{"id":684,"date":"2019-06-03T15:09:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T16:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/?p=684"},"modified":"2019-06-03T15:09:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T16:09:33","slug":"gong-gong-our-newest-addition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/2019\/06\/03\/gong-gong-our-newest-addition\/","title":{"rendered":"Gong-gong, our newest addition"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are about to receive another named planet into the astrological fold. It was discovered in 2007 and given the provisional name 2007OR10<\/sub>, originally nicknamed \u2018Snow White\u2019. Its new name will be Gong-gong, a water spirit, or demon, in ancient China. We will get to the mythology of our newest member in a bit. The discovery chart is below (bigger<\/a><\/span>):<\/span><\/p>\n

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Gong-gong was discovered on 17 July 2007 at Palomar Observatory by Megan Schwamb, Michael Brown, and David Rabinowitz. Up until now it has been the largest dwarf planet without a name. In 2019 the discoverers hosted an online naming competition<\/a><\/span> (archived) for \u2018Snow White\u2019. From the three names offered \u2013 Gong-gong, Holle and Vili \u2013 Gong-gong won out. I participated, and am happy to say that I went with Gong-gong. That being said, the planets name themselves. Enough people were impressed by the name that Gong-gong won.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gong-gong is not pronounced as it is written. What we have is a Romanization from the Chinese pronunciation of Chinese, \u00a0\u5171\u5de5 (G\u00f2ngg\u014dng) or \u9f94\u5de5 (G\u014dngg\u014dng). The closest we would come if we are Westerners would be \u2018gong kun\u2019, with the emphasis on the first syllable. That perhaps goes to how its actions in horoscopes will be judged, too. It, along with other dwarf planets like Makemake, Haumea and Quaoar will have their names mispronounced, especially by English-speakers, for a long time to come. Then, too, this Gong-gong is not an Oriental dish<\/a><\/span> prepared from sea snails.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other names put up for adoption are of interest, but they will also go to show why Gong-gong was chosen, or we should say, impressed upon our consciousness. Starting with Holle, she is from the German, a.k.a. \u2018Frau Holle\u2019, \u2018Mother Hulda\u2019 and \u2018Old Mother Frost\u2019 \u2013 number 24 of Grimm brothers\u2019 Children’s and Household Tales<\/em>. She predated Christianity and was the goddess of spinning and weaving. From Wikipedia<\/a><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrau Holle resides somewhere above the earth, and the protagonists must go to her, paradoxically by diving into a spring. When she makes her bed, loose feathers are ‘stirred up’ and fall to earth as snow, and so this fairy tale is an origin myth as well. Comparison between Frau Holle and a weather or earth goddess is inevitable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She personifies good behavior and bad, and metes out the\u00a0 appropriate rewards for each.<\/span><\/p>\n

As to Vili, this was a Norse god, one of the brothers of Odin, along with V\u00e9. His name means \u2018will\u2019 (as in will-power). The three brothers represent the creation story<\/a><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo the first human couple, Ask and Embla, \u00d3\u00f0inn gave soul and life; Vili gave wit (intelligence) and sense of touch; and V\u00e9 gave countenance (appearance, facial expression), speech, hearing, and sight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They were equivalent to the Trinity in Christianity, though they predated Christianity. Odin is the best-known and was the most powerful of the gods, the head of yet another trinity, and the most occult.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that brings us to Gong-gong. My own reason for choosing Gong-gong out of the three choices had little to do with my work with Chinese astrology. It came out of work that I had done five years before in researching these little planets, and we\u2019ll get to why in a bit. Gong-gong\u2019s mythology<\/a> <\/span>is as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGong-gong is a character in ancient Chinese legends and is known to be the God of floods. According to the legends, Gong-gong had red hair, a human face and a snake\u2019s body<\/strong>. He was thought to have a black dragon as his ride and he was thought to be a descendant of the Yan (Flame) Emperor.<\/strong> It was said that Gong-gong was ambitious, cruel and vicious though stupid at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most famous legend concerning Gong-gong is the story of Buzhou Mountain. At a certain time in ancient China, the throne of heaven was passed on to Zhuanxu, who did not care about the mortals and also treated his fellow Gods badly. As a result, Gong-gong, along with some other Gods, formed a rebellion party in attempt to usurp the throne. A long and heated war began and Gong-gong\u2019s party began losing more and more warriors. At the end, Gong-gong was forced to the northwest end of the world, next to Buzhou Mountain by the opposite party. There was nothing else that Gong-gong could do except to accept his failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Angry that he has lost his claim to the throne in heaven, Gong-gong smashed his head against Buzhou Mountain in his rage. Buzhou Mountain was thought to be the pillar supporting the sky in the northwest direction and with the smash, the pillar was damaged and could not support the sky any more. As a result, the sky, together with the sun, the stars and the moon all started to tilt towards the northwest while the land started to tilt towards the southeast<\/strong>. Everything started to fall towards the sea, there was a great flood and people on land suffered greatly. The Goddess Nuwa took pity on the people and tried to mend the sky. Though she was unable to do it completely, the situation did get better, allowing people to continue to live on land. It was thought for this reason rivers in China flow towards the southeast, while the sun, the stars and the moon moves towards the northwest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026there are some versions of the legend saying that instead of being a tyrant, Gong-gong was actually a good person and leader living in ancient China. It was said that he made major contributions in tending floods and water problems. Apparently, it was he who suggested filling the lowland areas up and building dams on those areas. Apart from tending floods, Gong-gong was also known to make major contributions to farming in China and it was said that he is the second most important figure in ancient Chinese farming, right after Shennong\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There is another version of the myth<\/a><\/span> where Gong-gong is depicted as a black dragon who, allied with a wicked nine-headed demon, Xiangliu, caused ruptures in the earth and unleashed terrible creatures from the underworld, floods and great destruction, killing countless people. This latter sounds very much like an Atlantean myth, with the war between the Brothers of the Dark Face and the Brothers of the Light, causing the sinking of the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n

The common theme to both of Gong-gong\u2019s myths is that he crashed his head into Buzhou Mountain in a fit of pique and desperation, causing the Earth to tilt on its axis, giving rise to the seasons and changing the courses of rivers, as well as the rotation of the Earth. In that respect he has similarities with Ceres, though he is a male god. He, too, represents turning points, but his turning points are more in the realm of mind, given his bashing of his head into a mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Often we find at the time of discovery of planets that outer events coincide with the discovery and symbolism of those planets. Twelve hours after the discovery of Gong-gong there was a terrible airline crash<\/a><\/span> in Brazil when a plane overran the runway on landing and killed everyone on board, as well as people in a nearby structure. There was also severe weather and flooding in the UK that summer. On the day there was also a 6.8 magnitude quake in Japan that damaged a nuclear power plant. And there were heavy floods in India in the two weeks preceding. Referring back to the discovery chart, we see that Gong-gong had just entered Pisces prior to its discovery, ruled by Neptune, god of the deep oceans.<\/span><\/p>\n

But perhaps the most revealing part of the chart relates to the Sabian symbol at the degree of the Midheaven:<\/span><\/p>\n

A man\u2019s secret motives are being publicly unmasked (17 \u2013 18 Aquarius)<\/span><\/p>\n

We also find that Mars squares the Meridian axis and Mercury is on the \u2018train wreck<\/a><\/span>\u2019 degree of Cancer. Its discovery roughly coincides with the period wherein the Great Recession really started to take hold with the subprime housing crisis in the US. Its entry into Pisces (2006) also roughly coincided with a growing pronounced concern with rising sea levels and climate change. Al Gore\u2019s An Inconvenient Truth<\/em> was released the year before. [For an ephemeris, go here<\/a><\/span>, and enter 225088 for planet number.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin to unmask what this little planet actually represents to us, then. Physically, Gong-gong is located in the scattered disc, and it has an orbital period roughly equivalent to that of Eris at 551 years. Its inclination off the ecliptic is only 30.7\u00b0, though, which is about 15\u00b0 less than that of Eris. However, the eccentricity of its orbit is slightly greater than that of Eris. It is approximately the same size as Haumea. It displays a 3:10 orbital resonance with Neptune, and it is currently located at the projected longitude of 4 Pisces 30 at its retrograde station, at a declination of roughly 12\u00b0 south. It will be in the constellation<\/em> of Aquarius until 2054. It will also be in the sign<\/em> Pisces during that period, and through the remainder of this century. But those distinctions bring up a point of real interest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gong-gong passes through 24 of our current constellations \u2013 half of the original Ptolemaic 48 \u2013 Camelopardalis, Auriga, Lynx, Cancer, Leo, Sextans, Crater, Corvus, Hydra, Centaurus, Lupus, Norma, Ara, Telescopium, Sagittarius, Microscopium, Pisces Austrinus, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Pegasus, Andromeda, Pisces and Perseus. From that list you will notice that some of the zodiacal constellations are missing \u2013 Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio \u2013 half of them. That has significance, too, which we won\u2019t go into here. We could probably rightly say that Gong-gong has its own zodiac. Considering what we see from the zodiacal degrees, they are actually projections onto the ecliptic, and this brings up some rather interesting considerations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, consider that the major planets (the planets from Mercury through Neptune) all transit through the twelve zodiacal constellations plus Ophiuchus (between the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius). We won\u2019t go into the nonsense about the 13th<\/sup> \u2018sign\u2019 here. Those same planets also sometimes graze through the top portions of Orion and Cetus, but we don\u2019t count those in astrology. Perhaps we should. It is the dwarf planets that routinely transit through the non-zodiacal constellations. All told, they give us another view of the heavens and open new vistas to us. And, as it turns out, when the dwarf planets change constellations<\/em> (not signs), they signal events. This brings us to why I chose Gong-gong out of the three names, but we can start with what it signals when it changes the normal zodiacal signs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider the following dates and what followed quickly thereafter: 1938 (Aquarius), 1905 (Capricorn), 1886 (Sagittarius), 1871 (Scorpio), 1857 (Libra) and 1841 (Virgo). Immediately after it entered Aquarius, WWII essentially began in Europe, our biggest human disaster in modern history. Air power (Aquarius) became the prime strategic objective. In 1906 Mt. Vesuvius erupted and devastated Naples. There was also a typhoon in Hong Kong that killed 10,000. But more than that, it was a landmark year in physics, with seminal papers by Einstein, the Annus Mirabilis<\/a><\/em><\/span> in physics. The first powered aircraft appeared around that time, too. The \u201800s of the last century were quite a decade. The very structure of matter (Capricorn) was discerned and humanity realized its first powered flight off the surface of the Earth (also Capricorn).<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1886, Europeans began to colonize Africa (Sagittarius, foreign exploration and conquest). Krakatoa erupted in Indonesia the next year. But it also marked the patenting of the first automobile by Karl Benz (also Sagittarius), the first electric motor, the first modern welding machine, electric arc lamps and improved electric transformers. Power transmission became possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

1871 marked the formation of the French Third Republic and the German Empire. The Reconstruction was underway in the US after the Civil War. In physics, thermodynamic entropy was finally defined. This has wide ramifications and refuted certain aspects of Newtonian physics. Essentially, this showed that heat was an energy, which had been believed before to be a particle that had mass. The Reconstruction<\/a><\/span> was a very Scorpionic time in the US and kept the South and blacks backward for many decades after the war. The occult side of Scorpio showed through with the work in thermodynamics (Mars, fire and heat).<\/span><\/p>\n

1857 saw the revolutionizing of the steel industry with the Bessemer converter going into production. This related to finding the correct balance (Libra) of materials and process to produce good steel in mass quantities. It gave a huge boost to the industrial revolution. The first Singer sewing machines (Venus, for families) appeared on the market. The first trans-Atlantic telegraph cables were laid. This was a revolution in communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the early 1840s the Daguerreotype camera was introduced. Photography became widespread. The world then had \u2018perfect\u2019 capturing of images (Virgo). Hypnotism was first named in 1841. Anesthesia was used for the first time a year later, revolutionizing surgery (Virgo). Do we see a pattern emerging? The technologies and science that came when Gong-gong changed signs revolutionized the thinking and industry of the times. This is repeated but in finer detail, when we mark the changes in constellations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few examples \u2013 the constellation, the date entered (approx.) the discoveries and the date of the discoveries:<\/span><\/p>\n