Sagittattitude Fool Moon
We are approaching the Sagittarius Full Moon on Thursday at 5:19 a.m. GMD (in the Western United States on Wednesday at 9:19 p.m. PDT and in the Eastern Thursday at 12:19 a.m. EDT).
Sagittarius is the scene of quite a bit of action in our era of history, home to the core of the Milky Way galaxy, the Great Attractor and currently to three named outer planets -- Pluto, Ixion and Quaoar. This is an impressive Full Moon, located just over one degree from the Great Attractor (at 14 Sagittarius and 2 minutes), a point outside our galaxy. While not exactly "the center of the universe" it could certainly feel like that to the unsuspecting observer whose toupee got pulled off by the point. Whatever this Full Moon represents, it is some kind of big development, be it personal or otherwise.
On the individual level and on the collective, we get a moment where it is relatively easy to sort out fact from fiction. Because the Attractor has a polarizing effect, sometimes pushing emotions, opinions and ideas to extremes, the theme of contrast -- already inherent in a Full Moon -- is emphasized. If there is a challenge to the chart, it is that our values are in some way tested, as is our collective sense of protection of what we value. There also seems to be an issue of "protected speech" -- that is, the right to say what must be said under some kind of constitutional, regal or spiritual guardianship.
This lunation is also conjunct Quaoar, a new planet (discovered and named in 2002) associated with family patterns and family systems. This is the planet of personal creation myth as told by the family pattern. Sagittarius is the sign of international affairs (ruled, interestingly, by the Earth in the Esoteric Astrology system described in the article below) and we certainly have some international flavors coming up in this chart. It's fair enough to say that the world is a family and that we need to do our best to treat one another as such. Idealistic, I know, in a world where civil war is generally contrived by business.
The Full Moon is sextile Neptune in Aquarius (covered in Friday's edition), an aspect that feels like it represents psychic sensitivity rather than psychic noise. And it occurs the same day that retrograde Venus in Gemini opposes Pluto in Sagittarius for the second of three times, due to the retrograde. We are now just days away from one of the most historic astrological events of our lifetime, the transit of Venus to the Sun, which occurs on June 8.
Meantime, this week's Full Moon occurs in the exact degree of the Pluto-Saturn opposition that occurred a month before Sept. 11, 2001, and in the exact degree where Pluto was that morning. This calls for some kind of token "Sept. 11 development" prediction, perhaps some news event calling attention to the realty of how the attacks were exploited for every purpose other than improving world safety.
It is, in any event, the latest in a long series of aspects that loosely translate to pay attention. Sagittarius is optimistic enough; pay attention to the possibilities.
Birth Right: Claim Your Data
My astrology angels have been nagging me to post an item reminding people to find their birth data. In practical terms, this means your birth time, since most people already know the day and the place.
Formerly the province of royalty, your birth data gets you a reasonably accurate astrological chart, should you ever need it. If you're uncertain of your time, I suggest you track down the data long before you think it's necessary. My feeling is that knowing your birth time has an orienting effect on one's life. This effect may feel subtler than a martini, but so what. You have a right to know when you made your entrance to the planet. It is not too much to ask.
In modern times, it is customary throughout the Western world to record the time of birth, and legally mandated many places. I say that this time will give a reasonably accurate birth chart because some times are questionable, such as when the time is said to be exactly on the hour. Few people are born at 10 o'clock sharp; the bus can barely get its act together. Still, it's better to know the stated time than nothing at all, and most competent astrologers will be able to sort out any lack of certainty of some minutes or an hour well enough to get the job done.
The time matters. This is so because it is used to calculate the ascendant, or the sign that is rising. This is vital in its own right and, in turn, because it places the planets and other points in their proper houses. Also there are charts where the time of birth determines the sign of the Moon, which changes signs every two to three days and changes degrees every two hours.
How accurate must the time be? It matters with some charts more than others. There are charts where getting it down to the minute is pretty much essential, because the end of one rising sign and the beginning of another is near; with others, approximations work pretty good. It becomes more important if your astrologer wants to work with your progressed horoscope, which is based on your time of birth.
In a few weeks I will post an article giving some of the methods of acquiring your birth time when it can't be got by the more conventional methods, and dealing with the question of birth time in the event of adoption -- adoption being a separate issue about which I have much to report.
For most people, the basic method of getting your birth time is first to check your birth certificate, which may have the data written in. Many of my clients have had success calling the hospital where they were born. If these methods do not give you the information you need, ask your mother, if she is available to ask (most people do that first anyway). But as Lou Reed says, you can't always trust your mother. Confirm with your dad, if he is available. Then you have to reconcile any differences in memory. If neither of these methods work out, or if you need additional confirmation, start asking relatives who were around when you were born. At worst, you will learn some interesting personal and family history and say hello to your kinfolk.
If you mention why you are after this nugget of information, be prepared for some people to think you've gone a little wiggy. Astrology is the province of kings, gypsies and freaks.
When speaking to mom or other relatives, it's helpful to ask not just the time of birth but the story of your birth, and to ascertain as much as possible her term of pregnancy with you. If the birth time has not been officially recorded, or written down somewhere like a "baby book," asking her how exactly she knows the time is a good idea, since it will give clues as to the accuracy. The story of your birth is important because you need to know her state of mind and state of affairs at the time; often drugs are involved in childbirth, for example, and these can skew her memory and impact your life.
If you ask someone about your time and get an answer like, "You were born in the morning," you will need to have journalistic follow-up questions ready, such as, "Mr. President, was that before or after daybreak? Morning, as in breakfast time, or morning, as in right before noon?" Then you keep asking questions and taking notes until you have a list of facts from which you can deduce information that will be very helpful in the case of fuzzy data.
The story of your birth is significant because it contains much information about the life that follows (the birth script), and it's good to provide the basic facts to your astrologer -- most will be interested. This is worth a good article or a book: c-section births have a distinct mark on one's life; as do forceps births; drugs; whether dad was present at the birth and so on.
While you're getting your own birth time, ask your parents and other relatives for theirs, and record them in a safe place. Your parents and siblings can be enormously important, particularly as you deepen your astrological inquiries and want to know what astrology has to say about your relationship to your family, to your culture and beyond. Family astrology is beyond fascinating; it is useful as a spiritual tool like few others available, and it is very personal.
One last point here. In the event that your birth data is impossible to acquire, there are several methods that astrologers can use to do your chart, and they all work well enough. The favorite is using a chart cast for sunrise for the date and place you were born. These charts work quite well and the solar house system is a beautiful thing. Another is for an astrologer to use the time of the first phone call or the time you walked into their office as the birth time (everyone has their techniques here). I have gotten very good results with both of these methods. The third and most complicated is called "chart rectification," which is the process of reconstructing the probable birth time based on the available facts as well as your life history as told through astrology.
Rectification will use the times and dates of key life events and sometimes astrological points of significant people in your life to help deduce your ascendant. Because the ascendant and its opposite point, the descendent, respond to planetary events (transits) pretty dependably, tracking the astrology of several of these events can provide a good working chart. This process takes a while, it takes a good astrologer several hours or longer, and it can be expensive for this reason. So it's best to get as much about your birth data as you can before going down that road.
More in a few weeks, when some of the Venus in Gemini stuff has been written. Speaking of which...
Gee Whiz: Esoteric Venus, Esoteric Gemini
Venus is now retrograde in Gemini, and in about one week will make an exact 'transit' of the Sun: it will cross the disk of the Sun much like when the Moon does and creates a total eclipse. This occurs on June 8. It will take about six hours beginning around sunrise in England and Europe; when the Sun rises over the Eastern United States it will already have begun. For the West Coast it will happen at night. This event is not visible to the naked eye.
For the second time since beginning the study of astrology, I've become somewhat possessed of Alice Bailey's work Esoteric Astrology. Published in 1951, I rate this among the most influential astrology books of the 20th century, though it's unusual in that few people ever speak of it or make reference to it. You will see it in book stores only occasionally, though it is in print. I believe there is a bit of a taboo on this book. It is part of something much larger called A Treatise on the Seven Rays, of which it is volume three. That, in turn, is part of a body of ideas called Theosohpy, a spiritual-philosophical movement that has its origins, interestingly, around the time the last time Venus transited the Sun, in the late 19th century.
To give you an idea just how uninterested the astrological community is in a book that has influenced some of the most lucid, loving astrologers the world has known in recent times (Isabel Hickey, Dane Rudhyar, Melanie Reinhart, Rob Brezsny and many others), The Mountain Astrologer refused an article on the 50th anniversary of Esoteric Astrology a few years ago; they would not even look at a draft. Yet this is not so strange when you consider that the astrological movement is largely divided into those who are in harmony with the esoteric principles Bailey proposes and those who are not. One needn't have encountered the work to be in tune. An author you have read may be right in there with its concepts; your astrologer's teacher may have studied the work. People without a natural affinity to the message of Esoteric Astrology are unlikely to have any interest at all.
Broadly speaking, the word "esoteric" means concerned with the inside of life rather than the outside or appearance; with the soul rather than the personality; with collective events rather than individual ones; and with that which is hidden from common discussion and perception rather than that which is widely exposed.
The overwhelming message of the book seems to be that the Earth and the Solar System are soaked in a sea of divine energies most of which are invisible and not directly associated with a physical object. These energies condition us, inform us and the further we go with our self-development projects (generally thought of as spiritual projects) the more we feel the effects of these forces.
To take astrology on this level is a bit risky and it involves a commitment. The work deals with a phenomenon known as the "Seven Rays" of God, or conditioning forces that guide the evolution of the planet. Esoteric Astrology takes into account the influence of stars and objects beyond our solar system (including several fixed stars, which modern astrology rarely considers), and it presumes knowledge of the place of our solar system holds in the context of six other solar systems which are part of a common journey we all share. To be sure, this work stretches belief, reason and credibility. But in my experience it is extraordinarily dependable.
Part of my motivation for looking at this work now -- much like the last time, in the spring of 1998*, when I was living in Germany -- is seeking the largest possible context in which to understand several forthcoming major astrological events.
One of these is the Venus transit of the Sun on June 8. Because this is an event that no living astrologer has ever experienced, and because it seems to be something of obvious importance, we need sources other than past experience to explore its themes, speculate, make predictions or understand it in astrological terms.
Alice Bailey in this book proposes an alternate system of planetary rulerships than the one traditionally used by astrologers. In this system, Venus rather than Mercury is the ruler of Gemini. She does not explain why this is so, but rather suggests that astrologers work with the proposition and see what happens. (There is a whole set of new planetary rulers, which for example place Neptune as the ruler of Cancer and Mercury as the ruler of Aries.)
Making the connection between Venus and the mental world of Gemini supports what for me has been a clear sense that Venus is about intelligence -- though the kind that lately is being called emotional intelligence. It's not exactly brain smarts but rather a kind of clarity that comes from the heart, and the presence of which can lead to wise choices and a clear sense of self. It is the most precious form of intelligence there is.
As for the Seven Rays part. Bailey associates three signs with the Second Ray (Love-Wisdom), and these are Gemini, Virgo and Pisces, which work together. Note that all three are signs on the mutable cross -- the last (missing for this ray) arm of this cross being Sagittarius, which is associated with other rays. She appears to be describing the Second Ray as mutable. It is subject to change, influence, and the impressions of thought, what she calls the will aspect of love. As Aleister Crowley stated it: "Love is the law: love under will." As she explains it, we do not realize that love can be a voluntary act of will and is not necessarily just a reflex.
Working through Gemini we have the influences of Mercury (traditional) and Venus (esoteric). Also, it is the point of entry for the energy of the fixed star system Sirius, which is an extremely high integrity mental plane energy, in my experience associated with what you might call the psychic architecture of the manifested world.
Gemini is symbolically the sign of the twins, and twins are a symbol of dualism. Duality is one of the most pressing conditions on the planet and in our experience of it, wherein reality seems to be pitted against itself. Common forms of dualism are self vs. other; make vs. female; us vs. them; individual vs. group; sleeping vs. awake; alive vs. dead; adult vs. child; soul vs. ego; and on and on.
In Gemini, all forms of opposition seek resolution and as a result they will seek expression first because (some would say) it's not possible to resolve what you don't express.
I'll leave you with a few comments from her chapter on Gemini. "This is," Bailey writes, "the force which produces the changes needed for evolution of the Christ consciousness at any particular point in time and space. It is always compatible to the requirement."
"This sign" she writes some time later, "is sometimes called the 'constellation of resolution of duality into a fluid synthesis'. Governing as it does all the pairs of opposites of the zodiac, it preserves the magnetic interplay between them, keeping them fluid in their relations, in order to facilitate their transience into unity, for the two must finally become One."
She suggests here that the 12 signs will eventually be thought of as six unified entities. Many astrologers already think of them this way. What happens in any given sign is inseparable from what happens in its opposite sign. Each contains the other. They are the same thing, seen from two viewpoints. And while we are experiencing one of the defining events of our lifetime in Gemini, Sagittarius is certainly the scene of some extremely interesting activity.
It is the home of the Galactic Core, the center of the Milky Way. It is the home of the Great Attractor, which is a mass of dark matter pulling toward it our entire local group of galaxies like some kind of huge magnet. It turns out that whenever Venus transits the Sun (that is, when it crosses one of its nodes when the Sun is there) it is either on or opposite the Great Attractor.
Sagittarius is currently the home of three outer planets, Pluto, Quaoar and Ixion, each of which will be contacted three times in the course of Venus's movement in Gemini this spring and summer. As I have written before, Quaoar deals with family patterns and how they influence our consciousness. Ixion is the dark side of human nature and "that which we are all capable of." Pluto is the rough and ready, all-purpose evolutionary engine of the astrological system. Pluto is where we go when we are seeking deep changes; indeed, when we are seeking to accomplish the impossible.
So, that's some food for thought. If you're thinking "what does this mean for me," think on, MacDuff. Ponder these things as I do the same, and develop these themes in the next few editions.
Planet Waves Monday Horoscope
Aries (March 20-April 19)
Get your house in order. You've been feeling this calling for a long while and you have not, I propose, been wasting your time, because you've been working to untangle one particular issue of rather enormous importance. But you now need to pick up the tempo, largely because you will have more important things cropping up on your agenda. To do this, as you're seeing, entails a real degree of emotional working-out and that is a major component of the work. This is preparatory for another phase of your life that is dawning rapidly. And the light will come; for now keep your focus on your inner space, your world within.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
This is no doubt a trying moment for you and you may once again feel like you are being tested past all limits and any hope of success. But the process that is now unfolding has been predestined all your life. This is a crucial moment for learning to think with a long term strategy. It is clear that you may feel called upon to make very significant sacrifices. Yet there is a deeper calling. You would do well at this point to ask yourself whether you have given your true gift to the world. Now that another very complicated matter that was taking up a lot of your time has been resolved, you can get about this important business.
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
You are living two lives. This is usually true; Gemini is about two of anything it's associated with. But now you've really got the parallel universe thing happening, and these two dimensions are coming into exact alignment over the next few days as Mercury and Venus come into exact aspect from Taurus to Gemini. To me this speaks of change or inspiration that materialized out of nowhere, yet at the same time feels so familiar you will have seemed to know it all along. You are on course for a genuine breakthrough or revelation of the theme: completely different but exactly who you are. Get used to it! There is much more to come.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
The imaginary wall is gone, or you are on the other side of what seemed like impossible territory to enter. Now it's yours to explore. There is an inner world available -- new feelings, desires and experiences of yourself. And there is an outer world that is waiting for you. Imagine that this is a time in your life when you've left home for the first time; you no longer stand in the shadow of the past, nor are you under the thrall of some past authority. For a while you may need to keep reminding yourself that you're free to make your own choices, but the proof will be in what you do.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
This seems like a good place to mention the fabulous Full Moon that's on the way, in the fiery and visionary sign Sagittarius. This event lines up very nicely with Neptune, currently in a long trip across your opposite sign Aquarius, and should help clear any lingering fog that's left over from the long-term struggles of partners or colleagues. Sagittarius in your chart is your soulful, genius streak -- the angle of your chart where you seek and often find your freedom. It is the artist in you that knows neither bounds nor rules, and that plays fast and loose with your God-given right to express yourself. Let it lead the way.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You can only be as secure in the world as your spiritual footings allow. Your deepest foundation is your faith, and if you call on it, there it will be. Yet it's not there for its own good; you are in a critical time of making your way in the world, and the bigger the world you reach for the more fulfilled you will be as the coming long stretch of your life unfolds. This is a time to take great strides, to reach as far as you can toward your most treasured goals, and to think of yourself in the highest terms possible. Remember, your plans or desires require no approval by another person, but you need to notice who your allies and guardians are, and let them help you.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
There are times when life must be viewed as a series of battles or challenges, and fortunately one of those times has recently passed. It's not actually in your nature to think or act this way. Fortunately you are calculating and intelligent enough to avoid the kind of blow-for-blow struggles on which the world wastes most of its precious energy. Now go for efficiency. A series of very small or subtle maneuvers will help you achieve exactly what you are after. In fact it's pretty much a done deal -- you need mainly to stay out of your own way, and more than anything, keep your mind open. Libra is famous for deliberating over two possibilities. Please keep yourself preoccupied with a few more than that.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You may feel inclined to let your intuition lead the way, but you would be wise to demystify your current situation with ordinary conversation, logic and analysis. People are figuring out that they need to turn on their highest level of intelligence when dealing with you, but far from outsmarting you, you'll benefit from an actual mental and intellectual exchange. For as instinctive as you are, I am certain you wish you lived in a world where people developed their intelligence, depended upon it and accessed its resources. You can pretty much count on that happening right now, particularly if you set the example.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
We need relationships to explore who we are becoming, and in fact to become who we are becoming. Your human encounters are providing this service more than usual now, though you may not realize it. Your relationships are the source of all your options, and you are the kind of person who needs the possibilities to be open. Take the time, slow down and take stock of who is in your life and how important these people are -- such will be worth a few moments of reflection from your busy schedule. The people arrayed in your life are not there at random or by accident. There are large patterns taking shape that are fitting perfectly together to provide you with exactly what you need.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
The crisis that passed recently has at least helped you sort out who is who and what is what. You may want to kick yourself for not seeing what was so obvious all along, but you can't deny that you've been through a rather deep series of changes as a result of the ordeal. The best thing you can do for yourself is to figure out how not to go through it all over again, which is unlikely to happen any time soon, but this would be more than an academic exercise. The events of the recent past may have seemed predestined but they were not the product of fate. They were the product of choices, and those you make every day.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Though you may feel fragile or tentative, you have rather awesome support, and that support comes with the intention of supporting your most impressive creative goals. Creativity is best expressed with a mix of caution and daring and you have exactly the ingredients you need. As I have said about five times recently, take care of your body. That will solve most of your problems. Your mental health is worth devoting a special area of interest, but I suggest you take this as a spiritual project. Consider yourself summoned to your greatest, most significant mission on Earth thus far.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
It would be difficult to overstate the case for how magnificent your solar chart is from the perspective of professional and creative matters. From where you stand on the chess board of life, you have many options and among them several key moves are available. But you must look at the whole board; try to look at your life from above rather than from the level of the game. The only risk you run is failing to see the impact you can have, and at the same time not counting all you have accomplished. Make a list, or better still, tell the story to someone who hasn't heard from you in at least five years. They're waiting for your call.
