Tag Archives: Uranus

New Moon in Pisces!

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The New Moon on Monday follows a conjunction of the Sun to Mercury this weekend that has activated our intelligence and facilitated our reasoning.  This New Moon is a majestic lunar event that includes not only the Sun and Moon, but also an exact conjunction of Mercury to Uranus within a degree of the Sun/Moon alignment.

Uranus is considered the “higher octave” of Mercury, and it represents the higher mind where Mercury represents the individual mind. Pisces, of course, rules over the realm of imagination and creativity, but also the spiritual connection that we all yearn for in one form or another. The creative impulse that is borne out of this New Moon is powerful and intelligent in its impact, and can be harnessed for great things.

New Moons are celebrated as times of new beginnings, and this New Moon is definitely worth planning for due to the inspiration that is unlocked here. The chart for the lunation shows an unaspected Venus in independent Aries which suggests that this is not so much time for collaboration as it is for initiating new ideas and new inner awakenings.

The influence of this New Moon will last for at least a few days until the Sun conjoins Uranus on the 17th, enhancing the sense of awakening and fresh newness in the air.

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Astrological Musings Radio, Sunday morning 11 am Eastern

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On the radio this morning:  All about Uranus (please refrain from the usual scatalogical jokes!).  I’m a little late on this topic but there has been much to talk about.  Uranus recently changed direction and is picking up speed, so I thought this would be a good time to talk about the influence of Uranus both in our chart and in our ongoing lives.  I’ll also spend some time talking about the “midlife crisis transits” of which Uranus is just one of several.

Since we will soon see the return of the Saturn/Uranus opposition, I’ll be talking a bit about Saturn as well and how their influences combine.

You can also listen to the archived show later, or subscribe to the podcast.  Detailed information and a list of archived shows can be found here.
You can also call in to ask questions about your own chart.  First time callers only please!  If there aren’t enough first-time callers to fill the show I’ll open up the phones to anyone.  Call-in number is 646-478-5731.
You can use this link to listen live during the show or to the archived show later.  (If you click the player before this show airs you’ll get the recording of last week’s show.)
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Pakistan Erupts in Violence and the Upcoming Uranus/Pluto Square

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An escalating wave of violence struck Pakistan over the past eleven days is a hint of what I believe we will be seeing over the next few years as Uranus and Pluto begin to align in square formation.  This kind of insurgency is gaining a foothold not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in Somalia, Pakistan, the Congo, Thailand and, according to Russian news reports, spilling over into central Asia such as Tajikistan.  I’ll be writing more about this later, but when Uranus moves into Aries next June the revolutionary (Uranus) rage (Aries) will become even stronger and will result in more extreme measures to contain it (Pluto).
Pakistan has an intense astrological chart, with five planets in Leo and Mars sitting right at the Midheaven of the chart.  (There are several charts for Pakistan.  Pakistan’s legal independence became official at midnight on August 15, 1947, but it is generally celebrated on August 14th.  However, the oath of office to the first Governor General at 9:30 am, making the new government official.  We typically use the signing of a constitutional document as the birth time, but in the case of Pakistan a Constitution was not signed until 1956.  The independent government of Pakistan therefore began when the oath of office was administered to the new head of that government, August 14, 1947 at 9:30 am.)
I first wrote about Pakistan two years ago when Benazir Bhutto was killed as transiting Pluto formed an exact square to the ascendant and midheaven of the Pakistan chart.  At the time, I wrote “This is just the beginning of the crisis in Pakistan that is likely to begin a series of events that will lead us towards the Uranus/Pluto square of 2010-2013.”   Transiting Pluto has been opposite Mars in the chart of Pakistan since January of 2008, and that influence, which coincided with the forced resignation of military leader (Mars) Pervez Musharraf,  is just now winding down.
Uranus has had a role to play in the revolutionary fervor in Pakistan, since transiting Uranus began a challenging square formation to Uranus in the Pakistan chart in May of 2009.  Experts reported that May was the most violent month in Pakistan in five years as Uranus, the planet of revolution and radical change, became activated in the nation’s chart.  The second phase of that cycle came in late August/early September of 2009, but at the time transiting Saturn (restriction and control) was also squaring Uranus which seems to have helped to keep the lid on the growing insurgency.
Saturn and Uranus will be dancing over the angles of the chart (the midheaven and ascendant) over the next year and we are likely to see some major changes in the structure of the government and the way Pakistan as a nation views itself.  The country is going through an identity crisis right now; formed as a Muslim state, the Islamist insurgency has broken off from the Muslim mainstream.  It is this kind of splintering of governments and nations and the resulting battles between them that I believe we will see more of as Uranus and Pluto begin their square in 2011 to 2013.
Under Pluto change occurs where change is necessary, and with Pluto in Capricorn only corrupt and failing structures (Capricorn) have been destroyed.  Others, with stronger foundations, will survive and thrive.  This is a good time to look at our own lives to see where our foundations could be made stronger; where we can be more disciplined and more practical.
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Astrology in my world: Saturn in action

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A few weeks ago I went to Dulcimer Week at the Swannanoa Gathering, which is a series of music workshops held at a wonderful little college outside of Asheville.  I’ve been taking hammered dulcimer lessons for about a year and a half, and it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  Even harder than learning astrology!

I’ve always been fairly musical (Neptune is conjunct my Sun within one degree) and with Gemini rising I like to say I’ve forgotten more instruments than most people ever learn.  Gemini needs constantly new input and gets bored easily.  But then I also have Saturn on my Sun, so while Neptune is inspiring me to channel the divine inspiration, Saturn is always telling me I can’t do it.  Plus all three are in my fifth house of creative self expression, making the whole thing that much more complicated.  And to put the icing on the cake, Uranus makes a square to all three and provides the urge to flee when things get too hard.

Anyway, the hammered dulcimer is a gorgeous instrument but I have had trouble understanding the way it’s mapped out, which is unlike any other instrument.  I have a great teacher, luckily, and take lessons every week like a good Saturn girl (applying diligence and discipline).  But I am not a good practicer (Sun square Uranus, Gemini rising).

So at the workshop, surrounded by all of these fabulous players (as well as beginners) I had a crisis of confidence.  That voice of Saturn became very loud:  ”You’ll never be good enough,” “If only you had practiced all this time,” “You might as well quit.”  I became very depressed with all that negativity bouncing around in my head.

Then I sat myself down and reminded myself what I always tell my clients about what Saturn wants.  Saturn wants us to work hard, to be disciplined.  Saturn wants us to be successful, and to be focused on our goals so that we can achieve them.  Saturn wants us to make a plan.

So I trotted myself down to the student bookstore and bought a nice notebook and began a practice journal.  I made a list of all of the drills and exercises that I should do, and created a practice plan to keep me on track.  Boring and dull, but I’ve been using it for the past two weeks fairly diligently, and I have to say I’ve seen a big boost in my playing.

So now Saturn is happy, and Neptune is happy because I’m making music that is more beautiful and effortless than before.  But I still have to keep Uranus happy or he’ll begin to make trouble, so I play something new every day to break out of the routine a bit.  And to keep my Gemini ascendant happy I break up my practice time into small segments of no more than 10-15 minutes.

Most of us have complicated charts with planets that don’t get along well together.  Once we see who the players are behind the emotions, it’s much easier to learn to integrate the various parts of ourselves and achieve greater harmony and effectiveness in our lives.

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More on Pirates: The Original Rebels

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In the astrological language, Uranus is the planet of rebellion and revolution against the establishment.  The more repressive the establishment, the more radical the rebellious behavior becomes.  Yesterday I wrote about modern piracy being signified by the current opposition between Saturn, representing the repressive establishment, and Uranus, the rebel.

Johann Hari has an interesting article that has been widely published over the past few days called “You are being lied to about pirates”:

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls “one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century”.

They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed “quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy.” This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas. …

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”

This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence”

read more here...

This view of pirates is a depiction of Uranian characters who seek social and economic revolution, rather than being motivated through greed.  When you are starving and desperate, and all around you are wealthy trading vessels, the raiding of those ships becomes a means to feed your family and community rather than an act of terrorism.  It is said “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” and in the battle between Saturn and Uranus those lines are more clearly drawn.

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And now George Carlin…

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Another great journalist has died: George Carlin succumbed to a heart attack yesterday at the age of 71.

I expected to see a strong Uranus component to his chart since he was so irreverent and iconoclastic, and there is a wide conjunction of Uranus to a Sun/Mercury conjunction in Taurus. The combination of the Sun and Mercury indicates a brilliant mind with fixed ideas, and the presence of Uranus there illustrates the dislike of conventional thinking which is contrary to the Taurus nature. There is also an exact Chiron/Moon conjunction which suggests a deep and painful wound at the heart level. We never know the deepest emotional workings of public figures, but most comedians are driven by pain to find humor in their situations and this was likely true of George Carlin. Sadly, his wife of nearly 40 years died in 1997 and he was subsequently treated for drug and alcohol addiction.

His irreverence was never as biting as when directed at religion, and this is not surprising considering an exact opposition in his chart between Jupiter (shared theologies) and Pluto (compulsion and transformation). He often said he prayed to Joe Pesci instead of to God, and invented the Frisbeetarian religion.

At the time of his death transiting Uranus was making an exact square to the Chiron/Moon conjunction in his chart. I suspect that Chiron was ready to leave this earth and Uranus provided the liberating force for him to make his exit.

Jill has a great article on Carlin along with videos. Astrotheme has a comprehensive bio along with the chart. He will be greatly missed by those of us who recognize that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.

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Prediction using Astrology and the Reality of the Now

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I found this article on using astrology to predict the future from the December 2000/January 2001 issue of The Mountain Astrologer by Tem Tarriktar:

The investigation of where astrology’s influence really is may raise the question of whether things are predestined or whether free will exists. Even if events, life circumstances, and behaviors are, to some degree, predestined, we discover that we are timelessly free when we place our attention on the Here and Now and open ourselves to the present moment {3}. In this expanded state of Being, there is no separate identity left to have free will. This shifting of one’s attention to “the Now moment” is essential: although past and future seem substantial, only Now is real. Eckhart Tolle, in his book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, says it beautifully:

Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?

Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now.

Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.

What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace – and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is “borrowed” from the Now.

The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.

We practitioners of astrology tend to be attracted to the apparent security we get from knowing where the planets are and where they’re going. We can predict with certainty where, say, Saturn will be five years from now. After all, if we have an early warning of what’s coming, we can brace ourselves for the future (or open ourselves to it, if we think something positive is coming). Psychologically sophisticated astrologers who see themselves as non-fatalistic may still fixate on future astrological events in order to anticipate the energies that will arise (to try to create what they think will be a positive outcome). My point is that our impulse is to insulate ourselves with a layer of preconceptions about what is imagined as coming in the future, because we feel that the future cannot be trusted (when it gets here) and needs to be controlled. This tendency is not unique to astrologers, but we stargazers are particularly devoted to it. More than that, we rely on it to keep clients coming. Forecasting the future is our business as long as clients expect it of us. The future is the “bait” with which we hook most new astrology clients and students.

Many clients come to see an astrologer in the belief that the astrologer, the designated seer, has a better view of the future than they do. Unless the astrologer is way out in left field, the client, to some degree, adopts the version of reality presented by the astrologer. For instance, how can you get pronouncements like “pay attention to any chest pains you might have in June” totally out of your mind? Being given this power by the client, the astrologer may feel infallible and begin to make arrogant assumptions about the client’s limitations, talents, and hidden problems – all apparently based on the chart. In the worst-case scenario, the astrologer forgets that the client is more than a soup of cosmic symbols. I know that I did all this when I was reading charts.

The predictive astrologer weaves a story of the future for the client, a tale typically woven from a combination of textbook keywords, memories of previous transits, and the astrologer’s beliefs about life, people, and the world in general. The scenario presented by the astrologer often has only a vague resemblance to the actual future experience of the client. The astrologer knows deep down that he or she is on shaky ground and may be simply guessing at what shape the future will take – all to satisfy the client’s expectations.

This “educated guess” may be supported by years of astrological research and lots of charts, tables, and graphs. It may be flavored with a smooth, sophisticated presentation of psychological terms, astrological jargon, and so on. But the truth remains: The astrologer doesn’t really know what’s coming. The future is unknown.

Sometimes we DO know what is coming; we can sometimes tell that under a combination of Pluto and Uranus influences a bad marriage will break up and the client will once and for all leave that terrible job. But we can’t predict this because the future is set in stone; rather, because we know the degree of development this client has reached and how close they are to being able to create their own destiny and break out of the shackles that have bound them to the difficulty of their charts.

So often clients ask me “Is this relationship meant to be? Is there something in our charts that says we can’t be together?” And the answer so often is, can you (or your loved one) overcome the difficulty in your chart that is keeping this from happening? Can he stop deceiving and blaming you and work on his own internal issues? Sometimes the relationships that feel the most fated are the most destructive. Is this fate or compulsion?

Past, present and future – all are permeable, malleable by what we do in the immediate Present. This is the only moment we have – is there a song in our heart? And if not, what are we going to do about it? For me, these are the important questions.

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My Mars Pluto Story

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I hesitate to write this, because the transit of Pluto to my Mars is only at its midpoint now, but many of you have written and are curious to know my experiences so I’ll tell you what I’ve learned so far.

First let’s look at the players. Mars in the birthchart shows the way we express our desire nature. What we want, how we set boundaries to defend what we have, how our basic drives are expressed and what those drives desire. Pluto is often called the “higher octave” of Mars, because where Mars acts as the Will of the individual self, Pluto acts as the Will of the higher self. The outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, each is a higher octave of a personal planet and assists in the soul’s evolution of that personal planet. For example, Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury, and takes the concept of learning and communication to a higher level.

When Mars and Pluto interact, either in the birthchart or by transit, on a transformational level we have the Will of the personal self colliding in some way with the Will of the higher self. Our individual desires are subsumed by the process of the soul’s evolution to take us on a path of growth rather than personal satisfaction. This can result in tremendous frustration and dissatisfaction, especially if Mars and Pluto are in stressful aspect in the birthchart, or if the individual is successful at aligning the individual Will with the higher self, there is a tremendous focusing of individual power.

Someone asked me yesterday, “how do we know that we have worked through our issues so that we get to the higher manifestation of the planets?” Our personal issues and personality quirks create resistance within us to the unfolding progress of soul growth. As long as we identify with these issues and quirks and hold onto them instead of relaxing into the process of change, the difficult planetary transits create lessons and challenges for us in order to facilitate that process. Once we have stopped resisting and feel enough trust in the process so that we surrender each moment to the energies of the planetary gods as they work to deepen our evolutionary story.

I didn’t know what to expect during this Pluto transit, which began for me at the end of January. Mars in my chart is in Capricorn, which makes me a very big DO-er as some of you know, and it conjuncts Chiron which shows that the necessity of doing under Mars in Capricorn is both a wound and the key to healing for me. I have always been a person who says “Just Do It” ; Capricorn doesn’t really care about personal excuses and the desire (Mars) for achievement (Capricorn) is a powerful drive that has been a great motivator for a somewhat consistent exercise program. However, when Pluto was exactly on my Mars I found I couldn’t move. I felt like I wanted 2000 pounds and it was difficult to even walk from my house to the car. I remembered what I had counseled so many clients with Mars/Pluto in their charts, and forced myself to walk and get to the gym occasionally and did find that the action helped to create more energy. Great job, I told myself.

I had been working on beginning online astrology classes and had nearly 100 people express an interest in the classes, and I was fired up. However, in the midst of the first hit of Pluto when I began to schedule the classes there weren’t enough people to participate. I surrendered beautifully to that and congratulated myself on my brilliant navigation of Pluto.

Pluto was less than a degree from Mars in my chart when it changed direction and started heading for Mars again, and I began to feel a simmering rage begin to burn in my intestines (solar plexus). This started causing some real physical distress and I looked back in my ephemeris to see when Pluto last aspected Mars in my chart, which was a square formation back in 1972. That was the time I ended up in the health center at the university I was attending, suffering from severe intestinal cramping. The natal Chiron conjunction to Mars suggests not only a fear that my needs will never be met, but it also provides a link to the physical body through Chiron for health problems to arise when this issue is confronted.

A situation with a neighbor began to exacerbate this burning rage and caused a confrontation in which I attempted to exert every bit of my power and need to control. A casual breakfast with my mother turned into a disaster as old wounds (Chiron) erupted to the surface and could not be held back. At the same time, it became clear that my 18-year old cat was nearing the end of her run. It is not uncommon to face death in one form or another during a Pluto transit, because we are never more aware of the power of life in a physical form than when we are exposed to death. My relationship with this cat has been extremely complicated, but knowing she would soon be gone made me realize how attached I had grown to her over so many years.

All through this, I could feel Pluto pressing in on me from all directions and my physical energy was completely sapped. It was as though Pluto was saying to my DO-er Capricorn Mars, STOP EVERYTHING!! So I took four days to retreat into my home. For the first two days I literally did nothing other than watch movies on TV. By the third day I was starting to feel reasonably human, and by the end I was, while not back to normal, at least functional. Some of the draining of physical energy is due to holding back the flood of rage that is stored in the body, and while I have released much of my inner rage over the years there was evidently still some left!

When we go through a big planetary transit like this the energy of the transiting planet needs to be assimilated so that we can absorb what it has to teach us. The first phase of the cycle is like a drive-by shooting – it wakes us up, but then we usually go back to sleep. By the second phase we recognize the need to pay attention and we begin making adjustments and alterations to our behavior and our mindset so that we can incorporate the lessons of the planetary god we’re dealing with. Pluto demands that we let go of anything that no longer serves us and face up to the responsibilities of real power – the kind of power that flows within us that goes beyond the ego. Pluto requires the death of ego so that a more transcendent power can be born – a power that aligns us with our own higher self and Universal Consciousness as well.

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A New Direction: Neptune, Rahu and the New Moon

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Sunset Activation, by Francene Hart

One of the more interesting things about planetary activity this month is the fact that Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto are all slowing down to a “station” as they prepare to change direction. Jupiter traverses less than a degree during the month, Saturn less than half a degree, Uranus just one degree, Neptune only about 11 minutes, and Pluto just over 30 minutes. The influence of all of these planets is particularly focused and intense now, and this is exceptionally true if any of these planets are affecting us by transit.

The Nodes of the Moon are not planets; they are points in the sky where the Moon crosses the ecliptic, or the apparent path of the Sun. The North Node represents our evolutionary direction towards the future; the South Node holds us back. Aspects and transits of planets to and from the North Node often point to a change of course, or a (usually) fortunate event that aligns us more completely with our evolutionary journey.

Neptune opens our eyes and our hearts to a different way of seeing and healing – one that comes from within. Neptune’s reputation for confusion and illusion and deception arises from the fact that sometimes in order to encourage us to look a little deeper for answers we can lose our footing and try to find those answers elsewhere. The alignment of the North Node this week signifies a change of direction that (a) encourages or (b) forces us to let go of our attachment to what we thought was real in order to deepen our experience of the true reality that transcends the physical world.

This aspect coincides with the Taurus New Moon tomorrow, and a Grand Trine of Venus, Saturn and Pluto which are all in Earth signs. All this wonderful Earth energy helps to ground the Neptunian longing for transcendence and can be used to help us along the path. Grand Trines offer opportunity but require focus and attention to take advantage of the positive energy that is present now. Intentions that are set now during this New Moon period will have tremendous power for the weeks to come.

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Void Moon Research Project

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The first full day of the Void Moon Research Project was last Thursday April 17, when the Moon was void between 1:59 am EDT and 6:10 pm EDT. The Moon was finishing up in Scorpio where it aspects a T-square in my chart involving my Moon, so I thought that if I was susceptible to the Void Moon that would be a good time to test it. That day all of my plans went smoothly, although Friday was a different story. By Friday the Moon was firmly in Libra where it set off another big square in my chart to Uranus.

Comments to the initial void moon post yield a mixed result. There are some anecdotal reports of difficulties during the void moon, and just as many not. So far we have no conclusive information.

I will say that I did notice during the void Moon that I had a sense of relaxation and a desire to explore more fully my inner life, but that might just have been because I had a relatively relaxing day. So let’s try another round.

The next Void Moon is in Scorpio and occurs tomorrow, Tuesday April 22, at 12:47 am EDT and continues until 5:07 pm EDT when it enters Sagittarius. Please report on your experience in the comment section, and if you begin a project on Tuesday keep track of its progress so that you can determine later whether the Void Moon had any effect on its success.

Thanks for participating!

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