astrological meditation on rulership, and the firing of Mariner skipper Lloyd McClendon

In astrology, a planet in its rulership is is the ruler of sign, meaning it must call the shots. They say this is like a President, or someone in power, calling the shots for a Country, but it's also more than this, or less, and it gets confusing to understand. Yesterday, Lloyd McClendon was fired as the manager for the Seattle Mariners, and got me thinking what a manager did, and how this related to a planet in its rulership. First off, a manager manages.... he makes the batting order for each game, and calls players up or down from the minor leagues, but he's not responsible for the big trades the front office makes, which would be another rung of rulership, I'd imagine. The General Manager is responsible for the actual roster, and the owner is responsible for hiring the GM, so maybe the GM and the manager are co-rulers, something that doesn't happen in astrology, except when the moderns ascribe the generationals (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto), but the GM fires the manager, so in a way he does the dirty work for the owner. But the GM really doesn't run the team, or get them in shape for the season. He's not hands on like the manager, who is literally overseeing the team day after day, so I'd have to give the manager the ultimate responsibility over a team, like a planet in its rulership.

I first learned that a planet in its rulership was like the owner of a restaurant and that the workers along with the manager were like planets in a house, with the ruler either overseeing them daily (a planet in its rulership), seeing them from an aspect, and out of the corner of his eye, or not seeing them at all (aversion). In this framework a baseball manager would be akin to the players, or planets in a house, and would have nothing to do with rulership. A manager is just another hired hand unless he's in league with the GM and is consulted for every major decision the team makes, otherwise it's his responsibility to manage the team: he makes the lineup, or the schedule; the on the field decisions, or the events that may or may not occur during a shift; and generally makes sure his players are well rested and able to do their job, but there's little else he does. The manager is the hands on ruler of a team, like a restaurant manager, but his actions can go for review to the ownership, and the face of this in the restaurant world is the money man, or owner, while in the baseball world it's the GM who is the next closest to the owner. I'm sure some managers have an exalted status where they not only take care of the daily operations of the team, but they are also responsible for the big decisions, but Lloyd McClendon was not one of these managers, and I'd dare say the Mariners have not had someone like this since Lou Pinniela, if even then. Many managers are almost like journeymen players and are gone in a year or two without anyone remembering they ever existed, and Lloyd McClendon was one of these.

Clearly, Lloyd McClendon did not do his job this season. The Mariners were just terrible at the fundamentals of the game, and though the manager isn't actually on the diamond making plays, I'd say his first and primary responsibility is to make sure the players are living up to their minimum potential, which would be to make sure they hit, field, and run the bases well. He can't make them hit in the clutch, or overperform, but he can make sure they are doing what we all expect of a major league player, but the Mariners lacked this early on, and that's always a sign of a poorly coached team. Their heads weren't in the game.

Astrologically, I'm not sure where this leaves me, adn it might be part of the problem with metaphors, or why they are so hard to get to stick. A local restaurant is a much easier situation to analyze because more than likely it has one owner, or maybe a couple, who hires a manager to oversee the daily operations of the restaurant, while the owner would be busy running his own life. I'd imagine the less established a restaurant the dicier this proposition would be, but once it was up and running it would be easy to imagine the owner taking his leave, and leaving the restaurant to the manager and the workers. If you have a strong manager, this may be easily done, but managers move on and they are likely to stray from the owners perogatives unless they are paid very well, or are friends with the owner, both exceptional circumstances. The astrological idea of a planet ruling a house in a horoscope is that if that planet cannot see that house, or is averse to it, then the management of the house would be left seriously in question, and one would wonder if the significations of the house would ever bear fruit. A great example of this would be a chart with the 7th house unoccupied by planets, and the ruler averse it. A transit may awaken things for the 7th house, but transits are temporary, and more likely than not marriage may not be in the cards for this chart, or at least not one that worked well. The ruler would be rejecting the house, and with no planets occupying the house the success of its daily affairs would be seriously in question. Even if planets were in the 7th house, they'd be without the resources or aid to successfully manage their affairs if the ruler of the house was rejecting them, or averse the house, but if it could see it then at least the planets would have the help of the owner.

The situation has a few quick variables:

1. The ruler of a house either sees it or doesn't.

2. The house is either occupied by planets or not.

3. The ruler sees an occupied house, or doesn't see an occupied house.

4. The ruler sees an unoccupied house, or doesn't.

I'd imagine a house in astrology that's unoccupied with the ruler averse it would have a very hard time fulfilling the significations of the house in a way that would be satisfactory to the native.

A house that's occupied with planets, but whose ruler can't see it, might see partial success in realizing the signifcations of the house, but there also might be a feeling of anarchy there. It would be like a restaurant that was up and running but largely ignored, and open to mischief, either from the planets occupying it, or transits from other planets. It wouldn't be getting the necessary care from the ruler.

A house that is occupied with planets and whose ruler can also see it is a part of life that's firing on all fours for the native. More than likely, he will topically live out the significations of the house, whether they be for career, home, travel, or marriage, but the degree of success will have to do with the essential nature of the planets involved.

A house whose ruler can see it, but is unoccupied may be the trickiest situation to fathom. I'd imagine the house is well looked after but there is not much action there. For example, if the 10th house of career was unoccupied, but the ruler could see it and was essentially in good shape, there might some real hope for a career to bear fruit, but there also may be the hint of this more than the reality... a little success here, a little success there, but hard to sustain.