EDITOR’S NOTE – This article is from today’s subscriber edition of Planet Waves Astrology News. We are posting it on the open side of Planet Waves on the occasion of Saturday’s lunar eclipse. Eclipses are one of those things we try to do really well here at PW. If you like our work, consider this an invitation to subscribe. Information is at left. Here is the full edition, including the weekly horoscope and “This Week in 2012.”
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Dear Friend and Reader:
We are hours from an eclipse of the Moon in Aquarius during an extended phase of important Aquarian astrology. The eclipse takes place Saturday in American and European time zones [5:16 pm in New York, 2:16 pm in California, 10:16 pm in London]. It’s conjunct Neptune in Aquarius, a symbol of either mass delusion and media haze, or the guiding star of the groggy few who are gradually awakening. This eclipse corresponds to the Aug. 1 total solar eclipse in Leo that we covered in the subscriber edition of Planet Waves Astrology News two weeks ago.
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Barred Spiral Milky Way. By R. Hurt.
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The partial eclipse of the Moon occurs close to Chiron and Nessus — Centaur planets that are quietly reshaping consciousness, pushing us along a little quicker and with a greater sense of urgency than Neptune. Mars (in Virgo) is square Pluto (in Sagittarius) for the eclipse Saturday, speaking either of some ideological clash, an actual military clash, or a deep inner process (individual and collective) of integrating mental patterns with spiritual ones.
Luna dimming out in Aquarius — the sign most associated with social patterns — is like a beacon for us to consider changing the ways we create society. This extends from the seemingly pettiest social patterns to how we relate to our families (Aquarius is all about tribal themes), and by extension, our communities, cities and as a nation.
Aquarius represents any group we can conceive of ourselves as being a part. We participate in the dance; we both make and are subjected to the patterns, though we have a way of fogging this out. Neptune in Aquarius, which is one with the eclipse, is a reminder to be aware of these patterns; to wake up and come out of the happy haze of caffeinated milk foam, 1,000 HD cable channels, mood stabilizers and climate-controlled vehicles.
As often happens near eclipses, the pace of the news is quickening and getting more than a little weird. We have seen some interesting, at times tragic, drama the past week. Let’s do a quick recap. During a presidential campaign featuring just one actual candidate (is anyone taking John McCain seriously?), John Edwards was visibly outed last week, impacting a family with enough problems and spreading yet another hypocritical, anti-sex message. The revelation of his affair erased his political career and thus any possibility of this friendly white guy balancing out the Democratic ticket.
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Bill Gwatney was assassinated on August 13, 2008.
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Then on Wednesday, Bill Gwatney, chief of the Arkansas Democratic Party and close friend of the Clintons, was assassinated in his office. His killer was killed by the police an hour later. Astonishingly, all those talented cops could not bring in one suspect alive. Even more astonishingly, the story did not make the front page of either The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
Then a war flared up (or was flared up) between Russia and the former Soviet state, even more-former country of Georgia, and the (as in our) Army, Navy and Condi were all sent in. All of this is taking place not just in the approach to an eclipse of the Moon, but also the run-up to the nominating conventions. And there is a little problem. By late summer, there is no viable Republican candidate or campaign; there are just eight years of disaster for us to ponder.
Eight years of 9/11 and Iraq and no WMDs and Afghanistan and whatever the holy hell we have no clue about. Wednesday, Russia offered the choice between it and Georgia as allies, and the United States is choosing Georgia, effectively reviving the Cold War. Is Georgia really worth having all of Russia as an enemy? Or is it just too convenient, because at the moment there is no other enemy?
We have to be “at war” to elect a Republican because Karl Rove (who I am sure is back, in his incarnation as the Invisible Advisor) knows that the American public prefers not to change leadership during times of war.
Using the astrology chart for the Gwatney assassination as an epicenter of all of this, we see the Leo Sun up in the 10th house. That is the house of the king, in the king’s sign, and the Sun is his planet, too. Baby Bush may not be the actual boss, but he’s the titular boss and the public face of the cabal that is in charge, so we know who or at least what that Sun represents.
We have the image of a leader (Sun 10th) whose power is drawn (almost always from below) from the delusions of the public (Neptune in Aquarius in the 4th house, the homeland). But the eclipse has the image of pulling a veil off of Neptune: of seeing the lies for what they are. With Neptune, it always takes a while.
The chart I’ve been watching with some serious concern is that of the Democratic National Convention. The DNC chart reminds me too much of the chart for the Sept. 11 incident, which in turn reminds me of the chart for the 2004 earthquake that caused the Asian tsunami.
The problem could be solved by waiting about two hours to begin the Convention, allowing the Moon to change signs from Gemini to Cancer.
I have to get a bit technical to explain the DNC chart’s similarities to Sept. 11 and the tsunami, and its unique sense of threat — and potential. I’ll do my best to make it easy. The Moon, a key player in anyone’s astrology (and that of most events), takes one month to go round the Earth. It moves through the sky at a rate of about 12 degrees a day (on average) or one degree every two hours. So the Moon occupies each degree of the zodiac for about two hours a month.
Now that you’ve heard the word ‘degree’ I’m about to introduce you to arc minutes, which are divisions of a single degree by 60 (we need to be that precise in order to appreciate the beauty of this synchronicity). Everybody put on your tinfoil thinking cap.
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A photographic tribute to victims of the Sept. 11 false flag attacks. Click for larger image.
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In the Sept. 11, 2001 chart, cast for the moment Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center, the Moon was at 28 Gemini and 5 arc minutes (abbreviated 28 Gemini 05). When the earthquake struck Indonesia and wiped out a quarter of a million people, the Moon was at 28 Gemini 11. This has boggled my mind for years; it is a synchronicity that should be perplexing to a scientist. In astrology you see a lot of weird coincidences, but not this weird. The Moon was a mere 1/10th of a degree apart for those two global events — two of the most significant events of the 21st century so far, and it’s been quite a little century.
What does this say? I am, by the way, one of the few people willing to blame the tsunami on corporate behavior, specifically, the combination of global warming and air-pressure oil drilling in Tasmania a few days before that I think set off a knock effect. So in that respect, the tsunami may be a conspiracy akin to Sept. 11: in my view, both are about the oil business.
Looking at the chart for 4 pm on Monday, Aug. 25, 2008 in Denver, CO, when the DNC opens, we find the Moon at 28 Gemini 38, about half a degree in distance from both Sept. 11 and the tsunami; and notably, occupying the same degree, 28+ Gemini. This is stunning and ominous. Were we considering the chart for any other campaign, or for a theater performance, it might not be so noticeable, so strange and deserving of so much consideration. But this is a very important election.
Let’s zoom in a little more. In the DNC chart, the corresponding opposite degree in Sagittarius is rising, or the exact ascendant — the way you would say that is 28+ Sagg is rising. Sagg is the rising sign and 28+ is the rising degree; this is an angle (the eastern horizon). This does several things.
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This high-resolution satellite image, acquired by Space Imaging’s Ikonos satellite, shows Lhoknga after the earthquake and Tsunami. Almost all the trees, vegetation and buildings in the area were washed away.
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One, it puts 28+ Gemini (and thus the Moon of all three events) on something called the descendant. The Convention begins with the Moon on an exact angle (the western horizon) at the precise moment of moonset. When you place a planet on an exact angle, you crank up its emphasis by quite a lot; name a proportion — five-fold, 10-fold, pick a number. It puts it in the cosmic spotlight. And that planet happens to be the Sept. 11 and Tsunami Moon, which is now the DNC 2008 Moon.
Next, it puts Pluto precisely in the ascendant — rising to one arc minute of exactitude. Pluto is 28 Sagittarius 33 and the ascendant is 28 Sagittarius 34. Pluto is rising to 1/60th of a degree. This verges on ridiculous and it makes you think they hired an astrologer to do the chart; that’s usually how you get a chart like this. But they probably did not — the convention started at 4 pm in 2004 and it’s starting at 4 pm in 2008.
The Moon is opposite Pluto to within 1/10th of a degree: its position is 28 Gemini 38 and Pluto is at 28 Sagittarius 33. I have not called up every astrologer I know, but I don’t think too many of them would rate this as a friendly arrangement, even subtracting the whole bizarre Sept. 11 / tsunami sync.
If I had to describe this chart, it’s like the Democratic National Convention is a loaded gun pointed at itself, and consequently the public. If you had paid me a lot of money and I had venom in my heart, and I brought the full weight of my talent to the question, I could not have chosen a darker chart to commence the 2008 Democratic campaign.
The chart does have a few saving graces, though. First, dark may be exactly what we need. Second is that it’s precise. That does not make it ‘good’ per se, but it does make it a clean work of cosmic engineering. Not to subtract from my saving grace theme here, but the last chart that came close to being this precise was the Sept. 11 chart, and that chart was certainly ‘good’ for whoever pulled it off. It was, however, more elegant and a little less in-your-face than the DNC 2008 chart. We, at least, have a clue that we’re dealing with some potent astrology. The Sept. 11 chart is precise, but it’s slippery, just like 9/11 itself.
Next is that the Galactic Core is not only rising in the DNC chart, it’s in the ascendant to within about two degrees. This is the center of our Milky Way galaxy. If there is an astrological stand-in for the highest order of Divine consciousness, we can look for it in the Galactic Core. Whatever is there binds together our magnificent 300 billion-star spiral-barred galaxy.
Given these facts, we have an occasion to take the highest possible interpretation of the chart. To paraphrase the poet Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t necessarily go into the future with the chart you want; you go with the chart you have. So — let’s go.
We live in dangerous times (which we prefer to zone out and deny), and those times are represented in this chart: reminders of the two enormous global disasters previously mentioned and often forgotten. The Moon is opposite Pluto (which feels like a weapon pointed at the public, which happens to be a true fact of our world); and a sharply-divided public suggested by both the Gemini Moon and Pluto seem to split it down the middle (let’s see which cool-minded liberals can’t quite bring themselves to vote for a black guy).
We are dealing with a mix of profound potential global threats, all of which seem to push the amazing potential of our era into the shadows. These threats, as we well know, include our perfect train wreck of an environmental crisis; fossil fuels running out; terrorism; false-flag terrorism (fake attacks coming from the inside and/or used for manipulative political purposes, such as Sept. 11), oil men and arms brokers in charge of the government stealing from absolutely everyone, and killing a few people along the way; a stressed-out public that is conditioned to believe lies and to expect the government and corporations to lie; and so on.
Indeed, our moment of history is so precisely reflected in this chart that we could say that whatever or whoever it represents is dealing in reality — and that is Obama’s appeal. He not only speaks in sentences, what he says is worth thinking about. He does not look like his aura is in 151 pieces, rearranged like a bad copy of a cubist painting. The public (Gemini Moon), divided though it may be, is precisely aligned with and looking straight into the power, the danger and the sense of what, spiritually, is at stake (Pluto and Galactic Core rising).
To get anything done, that is, for us as a people, a country or a world, we need to confront our moment directly, with a sense of history, particularly recent history. And this chart does not skew the issues. It is shaped like a key that could unlock the incredible paradox of our moment in history, a paradox comprised of monumental problems, the opportunity to apply our technology and our minds toward evolutionary purposes, combined with dinosaurism that is eating away at the integrity of what precious little progress we have been able to make in recent years.
The DNC chart has a feeling of homeopathy — that like cures like. This means not conducting ourselves like the people who have made these problems (to which we are all more or less party), but rather, reflecting the ability to understand and bear witness to the real issues in order to do anything about them.
The Obama campaign, on the surface, is based on hope, but this chart says it’s based on a sober understanding that the human race and in particular the American public need to grow and make some difficult decisions. Part of that difficulty involves confronting people who don’t want the past to end, and who cannot drag themselves forward, and those who are quite literally violent toward any semblance of progress. To make progress, we have to face them, our problems and our own issues, and devise solutions, many or most of which will be spiritual, not political.
There is another dimension to this chart. We have all heard of 2012, and the evolutionary leap purported to be associated with it. This date is represented one way in Mayan astrology, but in the western zodiac, 2012 takes place precisely on the Sagittarius/ Capricorn cusp, where all these planets and the Galactic Core are so precisely aligned — along with the great disasters of our day.
The president we elect now will most likely be the one to serve until 2012 and maybe beyond. Suffice it to say, this is a chance to take a leap forward, but it is indeed a chance. Do we have the guts to take it? We shall soon see.
Yours & truly,
PS, for those who are interested in the theme of Chiron moving through Aquarius, Tracy Delaney researched our prior coverage of the issue. Most of it dates back to 2004 and 2005, when Chiron initially made its ingress to this sign. More on Chiron is located in Planet Wiki on the Chiron page.
Chiron In Aquarius, from the Feb. 4, 2005 edition of Astrology Secrets Revealed.
Aquarius Is Rising, from the Feb. 11, 2005 edition of Planet Waves Weekly.
An Excellent Moral Crisis, article dated June 26, 2004.
All Of Us Here, dated Feb. 26, 2005.
This weekend’s Oracle takes us to the Leo monthly of Apr 01, 2003
(The Oracle is a random daily selection from among 10,000 horoscopes written by Eric Francis)
Balance is a critical theme for you as the extraordinary weeks ahead of us unfold. I have noticed that Leos have an awesome resilience in almost every aspect of their lives: relationships, physical healing and psychological stability. Even when things get really strange, you’re usually on pretty solid ground. Well, things are about to get strange, and not just for you; this is not personal. You are likely to be an important exception to the norm in that your power of focus, awareness and clarity will penetrate most of the static and chaos. But more to the point, the challenges you both witness and experience will grant you exceptional focus and set you on a new path of discipleship. That there are, on the whole, two ways to face life should be more than apparent. That there is just one way for you to face life is the next logical step. Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re old fashioned.
Aspects for Saturday 16 August 2008
Mercury (9+ Virgo) square Amor (9+ Gemini)
Venus (12+ Virgo) quincunx Nessus (12+ Aquarius Rx)
Eros (0 Virgo) quincunx Aries Point (0 Aries)
Eros enters Virgo (direct)
Mercury (10+ Virgo) quintile Hades (28+ Gemini)
Sun (23+ Leo) trine 1992 QB1 (23+ Aries Rx)
Venus (12+ Virgo) square Ixion (12+ Sagittarius Rx)
Venus (12+ Virgo) trine Vesta (12+ Taurus)
Mars (28+ Virgo) square Hades (28+ Gemini)
Ceres (28+ Cancer) quincunx Pluto (28+ Sagittarius Rx)
Occultation of Neptune by the Moon (22+ Aquarius)
PARTIAL LUNAR ECLIPSE (24+ Aquarius)
Sun (24+ Leo) opposite Moon (24+ Aquarius) – FULL MOON
Sun (24+ Leo) quintile Chariklo (6+ Scorpio)
Mercury (11+ Virgo) septile Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Aspects for Sunday 17 August 2008
Venus (13+ Virgo) trine Jupiter (13+ Capricorn Rx)
Mars (28+ Virgo) square Pluto (28+ Sagittarius Rx)
Atlantis (26+ Libra) sextile Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (11+ Virgo) semisquare Atlantis (26+ Libra)
Mercury (12+ Virgo) quincunx Nessus (12+ Aquarius Rx)
Venus (14+ Virgo) semisquare Ceres (29+ Cancer)
Apollo (4+ Virgo) quintile Psyche (16+ Scorpio)
Mercury (12+ Virgo) square Ixion (12+ Sagittarius Rx)
Venus (14+ Virgo) square Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Ceres (29+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Sun (25+ Leo) quintile Hidalgo (7+ Scorpio)
Venus (14+ Virgo) square Juno (14+ Sagittarius)
Hidalgo (7+ Scorpio) septile Pluto (28+ Sagittarius Rx)
Pallas (4+ Gemini) semisquare Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Mercury (12+ Virgo) trine Vesta (12+ Taurus)
Apollo (4+ Virgo) sextile Kronos (4+ Cancer)