Asteroids, Asteroids and More Asteroids - Side B

Tristan Paylor  00:04

Do we want to move on to Pallas?

Kyle Pierce  00:07

Yeah. So a bit about Pallas. Astronomically Pallas kind of belongs to that category of protoplanet similar to Ceres and Vesta. Though series is the only one that gets that minor planet designation. It's still pretty big. I believe it's the third largest object in the asteroid belt. It also has a very eccentric orbit, highly inclined, so it's like way off the ecliptic and has a similar eccentricity to Pluto. You know, sometimes it's much closer to the Sun than other other times in its orbit, which does seem to show up in Pallas significations. But we'll we'll get there. So Pallas is named after the goddess, Pallas Athena, probably primarily known as just Athena. So we'll probably end up using that kind of interchangeably. But Pallas Athena was the daughter of Jupiter, or Zeus, and is the goddess of strategic battle and wisdom. Also the patron goddess of the city of Athens. So some versions of her mythology and it's another thing to keep in mind is that there's a lot of different stories about all these goddesses, but there isn't really a cannon, but you know, they all kind of become relevant. Some versions of the story have Pallas not having a mother, but just emerged from Zeus his head. Others have story going that Zeus swallowed her mother Metis is the goddess of counsel. I believe maybe trying to, like misremembering but trying to cover up this affairs from Hera.

Tristan Paylor  02:03

No way. Having an affair.

Kyle Pierce  02:10

He's handful, but yeah, after swallowing her, you know, he got this headache and some of the stories. Some of the gods had to like split his head open with an axe to get her out. But despite all that, also Theano which is the Theano really least initially was Zeus is favorite child, you get a bunch of them. And it's kind of where you get some of the significations associated with Pallas of daddy's girls. So you know where we get a Pallas Athena from just to name one version of the story, Athena ended up killing her best friend in a sparring match been sort of overcome with guilt. She took the name in honor of her dead friend Pallas. Hence you get you know, Pallas Athena or just Athena. Another version, though, has Pallas has seen as father, interestingly, who had tried to rape her and she killed him and took his skin and wore it as like a cape, I think and took his name is kind of a part of the trophy, you know, which, while maybe not a big part of the sort of canon but you know, can't really say exists. Generally. Pallas Athena is Zeus, his daughter, it does, you know, seem to kind of play into some of the themes that show up with Pallas, which you can get from other parts of the story, but irrelevant nonetheless. Anyway, Zeus made Pallas Athena along with his other son, Aries, god and goddess of war, like they're just kind of in charge of war. Generally, a Pallas is known to be responsible for some of the more I just the strategic and sort of thinking components. The idea of like honorable war, you know, gentleman's war, if you will.

Tristan Paylor  04:17

It's more of a having a code. Yeah,

Kyle Pierce  04:19

a code of ethics. With war. That's the thing with Athena that really distinguishes her from Aries. Well, Aries is you know, kind of just like Bloodlust mode, just kind of rushed into battle and just kind of go into berserker mode and, you know, slaughter everyone, Pallas, you know, come up with a plan, have a strategy and she was distinctly not emotional about her approach to really anything and for the most part, she did have, you know, episodes of emotion, but that is kind of one of the important components of her significations is that sort of cold A tactical, unemotional approach to things. But as a result though she actually repeatedly and only defeated Aries in you know many of their little Spats like ended up humiliating him on multiple occasions. There is a theme there to have several stories. We'll cover all of them but where she really just mean she ends up showing up a lot of the other male gods. Then another important part of things is mythology and actually significations is that she was a big patron of a lot of heroes from mythology. like crap, who was the one that killed Medusa, you remember

Tristan Paylor  05:46

was that Perseus?

05:49

Percy sounds right.

Tristan Paylor  05:51

Yes, Perseus?

Kyle Pierce  05:52

Yeah, Perseus. Interesting. She has this strange relationship with Perseus partly in that she is kind of responsible for creating the monster that he ended up being famous and mythology for. For killing that was Medusa. Now, there's a lot of versions of this and you get kind of different versions of Athena, depending on which version of the story you go with. They all kind of become irrelevant. But in one version, basically Pallaswas so pissed that let's back up. Medusa was originally a priestess, and had you know certain sacred vows to uphold, one of which was chastity and believe it was Poseidon, who came down in rapes Medusa and, as a result, Athena just kind of seeing, you know, that, like, Oh, she had sex with somebody. So she broke her vow of chastity, she needs to be punished. So she turned her into a Gorgon, and eventually sponsored the hero that ended up taking her out. And there's another version where Athena turned Medusa into a Gorgon, to give her the power to protect yourself against, you know, other others who tried to assault her. So you kind of get mixed significations, they're all of what, you know, potentially relevant. But so some of the key themes that come up with Pallas central primarily on women taking on traditionally male roles, but it seems also men in traditionally female roles within outperforming men and men feeling threatened by by women, but you also get women in positions of authority, in some cases seeking approval of male authority figures, unconsciously or consciously, you know, so get the what can come up? It seems like as emasculation you know, men being, you know, defeated by women in a sense, or what ultimately seems to kind of play out is this sort of questioning of what the actual roles of men and women are sort of challenging them or merging and blending them? And drogyny seems to come up a lot with Pallas as well as just kind of the idea of redefining gender roles. And then of course, you know, you got your your strategic thinking. Is there any other significations? You want to mention? Tristan?

Tristan Paylor  08:31

Yeah, the mythology of Athena is interesting to me. In terms of defying gender norms or gender roles, there's even a role reversal in the story of her birth. Yeah, when you think about it, Zeus gives birth you know, this patriarchal male sky god you know, the most masculine possible God you could think of in this cultural context kind of goes into labor and you know, in the story, he has this horrible migraine and he needs one of the other gods to cleave his head open with an axe in order to give birth to his daughter that's an excellent so there's a role reversal even in that story. But there's a her relationships with women with other women in her mythology are very interesting. They're not great. They there's the myth of a restless or restless is you know, I won't tell the whole story from beginning to end because it's quite long and detailed, but essentially Orestis is put on trial for killing his own mother. And you know that the the aren yeas the monstrous beings who will chase after people who've broken the laws of fate who've broken sort of the moral laws The Universe go after arrest us for killing his mother. But he gets this trial. And it's actually Athena who casts the deciding vote that arrest us is innocent. And the argument in favor of his innocence, I can't remember who delivers the argument originally. It's a it's a male figure, who says, basically, the father is the only true parent of a child that a woman is basically just a nurse, you know, the, it's the father seed that creates the child. So the woman is just like someone who takes care of it for a while, but not actually, she doesn't actually have any rights over the child. And Athena, you know that the vote is totally split. And Athena hears this argument, and she says, Well, I was born without a mother. So this logic holds true as far as I'm concerned. And she casts a vote that arrest us is innocent, that it's, it's not killing a parent, if he kills his own mother, basically, which is, like a pretty upsetting sale, it's

11:17

a pretty big jump a bit of a stretch logically,

Tristan Paylor  11:24

is, it is a huge stretch.

Kyle Pierce  11:26

I think the takeaway that I sort of take from that story, and others is that given the you know, very patriarchal structure of Greek society, and even, you know, Mount Olympus, they're pretty tolerant of Athena, you know, taking on these these masculine male roles. And part of that, I think, is that, you know, she is, um, you know, supporting that she's supporting the patriarchy in a sense, you know, yeah, she's not questioning those roles. She's really going along with them, and really, least in most stories, kind of part of that system, sort of getting into trouble.

Tristan Paylor  12:12

Yeah, she's, she's kind of denying her own femininity and upholding the patriarchy. Here's another one of her famous myths is her weaving battle with a Rockne Oh, yeah, that's a good one. At thena not only was she the goddess of wisdom, and warfare, and the city of Athens, but she was also a goddess of artisans and craftspeople, particularly weaving. So AraC Nee, was an extremely skilled Weaver. And, you know, thought that she was better even than Athena and they end up you know, Athena gets really pissed off about that, and they end up having kind of a weave off, where they both create these beautiful tapestries. At the end of the day, it does not end very well for acne. So it's just another

13:10

exam. turns her into a spider, right?

Tristan Paylor  13:14

Yes, she ends up will Iraq. Iraqi originally hangs herself, because she's so distraught over the results of her interaction with Athena, and Athena actually takes some pity on her and turns her into a spider. But nonetheless, it's just like an every single tale. I mean, she was Athena was also one of three goddesses who is involved in the story of the beginning of the Trojan War, where the goddess of chaos heiress throws she's not invited to a party basically. And in her anger, she inscribes on a golden apple, something like you know, for the most beautiful and throws the golden apple into the party and Athena Aphrodite and Hera all fight over this apple and then Paris the hero has to choose you know, between them for some reason, I don't know all the details of the story, but yeah, it's just like every single story where Athena is involved with other women in some way she seems to be like not in a very there I don't know maybe there are examples is she there's the example of Pallas like that was her best friend but she also killed her like it just never seems to end well for women with encounters with

Kyle Pierce  14:42

ya know, I'd like an aside thought I do kind of like to think of Greek mythology is a little bit like a sitcom sometimes because it's almost like not about the story itself. It's about you know, putting the characters in the situation. And, you know, learning something about the character or the character learn something about themselves, you know, In that situation, but yeah, you're right. It doesn't seem to end to go well for, for women around her. So yeah, she does seem to really kind of deny a lot of the the traditional feminine roles, like motherhood as well. I mean, she was one of the Virgin goddesses. I think there was one situation where story of where I can't remember. Terrible. The nice asbestos was the Vestas that.

Tristan Paylor  15:27

Tried to Yeah, Festus tried to have his way with her and she fought him off. Yeah,

Kyle Pierce  15:32

she fought them off. It was kind of like, it's really mixed some really pathetic. Yeah, it kind of, you know, blow blows one on on her thigh. And she kind of like brushes it off and with a rag drops it on the ground. And that rag impregnates Gaia, right? The Earth, and birth this baby. This kind of kind of half got it's like a demigod, baby. Right. And it's not really her responsibility. I mean, it's not hers. And even if it was, she might not think that, you know, she, it's not actually her baby, if, nonetheless, she does take responsibility for it. So there is like a highly principled element to Athena's personality perspective and approach to things. But not maternal, she puts the baby in a box, think she can't remember she goes exactly. But she basically is like, alright, and leaving this box here. There's a snake in there who's gonna, you know, nurture, protect this, this baby, the snakes were very much associated with like wisdom. So I mean, it kind of makes sense that she would have a snake raise this baby and that sort of Greek mythology logic sort of way. But I guess there were some women around that saw her leave the box, and they hear a baby crying. And you know, these women, even though Athena told them not to open the box, just leave it. They end up opening the box. And depending on which version of the story you hear, you know, they one way or the other, they all end up dead, either eaten by the snake or, you know,

Tristan Paylor  17:16

it really never ends. Well, for women. Yes. Stories.

Kyle Pierce  17:19

Yeah. And it's just like Athena, like, I don't have time for this. You know, like, Yeah, I'll do you know, the decent thing. I'll give you a box baby. I think she doesn't like training. But when it gets older, it's just very, it's just not maternal. The instinct isn't terribly maternal with with Pallas.

Tristan Paylor  17:40

Yeah, it's more dutiful. It's like, well, how Festus is not going to take responsibility for this, because men in this culture do not. So, you know, I would, I guess I'll do something about it so that this baby doesn't just die, it's really more of a sense of moral obligation than it is, you know, an actual desire to nurture the child.

Kyle Pierce  18:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's what I find interesting about the whole story, or what, you know, it makes me wonder what exactly it was. What it triggered, you know, with the Greeks, like, what sort of things got brought up? Because I mean, the, the Athenians, at least they named their, their city after. And this is, you know, a level of research I haven't gotten into, but I think generally, I mean, you get, what maybe come from a modern perspective is, you know, a woman who doesn't really recognize the distinction between, you know, male and female roles, at least not as far as they applied to her. That she, you know, in a sense, like, oh, well, if men aren't responsible for nurturing and doing this and that with babies, like, Why should I, you know, just fair, I kind of find it, I don't know. Something about the figure of Pallas Athena that really sort of forces, at least maybe from the modern perspective, men to challenge you know, their own kind of traditional role, like, Well, hey, if I'm having this negative reaction to what she's doing, maybe I should be, you know, be held to the same standard, you know, as maybe holding women to you know,

Tristan Paylor  19:22

did we want to maybe get into some examples that you want to share your own personal example.

Kyle Pierce  19:31

Yeah, so, Pallas is really the one that I would say, is most responsible for selling me on asteroids, at least initially, and I can see them so I have Pallas in an exact conjunction with Mars in my chart. Within 10 minutes, it's very tight one and for me, you know, Mars rules my my I tend in my fifth houses, you know, it's pretty connected to my chart, either by aspect or rulership. But I found some of the symbolism they're really hard to ignore, especially when, you know, while I can maybe see some of the themes more broadly, in my chart, the Pallas element really seemed to add some specificity. Like, for example, the one of the really, kind of simple ones is that Mars rules, mites, the dispositor of my moon, and moon being associated with the mother, and also rules my 10th house, so that does traditionally get associated with the mother, sometimes, not one that I always used to be some connection there. But my mother was a lieutenant colonel in the army, you know, another element of that, that shows up, prominently, having Mars you know, ruling my fifth house, just like the house of children is, you know, when my son was first born, you know, his mom was going to college, and I ended up taking on a lot of the Navy, traditionally, roles traditionally prescribed to women, you know, or to mothers, you know, we're getting a lot of Mr. Mom jokes at the time. And not that that's uncommon at all these days. But, you know, ruling my 10th I was a massage therapist for about 10 years. And that is a traditionally it's more of a female dominated industry. And even you know, what's astrology is probably, you know, both the consumers and the practitioners of astrology are probably a majority of women. My partner, Megan, she has a palace, hanging out with her first house ruler. And while you know, she may not necessarily recognize it, I definitely see her as a very strong kind of palace type, you know, kind of strong willed and a sort of woman who's not, you know, afraid to stand up for herself. I would say that those types of women have been a big part of my life. And, and I guess I, you know, maybe seeing that conjunction, maybe made me realize how much that's a very distinct part of my life that is maybe not something that I tend to take for granted but something that is maybe not the norm for most people.

Tristan Paylor  22:36

Do you want to tell the story about shooting your friend in the teeth? Because that was my favorite. That was the clincher for me.

Kyle Pierce  22:47

Yeah, when I was a kid I really loved playing Airsoft, right and those little not quite BB guns, but you know, you shoot and they hurt and you know, as long as you wear goggles, you're probably fine. But on two occasions, I accidentally shot two different friends front teeth out with the airsoft gun, leaving giant gaping holes in the front of my mouth. In both cases, the parents had to run them off to you know, emergency dental I don't know I guess there's emergency dentists but I remember they had to leave immediately. And nobody ever wanted to play airsoft with me again. And I also felt extremely guilty. Fortunately, I didn't get you know, the worst case scenario that I didn't kill any friends, but I did.

Tristan Paylor  23:45

Didn't have to take on their names. Yeah, a friend of yours in in honor of accidentally killing them with airsoft guns.

Kyle Pierce  23:54

Yeah, it also bears noting that Mars isn't an overcoming square with a bunch of 11th House planets. Just kind of adds adds to that.

Tristan Paylor  24:06

Yep. Cena and Mars are literally overcoming the planets in Kyle's 11th house which represent friendship. Yeah, so

Kyle Pierce  24:19

you know don't be afraid to be friends with me though everybody

Tristan Paylor  24:25

I haven't lost any teeth yet

Kyle Pierce  24:27

yet. Played airsoft with me

Tristan Paylor  24:33

this is part of the fun and excitement though

Kyle Pierce  24:36

yeah that's that's the things I'm like Pallas  you know I went if you get a sparring match with me, just goes just going full warrior mode and you might die that's another big Pallas thing. And my god there's just so many I love strategy games. strategy video games. I you know my dad House for 1000 dad introduced me to them even went to some really nerdy war game conventions. And I just I just love it. I love strategy of chess, anything that has to do with outwitting your opponent. It's great.

Tristan Paylor  25:22

Yeah, this is my my delineation. Now, if you have Mars conjunct Pallas Ruling Your fifth house, this is the way you like to have fun.

Kyle Pierce  25:32

It is. Yeah, and that's another part of it, too, is just tell everybody all my personal secrets that Mars is in my eighth house. And it's, you know, the eighth house is traditionally called the idol place. And one way that, you know, Mars conjunct Pallas in my eighth house is has maybe manifested that signification is one way that I have maybe gotten myself into trouble by not doing the things I'm supposed to do is by playing you know, strategy video games instead. The problem of mine for a while that I really had to I had to pry myself away still, you know, if a really good game is coming out, I can't even I like, like, I can't look at any previous for it. Because I'm, you know, if I start playing that my productivity is just gone for a good month. So yeah, let's, uh, let's see the thing it's, you know, well, the Fix You know, the the net everything they deliver is awful. You know, some of its rather mundane or even fun, like, there's nothing wrong with liking strategy, war games. Just you know, tending to overdo it, which I think maybe a lot of people with Mars ruled fifth houses might have to be careful of,

Tristan Paylor  27:00

not me. I never do anything is exalted

Kyle Pierce  27:05

Mars ruling. I think that's the thing with exalted malefics is they're just no fun. You know, they're, you know, having fun because

Tristan Paylor  27:14

I was fun when I was younger, but it was very much to my detriment. So I just I mean, that's that's the thing with Mars is going from one extreme to the other. I was a typical Mars ruled fifth house person and partied way too hard and was just hell bent on self destruction. And then I the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme. And now you know, I have responsible fun. I have Mars, I have appropriately Mars and Capricorn fun, but I had to explore the opposite extreme first before that happened. And who knows, maybe it will swing the other way.

Kyle Pierce  27:51

Maybe? Yeah. Your midlife crisis or something? Yeah, exactly. But maybe just a general lesson about Obama Olympics. Is that Yeah, they just tend towards extremes. You know, I similarly, you know, after becoming a parent especially, really had to rein in some of those marginal fifth house activities in order to be a responsible parent.

Tristan Paylor  28:16

Should I maybe get into Pallas and Katharine Hepburn's chart?

28:21

Yes, do

Tristan Paylor  28:23

so, Katharine Hepburn, as I mentioned earlier, had Scorpio rising. And she had the moon and Pallas conjunct in Taurus, in her seventh house, opposing you know, Juno, who I discussed earlier, and so, you know, again, we're sort of fleshing out and giving more detail to what her relationships were like, being someone who was very independent and very much married to her work in a lot of ways. And, you know, Athena being a virgin goddess, you know, being someone who, you know, didn't answer to a husband. But I think, you know, pal Pallas being conjunct the moon really came across in her personality. She was known for being very spirited, and her the characters that she played

29:30

to, yes, actually for time period. Yeah,

Tristan Paylor  29:34

I mean, she was with she was born in 1907. Yeah.

Kyle Pierce  29:42

She was very known for I mean, she was actively involved in the, like, women's suffrage and stuff, right. Or was it? Yeah, it was

Tristan Paylor  29:51

her her mom. Both of her parents were very progressive. And her mother would go to votes for women demonstration. and Catherine would join her mom at those demonstrations. The household really encouraged freedom of speech and, you know, open debate on various topics. Her parents were actually like they would get in some trouble in their community for being so progressive. They caused a bit of a stir. So, and she she was described as a tomboy as a child. She actually had a male name for herself, she would call herself Jimmy, and cut her hair short. And her dad taught all of the children various athletic skills, swimming, running, wrestling, all that kind of stuff. And he taught the kids daddy's girl was she maybe a little I don't know, if she stayed from what I've read. She remained close to both of her parents throughout her life. But her, her dad taught the kids to play golf, and that in particular, became one of Katherine's early passions. At one point, she was taking daily lessons, and she got so good that she reached the semi final of the Connecticut Young Women's Golf Championship. She also she really loves like swimming. And she used to take ice cold swims every morning saying that the better the medicine, the better it is for you. Which just really that really feels the thena to me.

31:28

That is yeah. Sorry, thinking the she Ra.

Tristan Paylor  31:34

familia de, I really need to watch that show. female equivalent of he-man. Like recent reboot, I've seen a couple episodes of it. And it's really good, but I haven't, I haven't seen enough of it. My favorite there's this beautiful image of Katharine Hepburn and one of her early roles, literally dressed up in this like mythological Greek Amazon garb. So like, literally looking like Athena says early roll was a film called The Warriors husband. And this film tells the story of the Amazons who possessed the sacred girdle of Diana. And so in the society that's portrayed in this film, women actually play the traditionally male role in their society, where they have all the positions of political power, and they're the Warriors. And it's the men who stay at home and care for children and play sort of a subordinate role. So the drama in this film is that, you know, Hercules steals the girdle of Diana and that's when this role reversal happens. And then men come to take on the positions of power in a society. It's so fitting,

Kyle Pierce  32:55

it's just too perfect. I don't know. It's, it's kind of the moon ruling sort of fifth house, right? Or is it her?

Tristan Paylor  33:04

ninth house is cancer.

Kyle Pierce  33:07

Yeah, that's right. I mean, she had some pretty strong political beliefs too. As I recall, a lot of my thoughts too are coming from the watch the movie The Aviator, Cate Blanchett did a great job portraying Katharine Hepburn but there's a scene where Howard Hughes is in meeting her family for the first time and like they're just having this like really impassioned like political discussion at the table like very like liberal liberal the oriented one and the Howard Hughes being more conservative like it's like really gets like really upset about it but regardless, yeah, but it's like Pallas is just having having our way with Katharine Hepburn.

Tristan Paylor  33:57

Yeah, there's so many of her roles exemplify this archetype. There is i know i i spent budget today just looking at clips of Katharine Hepburn in her various roles. And now I feel like I need to go deeper into the rabbit hole and just binge a whole bunch of Katharine Hepburn movies. There's one well known movie she was in called Adam's rib, and she played a defense attorney. And the person she was defending in this film was a woman accused of shooting her cheating husband. And the drama in the movie comes from the prosecuting lawyer actually being the husband of Katharine Hepburn's character, so they end up kind of on opposite sides of this legal battle about this woman who has been accused of killing her husband for infidelity. It's just it's very modern day Pallas. Yeah,

Kyle Pierce  34:57

you know, I'm there to it. Like, well in the the opposing the debate kind of, I don't know that's,

Tristan Paylor  35:03

yeah, that's yeah, there's a lot I mean, all three of other than series, although series is still, you know, pretty close to jupiter in the ninth house and Katharine Hepburn's chart, so it's not a non event in her chart but Juno, and Pallas and Vesta are all very she has one asteroid conjunct each of the big three in her chart. Yeah, so it's just like all those goddess archetypes are really kind of showing up through her body of work.

Kyle Pierce  35:38

Yeah, yeah. It's nuts. Well, I have another Pallas example. See a more sane Katharine Hepburn?

Tristan Paylor  35:49

Oh, no, I think I think we've, we've covered her pretty well. Yeah.

Kyle Pierce  35:53

So, the example that I have here is Kesha. Kesha has Pallas. Within the degree for conjunction with her ascendant of technically, it's an out of sign conjunction Pallas is at 29 degrees, 34 minutes, or sentence about 33 minutes. Sounds like a degree. But in the case of like an angle, you know, you can definitely see planets, even if they're out of sign conjunct the degree of the ascendant or the midheaven her are one of the prominent angles, they're still very, very visible. So with Kashia I'm glad you brought up Pallas being also the God of craftsmanship. You know, being highly skilled in your given craft, Kesha, actually very skilled songwriter, she wrote over 200 songs for other artists. Some of them hits, I think, a couple by for Britney Spears, the names are escaping me. She also wrote or CO wrote all the songs on her first two albums, one of her albums was called

Tristan Paylor  37:06

warrior. So perfect.

Kyle Pierce  37:10

And that's what's interesting, too, is, is that Mars, you know, is not prominent in her chart, at least not visible, super visible, it's in Taurus, it's in the sixth house. But she does have a very Mars quality that comes out in her performances, her sort of attitude. And it is very much, you know, rebelling against a lot of traditional gender norms. You know, I think one of the things I always sort of appreciated about caches, or music videos and songs, it's just very, um, she sort of takes on a male role in traditionally male role in, you know, like, what, tick tock, which, you know, was the longest running number one hit by a female artist since 1971, back in 2009. And I just like waking up in the morning feeling like P Diddy, you know, in the interview with her, she said that, like, you know, I woke up in the morning one day, and I was feeling like a pimp, you know, which, just like that, I don't know, the traditional male role of being a pimp or whatever, but just like feeling, you know, that empowered kind of sense of, I can do what I want that, you know, maybe traditionally was reserved for, for men. Her sort of donning that and taking that and owning it and empowering you know, other woman to feel that way too. And it be okay. Kashia is also openly pansexual. But she's also served as a officiator of many same sex and opposite sex marriages. She's like, pretty outspoken advocate for marriage equality. And just a side note, it's not Pallas thing. It's actually a serious thing. She has series conjunct Uranus in her first house. And one of the more challenging significations of series is eating disorders. And she did struggle with bulimia for a period of time. But maybe one of the more interesting and complicated things that seem to show up for her is her belief over a decade long public legal battle with Dr. Luke is her producer. i It's such a complicated case that I don't want to be kind of too much. Since we'd like the new dispute is you know that Dr. Luke, Richard kinds of sexual psychological abuse and really has been kind of using his leverage, you know, from his powerful position to keep her under contract and actually more recently, this is a big story that I I'm not going to do justice, but I believe the initial rape allegations were dropped by the courts. So it became a countersuit where Dr. Luke counter sued her for defamation and breach of contract, and then believe that there's been a lot of counter suits involved between both of them. And I think what I find interesting, most relevant is this has been going on for a long time. At one point, Dr. Luke, did try to make a deal with her like, hey, drop the rape allegations, I will drop, you know, my breach of contract, countersuit and everything. And she's like, No, I'd rather you know, it's about like the principle it's about, you know, getting justice. It's not about like, what's convenient for her. She seemed like a very Athena mindset is that, you know, the, that is why part partially why, you know, the Athenians chose her as their their deities, the, you know, the Justice seeking elements of, of Athena. Granted, she did have some, some nasty revenge components, she could get riled up. But most part me she tried to be, be fair. Nonetheless, you know, a lot of this was going on during the metoo movement, and she did receive, you know, like a ton of support from the artistic community and the public at large. She seems like it recently, Dr. Luke, have lost his suit, due to a new law that is really trying to address the way that you know, which rich white men are able to use the system, the legal system to basically barrage people with counter suits and legal technicalities, that keep them from, you know, speaking out against them. And that has been working to our advantage. And, you know, it doesn't look like the, the final outcome of these legal battles are anywhere near over. But, you know, does seem to have turned in her favor. Over the last few years, you kind of get that theme of just really challenging. Do the structural authority that the men have, and recognizing that imbalance and seeking to rectify that, you know, that shouldn't Right, right.

Tristan Paylor  42:37

Damn right. I'm thinking about the way mythic archetypes evolve over time, relative to the culture they find themselves in. And as people start questioning, you know, patriarchal norms and start fighting against systemic discrimination against women and non binary people, and basically, you know, people who are not straights, as men who've, you know, dominated our social institutions for quite a long time that the archetype of Athena sort of evolves alongside that. I'm actually, personally a polytheist. And a question that often gets asked, you know, of people who work with, you know, some of these actual deities is, you know, how can you have a relationship with a deity who's done these horrible things in their stories? And that sort of idea of mythic literalism that the stories of the gods are literally the deeds of the gods? I don't think that's necessarily how ancient people understood their mess. And it's certainly not how I think most I mean, I can't speak for all polytheists. But, you know, I don't meet many polytheists to take the myths literally, it's more a case of, you know, people have an experience of something that seems sacred or divine, and they give it a name, but then they have to refer back to their own culture in order to flesh out what they've experienced. And so if they have this experience of a Divine Sense of female authority, within an extremely patriarchal, extremely misogynistic culture, you end up with these kinds of stories where like, there's a bit of conflict inherent in these in the classical Athena stories where there's a kind of rejection of other women that goes on in these stories. And I guess I'm, you know, looking at Pallas in actual birth charts of, you know, modern people It makes me kind of hopeful that that our experience of that archetype is starting to change.

Kyle Pierce  45:10

When you think of like how that archetype would function in Greek society, yeah, which is very patriarchal and male dominated, you know, how that archetype functions is, you know, just taking on the some degree, the qualities of patriarchal structure it's in, you know, in that being sort of how she is able to exercise the power that she has, you know, and even, yeah, Zeus, like, getting the validation from her father, her only parent for doing that, you know, there's a lot of motivation, therefore, for her to, to keep supporting that system. And, you know, I can definitely see how that theme can show up in people's charts as well. But like you were saying, of the evolving cultural landscape, you know, there's like versions of these lists that predate even the Greeks and that, you know, we're very different depending on the context, I think there are a lot of astrologers now who are working with kind of pre patriarchal versions of the myths, which is not something I know enough about to speak on. But there's definitely a lot of nuance to, to the way these archetypes can be used.

Tristan Paylor  46:24

And it's like in, in an extremely patriarchal system, you know, the only way for a woman to have power is to align herself with that system and against other women, which you see in the classical mythology around Athena, you see, illustrated really clearly in the myth of ernestus. In that trial, where, you know, she's, she says, you know, the, in, in that myth, she says, You know, I'm on the side of male supremacy, essentially. Yeah. And then, you know, you see figures like Katharine Hepburn, or like Kesha, who are not necessarily aligning themselves with, you know, the dominant male institution in order to have power, they're claiming it for themselves. Yeah, so that's a big shift away from, you know, the only way I can have power is to, you know, kind of side with the patriarchy versus no, I'm going to claim my own power, which is, you know, my birthright to have this power and to have agency and it is over and against the patriarchy instead of siding with it.

Kyle Pierce  47:36

Well, I think that's, that's a really good point, because so much of the Athena archetype is just the word like entitlement gets, you know, has like negative connotations into it, but like, that was just the theme of from the start, like that was who Athena was, you know,

Tristan Paylor  47:53

she was born a warrior clad fully clad in armor, she emerged she was had wielding a spear. Let me groans just Yeah, powerful right from the get go.

Kyle Pierce  48:04

But I think, yeah, with like, you know, catch up, one of the things so attractive about her is that, yeah, she does have that, like, she exudes that, like I'm entitled to this power, like, it's not up for debate, or to be questioned. It just is. And I think that's part of what the archetype is about.

Tristan Paylor  48:26

Should we move on to Vesta?

48:29

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Tristan Paylor  48:32

All right. I will start with some astronomical notes on Vesta, which is the brightest asteroid visible from Earth, it can at times be faintly visible to the naked eye. Even though it's not the biggest of the asteroids, it's extremely reflective, which is kind of neat, because Vesta is the goddess of the hearth fire. So the brightness and reflectiveness of the asteroid is symbolically relevant here. There's another fun astronomical fact about Vesta. That makes it unique. And I'm quoting from the Max Planck journal here. The asteroid Vesta is unique. Unlike all other minor planets that orbit the Sun within the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Vesta has a differentiated inner structure. A crust of cooled lava covers a rocky mantle and a core made of iron and nickel, quite similar to the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Scientists therefore believe this Onion Lake asteroid to be a proto planet, a relict, a relic from an early phase of planet formation more than four and a half billion years ago. All other proto planets either accumulated to form planets or broke apart due to via went to collisions. And another shorter way of making this point, just from Wikipedia is festa is the only known remaining rocky protoplanet with a differentiated interior of the kind that formed the terrestrial planets. So it's, it's a really interesting piece of the history of our solar system.

Kyle Pierce  50:22

I thought series and pilots were both proto planets.

Tristan Paylor  50:28

Maybe they are and it's just that they're not different kinds. Yeah, they don't they don't have that differentiated interior that makes them you know, the same kind of protoplanet that formed the earth or mercury.

Kyle Pierce  50:40

It's more like reading the differentiated interior as being like, the main thing. But yeah, no,

Tristan Paylor  50:46

yeah. I haven't, you know, really, that that's okay. I haven't really figured out you know, how, what this might symbolize if we're trying to draw some symbolism from the astronomy, but, you know, any listeners are interested in what that might mean? What sort of meaning we might attach to it. There it is.

Kyle Pierce  51:05

sort of thinking about how we'll get into maybe getting ahead a little bit now. Vesta, the goddess doesn't really have any images of her. Almost like, religion just kind of represented as like an object like a like a torch. Yeah, almost like a I don't know, like a disembodied planet.

Tristan Paylor  51:26

Yeah, maybe. I think the cult of Vesta was the last one, when Rome was Christianized to be totally disbanded. So maybe there's a bit of last one standing kind of symbolism there.

51:40

Oh, I didn't know that. And that makes sense.

Tristan Paylor  51:44

And there is also a group have smaller asteroids with a composition similar to Vesta that were probably created from a huge impact. And they hang around in the same area, and they are called Vesta, Boyd's. So I find that very fitting since the festa. Yeah, has will not just any call but has a dedicated group of people who are constantly attending her flame at all times. The Vestal virgins,

Kyle Pierce  52:18

Vestal virgins. Yeah, that's, that's interesting. I like that.

Tristan Paylor  52:23

Yeah, I thought that was fun. So mythologically Vesta, was the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family. And her Greek equivalent is Hestia, who is also a goddess of hearth home and family. There isn't a lot of mythology around this goddess and either one of these iterations. But the cult to Vesta in ancient Rome is pretty fascinating. Like Kyle was saying, the there wasn't really like a human sort of personification for Vesta. She was mostly just symbolized by her sacred fire, which, in the temple to Vesta was never allowed to go out. So the Vestal virgins were tasked with maintaining this sacred fire. And, you know, it was It was symbolic of the whole state of Rome. Vesta was a virgin Goddess. I believe in the Greek myth. Hestia refuses to marry anybody. And interestingly, in Roman religion, she was given the title of mother and she has some connection with agriculture. So sort of an interesting paradox there of like a virgin goddess, who is also referred to as mother. Yeah.

53:53

Overlap with Cirrus a little bit.

Tristan Paylor  53:54

Yeah, so the Vestal virgins were chosen when they were children between the ages of six and 10 and taken from their families to serve for a 30 year contract in the Temple of Vesta. And their duties were tending the sacred fire, they made more or less salsa, which was a salted flower that was used to consecrate Roman sacrifices, like in public sacrifices. So in a sense, the Vestal virgins were like the state's housekeepers. They were serving this kind of domestic role, but that role was for the entire state and not just for one individual household. And it wasn't

Kyle Pierce  54:41

like the fire went out like that was signal like the doom of Rome or something.

Tristan Paylor  54:46

Well, it signaled at the very least that Vesta had abandoned Rome, which would be a bad thing. And if any one of the vessels allowed the fire to go out, she was punished. Yeah. Quite brutally. Yeah, it's like many things in the ancient world, it was an interesting lifestyle. The Vestal virgins had a lot of rights that other women did not have in ancient Roman society, they were very, very, very honored. When they became priestesses they were legally emancipated from their Father's authority. And, you know, in public places, they were given the right of way at public games or performances, they had a place of honor that was reserved for them. They did not need to take an oath, in order to give evidence is customary for anyone giving evidence to swear an oath. And in the case of the vessels, their word was just trusted without question. They were entrusted with wills and state documents. The penalty for injuring them was death. And they could free condemned prisoners or slaves just by touching them. If a person sentenced to death happen to see a vessel on their way to being executed, they were automatically pardoned. So they have this like, very unique and sort of powerful position in society.

Kyle Pierce  56:27

It's interesting to me that, you know, the leftover being like the tenders of the attendees of the sacred fire, attendees of this like sacred thing, which, you know, kind of by proxy makes them sacred. But then, you know, anything that sounds like anything they touch, or C, or, you know, anything that like, interacts with them kind of become sacred as well. You know, like, it makes me think of like signing an autograph or something like, you know, somebody famous signs. A basketball suddenly that basketball goes from, you know, a $10 value to like a $10,000 value.

Tristan Paylor  57:09

Yeah, the, when the 30 year contract was done, the vessels were released from their duties, and they were given permission to marry and they were very sought after. The marriages were generally arranged with, you know, people who were well to do and it was supposed to be very good fortune to marry a former Vestal virgin. Another sort of interesting fact, there are some, you know, along with this sort of paradox of the goddess Vesta being at once a virgin, but also associated, I guess, to some extent with fertility, if she was being referred to with the title of mother, the Vestal virgins, tended the cult of a sacred phallus that acted as a token of the safety of Rome. So this sacred phallic image was contained, I guess, in the temple. And they looked after it. And they also hung in effigy of this sacred phallus on underneath the chariot of chariot have a general to protect him. So there's some weird, like there were a lot of phallic amulets that were used as protective magic in ancient Rome, but there is this interesting connection between the Vestal virgins and that particular image. Which is interesting, because, you know, when I was reading Dimitris book on the asteroid goddesses, she talked about seeing clients who had Vesta very prominent in their charts, and she was kind of expecting them. You know, it'd be more not necessarily celibate, but I guess, you know, leaning a little more that way. And what she actually found were a lot of stories of exploring, like, non traditional sexual relationships. So there's this sort of, like, the whole issue of sexuality. And you know, the whole spectrum of it, I think, is very much connected to the Vesta, archetype and astrology.

Kyle Pierce  59:23

Yeah. Like, almost like about it is just kind of presenting this idea of sexuality and sacredness. And you know, what? I know you think about just the myth, the rest of the myth, but the Vestal virgins themselves, you know, they gave up school in order to get the privileges, some of which, you know, are just what were afforded to men in general, but to get like extra privileges, sort of the price for emancipation, you know, from being like subordinate to men was getting up there. your sexuality,

Tristan Paylor  1:00:00

yeah, like giving up any sort of intimacy with men?

Kyle Pierce  1:00:04

I mean, literally. Yeah. It's like, oh, well, there's something weird about that. And it does seem to be a recurring theme once like in society. I don't know, the the idea that from the man's perspective, like, oh, once I can't have sex with you anymore, now I can respect you and treat you as an equal.

Tristan Paylor  1:00:27

Yeah, that is something that you see, I mean, it's still a problem in our culture now. And just to specify, you know, what I meant earlier by non traditional sexual relationships, what Dimitra said she noticed with her clients was like, specifically non monogamy or, you know, being intimate outside of a like, partnered relationship. Which is interesting, because it's like, there's still intimacy going on, but it's happening outside of, you know, the traditional monogamous relationship with one other person. Which is obviously not virginity, but it's still it still kind of like, the virgins where the Vestal virgins were exceptional, because they were not married, and they did not have, you know, this sort of socially sanctioned sexual relationship?

Kyle Pierce  1:01:23

Yeah, something I would like to maybe to just study Vesta more be to, like, see how, you know, a prominent despot plays out in the context of like, what aspects it's making with other planets? You know, I would imagine that the, the other planets, even like just a sign base configuration, is gonna maybe influence that planet, similar to the way it would, you know, with the, the traditional planets.

Tristan Paylor  1:01:47

I do have Vesta in the first house in my own chart. And one of the areas of emphasis Dimitra, George puts on Vesta in her in her work is devotion, having a devotional spirituality, and that actually very much rings true for me. I've been,

1:02:14

don't you do some of that, like tradition, that devotional practice just a little, you know, devotional practice to the

Tristan Paylor  1:02:19

Goddess just a bit. I've been unusually religious for my entire adult life. And there's no, I wasn't raised particularly religious. And I tend to be pretty skeptical. So it's just odd that I keep kind of getting pulled into it. But I was actually, I worked in the church for about three years. And I was pretty active in the church and the years prior to that, and I have always had, you know, I practiced some non traditional spirituality when I was younger, as well like witchcraft and dabbled in paganism a bit. So whether I was following a pagan or a Christian spiritual path, I have always had an altar in my home. And you know, the center of Vestas cult is the hearth is the domestic area of devotion and sacrifice. I've I've never not had a space for that in my home. And it has never not been sort of like the most important part of my home, and an area of central focus, but like maybe the most, and I do like, have a tendency towards very ecstatic religious experiences, which Dimitra talks about in her book, too, as being a very Vesta type signification. To the point that, at one point in my life, maybe, and I guess, like four years ago, something like that. I was dating someone. That wasn't really serious yet. But I sat at my altar to pray one night and ended up having an ecstatic religious experience. And after having that experience, I just didn't, I did not want to be in a relationship. I just wanted to do my practice and to pray and I ended up leaving that relationship. And there was a period of time where I seriously considered like taking a vow of celibacy and just being like, I don't I don't really feel like being in relationships at all. Like, I'm good to just, I'm really getting my emotional and spiritual needs met from my devotional practice. So it felt kind of like a distraction. And like as a kid, I used to think about, you know, joining a monastery and stuff like that. Ultimately, that did not end up being the path I took. But it's kind of interesting that I've got vest in the first first house. And that was at least a serious consideration at some point in my life, which is maybe odd. Like, I don't think a lot of people seriously consider watching that particular path.

Kyle Pierce  1:05:17

Alright, I think that you're the best example is Believe me, one of the ones that sold me on Vesta was the one that sold me on Vesta. Because, you know, we do have very similar charts, not that they're exactly the same. But like, I invested in some of the second house, it's like the one asteroid, it's not really doing anything. It's, you know, my one little bit of fire, which seems appropriate, but I want to keep it tucked away in my session. But that's something that like, yeah, I have no, I've never been, I just have the cynical part. I do not have any any devotional practice elements. But I know you're saying kind of makes me think about you know, the idea of, you know, taking time, which is not like an uncommon practice for people, like take time out of a relationship to like, find yourself again, right? Oh, yeah, that's a good point. And thinking about, like, you know, what? It's like, the price of intimacy is sort of down, it's like, you're mixing your fire with someone else's, you know, is it sacred anymore? Or, you know, or does it? I don't know, like festive, like, brings up this question of asking you like, what is your sacred space? You know, is that something physical? Or is it something deeper?

Tristan Paylor  1:06:41

Is that something that you would be willing to share or potentially sacrifice in order to be in a relationship with somebody else? Yeah, as there's a lot.

Kyle Pierce  1:06:52

You maintain that in the context of

Tristan Paylor  1:06:56

Yeah, exactly. Maintaining your own and I mean, that's, that's also something Dimitra emphasizes in her interpretation of Vesta is this kind of idea of being self contained and independent? So you know, perhaps there's Vesta might bring up some questions around that because when you are in a relationship, what is yours becomes your partners and what is your partner's becomes your as your life start to mix together. And you know, you can still maintain some independence in a relationship, but you become more interdependent and the, you know, line are where I start and where my partner begins, you know, that isn't always totally clear when your lives are really meshed together. It's a another asteroid that is prominent in the chart of Katharine Hepburn, who is just just all the asteroids going on. In her chart. Vesta was conjunct her son within a couple of degrees in the seventh house. And I know there's been some, I've heard some sort of like reinterpretations of the concept of the Virgin as being sort of like a self contained woman or like someone who is independent, essentially not controlled by a man within a patriarchal society. You know, like the Vestal virgins had this sort of unique position where they were not being controlled by a husband or a father, the way other women in their society were and they were granted a certain amount of respect and power that other women also were not. So yeah, there's there is that sort of like attempt to maybe reinterpret that archetype as being you know, the the woman who does not need a man who is independent, who's not controlled by anyone but herself. And, you know, Katharine Hepburn, as I've discussed at length was fiercely independent, and I don't believe she ever had any children. Her marriage was brief, you know, it's a lot of there's some overlap between palace and Vesta, obviously, both of them being virgin goddesses, and both of them being sort of like uniquely positioned in their relationship to men. But even though like they have that power, it's still very much happening within a patriarchal context, in their mythology, and in the cult of Vesta that happened in ancient Rome. So that also, I guess, opens up the question of like, how do we work with these archetypes now? Like, how do we kind of free those archetypes from being under the thumb of the patriarchy?

Kyle Pierce  1:09:56

Yeah, well, and that's, this makes don't like to get to Hepburn. She stay married?

Tristan Paylor  1:10:05

No, it was very brief. And then she, you know, had a relationship, but was not married and, you know, still maintained a fair amount of independence in that relationship.

Kyle Pierce  1:10:21

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, because it's like maintaining, you know, like you said that they're women trying to maintain that, that independence and I want to say like dignity, or their their authority, or their, you know, kind of prominence in the world. But in a, you know, male dominated world, and how do you preserve that fire? Name, when you look at the Vestal virgins who preserved that by by becoming a virgin, you know, by, by not allowing men in your sacred temple, if you will,

Tristan Paylor  1:11:05

even in the case of the vessels? You know, they, they were essentially abducted as children by the state, the state took them away from their parents as children, and they had no say, Yeah, but they're still still definitely under the control of man. It's just that they're under the control of more privileged men who have given them this unique religious role that comes with a certain amount of power. But it doesn't mean that you know, they're, they're in control of their situation in any way.

Kyle Pierce  1:11:37

So I don't know if you have more to say I'm Katharine Hepburn but seems like a really good segue into my example. It's here at sea of Mae West, which if you're not familiar, very famous actress, like the 1920s 1930s into the 1940s. Mae West has Taurus rising with Vesta, exactly conjunct her ascendant as well series within just a couple of degrees, and then Venus ruling the ascendant in cancer, applying pretty closely to Juno. So all those three very active in her chart, Andrei, prominent Mae West, a bit of a more than a bit of a sex symbol, huge sex symbol during that time period, it's really known for its kind of like very scandalous, scandalously sort of flouting sort of prescribed roles of women of modesty. Right. She was an early gay rights activist and women's liberation supporter, she was very outspoken about her views. And she really kind of made her career. She'd like, utilize the controversy, the controversy that she stirred up. She said, I believe, in all things, she was known for her her quips, you know, she's very clever. And her kind of body double entendres, you know, just kind of like ooze sexuality. But she said, I believe in censorship, I made a fortune out of it. And one of the example of that, early on in a career in the 1920s, she wrote, produced and directed, very risky, commercially successful plays in New York on Broadway titles, which include, you know, the drag the wicked age, pleasure, man, and the constant sinner.

Tristan Paylor  1:13:37

I love this.

Kyle Pierce  1:13:38

Yeah, very, very religious. Very. Yeah, just challenging, that that whole archetype, like very visibly well, and

Tristan Paylor  1:13:50

the whole relationship between religion and sexuality is very relevant to her career, and very relevant to the Vesta archetype. Well, and it's also

Kyle Pierce  1:14:01

probably really relevant that Mae West had Mars in Aquarius and her 10th house should be in in overcoming sign base square with with Vesta and Ceres, so shaking things out. Wow. Yeah, I mean, she's really challenging and rebelling against that. Those ideas, because, well, here is how it plays out. In so in response to a very commercially successful play called Sex, just sex.

Tristan Paylor  1:14:34

Get religiously? Yeah.

Kyle Pierce  1:14:37

Local religious groups complained to the City Council, and the theater was raided. She was arrested along with the rest of the cast, and sentenced to 10 days in jail for corrupting the morals of youth. Oh, wow. Yeah. And they offered to you know, let her go by just paying a fine but she chose to spend the 10 days in jail because she wanted to use the Controversy to stir up publicity.

Tristan Paylor  1:15:02

So just love that Torian stubbornness getting it done?

Kyle Pierce  1:15:08

Yeah, and but I don't know, something that I sort of think about with Mae West specifically is mean she was she was a sex symbol, she was like, almost like a sexual goddess of the time, like there. You know, posters of her and a lot of young men in the adult men's bedrooms. You know, she almost in a sense kind of worshipped herself. There's something about the devotional element that is almost like, she becomes like, the receiver of the devotion.

Tristan Paylor  1:15:44

Yeah, that's interesting. And I mean, that's kind of true in the case of the Vestal virgins to where, I mean, they weren't worshipped as gods or anything, but they were given such special reverence by people in their society, because they were so associated with the sacred and with, with everything that was thought to hold society together. Yeah, you know, Mayor was referenced for different reasons, but nonetheless, and there's like, there's that referencing around sexuality to where the Vestal virgins are sort of given reverence, because they're nonsexual May is given reverence, because she is very openly sexual.

Kyle Pierce  1:16:27

Yeah. One, it's almost like she's kind of saying, like, like, I can be sexual, you can be sexual, and your fire isn't necessarily being compromised, you know, maybe that's not the fire, maybe that's the fire that probably what Mars and Aquarius would say is that, you know, the man is having you having to believe in, you know, this is the real fires is within you, you know, or something like that. And I don't think she ever said that, but she was very comfortable, you know, taking on that role and challenging, you know, in the 1920s, a society that would have been terrified of a woman like her, but she, you know, they were also deeply drawn to her. She was a huge celebrity.

Tristan Paylor  1:17:12

And she's on my list of heroes already. I really knew nothing about her before you.

Kyle Pierce  1:17:17

Yeah, no, she's awesome. I didn't know what ton about her either. But seeing the thing she also similar to Katharine Hepburn, never had any children. Also, in she had some complicated relationships, one of which, and then, I think one of her main relationships actually, early on before her professional career, you know, they broke off the romantic relationship, but they stayed friends the rest of their lives. They live in the same apartment building in to old age, like actually had retired and I find interesting. By the end, jazz, she divorced her all this controversy about you know, whether or not she was married the first one, but she was divorced in 40s. And stay single, until 1980s. Making EB she died at the age of EB. He for something like that, in her 80s Good, healthy age.

Tristan Paylor  1:18:19

I think Katharine Hepburn also remained friends with her husband after their divorce, which, you know, it's not uncommon, but it's certainly, I mean, it's one of those things like, I tend to remain friends with most of my exes. And I, I'm always shocked that there is still like, a weird stigma around that. So I don't know how it was, you know, for Katharine Hepburn or Mae West, you know, during that time period, but, I mean, there certainly is like, people get weird about it. If you're still friends with your ex, they're always like, Are you sure that's healthy? And you know, people are really skeptical about it. I don't know if that's connected to the asteroid goddesses in terms of, you know, unconventional relationships in any way. But

Kyle Pierce  1:19:08

yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, convention would be that you? I don't know. It's whose convention are we talking about? But,

Tristan Paylor  1:19:15

yeah, yeah, no, it's like, where does that come from? Yeah, I guess that's the convention is you just don't split up. And then I don't know where that idea comes from. I just I know my own experiences that you know, I run into this fairly often if I tell people I'm friends with exes. They're like, Oh, is that? Is that okay? Like, are you sure? That's a good idea? Isn't that weird for you?

Kyle Pierce  1:19:38

Yeah, no, actually. Investor isn't particularly prominent for me. But you know, my ex wife and I get along well, good and healthy co parenting relationship. And a lot of people think that that's, that's weird, like, Oh, you guys should hate each other or whatever. But kind of making me think about that stuff in the sense that you know, Audrey Hepburn and Mae West kind of having that theme of staying friends with the ex. It's almost like you're able to, like they were able to be respected more when they weren't having sex with the person, you know?

Tristan Paylor  1:20:18

Yeah. Yeah, all of these, all these archetypes really highlight the way. Women and femininity in general, are defined by sexuality and relationships. And you don't We don't have any virgin gods in our astrological Pantheon, were noted for being, you know, unique or special in some way, or particularly close to the Divine because they're virgins, like, they're all. They're all doing whatever they please, on that front, they're not really defined by their relationships in the same way. You know, it's never Zeus is never introduced as the husband of Hera. But Hera is most famously the wife of Zeus.

Kyle Pierce  1:21:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What I really love about the asteroids are starting to really love about them is that even if they did nothing, but just like looking at them, and just thinking about these concepts for both men and women, like how do you relate to these themes?

Tristan Paylor  1:21:22

I mean, this conversation and this research is also really driving home for me as a non binary person, just how incredibly heteronormative and says normative astrology still is, like, we're still working with a set of symbols, that it's very binary. You know, the, the symbols that we have in astrology are given very binary gender assignments. And you know, the stories, you know, especially in the case of the asteroids, because they don't play the kind of role that the traditional planets do, you know, those roles being more based on how they participate in a system, you know, like they're based in geometry and sign rulership and stuff like that, you know, the only sort of interpretive resource that we have for working with the asteroids is the mythology of their namesake. And, yeah, yeah, so it's, I mean, I, you know, it was really just introduced to the asteroids properly this week. So, that's still something that's like, in an ongoing way, you know, I'm trying to figure out, how do I fit into these symbols? And how do I work to change these symbols in such a way that they are more inclusive of different experiences that are not, you know, says normative or heteronormative experiences? Yeah, where do I see myself in all of this?

Kyle Pierce  1:22:53

You know, whatever your relationship to gender, you experience these, you know, archetypes, you're relating to them. I think that a lot of maybe male privilege is not really having to, or not having to recognize their relationship to these themes and concepts. But you are, it's there, like in and Astrology can be a really good way of drawing your attention to those things. See, you know, for sure how you're interacting with them,

Tristan Paylor  1:23:23

man, it's like I have, I have no choice but to grapple with this, because it's constantly on my radar. You know, and that's part of privileges, just not having to think about it, because you're the default. So, you know, that doesn't really set off big alarm bells for you. Or you're not sort of forced to think about these ideas day in and day out, because they're directly affecting, you know, every aspect of your life and making it more difficult or more complicated.

Kyle Pierce  1:23:52

Absolutely. I mean, I know I'm guilty of it some green like, I would like to prefer almost like, Oh, my inclination is like, Oh, well, the plants are just planets, and they have these archetypes and like, I don't really want to think about it is gendered but you know, yeah, they're all men. They're all men. Like, I don't know if like, it's easy. It's easy for me. Cuz I live in a culture where male is almost the default

Tristan Paylor  1:24:17

kind of gender. And we do at least have mercury. Yeah, androgynous. Even even in traditional astrology, you know, and all of the planets are given very binary gender assignments of masculine or feminine, but mercury can be either one, maybe that's why you find it.

Kyle Pierce  1:24:36

Maybe that's why I read something about because there's a debate in the astrological community or some segment of it about whether or not desta rules Burdo. I don't know. But I can see where maybe, maybe some of that's coming from mercury. It's like the androgynous planet. Vesta has this association with Have you stressed the goddess its association with androgyny to some degree, which is called the my kind of 20th century, like psychoanalysts, the archetypal the the phallic mother, kind of like a desexualized mother, I suppose the series who obviously had a baby, she had to have sex to have the baby. But the almost puts that's done this sort of different role that we do have, you know, like Mother Teresa, we have these figures in No, Mother Teresa's birth chart. In Roman mythology, or Roman society, Vesta had this association with liminality. Like, the the space between things,

Tristan Paylor  1:25:47

and she's sort of like the, or Janice, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, it was the doorway. She was the, I guess, the vestibule or whatever you would call it like another one of the sort of transitional spaces between one place and another.

Kyle Pierce  1:26:04

Yeah. It's like brides couldn't step on the threshold and step over the threshold.

Tristan Paylor  1:26:10

Right? You don't want to invent

1:26:12

investor. Yeah,

Tristan Paylor  1:26:13

that's the sacred space. She's the threshold.

Kyle Pierce  1:26:15

I mean, and there's obvious, you know, tie in to female sexuality. But you know, being between male and female being between one place, and another, often we have rituals around these kind of transitions, you know, like a wedding as the obvious example, like a bar mitzvah, you know, or about mitzvah, or a graduation ceremony, you know, it's all about kind of stepping over that threshold from one stage to the next. You just don't like maybe lives in that space. That's her space, you know, that, that in between spaces. Me her sacred space that.

Tristan Paylor  1:26:54

Yeah, and there's something it you know, you can see why people want to give Virgo to her, because there is that mercurial quality as well, that liminal quality that we know is a component of mercury. Yeah, there's that obvious one, but I mean, I when I think Ceres and Vesta are to where people kind of associate them with Virgo. They say they have some affinity with Virgo series being about the harvest, and best obviously, being the Virgin. But I guess until now, I hadn't really recognized that quality of liminality as well, and being a deity about transitions and how similar that is to mercury as well.

Kyle Pierce  1:27:38

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's easier for me to give like the sign, I don't know, give particular sign affinities to the other ones.

Tristan Paylor  1:27:49

Yeah, I haven't really been thinking about them in terms of sign affinities all that much. I know Dimitra. In her book, has a few signs, two or three signs that she considers to have some affinity for the asteroids, but I'm too traditional. I cannot untie the signs from the traditional planets.

Kyle Pierce  1:28:12

Oh, yeah. I mean, affinity is different than rulership, too. But there is, yeah, my brain does tend to go a little bit there and like, oh, yeah, which one? Which syncs can squeeze the most juice out of one of these apps? Yeah, no. But that's the, you know, maybe just want to say Scorpio to some degree, but not, I don't know.

Tristan Paylor  1:28:32

That came into my mind too. And then I was like that she doesn't have the aggressive connotations that Scorpio does, is still more defensive and protective or defensive.

Kyle Pierce  1:28:44

Yeah, like you will not cross.

Tristan Paylor  1:28:47

That's true. That is true as like a guardian of the threshold. Scorpio is a good sign. Like I am securing this boundary and you are not getting past it.

Kyle Pierce  1:28:57

Yeah. Yeah. And I hear like the queries thrown around for Palace a lot. I'm like, like that one.

Tristan Paylor  1:29:04

That one's interesting. Yeah, Palace is the one where I'm like, there really isn't a sign that particularly stands out as having an affinity, maybe Scorpio, again, for that reason that Athena is more of a defensive war goddess, not an offensive one. And she's more she tends to be none of this is necessarily a Scorpio thing, but at least in the sense that, you know, Scorpio is the nocturnal side of Mars and a little bit less direct in terms of how it or less a little more subtle in terms of how it influences or responds to crisis and conflict. Athena was more known for supporting heroes in their conflicts than fighting herself. Yeah, I think

Kyle Pierce  1:29:52

she also took like a strategic approach when she did fight. She tended to do better she didn't actually fight as much as like Mars did, but didn't have like before to win? Yeah, yeah, he was gonna win. And she would do it because she had a plan, you know?

Tristan Paylor  1:30:09

Yeah, she just doesn't fit like neatly into any one of the signs really. There are a couple of resources that I want to share in terms of learning more about the asteroids. And I'll include links to both of these resources in the show notes. The first one is just like a General Resource on learning more about asteroids is the website of Empress Atlantis. She is in Australia, astrologer who works really intensively with the asteroids. And her website is just an incredible resource. And just like, it's a library of more resources, and more astrologers who work with the asteroids that's just like really well organized. So if you're interested in them, definitely check out her website. And there's also a project called asteroids of the gods, which, unfortunately, seems to be inactive. I think it's been inactive for maybe close to a year now. But this projects, blog is still up on Tumblr. And so there's, there's still this whole archive of resources and interesting discussions about the intersection between astrology and polytheism. And as a pagan and a polytheist. About this might be worth mentioning it, it basically, the project has instructions on looking up any of the asteroids that have been named after deities from different traditions on astro.com, if you're casting a chart, so if you are a polytheist, and say, You're a devotee of Dionysus, or Diana, or Oh, then there are asteroids named after those deities, and you can look up their numbers and pop them into your birth chart on astro.com. So people were using that, you know, as a tool to think about their relationships with their gods, you know, depending on what house and sign it was in, you know, if there was sort of a message there about that particular relationship or what that relationship is asking of them. So anyway, check that out. And if you want to know where other gods are in your birth chart, there are a lot of them.

Kyle Pierce  1:32:41

I really like that you're being bested for that that project. Like found this fire, you know, and it's like, oh, it's kind of going out. I want to be the keeper of this fire. So yeah, everyone, please check this project. The what's it called

Tristan Paylor  1:32:55

again? Asteroids of the gods.

Kyle Pierce  1:32:58

Asteroids of the gods. Yeah. You showed it to me. does look really cool. And yeah, help Tristan, keep that fire alive.

Tristan Paylor  1:33:08

Yes. Yeah, there's a whole archive of experiences that people have shared with their deities, and you know, any insights that they gleaned from finding the position of their asteroids in their birth chart so that's, that's pretty cool. I really I that's my favorite stuff. I love the lore but people's personal experiences with their deities is my absolute favorite stuff to read about no yeah. And if it also has to do with astrology, then you've just hit all of the all the sweet spots for me.

Kyle Pierce  1:33:41

Well, does that end are what would be the word for this audiobook on the asteroids?

Tristan Paylor  1:33:52

are epic adventure into the asteroids?

Kyle Pierce  1:33:58

This was a an episode of mythic proportions. Oh, you Tristan, I know have quite a few things to plug right now. Right.

Tristan Paylor  1:34:10

I think I think just the usual I think just my actually, you know, I guess I have one additional thing. So you can find me on Instagram, at bad sign astrology. If Instagram is your thing. And if you are interested in booking a consultation with me, there is a booking link on my website at bad sign astrology.ca And I'll have links to those in the show notes. And I have also started up a blog. So you can find me as bad sign astrology on Tumblr. Or you can just read my blog on my website and I have been writing articles about all the planets where I go through through a few source texts, starting from the second century and moving all the way up to the 20th century, and you know, do a brief sort of comparison and then talk a bit about how I interpret those planets in my own practice. So, yeah, if you want to read those articles on the planets Thank you. I'm right, I'm supposed to say and you know, now I just sit here staring blankly at you, waiting for you to assert yourself ask me what I want. No. No, actually, it's all about me.

Kyle Pierce  1:35:46

I get a I almost feel like I have one less thing to blood. Not that killer cosmos is dead. I just don't want to say that a new episode is coming out. Too busy with with this really awesome podcast I've been working on called the astrology hotline. You might want to check it out. But also, if you want to book a consultation with me, you can go to my website, Powell Pierce astrology.com. And, you know, I got some stuff written on there. You know, you can read that stuff.

Tristan Paylor  1:36:25

You got some some pretty cool articles about the lunations.

Kyle Pierce  1:36:31

I mean, I don't have like the extensive, you know, historical references and like, I feel like you, you cited like, all your your stuff. So it's pretty

Tristan Paylor  1:36:41

mean it's oppressive. And still not exactly. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I call it comprehensive. I didn't do it with great scholarly rigor. I mean, I wrote an article a day for three days is kind of a challenge to myself. Yeah, they're a little details, I guess. Like, how trustworthy are the translations? I'm using, you know, some of the, I think some of the texts from the medieval Arabic tradition. We don't have the original Arabic texts for all of them, I believe. I think some of them were. Some of the sources we have are already translated into European languages. So you know, I haven't done a deep dive into all of that. But I at least, have looked over what translations I do have, and shared what I thought was interesting.

Kyle Pierce  1:37:28

No, as a student of history, I liked the citations and the historical, their citation. And I liked the historical context for everything. Yeah,

Tristan Paylor  1:37:38

I love that stuff. I'd like to thank Porter, our listener this week, who sent in this fantastic question, and sent us down this whole path this like rabbit hole of they might have gotten more than they were expecting. And I got more than I was expecting. And I think this is just the beginning of a lengthy relationship with the asteroids for me.

Kyle Pierce  1:38:04

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Porter, because I would have probably gone on ignoring the asteroids for for a long time, but I feel like I've been converted. I think I'm still figuring it out. And still, I don't know if if they're going to be showing up in consultations quite yet. But they are definitely on my radar. For keep C's

Tristan Paylor  1:38:30

Yep. For further research.

1:38:34

Well, we will sign off for to seeing you all next time. Thanks for tuning in.

Kyle Pierce  1:38:41

And actually see you. You have a question you would like to hear answered on astrology hotline. Go ahead and send us an email at astrology hotline pod@gmail.com