Monthly Archives: June 2011

Lynn’s Skywatch for July, and the July 1 solar eclipse

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Lynn's Skywatch for JulyI’ve posted the Planetary Illuminations for July, and you can read the entire article here.  You can also read the abridged English translation here, and if you would like Skywatch delivered each month in your email box just sign up in the sidebar.

Meanwhile, the last of the eclipse series occurs July 1st so here’s the information on that and the introduction to July:

July begins with the Cancer New Moon and a partial Solar Eclipse.  This is the third of an eclipse series that began on June 1st and you can read more about this eclipse here.  Although this is a partial eclipse and therefore weak astronomically, it packs a more powerful punch than it normally would because the conjunction of the Sun and Moon that forms the New Moon alignment engaged Saturn, Uranus and Pluto in a Grand Cross formation.  The Grand Cross locks the three planets and the luminaries (Sun and Moon) in battle that will result in a climax of some kind in order to release the energy buildup that occurs through the square.  The presence of Saturn in the Grand Cross in a nearly exact square to the New Moon ensures that there will be a lesson of some kind to learn; Uranus will inspire that a change be made.  The presence of Pluto empowers us to leave behind anything that no longer serves us.  Resistance to these transformative forces will not only slow down the process of change, but also create unnecessary bumps in the road.

The Cancer New Moon offers us an opportunity to begin anew from a place of deep feeling and emotional sensitivity.  This is easier for some of us than others, but the Cancerian influence provides us with a nurturing well of emotional resources from which to drink. Fortunately there are a number of harmonious aspects that will help us to integrate these energies more easily.  A nice trine from Pluto to Jupiter encourages success and facilitate the larger actions that can help us to make real change.  A trine from Saturn to Mars helps to provide us with the discipline we need to inspire and energize ourselves and others.

Eclipses often serve to unmask behavior patterns that need alteration, and that will be especially true here especially where emotional patterns are concerned.  There is also likely to be an escalation of intense energy due to the challenging alignments that include the electrical Uranus.

Where a few months ago we were in an overabundance of fire energy, we now have a lack of fire represented in the sky.  Fire provides us with the inspiration to act, and without it we may find ourselves left without direction with Mars, the fire planet, still in Gemini where it generates lots of enthusiasm but with no real focus.  This lack of fire will be resolved on July 2nd when Mercury enters the fire sign of Leo and our thoughts and mental processes (Mercury) take on a more energetic means of expression for a few weeks.

 

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Fires and floods

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wildfireFires are burning in North Carolina, New Mexico and Arizona, floods are raging in North Dakota and the Phillipines.  Earlier this spring  record numbers of tornadoes ripped through areas of the country not known for them.

Earlier this spring we had a heavy preponderance of fire which is no longer the case, but we do have Uranus in Aries, which is extremely electrical, set off against the Sun and Pluto as I’ve been writing for the past week.  Transformative events which kill off the status quo are to be expected  now.  Uranus is slowing down in preparation for its retrograde turn in July so its influence is more powerful than usual.

It’s interesting to me that two of the current disasters – the New Mexico wildfire and the flood in North Dakota – are threatening nuclear power plants just as Uranus is at its tightest square to Pluto this year.  Pluto rules the kind of explosions and meltdowns that occur in power plants, and Uranus rules electricity and technology as well as radiation.  I think it’s likely that we will have further challenges to nuclear plants over the next few years as Uranus and Pluto  rages on.

A reader left me a voicemail today asking if I could write about the New Mexico fires and offer some meaning and comfort to the people affected, and unfortunately that is really outside the realm of astrological counseling.  The only comfort that I can offer is that there is a powerful energy shift that is moving across the planet – a shift that requires the complete repatterning (Uranus in Aries) of much of our society and the structures upon which we rely (Pluto in Capricorn) and the creation of new ones.  Sometimes the destruction of these structures occurs quite literally, and we must pick up the pieces and create something totally new in our lives.

 

 

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The Universe defies expectations

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Hubble telescope

I always feel a certain amount of glee when conventional science is turned on its head.  After all, conventional science pooh-poohs not only astrology, but also psychology and any other field of study which cannot be rigorously tested and duplicated without fail.

So naturally I love this:

Space is festooned with vast “hyperclusters” of galaxies, a new cosmic map suggests. It could mean that gravity or dark energy – or perhaps something completely unknown – is behaving very strangely indeed.

We know that the universe was smooth just after its birth. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light emitted 370,000 years after the big bang, reveal only very slight variations in density from place to place. Gravity then took hold and amplified these variations into today’s galaxies and galaxy clusters, which in turn are arranged into big strings and knots called superclusters, with relatively empty voids in between.

On even larger scales, though, cosmological models say that the expansion of the universe should trump the clumping effect of gravity. That means there should be very little structure on scales larger than a few hundred million light years across.

But the universe, it seems, did not get the memo. Shaun Thomas of University College London (UCL), and colleagues have found aggregations of galaxies stretching for more than 3 billion light years. The hyperclusters are not very sharply defined, with only a couple of per cent variation in density from place to place, but even that density contrast is twice what theory predicts.

“This is a challenging result for the standard cosmological models,” says Francesco Sylos Labini of the University of Rome, Italy, who was not involved in the work. …

The result hints at some profound new physical phenomenon, perhaps involving dark energy – the mysterious entity that is accelerating the expansion of space. Dark energy is usually assumed to be uniform across the cosmos. If instead it can pool in some areas, then its repulsive force could push away nearby matter, creating these giant patterns.

Alternatively, we may need to extend our understanding of gravity beyond Einstein’s general theory of relativity. “It could be that we need an even more general theory to explain how gravity works on very large scales,” says Thomas.

read more here…

I love that the Universe is bigger and more complex than we can possibly imagine, and that in order to truly understand our place in it we must let go of our old, limited ideas and embrace the magic and mystery that is found everywhere around us!

 

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Sunday inspiration: This present moment

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One of the passages in the Bible that is most interesting to me is the fact that during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as Lot’s wife was fleeing the city she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.  There are many aspects of this story that can be debated, such as the hypothesis that the “burning sulfur” emitted when the cities were burning is actually evidence that a nuclear strike rather than God’s Wrath caused the destruction of the cities, and that ancient Sumerian translations of the pre-biblical story suggest that Lot’s wife actually turned into vapor rather than salt, since in those days salt was found in vapor-filled swamps.

But for my purposes today I’d like to stick with the idea of turning into a pillar of salt when we look back into our past.

In our lives we go through many planetary cycles.  Some are harmonious and create ease in our lives.  Some have the potential to be difficult and can create havoc or open a door to more painful experiences.  I have seen clients who, after a long slog through a challenging period, are afraid to look forward into a brighter future despite the fact that their current planetary cycles are filled with blessings and opportunity.

When we feel we are stuck in a cave after a huge storm, refusing to step outside, it doesn’t matter how rosy our astrology is or how beautiful – we won’t be able to move forward.  In today’s world there are real dangers that lurk everywhere, including the fear that the world will end in 2012.  If the world is ending, some ask why bother?

We can make that cave as comfortable as possible, but we will never experience the beauty of the world around us and the potential that exists if we can just step outside for a moment and allow the warmth of the Sun to bathe us in infinite possibility.  In that moment, the experience of warmth and possibility is all that exists.

And in that moment, the rest of our life begins to unfold.

This is why the story of Lot’s wife is so important.  We can’t look back and assume that the past equals the future or we will turn into a pillar of salt: immobilized by our fears and unable to move forward.  The process of life review is an important one, but only so far as it helps us to gain the knowledge we need to move forward in a new direction.

Live fully in the beauty of this breath.  Right now.  And turn your face to the Sun.

 

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Preparing for the upcoming Solar Eclipse on July 1

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lunar eclipse July 1 2011I generally reserve my posts on the faster moving cycles for my Facebook and Twitter pages, but we have a few things going on right now that are worth mentioning here.

First, the Sun is moving into a potentially challenging alignment with Uranus and Pluto that will last until the solar eclipse on July 1st.  I see this eclipse event as the trigger for the big Uranus/Pluto square which is as close in July (less than two degrees) as it will be until the two clash for real next year.

As individuals, we have a number of different influences that make up our personality.  These are clearly identified in our birthchart which makes it easier to understand how these different facets of our personality interact and work together or clash.  As the Sun moves closer to the exact square to Uranus on June 26th and to Pluto on June 28th these different facets within us could become more difficult to integrate.  Remember that planetary cycles don’t create problems for us unless there is something that requires adjustment in order to find balance.

The Sun is a powerful force that illuminates our lives with nourishing warmth, but that powerful force, when strongly aspected with the planet of revolution (Uranus) and the planet of endings and new beginnings (Pluto) will likely reveal to us areas of our life where these different facets of ourselves require integration.

It’s human nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure, so when we are in a difficult time it’s tempting to hide out and wait until it’s over.  But if we utilize these intense cycles we can make tremendous progress in our personal growth.

Transiting Mars is in Gemini right now and everything moves a little more quickly which can be an aid in taking the kinds of action (Mars) that will create real change in our lives.  This will be a little more difficult over the next week because Mars is in a strong square to Neptune which confuses things and can sap our energy.  Mars will then face off against Chiron on the 28th which could bring up some emotional patterns which have been stuck in the subconscious but which require release so that we can move past them.

I’ll be posting more on the eclipse chart, but once again the Sun/Moon conjunction at the New Moon eclipse forms a grand cross with Saturn, Uranus and Pluto.  This is a little bit like deja vu all over again since  we had similar alignments last summer.  But all of this is preparing us for the big square of Uranus and Pluto next year.

The Uranus/Pluto square is dealing with major transformational forces rather than personal ones, so it is more likely to play out with great force in the global arena than in our private lives unless it directly aspects our individual chart.  (It will aspect my Chiron exactly next year – I can hardly wait!! [tongue in cheek])

In the meantime we can prepare by becoming more aware and conscious of our emotions and our inner world.  When you said you would do something did you really want to say no?  What are the feelings that keep you awake at 3 am?  Now is the time to give voice to the splintered parts of ourselves that keep us from feeling whole.

The Sun will point the way.

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Pagan aspects of the Solstice

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Astrologer Gary Caton has a nice article today about the pagan symbolism in the Wheel of the Year and also connects the Solstices and Equinoxes to the Tarot:

there are 4 cards in the Tarot which tell the story of these 4 cardinal points that begin the 4 seasons. The first of these cards is The Sun. This is the card of the Winter Solstice and it speaks of the re-birth of the Sun at mid-winter as the days begin to grow longer again. It is followed by The Emperor (Spring Equinox), which speaks of the triumph of Light over Darkness as the days become longer than the nights. The Hanged Man (Summer Solstice) follows, and speaks of the surrender of Light to the growing Darkness as the days begin to shorten in length. Finally we have The Devil, who is sort of an anti-Emperor and speaks of the triumph of Darkness over Light as the nights become longer than the days. …

The Horned God, who is the consort of the Goddess, takes two forms which alternate much like the yin/yang of the Taoists -the Holly King and the Oak King. This can be seen to reflect the declination cycle of the Sun through the seasons as outlined above. At Winter solstice two kings are born -the Light King and the Dark King. The Light King rules the first half of the year. At midsummer he is sacrificed (in effigy) and the Dark King rules the 2nd half of the year. The Dark King can be thought of as Bacchus or Dionysus instead of the “Devil.” He represents chaos and catharsis whereas the Light King represents order and stability.

read more here…

For a vivid description of how the pagan imagery from the Cross of Matter that is the Equinoxes and Solstices turned into Christianity, you might enjoy this clip from the first Zeitgeist Movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw

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Chart for the Summer Solstice, June 21 2011

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summer solstice 2011The Sun enters the sign of Cancer at 1:16 pm EDT, an event that we call the Summer Solstice.  The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year and the day at which the Sun reaches the highest point in the sky, but it is also a phase in the turning of the wheel of the seasons that is marked by the entry of the Sun into one of the cardinal signs (Cancer, Capricorn, Libra and Aries).  The cardinal signs are signs of initiation and action and when the Sun moves into one of these signs something is typically activated that has been dormant before.

Because of the astrological “Cardinal Drama” of the past few years, with Pluto entering the sign of Capricorn (it is now at about 6 degrees Cap) and Uranus moving into Aries (now at 4 degrees), and Saturn still in Libra at 10 degrees, every Solstice and Equinox, with the Sun at 0 degrees, has engaged the other planets in the early degrees of cardinal signs.  Since the charts for the solstices and equinoxes are tools for weather prediction and symbolize the overall energy of the following three months, it’s no wonder the past three years or so have been so dramatic.

The chart for the Summer Solstice 2011 is no less intense than the others and that is especially true for those of us in the US.  In the Solstice chart for Washington D.C.  we have the T-square of planets in cardinal signs (Sun, Uranus and Pluto) sitting right on the angles (within two degrees) when the chart is located to Washington D.C.   This suggests that the overall strife in the country, particularly the governmental factions which are located in D.C., will continue throughout the summer.

The square of the Sun to Uranus (electricity and shocking events) is wider than in the Spring Equinox chart which coincided with a record number of tornadoes across the country which suggests that the weather patterns will not be so extreme.  But the elemental balance of this chart is extremely polarized, with most of the planets in water and air.

Water represents the element of feeling and emotion, and air is the element of reason and objectivity.   These two are not naturally compatible and usually require one of the other elements to intermediate and fortunately we have that in the presence of a harmonious earth trine from Jupiter in stable Taurus to Pluto in Capricorn.  The earthy influence helps to provide a solid foundation from which the emotional sensitivity of water may interact with the sensibility of air to bring about a positive change that is both sensitive and rational.

The movement of the Sun through the seasons is an important part of connecting with the natural world.  The Sun is the most important element in the solar system to human life, just as it is the single most important element in the birthchart.  It nourishes and inspires us – it activates our life force.  If we can become more attuned to these natural cycles and live our lives in greater harmony with the turning of the wheel of life, we gain in both peace and inner wisdom.

Happy solstice!

For daily planetary news, visit my Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Sunday inspiration: Father’s day musings

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father's day astrologyFather’s Day (like Mother’s Day) can be very difficult for those of us who have lost a father through death or estrangement.

It’s interesting that the astrological Sun represents the father, and it also represents the Self.  While the mother has traditionally been the source of nurturing and emotional containment and therefore symbolized by the Moon, the father has traditionally been the figure of power in the household and the giver of name and identity.  In monotheistic society, the one god is seen as male, symbolizing that power.

In our modern world these roles are changing, such as when a father stays home to care for the children while the mother goes out to the workplace, and it is always interesting to see how this is reflected in the birthcharts of the children in these families.

Traditionally, though, challenging aspects to the Sun suggest a difficult relationship with the father.  We see this in the chart of Barack Obama, with Neptune in a square aspect to the Sun, who later wrote a book called “Dreams (Neptune) of my father (Sun)” about his struggle to understand himself (Sun) through the legacy of the father.  In my own chart Saturn and Neptune flank my Sun in a triple conjunction and Uranus squares the trio.  I had a very difficult relationship with my own father and we have been estranged for about 20 years.

The role of the father is to help to define the Self, and without a father in one’s life that job becomes more difficult.  Many of us search for years for father figures who will help us to find our Selves when they have become lost.  In modern society, only 16% of custodial parents in single parent households are fathers, which means there are lots of children growing up without a father in the home.

Challenging aspects in the birthchart don’t doom us to unhappiness.  Challenging aspects are stronger and carry more “oomph” in the chart – they create a crisis that pushes us towards self-improvement and self-awareness if we make the conscious choice to not give up.  So while these difficult astrological configurations can suggest a father that is broken in some way, they can also push us to become stronger and more resilient, enabling the Self as represented by the astrological Sun to flower and blossom.

So I’d like to leave you with this thought:  that adversity provides us with the fuel for our journey, and helps to enrich our lives in ways that simple ease and comfort can never provide.

And for all of you fathers out there, and those with fathers, a happy father’s day!

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Much ado about Comet Elenin

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Comet EleninOver the past few months I have read lots of exciting news about Comet Elenin – that it could be the Blue Star Kachina of the Hopi Prophecy, heralding the end times, or that it is actually Planet X, the Nibiru of Zechariah Sitchin fame that comes close to Earth every 3600 years.  Or that the Comet Elenin was a Brown Dwarf star headed for a collision of earth in September of 2011, ready to extinguish life on earth as we know it.

Despite the frenzy of fearmongering and misinformation, there are some interesting coincidences that have followed Comet Elenin which was discovered in December of 2010.  One scientist has found correlations between alignments of Elenin with the Sun and Earth going back as far as 2006 that correspond to increased seismic activity.


The timing of the Elenin/Sun/Earth alignment of March 15th just after the spectacular horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11th has given rise to speculation that the perihelion of Comet Elenin in September 2011 could give rise to more dramatic seismic activity.  The earthquake in Japan was preceded by an X-class solar flare on March 9th and a coronal mass ejection (CME) that hit the Earth’s atmosphere on March 10th after an M-class flare on March 7th.  As astrologers know, alignments are generally stronger when they are in their applying phase than their separating phase.

Most scientists, of course, don’t believe that Comet Elenin has a strong enough magnetic field to have any effect on Earth.

“Comet Elenin will not only be far away, it is also on the small side for comets. And comets are not the most densely-packed objects out there. They usually have the density of something akin to loosely packed icy dirt,” said Yeomans. “So you’ve got a modest-sized icy dirtball that is getting no closer than 35 million kilometers. It will have an immeasurably miniscule influence on our planet. By comparison, my subcompact automobile exerts a greater influence on the ocean’s tides than comet Elenin ever will.” (Don Yeomans, NASA researcher)

I’m not saying I believe that the poles will shift and the Earth will end as it passes through the comet’s tail.  But I’m not sure I would place all of my faith in scientists – after all, scientists have a bad habit of lacking imagination and an appreciation for the magic of the Universe.

 

 

 

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Post-eclipse wrapup

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“So other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

Some rather significant events happened yesterday, coinciding with the Sagittarius lunar eclipse:

  • Al Qaeda’s former #2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has been named the new head of Al Qaeda.  He was thought by many to be the mastermind behind the extremism of Al Qaeda, with Osama bin Laden serving more of a role as religious advisor.
  • Pakistan, our supposed ally in the so-called “war against terror” has arrested the CIA informants that identified bin Laden’s location in Pakistan, confirming the obvious theory that Pakistan isn’t really helping.
  • Vancouver sports fans rioted after their team lost the Stanley Cup playoffs.
  • A federal judge upheld a ruling by a gay judge in California overturning the gay marriage ban in that state.
  • A group of lawmakers led by Dennis Kucinich have filed a lawsuit against President Obama for violating the War Powers Act in the Libya incursion.
  • And most shocking of all, the woman that Hugh Hefner chose to be his (presumably) final wife jilted him just days before the wedding was scheduled to take place.  Gossip reports claim that her plan was to jilt him at the altar and make millions from post-jilting interviews, but evidently the market for such a thing is rather slim.
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