Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [92]
The celestial mythos is complicated because the solar myth is intertwined with the lunar, stellar and terrestrial myths. In addition, some of the various celestial players were introduced later than others, and many of them took on new functions as the focus switched from stars to moon to sun to other planets, and back again. For example, Horus is not only the sun but also the North Pole star, and his twin brother-cum-adversary, Set, represents not only darkness but also the South Pole star. Furthermore, as time progresses and the skies change, as with the precession of the equinoxes and the movements of the sun annually through the zodiac and daily through its "houses," as well as with cataclysm, the attributes of the planetary bodies within the mythos also change. Moreover, the incorporation of the phases of moon into the mythos adds to its complexity:
The Moon, like the Sun, changed continually the track in which she crossed the Heavens, moving ever to and fro between the upper and lower limits of the Zodiac; and her different places, phases, and aspects there, and her relations with the Sun and the constellations, have been a fruitful source of mythological fables.?
An example of the complexity of the mythos is provided by the story of the "Queen of Heaven," the goddess Isis, mother of Horus, who is not only the moon that reflects the sun, she is the original creator, as well as the constellation of Virgo. As the moon, she is the "woman clothed with the sun," and as the Virgin, she is the sun's mother. She is also Stella Maris, the "Star of the Sea," as she regulates the tides, a fact known of the moon beginning eons ago, as were the facts of the roundness of the earth and of the heliocentricity of the solar system-again, knowledge never actually "lost" and "rediscovered," as popularly portrayed.
The sun and moon were deemed to be one being in some cultures or twins in others. When eclipses occurred, it was said that the moon and sun were uniting to create lesser gods. Thus, the pantheon kept growing.
Although it is generally now considered to be "male," the sun was also regarded as female in several places, including Alaska, Anatolia, Arabia, Australia, Canaan, England, Germany, India, Japan, North America and Siberia. The sun's feminine side was, naturally, suppressed by the patriarchy. As Walker says:
The popular European tradition usually made the sun male and the moon female, chiefly to assert that "his" light was stronger, and that "she" shone only by reflected glory, symbol of the position of women in patriarchal society. However, Oriental and pre-Christian systems frequently made the sun a Goddess.8
When one factors into this complexity the fertility aspect of the gods and goddesses of the grape and grain, along with the sexual imagery found in all mythologies and religions, one can understand why it has been so difficult to sort it all out.
The Zodiac
As the mythos developed, it took the form of a play, with a cast of characters, including the 12 divisions of the sky called the signs or constellations of the zodiac. The symbols that typified these 12 celestial sections of 30° each were not based on what the constellations actually look like but represent aspects of earthly life. Thus, the ancient peoples were able to incorporate these earthly aspects into the mythos and project them onto the allimportant celestial screen.
These zodiacal designations have varied from place to place and era to era over the tens of thousands of years during which the skies have been observed, for a number of reasons, including the changes in the skies brought on by the precession. For example, Scorpio is not only the eagle but also the scorpion. It is difficult to determine absolutely all of their origins, but the current zodiacal