Fixed Stars Interview with Diana K. Rosenberg by Edith Hathaway

1) EH: How did you get started in astrology? Or what made you decide to study it more seriously?

DKR:  Astrology saved my son’s life! That convinced me to study it seriously.  I was “trying out” astrology in New York City with Betty Lundsted.  Betty taught the basics, and her friend Pat Morimando, upstairs in the same building, taught chart construction. This was back in 1975, before everyone had computers. Pat was teaching me the calculations using my son’s birth data, and towards the end of the session she looked a little more at his chart and asked about his health. I said he had mononucleosis, and was struggling to finish his senior year of high school. I left feeling nervous and uncertain, and decided to knock on Betty’s door on the way downstairs, because I was worried about my son.  Betty quickly looked at his chart. He has Leo Rising, and Sun in Aquarius in the 6th house with Capricorn on the (tropical) 6th cusp. She did think some danger was approaching, and told me to watch him closely.  I asked what I should look for and she said: “Leo: Heart, spine, upper back.  Capricorn: Bones, teeth, skin.”  I walked away with those six items etched in my brain.

Because mononucleosis tends to weaken the immune system, Peter had been checked by a doctor every week. He went alone, and he told me that each time he would strip to the waist and the doctor would check his heart and lungs. I was constantly thinking of the list of six items Betty had given me, and one afternoon I noticed Peter rubbing a large birthmark mole on his upper back – the kind that doctors tell you to have removed because sometimes they turn cancerous.  I remembered Betty Lundsted: “Heart, spine, upper back – Bones, teeth, skin.”  I thought: “Upper back, skin!”  And I insisted that he have it removed immediately!  I gave him money for a taxi, called a dermatologist, who was also a family friend, and urged him to examine Pete that same day. At first the doctor said he’d have to make an appointment, but I kept insisting, not saying why. The dermatologist sent him straight to a surgeon, after he saw the mole should be removed immediately.  Pete returned home with a wound three inches long, and 8 or 9 stitches.  A few days later, my husband and I got an ominous call from the surgeon’s office. They had done the biopsy and wanted us in his office immediately.  It was a melanoma, a very fast-growing, extremely deadly form of cancer. They rushed him into the hospital and operated right away – a major surgery. Pete was in the hospital two weeks, and the surgery saved his life. (Later the surgeon told me it was caught in the nick of time. The melanoma was probably about to metastasize).

After the crisis was over, I realized that the doctor who had been examining him every week had not noticed the melanoma, and that astrologers who had never even met him were the ones who saved his life!  Right then and there I decided to study astrology seriously.  I am from a family of doctors: my stepfather, uncle, grandfather, and maternal great-grandfather were all physicians.  My uncle, a prominent surgeon, had been very critical of me for studying astrology, but that event silenced him.  I told him and everyone else that without astrology, my son would not have lived beyond 18.  My uncle remained skeptical about astrology, but the facts were irrefutable.

2) EH: That’s a compelling beginning. How did you get from there to your deep study of the Fixed Stars? 

DKR:  I continued to study with Betty Lundsted, then went on to Joanna Shannon, Julian Armistead and, for Uranian and the 90 Degree Dial, Charles Emerson. I had only wanted to know the basics of Uranian but it turned out to be such a useful system that I got into it more deeply and became a Uranian astrologer!  But through all of this, I noticed that every time a Fixed Star was mentioned, it seemed to “hit the mark” – especially Algol.  So I had begun to read the two or three books available on Fixed Stars, but they weren’t very satisfying. For instance, with all the stars in the sky, Ebertin listed only 73, and Robson 110. What about all the others?  I kept asking: “Does anyone know where I can find a teacher of Fixed Stars?”

In the meantime, I made up a workbook for myself that listed all the stars in Robson and Ebertin, with room for observations and comments. Then I found that people were coming to me as if I were an expert, and wanted xerox copies of my workbook.  After about the 7^th or 8^th time I xeroxed it for someone, I suddenly realized that I could put it in a simple binder and sell it. Then one day at a seminar for advanced and professional astrologers given by Gary Christen, a leading Uranian, he put up a standard “12 pieces of pie” chart of an event and, to start, asked us to see if we could discover anything about the event. I saw some familiar star placements, but I thought I had to stick with Uranian aspects; so I said nothing, and no one spoke up. Gary was about to switch to the 90 Degree Dial to demonstrate its usefulness when Julian Armistead said: “Mercury is in the 8^th at Algol.  Algol sometimes indicates suffocation.” When Gary nodded, I said: “Oh, are we allowed to use Fixed Stars?” He said, “Of course!” So I said, “Well, Saturn is in the 10th at the Beehive Cluster (That’s M44 in the Crab), and that often turns up at fires, and one might suffocate in a fire!”  Gary nodded again. Well, to make a long story short, Julian and I were the only ones in the room who discovered the theme of the chart, and we did it by using Fixed Stars. “That’s it,” I thought.  “I may have found my specialty!” 

But there was a very big problem: How could I get the positions of more stars? The lack of star lists was the reason no further research had been done.  Astronomers use right ascension and declination, which are based on the celestial equator, whereas astrologers use celestial longitude and latitude, based on the ecliptic. To convert from the first to the second of these requires some elaborate math, and this was before home computers. Then fate came through for me in the person of Michael Munkasey, an astrologer, engineer and mathematician.   At a conference he handed me two large boxes of star lists that he had input from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue and converted to ecliptic coordinates. He said, “Diana, I have so many projects that I’ll never get around to the stars. So I want you to have these!”  Of course, I was delighted, and tremendously grateful.  I put them into a huge red notebook, with room between each for notes.  That was the beginning of my research, around 1980.  I lugged that heavy notebook to every conference and kept adding to it every chance I got. I began to see patterns, and went looking for more. 

EH: Your book on Fixed Stars has been long awaited – even by you!!   As you were researching and writing, did your point of view change about the use of stars in astrology?

DKR: When I began my research, I thought I’d write a normal-sized book. (Okay, maybe a fat book!) It would simply have more stars than the other books out there, with more up-to-date research and new interpretations based on my research.  I presumed that what the other books said was probably true, but I was also sure that I could add to their interpretations, and I wanted to check everything out for myself).  I was also terribly frustrated by the small number of degrees covered by the stars they used. Tropical Aries, for instance, had only four degrees covered in Ebertin, and six in Robson. What about all the rest of the sign?  I have a stellium in tropical Aries, and none of the stars mentioned linked to my placements!  But once I had Mike Munkasey’s list of stars, I discovered that the major links to my tropical Aries degrees were stars of the figure of Andromeda, the Chained Woman.  And there I sat, trapped in a dismal marriage – and with not enough education to earn my own living.  Chained indeed!  That was one of the early indications I had that the constellations themselves deserved more scrutiny.  I also wanted to use more mundane material. That’s a particular interest of mine, in addition to what I call “Body Parts.”

Body Parts:  I collected data on people who were blind or had severe eye problems, because some ancient texts mentioned certain stars in connection with blindness.  But I did not want to take anything for granted.  I wanted to do all my own research.  I have about 100 blindness charts now, but when I had collected up to 70 of them, I corrected each one for precession (for the then-current 1980 fiducial), and then entered them in the big red book. For the most part, the ancients were correct, and I found a few additional places that produced a high number of eye problems.  Looking at my new blindness list, I suddenly realized that the afflicted people had planets at the eye of the Bull, the eye of the Crow, the eyes of the Crab, the eye of the Dragon, the eye of the Archer, and so forth. That was a huge breakthrough for me!  It was my first realization that the constellations were not just random connected dots, but were placed the way they were for very specific reasons. 

At a conference on ancient astrology in Princeton, NJ I gave a lecture on Fixed Stars and mentioned the idea that constellation figures may have been placed deliberately to pinpoint specific parts of the body.  Soon after my talk, a New Jersey astrologer came up to me and asked me to check her chart, as her right arm had recently been amputated at the shoulder due to a cancerous growth in the armpit. She wanted to see if there were any constellation positions that would link to that.  We sat in a quiet corner with my big red notebook, and went from position to position on her chart, starting at her Ascendant, which was 32 Virginis, a star in the Virgin’s right arm. Then came Jupiter in the 1^st house aligned with Sigma Bootis, in the right arm of the Herdsman; the Moon (in the 2^nd house), was Gamma Herculis, in the right arm of Hercules. Asteroid Juno in the 3^rd house was aligned with Cheleb, Beta Ophiuchi in the right shoulder of the Serpent-Bearer. (By this time, both of us were gasping.) Then in the 5^th house, after Venus and the Sun (no hits) came a Mercury-Mars conjunction at Sadalmelik, Alpha Aquarii, the right shoulder of Aquarius.  In the 7^th house her Uranus was aligned with 7 Cephei, the right shoulder of Cepheus, and 22 Andromedae, the right hand of the Chained Woman.  In the 8^th house, Chiron aligned with Gamma Persei, the right armpit of Perseus; the Midheaven was Beta Columbae, the Dove’s right wing; and Pluto in the 10^th house was 82 Geminorum, Pollux’s right shoulder.  Both of us were speechless. 

This was another tremendous breakthrough, and one of the major discoveries I made in researching the stars; the vital importance of the constellations in detail, and not only the ones on the ecliptic (i.e. the zodiac) but those of the “Sphaera Barbarica” – the figures above and below the ecliptic – even those very far from it, near the poles.

Another remarkable example is that of the actress Natasha Richardson, who died tragically of a head injury after she fell while skiing. Her tropical Ascendant is Libra, with natal Sun and Mercury in the 8^th house in Taurus at Gyrus and 32 Persei, which are in Medusa’s head.  Her Midheaven is at Theta Canis Majoris in the Greater Dog’s head. Her North Node is in the 10^th house at Pollux, Beta Geminorum in the head of the “Immortal Twin,” and Muscida, Omicron Ursae Majoris in the Greater Bear’s head.  (About Pollux, the ancient Liber Hermetis says: “Many will be harmed in the head.”)  Her Mars was Algenubi, Epsilon Leonis in the Lion’s head; her Pluto was aligned with Black Hole M106 in the Hunting Dog’s head; her Neptune was at a set of colliding galaxies called Arp 220 in the head of Serpens, the Serpent. Her Moon was Rasalhague, Alpha Ophiuchi in the Serpent-Tamer’s head.  Her Saturn, in the 5^th house of vacations, was at Kitalpha, Alpha Equulei in the Colt’s head, and Chiron, also in the 5^th house, was aligned with Ankaa, Alpha Phoenicis in the head of the Phoenix.  Jupiter in the 6^th house was aligned with accident-prone 13 Cephei, in the crown of Cepheus, the King.  Venus, ruler of her Ascendant and 8^th house, was in the 7^th house at 18 Cephei in the King’s face.

DKR:  Later I discovered that Belgrade astrologer Alexander Imsiragic made the same discovery about anatomy and the constellations. We compared notes at the last UAC (United Astrology Conference), May 2008 in Denver, Colorado. He calls it “anatomy” and I call it “body parts.” 

EH: So you have a whole section in your book on Body Parts? 

DKR:  No, that’s the sad thing. I have not had time to write that. I will have to put it in an Appendix, or mention it in the Introduction.  

3) EH: What are Fixed Stars and how are they different from planets? Are Fixed Stars really fixed? (The ancients distinguished between these two, the planets being the “wandering stars.”)

DKR:  Fixed Stars are just regular stars. They were called “fixed” because they seemed to stay in the same relative positions over the centuries, while planets (and comets, meteors, etc) moved.  In some cultures – China, for instance – the star figures were considered flawless, while the planets were the “troublemakers” who came through and upset things – rather like a motorcycle gang riding through town!  Other cultures thought of the planets as messengers and interpreters. By traveling through, or stopping at a constellation, they were sending a message in code to earthlings. Stars do have their own movement, each one different. It’s called “proper motion” – but it is so infinitesimally slow that it takes hundreds of years in most cases to be noticeable, and is usually ignored by astrologers. 

EH: Let’s quickly review the naming of the stars. 

DKR:  Most of the names of the Fixed Stars come from the Arabs, and have an additional Greek letter/Latin constellation name designation. The roots of constellations are said to come from the Euphrates Valley (Babylon), which is present-day Iraq.  With the star’s name, you will find the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta. etc combined with the Latin form of the constellation’s name. That tells you what constellation it’s in. (For instance, Ceti is the genitive or possessive case for Cetus).  Zeta is the 6^th letter of the Greek alphabet, so Zeta Ceti means the 6^th star of Cetus. When it is Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet), it is sometimes at the beginning of the constellation, but usually it’s the brightest star. But sometimes they go in the order of progression of the stars, rather than which is brightest. That happens with the Big Dipper and the 7 Sages. In the Big Dipper, the Alpha star is Dubhe, from the Arabian al-dubb, “the Bear” – which also happens to be the brightest star.

4) EH: There is a general lack of knowledge about what Fixed Stars are and how they work. They sometimes get a reputation for being mostly very difficult, or malevolent. Is this justified?

DKR: Stars are intense foci of energies that both test an individual and enlighten him. (Sorry about the “him” – the English language does not supply a neutral noun for both sexes, so assume when I say “him” I mean “him or her.”)  What you get with the stars are not good/bad, right/wrong, benevolent/malevolent, but issues.  For instance, there might be an issue of tolerance versus intolerance, or addiction versus abstinence, arrogance versus humility, greed versus generosity, aggression versus working for peaceful solutions, and so forth.  The chart will be set up so that the individual will constantly have these issues come up in his life, and he will have to decide how he wants to deal with them.  Very often both ends of these polarities will manifest in one lifetime, pulling and pushing the individual to make choices over and over again.   A typical scenario might be that one is born into wealth and comfort, then loses everything and goes through a period of poverty, then works his way back to wealth and might have to decide whether to “play it safe” and stash his money in fear of another “crash,” or to take the lessons of poverty to heart and use his money to help others who are in need.

EH: How can we determine if a Fixed Star will give results in terms of all that has been attributed to a given star?

DKR: The short answer is, you can’t!  There are too many variables (the rest of the chart, for instance), and how a person lives his life, and what choices he is making.  I think a good example here is former Senator and Vice President Albert Gore. (Mar 31, 1948, 12:53 PM EST, Washington, DC).  His Midheaven (tropical 21:52 Aries) is aligned with a famous shipwreck star, Baten Kaitos, Zeta Ceti in Cetus, the Sea-Monster or Whale, (tropical 22 Aries, sidereal 28 Pisces).  Baten Kaitos is a stormy star, known for shipwrecks, possibly with rescue, and drowning.  (Right opposite it is another shipwreck star, Foramen, Eta Carinae.)  Baten Kaitos was at the North lunar node at the Titanic disaster, and shows up in many shipwreck charts.

See the article on my website on Algol, called “Medusa’s Head.” (DKR)

Natasha Richardson was born May 11, 1963, 17:00 BST, London, UK. She suffered a blow to the head during a skiing accident near Montreal, Canada on March 16, 2009. Refusing treatment, she succumbed to headaches an hour later and an epidural hematoma (bleeding under the skull, which could have been treated if caught immediately). The situation quickly worsened. She was hospitalized seven hours after the accident, and flown from a Canadian hospital to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, where she died on March 18, 2009.  (EH)

I have also found that Chiron often pinpoints an area of weakness or health problems on the chart.  (DKR)

Known for her talent and beauty, Natasha Richardson had planetary placements in the King’s crown and King’s face. She belonged to a prominent and famous family of British actors, the Redgraves:  her mother – Vanessa Redgrave, her father – director Tony Richardson, and her husband – actor Liam Neeson.  (EH)