Subject: Re: Venus and Mars
From: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Barb Miller)
Date: 1991-06-10, 06:39
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks
Reply-to: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu

In article <jms.4527@vanth.UUCP> jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes:
> >
> >   A while ago, someone posted the poem about Jupiter and Saturn that WE
> >   recited at the end of the last episode.  (I'd quote it, but I can't
> >   remember where I put it.)  The verse after the one Windom quoted refers to
> >   Venus and Mars.  Although Jupiter and Saturn are about as far as they can
> >   get away from a conjunction right now, Venus and Mars are headed for a
> >   conjunction!
> >
Yes, it's been fun to watch them.  This reminds me that I had tried to
do some research on that poem by Yeats and run into some stuff that
was such a tangent that it didn't seem worth posting.  However there
are a few things that might be interesting.

I believe the text of the poem as posted went something like this:
When Jupiter and Saturn meet
What a crop of mummy wheat!

The sword's a cross, thereon He died;
On breast of Mars the goddess sighed.

Supposedly Yeats felt that his two children represented two
fundamentally different temperaments, one essentially pagan and the
other (to his mind) Christian.  The first stanza refers to his son
Michael, whom Yeats describes in a letter about this poem as "born
free among the most cultivated, out of tradition, out of rule".  His
daughter Anne is the Venus-Mars, "Christian" personality, which he
describes as "democratic".  He goes on to contrast the two by saying
that the son is always thinking about life and the daughter about
death.

So much for Yeats' view of his children's personalities.  As far as
the poem goes, a very interesting link between the first stanza and
the second is that Great Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn were used
as markers for the new World-Ages (when the sun rises in a different
sign of the zodiac at the vernal equinox, which happens about every
2,000 years as a result of the precession of the earth's rotation).
In fact, a great conjunction of these two planets in Pisces is thought
to have been the Star of Bethlehem in 6 b.c., ushering in the Age of
Pisces, dominated by Christianity, one of whose central symbols is the
fish.

I don't think it's too far out to use the mummy wheat (wheat found in
Egyptian sarcophagi and still viable after thousands of years) as a
symbol of Jesus (something from the world of death coming back to
life--I think of the Easter carol "Now the green blade riseth"), which
would lead from the first stanza directly into the second, but I
imagine that Windom Earle uses it to mean something like a spirit or
symbol from an earlier world-age coming back from being buried.  Now
wheat would seem like a much more peaceful, beneficial product than
fire, which would be a closer characterization of what's coming, so
probably he was being ironic.

The Mars-Venus conjunction as a Christian temperament?  I'm not sure I
buy this from Yeats, but I suppose a case could be made for it.  The
character in Twin Peaks who seems to have had the closest similarity
to Mars' temper outbursts is Leo Johnson, and Shelly would definitely
make a good Venus.  Alternatively, if Windom Earle sees himself as
Mars (he is definitely picking a fight with Cooper) he is trying to
align himself with a queen, who would then be his Venus.  Mars never
did to Venus what Windom Earle is planning to do to his queen though.

Enough of that. I just thought some people might find it interesting
information.

Barb Miller