Blizzard New Year's 2014 Post

Merry Christmas Part Two has become Blizzard New Year's Post. Sequestered in the house, in front of the fire, watching the birds at the feeder and drinking chai; it doesn't get any better. My thoughts and fingers move to type and write. The exact moment of the Winter Solstice, the Venus station and the New Moon on New Year's Day have passed but the effects of these most recent astronomical events linger. And what does each signify?

The Winter Solstice, when the Sun moves into 0 degrees 0 minutes of Capricorn, begins winter.  Occurring December 21st this year at 12:11 PM EST, the Sun appears to stand still (sol-Sun and sistere- to stand still). According to the Farmers Almanac the length of the day on the 19th of December was 9 hours and 4 minutes and remained that way until the 22nd when it increased to 9 hours and 5 minutes. From the 16th to the 25th the length of the day went from 9 hours and 5 minutes, to 9 hours and 4 minutes to 9 hours and 5 minutes again. For all apparent purposes the Sun stood still. That is why the ancients celebrated, and we have continued to make festivals at this time and again at midsummer, to encourage the Sun to move again. ( It is the Sun's path seen from the earth that has reached its lowest possible altitude in the Northern Hemisphere, before reversing direction).

We were choir rehearsal on that Saturday Solstice day and after having been there a few hours, all of a sudden we disbanded.  I looked at my phone and it was 12:11 PM.  The sudden shift in energy was noted. (This is not unlike what we spoke about last time with Washington's Army crossing the Delaware as Mars moved into 0 degrees and 0 minutes of Libra, commencing a surprise attack at the Battle of Trenton, which was a turning point in the War for Independence.) The Sun moving into 0 degrees of one of the four cardinal sign initiates one of the four seasons. When Mars moves there our energy and will force accelerate, as it did for Washington and his hungry and shoeless army. Here we are talking about the Sun moving into 0 degrees of Capricorn, and the beginning of winter.

The Solstice moment has another feature to it, astrologers use it to gleam trends for the upcoming year. I listened to Gary Christen's Solstice talk 2013 (available alabe.com) and he explores some interesting ideas. As we are still experiencing the effects of the Uranus/Pluto opening square, we are set for deep seated changes that appear suddenly. Now these can be on a personal level, if these two planets are connected with your natal chart, or in our culture, which is rapidly advancing technology as a solution. (Uranus-sudden and technology and Pluto-deep seated change)

I saw confirmation of this last night on PBS's Newshour segment on robotics. Amazon is looking into using drones to deliver its products, a reporter drove Google's car last summer which drives itself, companies are building robots with expressive facial gestures that communicate with and respond to humans. Gary thinks that the 3-D printers which actually produce objects and the use of robots in manufacturing, will take more and more jobs away from humans. Breakthroughs in medicine will also be forthcoming (leukemia had one last Fall). The Teutonic plates of the earth are moving. The Atlantic Ocean is getting wider. The only Teutonic plate that has not moved recently is the one near Washington and Oregon. An ad from Motley Fool on the New York Times digital this morning spoke about Near Field Communications (NFC's) technology, where credit/debit cards, which began with the Diners Club card in the late 40's will become obsolete. We will be purchasing and paying bills with our smart phones-no more plastic.. (already an option on Nexus phones). 

Gary says we are in a period of radical transition. 2014 will bring weird transportation issues in NYC, the possibility of a military campaign in the Spring, more earthquakes, Republicans and Democrats still at each others throats for 1 1/2 more years, more polarization, conservative fashion trends with hems going down and "the real truth" still being covered up. Early March, the 3rd week in April, May and the Fall are critical times, mid terms in November bring more "dumb people" into office  He also postulates that some important personages may pass, which has already happened with Mandela leaving us and now Sharon gravely ill.

Of course there is one elephant in the room that nobody talks about; that is the CME's, the coronal mass ejections from the Sun. A CME is a massive burst of solar wind and magnetic field that rises up from the Sun's surface, reaches into space and affects the circulation in the upper atmosphere of the earth causing more Northern Lights and potentially affecting our electrical grid, weather patterns, bird migration patterns and our nervous systems. The series of Uranus/Pluto squares mentioned above in effect from 2011-2016, are a part of the unsettling period we are experiencing now.
First auroras of 2014.

There was a huge CME on July 23rd 2012, one of the fastest CME's ever recorded, but it was not aimed in our direction. And another last October 25th. The Sun is now in the active phase of its 11 year cycle. During the high point of the Sun's 11 year cycle the magnetic polarity of the Sun reverses. Stanford University's Wilcox Observatory issued a press release on November 11th reminding us that the Sun's magnetic field was in the process of flipping and should occur in the next 3-4 months.  (See earthsky.com November 11th 2013). No one knows what effects, if any, this will have on earth or any other body in our solar system.

But as Bruce Scofield says on naturalastrology.com in the 'Cycles of the Sun article', probably many processes on the earth are affected by the Sun, we just have not explored them yet. We need to look more closely at what is happening between Sun and Earth as a unit and not separately in regards the intermingling of electromagnetic fields. Someday we might even be able to validate astrology with concrete evidence. Gary says that will come in 2025-26..We have a lot to look forward to...