The Astrology Book

Lehman, J. Lee. The Ultimate Asteroid Book. West

Chester, PA: Whitford Press, 1988.

Schwartz, Jacob. Asteroid Name Encyclopedia.St.

Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.

LUCINA

Lucina, asteroid 146 (the 146th asteroid to be

discovered, on June 8, 1875), is approximately

140 kilometers in diameter and has an orbital

period of 4.4 years. It was named after the

Roman goddess of childbirth and the travails of

women, who was the daughter of Jupiter and

Juno. In addition to indicating something about

one’s children, Lucina’s position by sign and

house shows where one “gives birth” to various

activities or ideas.

Sources:

Kowal, Charles T. Asteroids: Their Nature and Utiliza-

tion. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Ellis Hor-

wood Limited, 1988.

Room, Adrian. Dictionary of Astronomical Names.

London: Routledge, 1988.

Schwartz, Jacob. Asteroid Name Encyclopedia.St.

Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.

LUMINARIES

Traditionally, the Sun and the Moon were referred to as the luminaries because, in

contrast to the planets, they “lit up” the Earth. The majority of contemporary

astrologers have ceased to use the term, in spite of its pleasant connotations.

LUNA

Luna is the Roman name for the Moon, and the root of the adjective lunar. Due to the

increasingly eccentric behavior that insane people exhibit during the full moon, the

Moon became linked with insanity—hence the terms lunatic and lunacy.

LUNARMANSIONS

The lunar mansions are a kind of lunar zodiac, constituted by dividing the Moon’s orbital

path into 27 or 28 segments. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight roughly corresponds to the

number of days the Moon takes to complete its orbit (28 is a day short of a synodic period

and a day longer than a sidereal month). The Arabs, the Hindus, and the Chinese all

devised systems of lunar mansions, termed, respectively, the manzils(from lunar mansionis

probably derived), nakshatras,and sieu.Traditionally, these included interpretations of the

Lucina

[418] THEASTROLOGYBOOK

An image of the planetary goddess Luna, the moon, from
a fifteenth-century German calendar. Reproduced by
permission of Fortean Picture Library.