GUMEZISHN ASTROLOGY

About the Practice

Gumezishn Astrology began with my reconstruction of Sasanian-Hellenistic astrology, particularly its remarkable conception of fixed stars and planets as participants in a continuing celestial contest. Sasanian astrologers assimilated Hellenistic and Indian technique and blended it with their own and with Zoroastrian doctrine; my developing practice continues that process of synthesis while clearly distinguishing historical evidence from my own reconstruction and contemporary interpretation.

That reconstruction has since become the foundation for a broader contemporary practice drawing on Zoroastrian cosmology, Azarkeivanian Zoroastrian Illuminationist thought, Hellenistic astrology, and other traditions concerned with fixed stars, celestial beings, cosmic polarity and the relationship between human and celestial realities.

I hold a PhD in Classics from the University of Toronto; my dissertation examined how different groups in the Roman world involved in risky trades like mining, quarrying, silvopastoralism, and beekeeping, used votive religious dedications for confidence, guidance, and protection.

I've held research positions and taught in the UK, Canada, and the US, and published internationally on ancient religion, votives, epigraphy, beekeeping, and technical literature, including a study of one of the earliest known artistic depictions on an ancient Greek vase of catasterism, the ancient theme of mortals transformed into the sky.

I'm a Professional Member of the International Sidereal Astrology Association (ISAA): https://siderealinternational.org/ 

Celestial Vocation

Zoroastrian cosmology describes a creation in which celestial and earthly beings participate in an ongoing struggle between Asha (Truth, Order, Good) and Druj (Lie, Disorder, Evil). For a contemporary astrologer, this raises questions that extend beyond historical reconstruction: how might a person understand their own celestial belonging, vocation, and responsibility within such a cosmos?

Many people today approach similar questions through the language of Starseed. I do not claim that this is an ancient Zoroastrian concept, or that Zoroastrianism teaches the modern Starseed worldview. Rather, Gumezishn explores where this contemporary experience can be placed in dialogue with older traditions of celestial relationship and cosmic participation.

Gumezishn Astrology develops this into the idea of celestial vocation: that our relationship with the stars can be explored not only as a question of identity, but of what we are capable of bringing into the world.

The birth chart can therefore be read as a map of celestial relationships and tensions that become consequential through human action: the qualities we may cultivate, the forms of disorder we may be equipped to resist, and the particular forms of good we may be capable of creating.

Celestial identity becomes meaningful through earthly action.

Sources, Reconstruction & Interpretation

Gumezishn Astrology distinguishes three levels throughout the practice: historical evidence, historical reconstruction, and contemporary interpretation:

1) Where primary sources establish a doctrine or astrological relationship clearly, I identify it as historically attested.

2) Where evidence is incomplete, distributed across sources, technically ambiguous, or contested, I identify my reconstruction as such.

3) Where I extend historical material into a contemporary astrological or spiritual interpretation, it is identified and sources shown.

Principal primary sources, like the Greater Bundahishn, Shkand-Gumānīg Wizār, Mēnōg ī Xrad, the Dēnkard, Hikmat al-Ishraq, Waridat w'al Taqdisat, Desatir, or Dabestan-e Madaheb, are read alongside modern scholarship on these and other texts by scholars like Panaino, Raffaelli, MacKenzie, and others, as well as Hellenistic and Sidereal astrological sources and scholarship.

The aim is therefore not to claim that every element of Gumezishn Astrology was practiced historically in precisely the form presented here but to recover what can responsibly be recovered and reconstruct what can reasonably be reconstructed for the needs of the current time.

The Logo: A Diagram of the Mixture

The Gumezishn Astrology logo is designed to depict in shorthand the stellar battle described in the Bundahishn.

At the center sits Saturn, alone, undefeated: spahbedān spahbed, general of generals, the pivot the whole structure turns around. The four arms extending outward are a literal compass, each pointing to one of the four quadrant-commanders and the direction it was posted to guard at the dawn of the Mixture: Jupiter to the north, Venus to the south, Mars to the west, Mercury to the east.

Colour is used to indicate outcomes of each battle. Saturn and Mars, the two undefeated, hostile generals, are shown in solid orange: victors, unpacified, still holding the ground they won. Jupiter and Venus appear pale, ringed in starlight, the two who lost their own contests and were compelled ever since to distribute the very goodness that defeated them. Mercury's power alone is split evenly between the two colours, marking its own contest, a stalemate with Sirius, as the one the myth itself leaves genuinely undecided.

Around the outer rim, at north and south, two smaller circles sit apart from the four generals entirely: the lunar nodes, Gochihr, read in this tradition not as combatants who won or lost, but as a dragon already bound, corded to the sun and moon's own chariots. Their place on the boundary rather than the compass points reflects that difference: contained, not defeated.

Two powers stand at opposite ends of everything. Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda): wise, luminous, the maker of everything good, and Ahriman, his enemy, ignorant, destructive, driven only to spoil what he cannot make. Ahriman broke into Ohrmazd's finished creation and tangled it: order with disorder, good with evil. The Pahlavi (Middle Persian) sources call this state Gumezishn, the Mixture. It is where we still stand.

This has a location, not just a name: the spihr ī gumēzishnīg, the sphere of the Mixture, the actual band of sky the zodiac occupies. And the parties involved are specific, not abstract. Five named pairs, planet against star, still hold their positions:

• Kēwān, Saturn,  against Mēx ī Mayān ī Asmān, the Peg at the Middle of the Sky, the pole star. Saturn won. He commands the rest, undefeated, hostile, general of generals (spahbedān spahbed), holding the center itself rather than any single direction.

• Wahrām, Mars, against Wanand, Vega, general of the west. Mars won too. Unchecked, still fighting.

• Ohrmazd, Jupiter, against Haftōring, the Great Bear, general of the north. Jupiter lost, and was bound ever since to give away the very goodness that beat him. (Confusingly, this planet carries Ahura Mazda's own name. Some sources say this was deliberate, the planets, though hostile, were given divine names to hide what they really were.)

• Anāhīd, Venus, against Sadwēs, the star Fomalhaut, general of the south. Venus lost too. The same sentence: compelled to give.

• Tīr, Mercury against Tishtar, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, general of the east. Neither won. The only true draw among the five, which is why Mercury is beneficial when conjoined, bounded, or overcome by beneficial planets (Jupiter, Venus, Moon, Sun), but malefic placed in the same situation among malefic planets (Saturn, Mars).

Two further figures, the lunar nodes and a wandering comet, entered the sky the same day, and were bound rather than defeated by the Sun and Moon.

The stellar contest continues in the present, and the birth chart marks the particular moment at which your embodied life entered this Mixture (Gumizishn). It provides a snapshot of the celestial relationships surrounding that incarnation and a starting point for exploring how you might participate in the ongoing work of creation.

I offer two different services that serve different astrological purposes:

1) Chart Defense Training: A weekly group class, £20/session, no chart required to attend (can be taken in person in Exmouth (Exmouth Healing Centre (times TBD) and online).

2) Natal Reading: A private session focused on your own chart, £100, 90 minutes (includes prep-time and client package), return reading discount.

Start with the Natal Reading first if you want to know exactly where and how to best apply the strengths of your own chart.

Start with Training if you want to learn how to read the sky accurately, recognise difficult planetary conditions, work consciously with beneficial celestial influences, and develop practical ways of responding to the celestial weather shown in a chart. The emphasis is not passive prediction but participation: learning how to meet difficult conditions with appropriate virtues and actions while making constructive use of the strengths shown in the chart. A Natal reading will facilitate how best you can participate in that stellar weather.

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