I argued a bit with someone recently about whether or not the Moon landings were a hoax. I have always felt vehemently that they were real, and wanted to be able to argue my point of view more effectively. So I started researching. As you know, there are so many intelligent, well-spoken, (apparently) coherent individuals who can argue their conspiracies and counter-points, and it’s easy for doubts about our own beliefs to set in. This is troubling, as part of us wants to just eradicate the opposition. But that’s not really honest sometimes, is it? However, sometimes, after a while, it seems like debating over facts just gets tiring and pointless. Therefore, instead, part of my research is to just search my feelings, and to talk to others about it. This week, the greatest clarity came not with information or tactics with which to better argue, but with a simple phrase that landed just right:
Yesterday, I tuned a piano for an elder couple in Oak Ridge, land of science. The octogenarian happened to have worked on the space shuttle, and met a couple astronauts briefly at some point in his long life. I thought It was very kind of the universe to provide me with such a client at this time. As I opened up the Moon landing discussion, it was immediately clear that they were sympathetic to my plight. We didn’t talk much about it, but he said something so on-point that it set my own doubts about the veracity of the Moon landing to ease. It went like this:
Me: “ Some people say that it’s too difficult to get the Hasselblad camera to work in a vacuum.”
Him: “I don’t see why you COULDN’T get it to work in a vacuum.”
That’s it. Very simple. It’s not just the words, but it’s how he said them - the weight behind them. It seemed so self-evident and obvious. That’s one the beauties of science: there’s a problem, and then you figure out a way to solve it. We all do it all the time, sometimes better than others. Of course, this man understood that there would be great difficulties in getting the camera to function in space. But not insurmountable difficulties.
The astrology relevant to this question is the 3rd house/9th house axis. The 3rd house simply asks “Am I seeing things correctly?” All opposite houses are on a continuum, so you can’t talk about the 3rd house as though it’s completely separate from the 9th. They intermingle, in real life, extensively, and we occupy the space somewhere in the middle of the astrological chart. However, it is meaningful to talk about the extremes of the continuum, hypothetically. Acknowledging the extremes provides context for the mixture. The extreme end of the 3rd house doesn’t say anything about what you believe — just what you see and experience. Are you seeing things correctly? Are you seeing reality? The difficulty comes in answering that question. In order to answer it, you must immediately reach across the sky towards the 9th house. As soon as you do that, you begin to leave the 3rd house, to leave the question, and formulate inclinations towards belief, or a specific way of thinking, which almost inevitably leads to actual beliefs — including philosophies and religious ideas — the realm of the 9th house. Astrology invites us to acknowledge the back-and-forth between observation and conclusion: the 3rd and 9th houses. The 3rd house is at the bottom of the chart, along with the 4th, and thus is fundamental. I used to think it was the most boring of the houses. Now I often think of it as the most important one. What good are your ideas of they stem from illusion?
Conspiracy theories (both good ones and bad ones) start in the 3rd house. The main problem I have with lunar landing conspiracies is not with the details of the arguments. It’s with the attitude, the world-view, that the conspirators hold. For many years, especially in college, I identified as a “skeptic”, so I understand the need to question everything. However, I came to a point where questioning certain things was no longer useful. There is a time and place to question. Just because there are some “evil” government figures in power doesn’t mean that the entire power structure is out to get us. Just because scientists are often involved with policies that are completely foolish doesn’t mean that scientists are all paid off. I believe that most scientists, by far, are well-intentioned and honorable in their craft. Are they often operating within a world-view that is limited and too materialistic? -absolutely. That’s just where our culture is in these times, and has been for a long time and is likely to be for much longer. And it’s probably just where we should be. But that doesn’t mean they’re out to fool us. Honestly, that’s just paranoid. I question scientific interpretations all the time - but I don’t often question the basic facts that science gives.
Embracing the Moon landing is the doing of a noble spirit. If you believe that humans can do grand things, solve near-impossible riddles, and rise to the greatest heights of passion and imagination, then it’s a natural result to believe that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon in 1969. If you feel so strongly that it’s a hoax, then you lack a certain kind of practical imagination. Yet some of these same conspirators believe in the craziest things with no problem at all — things that it’s very difficult to show to the rest of us that follow common sense. They shun mainstream wonders in favor of nonconventional fancies.
Humans landed on the Moon. It’s not an interpretation — it’s just a fact. If you want to argue against it, then please just go spend some time questioning your own motivations first. To gain astrological insight, look to see what Sign lies in your 3rd house, which planet guides that Sign, and where that planet lies in your natal chart. Also look at which planets occupy the 3rd house. Analyze the relationships that all these points have with each other, or to other points in the chart. But most importantly, just repeatedly ask yourself the question “Am I seeing things correctly?”
I assume that the third-to-last sentence should read, "...occupy the 9th house."