Thursday, September 22, 2011

Autumnal Equinox

So here we are at the beginning of Fall, 5:05 AM EDT on Friday the 23rd, to be exact, when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator from north to south, the length of day and night are equal. According to the Farmers Almanac, the Equinox also brings the time when  the Sun's apparent position on the horizon changes at sunrise and sunset.  This shift can be noticed from one day to the next if one is observant at those times.  There is a noticeable change in our physical world too, as this decrease in light causes the leaves to change color. So we are in a change of season when our physical world alters its appearance.

After the Equinox happens on Friday, we have a Super New Moon on the 27th.  A  New Moon occurs once a month when the Sun and Moon are together (we never see them).  A Super New Moon occurs when the Moon is at its closest approach  to the earth strengthening the gravitational pulls on the physical earth and on our psyches.   This extra pulling might pull us in a new direction.  Change is in the air and seen in the world around us.

A New Moon begins a new cycle, we get to reset ourselves in the sign Libra, which will affect each of us differently according to what area of our life is ruled by Libra. Libra is the sign of the scales. It is the call for balance.  As day and night are equal now, so should we be in our personal lives.  In the coming month, we strive that everybody gets treated fairly. We learn to cooperate with one another.  Remember the symbol for justice was blindfolded so ideally we detach ourselves from the situation to make unbias decisions.

The fireworks that will be evident starting tomorrow on the Equinox, come from the Sun at the beginning of a cardinal sign  connecting with the two outer planets Uranus and Pluto, also in the beginning of  two other cardinal signs.  We have talked about this before, the approaching 1st quarter square between these 2 outer planets that have much to do with the collective.  The approaching 90 degree angle  has been felt all year and is partly responsible for the "Arab Spring", when Uranus, the call for freedom and dignity of the individual meets Pluto the transformer of large groups of people. 

These 2 planets were last together 1964-65.  Next June they will make the 1st of 7 exact 90 degree squares to each other through March 2015, as this year they only came to within a degree of one another,  but are still close enough to each that after the Sun enters Libra , it meets Uranus on the 25th, then Pluto and Mercury on the 28th.  The Sun acts like a translator of the 2 outer planets and we feel the synchronicity.  These are opening squares so that the vast cultural changes we saw begun in the sixties,  have an increased intensity (the square) to further those new beginnings in more of an "evolutionary imperative" as Stephanie Justin calls it in The Mountain Astrologer magazine.

Just as we see the change in where the sun is rising and setting, the trees changing from green to red, yellow, orange, so too our psyches will be altering this autumn, some more than others.  The Sun's apparent movement into Libra and this New Moon connected to the planets of evolutionary progress will push us to think differently and take action.  Just as planets moving into cardinal signs make changes in the natural world, so too in our inner world and personal lives, some more profoundly than others.    The some include any person with planets in 5-15 degrees of the cardinal signs.  This group also happens to include:  the USA, France, Germany, China, the UN, EEC, the UK and USSR.  All these countries will be affected in the years to come by the Uranus/Pluto square, the synchronistic effects of which we are getting an inkling of this year especially now at the change of seasons.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

On New York City

I have been thinking about New York City  and how often it has been in the news lately; an earthquake, hurricane and the events around the commemoration of September 11th is alot of activity for less than 3 weeks.  I looked at the birth chart for NYC Jan 1 1898 12:01 AM.  The City has 9 degrees of Libra rising with the planet of growth, expansion and success, Jupiter rising within minutes.  This is a very good augury for the successful launch of any person or place.  On the Midheaven is the sign Cancer at 11 degrees.  There was a solar eclipse this summer at 9 degrees of Cancer on July 1st, a point on the zodiac close to both the ascendant and midheaven of New York City. This puts emphasis on the most sensitive points in NYC's (or anybody's) natal chart triggering events and notice for the year.

Eclipses are powerful Full or New Moons that have resonance not just for the month they occur.  The points where they occur are sensitive for years. Even though this partial eclipse of the Sun on the 1st of July is over, the effects of an eclipse on one's Midheaven or destiny, or how you are seen in the world continues on especially when a planet like Mars passes over that point.  Every 2 1/2 years Mars comes to conjunct that one point in the zodiac and he was within 2 degrees, at 13 Cancer on August 23rd, when  the strongest earthquake in the East for 100 years, was felt in NYC. 

Also that day we had Mars making a 90 degree angle to Saturn in Libra, crossing NYC's ascendant and also the natal placement of Saturn in the USA's natal horoscope.  Saturn in the sky has returned for the 8th time since July 4th 1776 to the degree it was when we were founded.  This is interesting in that this Saturn return and earthquake happening in the East affected 11 out of the original 13 colonies, as ASTROTABLETALK blog points out.  We talked about the contraction that occurs when Saturn comes around as it is now for the USA.  NYC and the USA share similar areas of the zodiac and so when something happens to one, it affects the other too.

Mars the planet of activity, energy, assertion, and Saturn, the planet of physical reality, the end or stoppage, were the planets, when they came in contact, that signaled the worst of happenings, accidents, falls, deaths, fires etc. for astrologers before the modern era. In other words an astrologer in London in the 1700's would see those 2 planets in relationship connected with the city's natal angles (Ascendant and Midheaven) and predict dire things. 

Then 5 days later we had hurricane Irene affecting the same eastern states.  Although the shoreline were saved, the inland areas were devastated.  Who ever heard of a hurricane (or tropical storm) in Vermont?
This was the day of the New Moon in Virgo connected to the planet Neptune who rules the seas and earthquakes as well, in that they come from under the land.

New York City was also commemorating the 10th anniversary of September 11th.  This occurred on the weekend of the Full Moon.  The Moon was in Pisces and as it was predicted with the New Moon and Neptune and Hurricane Irene bringing lots of water so to at this full Moon are we in grief and mourning with tears as we remembered how all our lives changed that day. 

If we go back to September 11th, we can see from looking at the natal, progressed and transiting charts the effects on the city that day.  It is more than I can go into here but 2 things stand out.  One is Mars on that day was within 6 minutes of exactness to the progressed ascendant to NYC's chart (note the planet Mars again going over angle of a chart and how that stirs things up;  and secondly that summer the solar eclipse was at 0 degrees Cancer on June 21st, on the world axis (EVERYBODY notices what happens when something occurs at 0 degrees of any sugn that starts a season) followed by the Lunar Eclipse, at yes you guessed it, at 13 degrees of Capricorn.  This time that degree is opposite NYS's Midheaven and conjunct its natal Sun at 11 Capricorn.

The moral for would be astrologers-watch what happens when the planet Mars goes over a sensitive point, like an Ascendant or Midheaven that has been recently eclipsed.  That person or city or country will be in the news. 

Monday, September 5, 2011

Labor Day Musings

I read alot of the Sunday paper yesterday and was taken by how much our President is being taken over the coals.  It seems he cannot do anything right, even trying to pick an evening for a major speech became another newsworthy event where Obama is seen as "ineffective", "a mother-may I" president, "the nation's  deferrer in chief" (Frank Bruni in Pass, Fail and Politics in the NYT) and having "a deficit of smarts""(same source)  not to have forseen what the Republicans would do with his aquiescing to Boehner's refusual to give him the date he suggested for his jobs speech (first time in history).

I also read David Remnick in "The Talk of the Town" in the September 5th New Yorker.  Remnick writes citing a previous article in that magazine by Ryan Lizza about how the Obama administration "maybe moving toward something resembling a doctrine".  Furthermore Lizza wrote that one of his (Obama's) advisors described the President's actions in Libya as "leading from behind".  The presidential candidates and conservative pundits have taken up the banner "leading from behind" as a sure fire way to pillor the President. 

Lizza goes on to say that in forming this administration's foreign policy two unspoken and comparatively new tenets must be taken into account.  One is that the relative power of the US is in decline and the second is that the US is hated in many parts of the world.  In joining the action in Libya, and not leading it as the Republicans would have us do, Obama is displaying a new kind of leadership, the kind that builds consensus among allies first before going into interfere into another country's affairs.  This kind of leadership does not go around "trumpeting" wins. 

The astrology supports  the conclusions in the New Yorker.  America's power is in decline.  Look at our chart.  Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn are in retrograde motion, that is 5 out of the possible 8 planets (the Sun and Moon never go retrograde) are changing orientation to the Sun, which is our purpose.  As a nation we have moved away from our center and must in time be brought back. We are no longer going forward, but have to back track, to relearn pieces we didn't get right the first time.

The leadership that Obama is displaying is in his chart, as the country follows along with its leader's natal horoscope.  We have to live with and through the President's karma.  Obama's natal Jupiter, the planet of expansion and opportunity is at 0 degrees of Aquarius. Aquarius is an air sign and feels more comfortable in a group.  The Sun, ability to lead, is strong in August, in Leo, when it is high in the sky. (Obama is a Leo but his Sun is weakened by a square to the planet of illusion and egolessness Neptune.)  Aquarius is opposite Leo, the Sun is low in the sky in February, the Sun is weak there.  Obama is not looking for glory.  He has a sense that America has made huge mistakes since 9/11 and our reputation as a trustworthy leader is tarnished. 

We are moving into the Aquarian Age when the sign Aquarius will be stronger for good or ill (Sarah Palin. Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck are Aquarians).  The next Jupiter/ Saturn conjunction will be in December 2020 at 0 degrees of Aquarius.  These every 20 year conjunctions mark new stages in our cultural, political, social development.  More of a one world concept will be in evidence and Obama can be seen as a herald.

As to his troubles right now, his progressed Moon is at the end of Pisces.  In a month and 1/2 his Moon will move into the next sign Aries, run into Uranus and his progressed Sun.  He will get fired up again and do something surprising.  It will be a time of illumination as he will be entering the progressed full moon stage of his life when one gets to see the bigger picture.  Pisces is not the sign to do any combat, you feel and just want to include everybody in your heart.  Aries is a whole different ball game, you get back on your horse.  The President's progressed Moon moving into Aries starts a new personal cycle around the wheel of life.