Zodiacal Releasing is a Hellenistic timelord technique which times out the peaks, valleys and turning points for various topics in a given life. If you don’t know anything about this, this article will be a bit of a mystery to you, so I’d suggest learning about Zodiacal Releasing here first. If you’re familiar with the technique, continue. The most well-known Lots to use with this procedure are the following Hermetic Lots:
Lot of Fortune – the Lot of the Moon (for matters of the body and general circumstances outside one’s control)
Lot of Spirit – the Lot of the Sun (for matters of one’s spirit and mind, one’s motivations for action, one’s career)
Lot of Eros – the Lot of Venus (for bow chicka wow wow).
There are also the other Hermetic Lots: the Lot of Necessity (Lot of Mercury), the Lot of Courage (Lot of Mars), the Lot of Victory (Lot of Jupiter) and the Lot of Nemesis (Lot of Saturn). These have been used far less frequently and are ripe for exploration and experimentation. I have used the Lot of Nemesis before as a point of comparison between the Olsen twins, which seemed to indicate why Mary-Kate had to go to rehab for an eating disorder while Ashley did not. I recently encountered a new fantastic example of the Lot of Nemesis in action with a client who has given me permission to use their chart and tell their story.
This client came to me with a concerning issue about their birth time. The birth time was not on their birth certificate, and their mother could only remember that she gave birth within 5 minutes of midnight on January 11th 1975, but she was not sure if it was the first 5 minutes or the last 5 minutes of January 11th! Comparing these 5 minute ranges looked like it would be extremely tricky. Aside from the Moon’s shifted position within its sign, there were few other ways to definitively distinguish these times from one another. Even the Hermetic Lots were all in the same signs- except for the Lot of Nemesis.
The Lot of Nemesis
In day charts, Nemesis is the distance from Saturn to Fortune projected from the Ascendant. In night charts, Nemesis is the distance from Fortune to Saturn projected from the Ascendant. Even just from the calculation we can speculate that the meaning of Nemesis would revolve around more negative events that befall us outside of our control, due to Saturn’s cold malefic character and the circumstantial nature of the Lot of Fortune.
Paulus Alexandrinus gives us this description of the Lot of Nemesis:
“Nemesis becomes a contributing cause of subterranean fates and of everything which is ice-cold, of demonstration, impotence, exile, destruction, grief, and quality of death.”
In Greek mythology, Nemesis is a goddess of righteous indignation, dark justice and divine vengeance, who is particularly peeved by hubris. In astrology, Saturn is definitely a planet of consequences, revenge, takedowns and comeuppances. Interestingly, Nemesis was a daughter of Nyx (night), and the Lot of Nemesis uses the Lot of Fortune as part of its calculation, the archetypal nocturnal lunar Lot. This is also interesting because Nemesis was closely associated with Tyche/Fortuna whose themes bear a close resemblance to the themes of the Lot of Fortune. Whereas Fortune is associated with chance, Nemesis is a counterbalance, a kind of punitive justice.
However, I hesitate to take too much of a cue for delineating Nemesis from mythology. In my observations with this Lot, I would hardly ever say that people “deserve” what they get with big Nemesis releasings because it can be pretty horrible. While the mythological figure of Nemesis seems to focus on retribution and justly taking people down a peg, the astrological Lot of Nemesis seems to describe the nature and timing of one’s “downfalls”, deserved or not.
So. Yeah. Not a super fun Lot. So I knew we would have to go doom hunting to figure out if the client was born at the very beginning or very end of January 11th.
A Nemesis Case Study
If the client was born between 12:00 am – 12:05 am on January 11th, their Lot of Nemesis would be in Gemini. If they were born between 11:55 pm – 11:59:59 pm on January 11th, the Lot of Nemesis would be in Cancer. If their Lot of Nemesis was in Gemini, then it would seem to indicate generally that one’s “downfall” would be represented by Mercury in Aquarius 5th, indicating rumors, controversies and accusations in creative and pleasurable pursuits. If their Lot of Nemesis was in Cancer, then it would seem to indicate that one’s “downfall” would be Moon in Capricorn 4th, connected to physical/material issues connected to one’s home and parents.
All signs ruled by the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Saturn feature Loosings of the Bond after 17 years on the major level. Therefore, regardless of whether we release from the Lot of Nemesis in Gemini or Cancer, there would be a Loosing of the Bond to Sagittarius or Capricorn on the same date, beginning on May 11th 1992. At first I thought this would complicate things because the timing was exactly the same, but then I realized this was actually perfect for testing which one made more sense interpretively.
In theory, if Nemesis was in Gemini, then the Loosing of the Bond to Sagittarius would highlight divisions and rivalries with siblings or friends, or even dangers in transit, since Mars is in the 3rd, although one imagines the rulership of Jupiter and its angular testimony from its own sign would be somewhat of an amelioration. Although it is also cadent to Fortune and the Ascendant so it’s worth considering that under this scenario it might not be quite as dramatic overall.
If Nemesis was in Cancer, then the Loosing of the Bond to Capricorn would be some sort of unfortunate event involving the home and parents. It would be especially pronounced because not only would it be a Loosing of the Bond to the sign containing the ruler of the period (Moon in Capricorn) but also the ruler of the Lot of Nemesis itself (Nemesis in Cancer ruled by the Moon in Capricorn). Additionally, due to being in the 4th sign from the Ascendant and Fortune, copresent with the IC, we can tell this would be a highly angular peak period on Nemesis, further elevating its importance in the story of one’s life.
It turns out that this period coincided with a massively upsetting and life-changing series of events. It was on October 26th 1992 that the client’s parents got in a fight and they were kicked out of their own home that night by their father. This is a dramatically vivid picture of the Moon in Capricorn 4th, literally exiled in Capricorn from its home in Cancer, and very closely opposed by its ruler Saturn in Cancer, a cruel father figure. The strong thematic correspondence of this event to the Lot of Nemesis in Cancer making a Loosing of the Bond to the Moon in Capricorn 4th would indicate that the client was born in the last 5 minutes of the day, 11:55:00 – 11:59:59 pm on January 11th. To top it off – if they were born after 11:55 pm, check out the transit their Moon would be receiving on that date, October 26th 1992:
Now, there’s a lot going on on this date, but if they were born at 11:55 pm – midnight on January 11th, transiting Uranus was less than half a degree away from their natal Moon at 14° Capricorn. This would describe a once-in-a-lifetime disruption/upheaval with regards to their home and parents, which is exactly what happened. This connection is completely lost if they were born before 12:05 am on January 11th, because their natal Moon would be at 2° Capricorn and the Uranus conjunction would have occurred 3 years earlier in 1989. This is another good argument for the 11:55 pm-midnight time.
The Loosing of the Bond to Capricorn lasted from May 11th 1992 – July 30th 1994. After the client was kicked out of their home they moved in with their grandparents. Their grandmother died at the L3 Foreshadowing period Cancer-Capricorn-Cancer, and their grandfather died at the L3 Loosing of the Bond Cancer-Capricorn-(Cancer). This is an awful but impressive continuation of the themes of the lot of Nemesis, especially through its ruler being activated in the 4th whole sign house of homes, parents, origins.
Luckily the client will never have another major event on the Lot of Nemesis as dramatic as this in the span of a normal lifetime. According to Nemesis, this was the worst it could get.
So to recap, their Loosing of the Bond to Capricorn on Nemesis coincided with their exile from their own home by their father, the end of their regular living situation that they had known up to that point, and the deaths of their grandparents with whom they had been staying.
“Nemesis becomes a contributing cause of subterranean fates and of everything which is ice-cold, of demonstration, impotence, exile, destruction, grief, and quality of death.”
Well, I gotta hand it to you Paulus, you’re not wrong.
Great article. Thought provoking. Thanks.
Thank you a lot for this article! I’m greatly interested in hermetic lots.
Sort of interesting, and certainly well-written. However, I thought Traditional astrologers don’t use Uranus, he says, tongue in cheek? My point being, well, what’s the point of using the Lot of Nemesis when using Uranus gets you the same result? Modern Astro (citing Brady here) would say, ‘Uranus is a pretty exact timing indicator.’
So that’s my primary fault with this article. From my perspective, someone who is comfortable with both Modern and Traditional, but never put much time into the Lots and could be convinced to, this doesn’t show me or convince me I’m missing out on anything. I came away after reading it going, “I enjoyed what I read but I don’t feel like I can take anything away practical from it.”