the-astrology-book

Icarus
life, and when his soul separates from his body it [the fear of God] will
endow him with eternity and he shall live forever.
—Meira B. Epstein
Sources:
Ben Menahem, Naphtali. The Book of Reasons. 1941.
Fleischer, Yehuda Leib. The Book of The World. Timishuara, Romania, 1937.
Levin, Israel. Abraham Ibn Ezra: Reader. Tel Aviv: Israel Matz Publications, 1985.
Levy, Raphael. The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra: A Literary and Linguistic Study with
Special Reference to the Old French Translation of Hagin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
1927.
Levy, Raphael, and Francisco Cantera, eds. The Beginning of Wisdom. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1939.
Sarton, George. Introduction to the History of Science. Baltimore: Carnegie Institution of Washington,
1927–48.
ICARUS
Icarus, asteroid 1566 (the 1566th asteroid to be discovered, on June 22, 1949), was
named after the character from Greek mythology who died because he flew so close to
the Sun that his wings (which were made of feathers and wax) melted. At the time,
Icarus and his father were flying away from imprisonment on the island of Crete. The
name is appropriate, in that Icarus’s eccentric orbit (which takes a little more than a terrestrial
year) carries it closer to the Sun than to Mercury. The asteroid is less than 1 1 ⁄ 2
kilometers in diameter and is one of the more recent asteroids to be investigated by
astrologers. Preliminary material on Icarus can be found in Demetra George and Douglas
Bloch’s Astrology for Yourself, and an ephemeris (table of celestial locations) for Icarus
can be found in the second edition of George and Bloch’s Asteroid Goddesses. Unlike the
planets, which are associated with a wide range of phenomena, the smaller asteroids are
said to represent a single principle. George and Bloch give Icarus’s principle as “liberation”;
their tentative key phrase for Icarus is “My capacity for liberation and risk-taking.”
Zipporah Dobyns regards the occurrence of Icarus in a prominent house, sign, or aspect
related to the element fire as indicating the danger of overreaching oneself or acting prematurely.
J. Lee Lehman relates Icarus to the power one gains from reconstituting oneself
after the experience of “death” (in one form or another). In a more exoteric vein,
Lehman also associates Icarus with flight and accidents. Jacob Schwartz gives this asteroid’s
astrological significance as “a need to escape quickly from restrictions, speed, risk
taking, shamanic power, awareness of evolving through experience.”
Sources:
Dobyns, Zipporah. Expanding Astrology’s Universe. San Diego: Astro Computing Services, 1983.
George, Demetra, with Douglas Bloch. Asteroid Goddesses: The Mythology, Psychology and Astrology
of the Reemerging Feminine. 2d ed. San Diego: Astro Computing Services, 1990.
———. Astrology for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation. Berkeley, CA: Wingbow
Press, 1987.
Lehman, J. Lee. The Ultimate Asteroid Book. West Chester, PA: Whitford Press, 1988.
Schwartz, Jacob. Asteroid Name Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.
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