Pisces 08: A Girl Blowing a Bugle (Bulimia)

[sdh3]

In Marc Jones' "The Sabian Symbols in Astrology" the degree symbol for Pisces 08 is "A girl blowing a bugle."


The noun girl descends from the Middle English girle, meaning child or girl. Definitions of girl include “a female child”, “a young woman”, and “a daughter.”

The word blowing descends from the Indo-European (IE) root bhle-2 which means “to blow.” Paronyms include bladder, blast, blaze, blown, flatulent, flavor, inflate, and soufflé.

The word bugle descends from the IE root gwou- which means “ox, bull, cow.” Its paronyms include beef, Bootes, boustrophedon, bovine, buccinators (muscle in the cheek), bucolic, buffalo, bugloss, bulimia, bumelia (thorny tree or shrub), buprestid (beetle) butter, butyric, cow, cowslip, gayal (Asian ox), guar (herb), gunny (coarse fabric), Gurkha (member of the Rajput ethnic group in Nepal), hecatomb, and nilgai (antelope).

COMMENTARY: There’s an intriguing relationship here between FOOD and PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTIONS to it, particularly by women. Among the paronyms of blowing we find soufflé, a “light fluffy dish of egg yolks and stiffly beaten egg whites mixed with e.g. cheese or fish or fruit.” Among the paronyms of bugle are several FOODS and food sources including butter, buffalo, beef, guar and cow.

In the category of PHYSIOLOGICAL REACTIONS to food there is the word flatulence (the presence of excessive gas in the digestive tract; generating gas in the alimentary canal, as food). A reaction to food that is both physiological and emotional is bulimia, a condition that Wikipedia indicates is much more common among women, especially adolescents:

… Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating, or consuming a large amount of food in a short amount of time, followed by an attempt to rid oneself of the calories consumed, usually by purging (vomiting) and/or by laxative, diuretics or excessive exercise. Bulimia nervosa is nine times more likely to occur in women than men...

Bulimics are much more likely than non-bulimics to have an affective disorder, such as depression or general anxiety disorder: A 1985 Columbia University study on female bulimics at New York State Psychiatric Institute found 70% had suffered depression some time in their lives (as opposed to 25.8% for adult females in a control sample from the general population), rising to 88% for all affective disorders combined

The onset of bulimia nervosa is often during adolescence, between 13 and 20 years of age, and many cases have previously suffered obesity, with many sufferers relapsing in adulthood into episodic binging and purging even after initially successful treatment and remission.

Finally, it is notable that one of the American slang expressions vomiting is “blowing chunks”, i.e. "chunks" of partially digested FOOD.

[charmvirgo]

The sound of the bugle signifies carrying or delivering a message, news, or signal. It has a mercury quality as it is not music for music's sake but has a practical purpose to carry information, and the type of tune identifies the particular meaning it conveys to others. The message is clear, exuberant, loud, and public, like a broadcast, or like a newspaper headline. A girl carries the message so the nature of that message is youthful and fresh rather than mature.

The blowing of air in a fast movement is a very Gemini/Marcury thing and is an expression of communication. The bugle conveys a sound in a practical way. The sound is shrill, sharp, penetrating, meant to get your attention, meant to be noticed by everyone.

[sdh3]

Originally Posted by charmvirgo

The sound of the bugle signifies carrying or delivering a message, news, or signal. It has a mercury quality as it is not music for music's sake but has a practical purpose to carry information, and the type of tune identifies the particular meaning it conveys to others. The message is clear, exuberant, loud, and public, like a broadcast, or like a newspaper headline.

A girl carries the message so the nature of that message is youthful and fresh rather than mature. It could be naive or immature on the negative side. As a girl's message it is non aggressive and non competitive, but doesn't mean it can't be spiteful or brash.

The blowing of air in a fast movement is a very Gemini/Marcury thing and is an expression of communication. The bugle conveys a sound in a practical way. The sound is shrill, sharp, penetrating, meant to get your attention, meant to be noticed by everyone.

I don't think it has anything to do with bulimia which is secretive and personal and an illness related to self esteem. There is not even a vague connection and has nothing to do with sound.

I have my own formula for analyzing and interpreting the symbols. First I find the etymological root from which each word in the symbol descends. Then I place each word in the context of the other words descending from those same roots (i.e., the paronyms). Then I look for themes the connecting those various sets of words. I analyzed all 360 Sabian symbols this way. It's an objective and transparent method that clearly differs from the subjective one that you use. And that is a fact that should be celebrated--not criticized. The Sabian Symbols are amenable to many different methods of interpretation, none inherently better than any other, just more suitable for certain purposes than for others.

thoughtfully,
sdh3

[sdh3]

Originally Posted by charmvirgo

Symbols are like simple diagrams and they describe universal ideas. Symbols are about pictures not words and about seeing the larger picture. A picture speaks a thousand words and reaches the unconscious. Breaking down words into roots or syllables would be like focusing on the trees and not the forest and defeats the point of a symbol. Words are an intelletual approach, but symbols are symbolic not intellectual. Don't take it personally. I'm still interested to read what you write about the symbols.

CharmVirgo, thanks for the reply and clarification.

While it is certainly the case that symbols can be like diagrams and can be about pictures, this is decidely not the case with the Sabian Symbols, or with any of the other well-known sets of degree symbols (e.g. Kozminsky). The Sabians were given as 360 vignettes or word pictures, not as diagrams or images. Words are the only form the Sabian Symbols have ever taken since being recorded nearly 90 years ago by Marc Jones. I suspect that if he had wanted the Sabians treated as images, he could have had someone draw them. That he chose not to is probably explained by the fact that Jones saw the Sabians as the latest installment in a long series of degree symbols, symbols of a kind dating back centuries, if not longer.

With that thought in mind, it is by no means peculiar or out of place to analyze words as words. Although his approach differs from mine, Blain Bovee has done more along this line than any other published author to date. On more than 80 occasions in his book (The Sabian Symbols and Astrological Analysis) he traces the words of the symbols back to their Greek and Latin roots. He also refers to dictionary definitions in dozens of other instances. Thus, there is both recent precedent and a sound logical basis for treating these symbols first and foremost as words, as what they essentially are.

I leave you with a quote from Bovee's book:

Simple etymological research reveals reservoirs of meaning that reach the world over, tapping into every major language, expressing universal themes of the human collective throughout time. … By following the root energies of the words used in the Sabian Symbols, a vibrant sense of world cultures begins to be uncovered from what perhaps seemed at first to be very culturally specific.

thoughtfully
sdh3

[sdh3]

Quoting from page 137 of Marc Jones' The Sabian Symbols in Astrology:


"There are unlimited ways in which these Sabian Symbols can be interpreted, and the practiced student or professional astrologer need not confine himself to any one mode of approach."