ DD 5° Scorpio: “Sharp rocks splashed, dripping with sea spray.” The dynamic waters of purification, offered with harsh edges – much like the guidance we receive from this Centaur.