New Moon Cancer, Partial Solar Eclipse (07/01/11)

[Moon trump from the 16^th century Cary Sheet Tarot, with a crayfish in the water.]

NEW MOON CANCER, PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE (07/01/11)

“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when it is quite clearly Ocean.”

~Arthur C. Clarke~

KEYWORDS:

PURIFICATION: Traditionally eclipses are seen as disruptive, revealing and amplifying heavy energy. This also makes them opportunities for purification.

CHANGE: Contemporary astrology interprets eclipses more neutrally as agents of change, triggering breakthroughs or break downs.

WEAK AND STRONG: The strength of an eclipse depends on the degree of darkness. As only a partial eclipse, this one is interpreted as weaker. However it also makes a grand cross, an alignment of four or more planets in signs 90 degrees from each other. The Sun/Moon combo makes a very tight square to Saturn, a square to Uranus, and an opposition to Pluto. This makes it more challenging.

INNER AND OUTER: Solar eclipses are experienced more in the outer world but Cancer rules everything inner: our emotional and domestic lives, early childhood, and mothers. Those directly influenced may have things outside themselves trigger inner changes.

WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon, and the truth.”

~Shakyamuni Buddha~

July 1^st, 2011 at 4:54 a.m. Eastern Time is New Moon Cancer and a partial solar eclipse, the third and finally one this eclipse season. During a solar eclipse the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. This can only happen during a new moon. Although vastly different, the Sun and Moon appear the same size in the sky. The Moon appears to cover the Sun during a solar eclipse. During a partial solar eclipse, the Moon is off center and only covers a part of it. While lunar eclipses are visible to all on the night side of the planet, the visibility of solar eclipses is limited. This one can only be seen in the ocean by Antarctica.

SEEING IN THE DARK

“In a clear and serene sky, the Moon was suddenly eclipsed… To assist the Moon in her labors, the air resounded with the clamor of brazen instruments, with the sound of trumpets, and other warlike music.”

~Tacitus, 1^st century Roman historian~

Many traditional cultures see eclipses as disruptive. Like the dark of the new moon, they are associated with black magic, death, and disharmony. For example, visible eclipses are seen as sources of impurity in Hinduism, tainting exposed food and spreading disease. Since this spiritual pollution can be spread by touch, all activity stops, tools are set down, and most temples are closed. People fast, chant mantras, or perform charity to counter balance it. In other traditions people make loud noises, shoot off guns, or light fires to scare away the darkness, often imagined as a predator.

Dismissed as superstition, folklore can preserve spiritual technologies. Eclipses tend to reveal and amplify heavy energy. Noise, light, and water are universal cleansing agents. As polluting as Hinduism interprets them, they are also opportunities for purification. Hindus ritually bathe during an eclipse, believing all water is temporarily as pure as the holy river Ganges. While others are closed, some Shiva temples actually stay open. The dark night before every new moon is also sacred to him. People honor the Hindu god of transformation during moments of celestial darkness to overcome negativity, illness, and their own ego. Whatever your spiritual path, eclipses are opportunities to address inner and outer heavy energy. They can be used to amplify clearing and release work, from smudging to healing trauma.

AGENTS OF CHANGE

“If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out.”

~William Blake, 18^th century English poet and artist ~

Contemporary astrology interprets eclipses more neutrally as agents of change, accelerating events to the point of a conclusion, triggering breakthroughs or break downs, significant endings and beginnings, and unexpected revelations. During a solar eclipse we expect to see these themes more in the outer world but Cancer represents everything inner: our domestic and emotional life, early childhood, and mothers. Those directly influenced may have things outside themselves trigger inner changes.

Eclipses happen because of an alignment of the Sun, Moon, and the lunar nodes about every six months. Each eclipse season there can be up to three eclipses, alternating between solar and lunar. They often come in pairs. This is the third and final one this eclipse season. Events triggered by them tend to be experienced until the next season, six months away.

The strength of an eclipse depends on the degree of darkness. As only a partial eclipse, this one is interpreted as weaker. However it also makes a grand square, an alignment of four or more planets in signs 90 degrees from each other. The Sun/Moon combo makes a very tight square to Saturn (limitation, structure), a square to Uranus (radical change, inspiration) and an opposition to Pluto (breakdown, transformation). Since they weave together squares and oppositions, grand squares are challenging. Frustratingly experienced as obstacles, tension, and a need for action, they can richly reward those who face them.

Not everyone experiences astrological events equally. They may just see the themes around them. This partial solar eclipse takes place at 9 degrees 12 minutes Cancer. Those with planets or points in their charts in the cardinal signs are the most likely influenced (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn). For example:

Sun Sign Aries born around March 31^st.

Sun Sign Cancer born around July 2^nd.

Sun Sign Libra born around October 3^rd.

Sun Sign Capricorn born around December 31^st.

For those with a little more astrological knowledge, you should check out a transit chart to see which house the eclipse takes place in and what aspects it is making. This will let you know how you will experience it personally, if at all.

C L Matthews, 2011

Walk the Labyrinth this Summer Solstice (06/21/11)

[Pigment offerings last Summer Solstice.]

WALKING WHEN THE SUN STANDS STILL

You are invited to walk the labyrinth at Whatever Works Wellness Center on June 21^st, the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Just like the major lunar phases each month, sacred places have amplified energy on important yearly solar dates like the solstices.

The four directions come from the daily path of the Sun. It rises in the East at dawn, reaches its zenith in the South around noon, sets in the West at dusk, and is hidden below the North. In most spiritual traditions, light is associated with the South and darkness the North. Interestingly the solstices reverse this pattern. Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, the Sun rises and sets at its maximum northern distance from the equator.

Traditional cultures associate Summer Solstice with the North. Chinese emperors offered at the square Altar of the Earth then, in the northern part of the Forbidden City. Although summer is seen as yang (the masculine, light, day, fire), the site itself is associated with yin (the feminine, darkness, night, water). In Chinese yin-yang theory every extreme contains the seed of its opposite. Summer Solstice is the peak of light, every day after it increases in darkness until the Winter Solstice.

The corners of the labyrinth are roughly aligned to the cardinal directions, as are the stones in the center. During your Summer Solstice visit, you can pause at the areas that honor the North to connect with the day’s energy:

• Northern Corner: When you are at the entrance, the back right corner is the North. When you are walking the labyrinth, it is the last corner before you reach the center.
• Northern Stone: Standing stones link heaven and earth. They were used historically to mark seasonal celestial events on the local horizon. Unfortunately our urban location prevents us from truly doing this. When you enter the center, the standing stone immediately to your right is the North.

You can pray, meditate, set intentions, or offer at these northern stations. The Summer Solstice is the yearly solar equivalent to the monthly Full Moon. People across religious traditions harness this day of most light to:

• Align with the cycles of nature.
• Call on Divine light for energy work, healing, or to banish inner darkness.
• Call on the fruitfulness of summer, pray for abundance, fertility, or success.
• Bless and charge spiritual tools like crystals, flower essences, gem elixirs, etc.
• Personal and spiritual development, reach deeper meditative states.

I hope you can visit this Summer Solstice! This is not a scheduled group event, just an invitation to visit sometime today. Specific times are stronger energetically, the daily turning points of the Sun (dawn, noon, dusk) and the actual solstice time (1:16 p.m. Eastern Time). If you can’t visit on the 21st, the day before and after are also strong. The Sun appears to rise and set in the same location for three days during a solstice.

C. L. Matthews, 2011

For more information about Whatever Works, please find the fan page on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Whatever-Works-Wellness-Center-White-Willow-School-of-Tai-Chi/162305195481

Summer Solstice (06/21/11)

[Stained glass Cancer the Crab, from Chartres Cathedral, France. This window depicts the months of the year as zodiac signs and the labors associated with them. June is cutting grass. Some things don’t change.]

WHEN THE SUN STANDS STILL

“Now she is like the white tree rose that takes a blessing from the Sun: Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon.”

~C. Day Lewis~

The Sun enters the zodiac sign Cancer June 21^st, 2011 at 1:16 p.m. Eastern Time, during the Summer Solstice. It is more neutrally called the June Solstice, since it is Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. The exact date varies each year, sometime during June 20^th to June 22^nd. It is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of summer.

It is also known as the Northern Solstice. Every day the Sun rises and sets at different points on the horizon. The only time it stops wandering is on a solstice, when it appears to stay at the same place for three days. The word solstice comes from the Latin solstitium meaning “Sun standing, Sun standing still”. As the alternative name implies, it is the northernmost position of the Sun, at the Tropic of Cancer.

POINTING THE HEART TOWARDS DAWN

Many places of worship face the East, to symbolize the renewed presence of the Divine at dawn. In Vastu Vidya, the Indian art of arrangement somewhat similar to Feng Shui, temples are aligned along a Northeast to Southwest axis. This represents the polarity of sunrise on the longest day of the year and sunset on the shortest. Each of the ten directions has a ruling deity and equivalent time of day. The Northeast is sacred to Shiva and represents amrit vela (“the nectar time”) or Brahma muhurta (“God’s hour”), the period just before dawn when spiritual work is the deepest. Likewise some Peruvian shamanic traditions recognize a Southeast to Northwest axis, the equivalent in the Southern Hemisphere.

The yearly cycle of the Sun is similar to the monthly cycle of the Moon. Summer Solstice is like a Full Moon. The next three days can be harnessed spiritually to bring things to fruition and call on divine light for blessing, healing, or facing inner darkness. Like summer itself, it is associated with abundance, fertility, and the sweetness of life. Traditionally the Sun has three periods of increased spiritual power each day, marked by changes in its physical appearance: sunrise, around noon when the Sun reaches its zenith, and sunset. Most importantly on a solstice day, the time of the event itself: 1:16 p.m. Eastern Time. Any of these times can be worked with through intention, meditation, or ceremony to honor the day of most light.

C. L. Matthews, 2011

Saga Dawa

While other Buddhist traditions celebrated it last month, today's full moon/lunar eclipse is also Saga Dawa, the Tibetan holiday that honors the birth, enlightenment, and death of Shakyamuni Buddha. "The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation." ~Milarepa~

C. L. Matthews, 2011

Rare Central Lunar Eclipse June 15th, 2011

[Vishnu as the celestial nymph Mohini, beheading the demon Rahu, source of the lunar nodes in Hindu mythology. Eclipses occur because of a regular alignment of the Sun, Moon, and nodes.]

FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE (6/15/11)

KEYWORDS:

PURIFICATION: Traditionally eclipses are seen as disruptive, revealing and amplifying heavy energy. This also makes them opportunities for purification.

CHANGE: Contemporary astrology interprets eclipses more neutrally as agents of change, triggering breakthroughs or break downs.

RARE CENTRAL ECLIPSE: The intensity of an eclipse energetically depends on the degree and length of its obscuration. This eclipse is not only a total eclipse but a rare central eclipse, the darkest kind. The Moon will pass through the center of Earth’s shadow.

WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon, and the truth.”

~Shakyamuni Buddha~

The next full moon is June 15^th, 2011 at 4:14 p.m. Eastern Time in Sagittarius. It is also a total lunar eclipse. During a lunar eclipse, the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. Since the Moon’s light is reflected sunlight, it appears to darken. This can only happen during a full moon. While solar eclipses are visible only in particular parts of the world, lunar eclipses are visible to everyone on the night side of the planet. Unfortunately we will not be able to see this one here in the US.

The degree of darkness depends on the Moon’s path through the shadow. During a total eclipse the entire face of the Moon darkens, turning brown, gray, or reddish orange. The exact color varies each time like a sunset, depending on dust in the Earth’s atmosphere. The intensity of an eclipse energetically depends on the degree and length of obscuration. The upcoming total eclipse is a rare central eclipse, meaning the Moon passes near the center of the Earth’s shadow. They are the darkest eclipses. While the next total eclipse is in 2012, the next central eclipse is not until 2018. An eclipse can last up to 107 minutes, this one will be 100. Only three other eclipses have lasted longer during the last century.

SEEING IN THE DARK

“In a clear and serene sky, the Moon was suddenly eclipsed… To assist the Moon in her labors, the air resounded with the clamor of brazen instruments, with the sound of trumpets, and other warlike music.”

~Tacitus, 1^st century Roman historian~

Many traditional cultures see eclipses as disruptive. Like the dark of the new moon, they are associated with black magic, death, and disharmony. For example, visible eclipses are seen as sources of impurity in Hinduism, tainting exposed food and spreading disease. Since this spiritual pollution can be spread by touch, all activity stops, tools are set down, and most temples are closed. People fast, chant mantras, or perform charity to counter balance it. In other traditions people make loud noises, shoot off guns, or light fires to scare away the darkness, often imagined as a predator.

Dismissed as superstition, folklore can preserve spiritual technologies. Eclipses tend to reveal and amplify heavy energy. Noise, light, and water are universal cleansing agents. As polluting as Hinduism interprets them, they are also opportunities for purification. Hindus ritually bathe during an eclipse, believing all water is temporarily as pure as the holy river Ganges. While others are closed, some Shiva temples actually stay open. The dark night before every new moon is also sacred to him. People honor the Hindu god of transformation during moments of celestial darkness to overcome negativity, illness, and their own ego. Whatever your spiritual path, eclipses are opportunities to address inner and outer heavy energy. They can be used to amplify clearing and release work, from smudging to healing trauma.

AGENTS OF CHANGE

“If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out.”

~William Blake, 18^th century English poet and artist ~

Contemporary astrology interprets eclipses more neutrally as agents of change, triggering breakthroughs or break downs, significant endings and beginnings, and unexpected revelations. While a solar eclipse is experienced more externally, a lunar eclipse is felt more internally- interpersonally, domestically, and in our inner life. Since the Moon rules emotional expression, moods can darken, feelings can become more irrational, and denied emotions can rise to the surface to be addressed. Eclipses are due to an alignment of the Sun, Moon, and lunar nodes that occurs about every six months. Each eclipse season there can be up to three eclipses, alternating between solar and lunar. They often come in pairs. Events triggered by an eclipse tend to be experienced at least until the next season, six months away.

Not everyone experiences astrological events personally, they may just see the themes around them. The lunar eclipse takes place at 24°23' Sagittarius, the Sun is in Gemini. Those with planets and points in their charts in the mutable signs are the most likely influenced (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces). For example:

Sun Sign Gemini born around June 16^th.

Sun Sign Virgo born around September 18^th.

Sun Sign Sagittarius born around December 17^th.

Sun Sign Pisces born around March 15^th.

We should look for the eclipse’s energy in the Sagittarius associated parts of life: our philosophy and outlook on life, especially how we try to expand that understanding through higher education, long distance travel, and contact with foreign cultures.

For those with a little more astrological skill, you should check your natal chart to see what house the eclipse takes place in and look at a transit chart to see what aspects it is making. This will let you know how you will experience it personally, if at all.

C L Matthews, 2011

The Sounds Of Saturn

Saturn Turns Direct (6/12/11)

WHEN THE WANDERING STARS STOP MOVING

“Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star,
Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence around his lair.” ~John Keats (1795-1821)~

Saturn turns direct June 12^th at 11:52 p.m. Eastern Time, ending its 140 day retrograde period. (Because it changes so late in the day, some sources say the 13^th.)

The dates listed for retrograde motion are unintentionally deceptive. Planets all have a similar pattern, differing only in length. Saturn will appear to slow down to a stop, stay motionless for ~10 days to turn around, and then slowly return to the right speed. June 12^th is the heart of this pattern, the middle of the motionless station when the planet changes direction, but Saturn’s speed needs to correct too. Saturn is motionless from ~June 7^th to June 17^th, slowly returning to the right speed around the end of the month.

Stationing planets have potency that changing direction does not completely discharge, although this releases a lot of the pressure. This explains why retrograde planets are felt long before and after the dates listed for them. This is especially true for the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) and slower inner planets, like Saturn. Each spends several months every year retrograde, only moving a few degrees. They only influence a few people each time, but are felt strongly, especially during the motionless stations at the beginning and end. They are indications of major life changes, often over long periods of time.

THE FORMER EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

"I came into the world under the sign of Saturn- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays."

~Walter Benjamin~

As the last of the planets historically, Saturn is associated with limitations and boundaries, time and the past, structure and stability, responsibility and isolation. In Greek and Roman mythology, Saturn (Cronus) was also associated with agriculture and the Golden Age, a mythic period when humanity had no need unmet by nature. Saturn’s restrictive nature can feel heavy, full of obstacles and worry, but it helps us mature, to strip away excess to return to simplicity, and make practical changes in our lives to succeed.

Slow and stationing planets are powerful, building up pressure. The themes of the planet are emphasized in the world; those under its influence feel these changes personally. A retrograde station initiates a period of review, a direct station prepares us to move things forward as it moves forward. Events that have felt suspended, repeated, or that suddenly lost steam five months ago finally find a conclusion. Saturn’s energy can feel heavy, depressive, and slow, we see a way forward now. Since Saturn rules the material world, things that have not yet materialized can show promise. Saturn is not all negative limitations. It reveals what we need to cut out of our lives, boundaries that need to be reinforced, and what resources to conserve. It rewards discipline, hard work, and responsibility.

TURN AROUND

“A planet in his second station signifies an aptness, and the renewing and strength of everything; but in his first station, dissolution and destruction. Remember and understand these things well, for they will often come in practice."

~William Lilly, 17^th century English astrologer~

Saturn is stationing direct at 10 degrees Libra. Those with planets or points in early cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) are the most likely influenced. For example:

Sun Sign Aries born around March 31^st.

Sun Sign Cancer born around July 1^st.

Sun Sign Libra born around October 3^rd.

Sun Sign Capricorn born around December 31^st.

Since Capricorn and Aquarius are ruled by Saturn, they are generally sensitive to its movements.

Saturn’s energy may be experienced in the Libra associated parts of life: one on one relationships, not just couples but all partnerships like joint ventures, those we are in competition or open conflict with, and formal agreements like legal matters and contracts.

For those with a little more astrological skill, you should check your natal chart to what house Saturn is stationing in and look at a transit chart to see what aspects it is making. This will let you know how you will experience it personally, if at all.

C L Matthews, 2011

House of Daedalus

Labarintus id est domus Dealli. (Latin, ”The labyrinth, that is to say in other words, the house of Daedalus”.) The labyrinth on Crete depicted on the medieval map of the world at Hereford Cathedral, United Kingdom.

The House of Daedalus is another name for a labyrinth. The term was popular during the 14th and 15th centuries. Daedalus was the architect of the original labyrinth in Greek mythology. It not only housed the bull headed Minotaur, he and his son Icarus were imprisoned in it.