There are times when it is legitimate to question whether we astrologers know what we are talking about. The season just initiated when the Sun entered the cardinal sign Cancer this week could well be one of those times. Not because there is anything wrong with astrology or astrologers, but because the subject matter is so big.
To be specific, just describing what the Sun and Moon will be doing in relation to each other over the course of our nascent season is going to be challenge. To only begin with, it will be difficult to separate the topic from the language accounting for it — especially when the theme is beginnings.
When the Sun entered the cardinal sign of Cancer on Wednesday (or Tuesday, depending on where you live), time zones were the only real complication when it came to recounting it. Resolving that one hitch requires anybody, regardless of location, to realize that the moment in question transcends artificial human constructs.
It is an indisputable fact that the moment of solstice is simultaneously shared by every being in the world. When the Sun stands poised overhead at the Tropic of Cancer is when it enters the sign Cancer. In that instant time zones cease to have meaning, and we are one under a Sun that is at the point of rising and setting as far north as it ever will, no matter where you live.
The beginning of a season is thus both simple and profound if you can manage to rise above the unnecessarily illusory (and political) artifact that is a time zone. Once you begin contemplating the next most obvious and essential celestial phenomenon — lunar cycles — both apprehension and description rapidly begin to get both more subtle and complex. That’s because lunations (the period during which the Moon completes a full cycle of phases) require you to think of both the Moon and Sun as a unit.
The backbone of the 12-sign tropical zodiac used by astrologers is the motion of the Sun as seen from the Earth. For that reason, solstices or equinoxes take place precisely and without fail every time the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn). The civil calendar most of us use is also, when considered as an annual whole, fundamentally solar. That’s how the date of solstices and equinoxes will vary by no more than a day or so from one year to the next.
The Moon, however, keeps its own schedule in relationship to the Sun, and hence in relation to both the zodiac and the common calendar. Observe over a long enough period of time, and you will eventually see a given phase of the Moon take place on every calendar date and zodiac degree. During the course of the season we all just started together, the disparity between the solar and lunar schedules will come into play.
The initiation of a lunar cycle is when the luminaries (Sun and Moon) come together to share the same degree of the same sign for what is called a New Moon. Based on that idea, events correlated with a New Moon are thought (and often proven) to represent a beginning, after which developments proceed to a climax as the the Moon waxes to fullness. This is subsequently followed by a period of denouement after the Full Moon and before the next conjunction of the two luminaries
Because the Cancer New Moon taking place later today (or early tomorrow — once again depending on your time zone) is so soon after the solstice, the solar and lunar cycles are currently closely synchronized. The next New Moon (on July 23 for nearly all of us) will perfect the pattern of both the luminaries operating and developing on the same time scale, when the Sun and Moon meet in the very first degree of Leo.
After that, with the New Moon and total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, the Sun and Moon begin a temporal divergence from their spatial relationship. That will be the second time they come together in Leo this year — at the penultimate degree. This is when the job of astrologers will get more complicated at the most fundamental level.
If anything represents a point of departure greater than either the Sun changing signs or a New Moon, it’s a solar eclipse. The fact that the Sun will move on to Virgo less than 28 hours after the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21 will raise important questions astrologers will be challenged to answer. It’s easy to anticipate that what starts after a New Moon will develop and express over the course of an entire lunation, when cycles of the Sun and Moon are as closely coordinated as they will be this month and next.
But what of the lunation initiating just as the Sun is finishing its 2017 tenure in Leo? Will correlations to lunar development after the second of two Leo New Moons be somehow abbreviated or attenuated? Will earthly events corresponding to the Sun and those related with the Moon somehow proceed to diverge in their timing?
Or (as suggested by the exceptional nature of a total eclipse that will be visible to tens of millions) will it be appropriate to transcend customary perceptual canon in a way reminiscent of how our recent solstice at least momentarily obviated human conventions of time? In all probability, at least some astrologers will rise to the occasion, but only after coming to terms with the fact that the conceptual breadth of our field is as big as it gets.
Indeed, the same principle will implicitly apply to you, regardless of whether (or to what extent) you are an astrologer. If there is anything to astrology, what the Sun and Moon will be doing in relationship to each other over the next three months or so will somehow apply to everybody, each in their own way.
After all, if there is anything big enough to both contain and exceed the field of astrology, it must certainly be the profound privilege of life itself in a body made of stardust. Regardless of what happens either before or after the Great American Eclipse, have no doubt that you have what it takes to rise to any occasion life has to offer.
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You know Len, the Eclipse set up reminds me a bit of the build-up we see every year for the Christmas holiday. After Thanksgiving (here in the US), there comes a frenzy of shopping and activities in anticipation of the Xmas holiday, all of which takes place under the Sagittarius Sun. But lo and behold, come the December Solstice and the shift of the Sun into Capricorn, an Earth sign, there is often a sense of the fiery energy never quite fulfilling it’s promise on Christmas morning.
I wonder if the same dynamic may be at play with the Eclipse- a big build-up in fiery Leo, yet the energy will suddenly need to find it’s expression in Virgo (and doubtless the Moon will be in Virgo sooner than the Sun). Many folks here in Colorado are going to be heading up to Wyoming or Western Nebraska to see the Eclipse, and I have a vision of what happens right afterwards. Everybody blinking in the full light of the Summer Sun after the Eclipse ends, looks around and says “Now what?” Because they’re in the middle of nowhere, with many other folks, and there is literally no place to go and nothing to do.
All the fiery energy of the build-up, and then suddenly “plop!” Back on Earth. Maybe it’s all about how the fiery energy of the Leo Eclipse will energize the details of life in Virgo? Time will tell.
Listening to Eric on PW/FM, he mentioned how the degree of Eclipses can last a long time; a triggering/sensitive point of future transits. Len (Aquarius, the sign opposite Leo) said: “a coming to terms with the fact that the conceptual breadth of our field is as big as it gets it.” This one (New Moon) being on the penultimate degree, is easier for me to remember some of the details, of this new beginning; Mercury being retrograde (in the sign of its rulership), and Sagittarius rising. Virgo’s ruler will retrograde back into Leo on Aug 31, and some important details could be revealed, went Mercury turn direct and passes over this degree (twice) again; during that (aha) moment of truth. But, in the mean time, there should be not doubt about us witnessing the lower manifestations of Leo being played out now by POTUS (Leo rising). Another manifestation of Leo was our former President; his Sun in Leo (sixth house), and Aquarius rising. The latter coming from his soul; the former lost in the shadows of his ego driven personality.
It’s difficult to predict how the Great American Eclipse might affect us. Perhaps Great America will be eclipsed. Hubris may humble those who, for so long, have dominated and the Donald will meet his match in a final showdown with Arnie, the ex-Terminator. Johnny Depp, revealed to be a Dalek, buys the film rights and we all live happily never after.
Then, again, chief niwot’s son, your vision of a sad and lonely post-ecliptic come-down reminds me so much of my experience at the first Glastonbury Fayre (1971) when, on the Monday morning, we all had to say goodbye to a weekend of living the alternative lifestyle and had no idea what we would do when we touched base in London again after such a cosmically-reorganising encounter. In truth, we must experience this eclipse and allow it to take us where it will. I believe, without believing in religion, that humankind’s destiny is in safe hands. Namasté.
Thanks Geoff, couldn’t really speak to the collective/Aquarian situation; its so much my experience as well. In Amanda’s recent post: “Mean What You Say”, she mentioned the need to check your facts. Mercury in Gemini Square Stationing Neptune in Pisces: the Grenfell Tower Fire, Unheeded Warnings, and the Impenetrability of the Money-Driven, Authoritarian Establishment. This was posted on June 17- http://willowsweb.blogspot.com/ This was very helpful in understanding another collective experience to which I couldn’t speak too. Namasté.
Very many thanks for the link, Glen, much appreciated. Willow sums it up pretty well, IMO, although why it should be considered anarchic to tell the truth defeats me. Perhaps that’s a new post-truth definition of truth: anything which destabilizes the house of cards must be a lie. Pluto shaking the ground under the feet of the mountain goat, perhaps, preparatory to moving into the age of the accredited truth-seeker? Eventually there will come a time when the weight of the bullshit exceeds the capacity of the workforce to support it. Call Hercules, there’s a new labour to perform.
Every tenant helps the landlord buy the property he rents. One might ask what function a landlord performs in society, apart from a little forward-planning re: housing needs and some low-level administrative activities. In return, the tenant is deprived, often permanently, from any prospect of owning his own home because his working wage is too depleted for savings after paying “the rent.”
As the tenant of a property belonging to the largest residential landlords in Europe, I can testify to many ways in which the ethos of such large corporations is predicated on profit rather than protection. Which is odd, really, because the whole business is a protection racket – pay me money and you can live on my land and I’ll see off anyone who threatens you. Unless, of course, they offer me more money than you can pay, in which case you’ll be evicted. (Corleone, “How to start a family,” page 3).
The figure for the number of fatalities in Grenfell Tower may or may not be true but I can’t help feeling skeptical that there were only 79 deaths in the 151 flats destroyed by a fire which started after midnight. It’s known that whole families perished. Where were all the other occupants – shelf-filling at the all-night supermarket or clubbing it up on their social security benefits?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40380584