Star Children: Wheels

Astrological Stories by Juri Viktor Stork

Sometimes I sit in front of our old house, imagining how people might have lived here in the old days. How they grew their vegetables, cut wood in the forest or followed some sort of craft or trade. No light switches, no hoovers, no showers, no aircraft noise, no telephone calls from some marketing enterprise during meal times. And no cars. No droning engine noise, no hooting, no rat-run traffic, no maniac who races up our street at 100 mph at eleven o'clock at night, no ladies in four-wheel drives with bull bars at face level, no suicidal actions under a lowering swing barrier. No such dangers for playing children. Car drivers behave autistically, completely unaware of what is going on around them (yes, I drive a car myself).

Moses, the son of our neighbours Vivian and Rolf, is a great car lover. He's hardly four, but already has an impressive collection of 76 toy cars, three Buicks, 16 trucks, one Matchbox race course with a loop-the-loop, a figure-of-eight race course with two remote-controlled Formula-one rocket and a radio-controlled VW Beetle with a droning engine and a signal-horn. Vivian assured me that his first word wasn't "Mama" but "car". If I believed in re-incarnation, I'd be certain that Moses would have been a car dealer or racing driver in his previous life. But as an astrologer I suspect he is one of the rare cases of a "Mercedes" Ascendant.

Our son Leo is completely different. He also has a few toy cars, but they are confined to a miserable existence in some bedroom drawer. Driving is boring. His toy tractor was used mainly as a stationary power shovel in the sandbox. For a long time, he wouldn't ride his bike - he found two wheels too unstable. He wasn't bothered that his same-age or even younger friends had been riding their bikes for ages. He had no such ambition whatsoever. With his Sun-Saturn opposition, he is careful at expanding his territory.

Rafaela, one and a half years younger than Leo, and whenever possible faster than her brother, didn't trust the two wheels either. Tricycle, scooter, inline skates, skis - no problem. But riding a bike was a challenge she avoided. Although we practised a lot last autumn, the two of them put their bikes back into the garage. I admit that I would have liked them to succeed. Their failures are also mine. And even though I know that development can't be forced, I found it hard to leave it at that.

Astrologically, personal development as well as technological progress belong to the domains of Uranus, Aquarius and the eleventh house. In my horoscope, I have Saturn in Aquarius on the midheaven. Saturn is the brake, the structuring force, "hard reality". I'm always worried that things don't go the way they should, I try to have all developments under control. A real astrologer ...

Ah, you think my children and I may have some themes in common? Well, let's see: Leo's Sun is in the eleventh house ("doing things one's own way", "following one's own path") ... Rafaela's Mars is in the eleventh ("living one's own strength") and her Jupiter and Uranus in Aquarius ("sudden developments") ... Yes, that somehow rings a bell. I remember my red scooter, and the really bad fall on the gravel road when the frame couldn't take the weight of a ten-year-old boy at full speed anymore... Actually, when did I learn to ride a bike?

Rafaela told us at the breakfast table on Easter Monday that she'd had a dream: "I got on my bike and rode away, just like that!" "Why don't you try it", I encouraged her. She went and got her bright yellow bicycle, got on - and rode away. Just like that. Of course, this put Leo under enormous pressure. He also got his bike - and to his own surprise and delight, it worked. At first still a bit clumsy and shaky, both of them soon rode as if they had been born on a bike.

By the way, the astrological interpretation of the automobile is another story: the engine with its controlled force of the fire is definitely uranian. Getting from here to there expresses the mercurial principle, while the traffic rules and regulations are linked to Saturn. I suppose, putting down the accelerator when overtaking and hooting at an annoying cyclist is pretty Martian, the choice of design and make of the car Venusian. The petrol consumption reminds me of the excessive side of Jupiter, the regular traffic breakdowns of Neptune. And the destructive consequences of car traffic for our planet are quite Plutonian.

But when I'm in my car by myself, enjoying the landscape and listening to music, the car appears to me like the epitome of lunar energy: as if I was travelling in a womb, I feel strong, safe and comfortable. Actually, this might be the key to the fascination cars have on people, and to the uniquely autistic attitude which seizes all drivers once they're in their car: "Mama" is not far away at all. Is she, Moses?

The Child's Horoscope by Liz Greene