I covered today’s New Moon in detail, providing a reading for each of the 12 signs, in this week’s edition of Planet Waves, which we published Friday. For instant access, become a Planet Waves member. Here are additional options. There are many benefits of membership.
The Moon and Sun form a conjunction in the sign Cancer Monday at 3:14:18 am EDT. This is the one Cancer New Moon for 2013. The grouping of planets in Cancer around the New Moon includes retrograde Mercury and an exact-to-the-degree conjunction of the asteroid Atlantis with the Sun and the Moon.
Atlantis is a persistent myth, and it takes many forms. We usually think of it as the ‘lost continent’ or the ‘lost civilization’, the one that fell for a reason — generally assumed to be some version of its own misdeeds. There are a lot of versions of the story.
My personal favorite is told by J.R.R. Tolkien, of which (in case you’re curious) I happened to find a full audio reading on the Internet. It’s called Akallabeth: The Downfall of Numenor and it lasts for about 90 minutes.
This is just one telling of an event that’s part of a cycle of myths that have many names and all share similar themes.
The reason the Atlantis cycle of stories is such a powerful one for our time in history is that anyone with a shred of intelligence wonders, at least occasionally, if our society or our current world is the next Atlantis. Are we doing ourselves in with our toxic diets, wars, toxic waste, global warming, wars, disasters, nuclear waste, wars, famines, wars and (most of all) our obsessions with materialism, technology and diversion? And wars?
What about the economic situation that holds this all in place, so deeply entrenched in militarism? How are we going to break free of that one?
I really mean it when I ask those questions. The New Moon conjunct Atlantis brings the question home, into the sign Cancer. Mercury retrograde conjunct the New Moon is a beautiful illustration of a question looming over everything that surrounds this event.
And there is one more interesting bit: it’s just one degree from the ascendant of a chart called the Thema Mundi (thema being another word for chart, and mundi being the world). This is a ‘get real’ moment. It’s not just about getting real vis-a-vis the global situation we face, but also getting real with ourselves and the people close to us.
Retrograde Mercury so prominent in the chart is suggesting that this is territory we must explore from the inside out. One of the core themes of Cancer is what we do to help ourselves feel secure. Given the world situation, and given the battlegrounds that so many of us call our family of origin, it’s no wonder that so many people take refuge in pharmaceuticals, alcohol or street drugs that drown out the pain for a while. However, the question is now front and center: what are we doing for ourselves?
How do you approach your own fear, your own needs, your own desire for nurturing, nourishment and love?
The New Moon is part of a grouping of events that includes the Mercury-Sun conjunction, which is exact Tuesday. That is the peak of Mercury retrograde (which lasts till July 20). Keep your focus inward, and mingle your thoughts with your intuition, and some relevant information will be forthcoming.
I covered this New Moon in detail, providing a reading for each of the 12 signs, in this week’s edition of Planet Waves, which we published Friday. For instant access, become a Planet Waves member. Here are additional options. There are many benefits of membership.
Yes Eric, I have listened to this recording, several years ago and once again today on your prompting. Thanks for providing the link. Tolkien was such a devotee of ancient myths and languages, even creating his own languages and myths that have lives of their own now. I suspect that most people have a hard time taking in his work because he speaks from a place where he is well-versed in the subtleties and nuances that one gains from being a scholar of ancient languages. So many of the ancient myths originate in a time when the traditions were passed down orally and one needed a special kind of mind to take in and hold the vast lineages within the tales. Thus listening to “Alakllabeth – the downfall of Numinor” is a bit ponderous for most modern folks because his references are ones that we do not understand most of the time. His style is similar to some of the tales in the Mabinogion and also the Icelandic sagas where the naming of things is part of the poetry of the story and the recording of lineages is important so as to be able to find one’s place amoung and relationships to the ancients.
Stories of civilizations falling into and under the force of water seem to be deep in our collective memory. It seems that one thread that holds thru many of these tales is the idea that a civilization somehow “deserved” or at least “earned” their own destruction. Since most of these stories have their roots in antiquity, we can surmise that most of these tales were teaching stories used to disseminate knowledge about right and wrong, good and evil, choices and consequences and were passed down orally from one generation to the next to weave continuity into the collective memory.
Humans have always wanted to see themselves as powerful and god-like. And yet, taking on those qualities usually got the culture or individual into great trouble, either from angry and jealous gods or from some force of nature that was whipped up by some un-named deity which would come and wipe the slate clean again. So many stories carry these common themes; in a simple country far away and long ago things were good. Then things got better. Eventually corruption and evil moves in and things get badly polarized. Things fall into chaos and come apart and some form of natural disaster ensues and almost all is completely lost…yet “hope remains” inevitably and new seeds are planted with the message embedded in the myth that we should try not to repeat our past mistakes…yet we always seem to.
What is different from those past stories, (at least as far as archaeology can tell us) and now is that in the past, civilizations who did experience a “fall” or a “flood” did not in fact bring it upon themselves….but now, perhaps for the first time, we ARE indeed melting the ice, warming the planet and probably contributing greatly to the flooding that will indeed come. In fact, is already here in many part of this world. Europe and India this spring and the east coast of the US have all received record rainfalls with massive flooding. The tsunamis of Boxing day and Japan and the flooding in Australia two years ago are etched in our collective in very visual ways because we have the technology to share these images globally (as well as possibly be bringing them about?). We do seem to stand on the edge of impending calamities that are not unlike what was unleashed upon civilizations in the past. Back then, the priests, politicians and law-givers may have used superstition to manipulate the masses into believing that they were the cause of the destruction somehow… and thus the masses should behave in certain ways (as deemed by the puppet-masters). Now just the opposite it true: we are for real messing with Nature, the gods and the planet and the politicians and pundits say it is superstition to be thinking we have any part in these “natural” events. We’ve come full circle.
If anyone wants to watch a PBS program about Minoan culture and how what happened to them could be a source for the Atlantean myth, you can watch it here:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1204753806/
One voice does not a conversation make, but certainly I can comment. Thanks again for suggesting this listen, Eric.
Interesting concept that Sauron was out to rule men by way of having them see him as a god seeing as he was immortal (because to us immortality assumes being a god). In the end we seem to be left with only Sauron and Middle Earth – and a few of the “faithful” with meager tools from the old days to guide them.
Regardless of Sauron’s influence, it was men that degraded their own higher race of men and “paradise” because they had grown to fear death.
Something to ponder.
Hi Darling, started last night. Next installment this evening. Giving it all the time I’ve got. Ok I’ll step it up.
xo
No takers? Really?
Has anyone listened?
BTW it would be excellent if we could have a real conversation about Alakllabeth by JRR Tolkien. Someone over in Eastern Europe was nice enough to put it on the Internet. It’s a spiritual rather than technological take on the matter of what brought the downfall, as told by one of the most trusted storytellers in English history.
http://jewelrything.com/
It is an INFORMAL name. Around the time of Fukushima when I wrote Here at the Edge of the World, which was around the time of a Nat Geo special on Atlantis — and Fukushima. Initially it took me 10 years to figure this degree out — 9/11/01 to 3/11/11, and I am still in the process of observation. The fixed star Betelgeuse must be taken into account as well as the proximity of the point to the Galactic Core (opposite) and the Aries Point (square).
I suggest we not get hung up on the concept of Atlantis, which is 100% metaphor since there was unlikely any place by that name, and understand the message that these events convey to us, and our response to being presented with this information about the world and ourselves.
Thank you, Eric. The article on the Titanic and Atlantis Factor is indeed great, specially great.
I’m fascinated by the naming business and the synchronicity that always seems to be involved. Do you know when it first occurred to you to call 28+ Gem “Atlantis”?
Every time Atlantis comes up, I recall what I was “told” years ago – you know, by the voices in my head – that Atlantis was destroyed by “trade”. As far as I’m concerned, that’s synonymous with technology – especially these days.
What, who, how do we “trade” vis-a-vis “technology”? What do we give up? What do we gain? — and how is that process of “trading” corrupted? and by whom?
Please excuse me for being all woo-woo, but I never asked the question (of any so-called “voices”) – so as far as I’m concerned, I was given an answer so that I could look for the questions. Atlantis does seem to be “on the map” these days. What’s the message? We ARE putting our finger on it, aren’t we….
I’m off to re-read Eric’s article and do some more looking into the asteroid.
Thanks, All. Good Stuff.
Hi Flavia,
I have not done a study on the position of Atlantis in every one of the charts where 28+ Gemini is involved. Primarily they are connected by the theme of the use of technology and associated ethical questions. One thing about that degree is that it’s associated (via fixed star) with things going well. That is, they go well for someone.
There is one connection that jumped out, however — in doing the astrology of the Titanic, asteroid Atlantis was in 28+ Gemini.
I don’t think I write about it in the article — it’s just too much backstory to get the topic going. However, our coverage of the Titanic’s 100th anniversary was, I think, some of our best ever work, and I will tell you that it was among the most challenging articles I’ve ever written. It was like some fog kept rolling in…it felt more like slime that I had to keep clearing off of the windshield every 10 minutes till we finally published on a Friday night — one of the only times we’ve ever run so late.
I will include the link to remind site members about it and to share it with those who want to see some of what comes out to our member mailing list every Friday.
http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/486058985.html
Thanks to Sarah Bissonnette-Adler, whose research was indispensable in creating this article.
Here is an excerpt from a very cogent Daily Kos diary on this very topic of Atlantis, called “Technology, Privacy, Revolution and Control” by Richard Lyon
One of the issues to consider is that the very nature of the technology is that it is changing and evolving at a rate that is much faster than traditional human institutions can adjust. The efforts of the music industry to block copying and sharing spurred new technological innovation. Things like peer to peer transfer by bittorrents emerged as a means of bypassing centralized servers that were easier to control. Virtual private networks make it possible to disguise a users identity and point of national origin. Methods of complex encryption make it difficult to read the content of intercepted messages. This communication arms race will certainly continue. The tools being developed are only likely to be used by techie geeks and people who have high stakes for avoiding detection. But, they will continue to exist.
…
What does this all mean for the vast majority of internet users who are swapping recipes and pictures of their children and pets? Before the issues of government intrusion arose most people seemed vaguely aware that the internet was not a place of secure privacy, but not many were willing to forgo the convenience and entertainment value. The awareness that big brother can and may be reading your emails and listening to you phone conversations is considerably more unsettling for many.
The full post can be found here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/07/1221836/-Technology-Privacy-Revolution-and-Control
Dearest Eric, Chelsea and the PW team,
It’s Saturday morning in sunny Queensland, Australia and I have just read your weekly post over breakfast. My husband and I are on holidays, house and cat-minding for my brother and his family while they visit the Maldives.
This week’s article compels me to express my deep thanks for the way you convey, clearly and succinctly, what I so often sense or ponder, but rarely find expressed/reflected around me. I’ve spent the past fortnight in a luxurious house in an affluent paradise. The house contains every conceivable type of gadget, appliance, vessel, furniture, furnishing, machine and toy – inside and out – in small, medium and large. Nowhere is there evidence of any restraint, of any consideration for the consequence of all this technology and materialism.
Looking at the photo of the Icelandic houses almost makes me cry. Humans are indeed adaptable, though perhaps not often out of choice.
Thank you all, so much, for continuing to be a beacon of light and clarity in a baffling world.
much love,
Libby
Eric, is there a connection between asteroid Atlantis and the Atlantis degree 28+ Gem? thks
Potent questions, e.
— with Venus now crossing my AC/Uranus which is in a bit of a semi-sextile to said potent cancer new moon my mind wanders to a favorite: Venus on the Half-shell (by “Kilgore Trout”) (which, I suppose has little to do with Atlantis but something to do with self-destruction and searching for answers albeit after the fact).
Nor is it Tolkien, but a Vonnegut inspired/endorsed sci-fi “in which Earth is destroyed by cosmic bureaucrats doing routine maintenance and the sole human survivor goes on a quest to find the “Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question,” ” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_on_the_Half-Shell)
You have spoke as you always do with clear points, and deep questions. Thanks for the link to Tolkien’s story, that’s a must-listen.
Atlantis, the Antediluvian World
by Ignatius Donnelly (1882)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/index.htm
Tolkien & the Atlantis Myth
http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/numenoratlantis.htm
Note that Oken is referencing Alice Bailey, who gives two sets of esoteric rulerships in addition to the traditional ones. Often these are running in the background of the horoscopes, though I don’t talk about it a lot.
Thoughts and intuition mingled; something that needs practice in this day and age due to the decades, even centuries of discouragement for any serious reliance on intuition. As children it was easy though. Intuition, feeling, sensing get little respect from the people who teach our children, or from the people who taught them. Now and then we see little examples of a grudging resurgence of intuition (as a way to make decisions or draw conclusions) gaining respect. It will be a while though before it is given equal standing with thought. A new Moon in Cancer, conjunct Atlantis, along with Mercury retrograde in Cancer, a grand trine in water signs between Jupiter, Neptune and a stationing-direct Saturn, all seem to encourage it however. Thinking is good, but thinking mingled with intuition is even better.
More encouragement for this comes from Venus who symbolizes what is valued. She’s pushing creativity these days while she transits Leo, and in today’s chart she is quincunx Chiron in Pisces (another nod to creativity) and Pluto in Capricorn (clearing space in the established order of things). As this creates a yod with emphasis on Venus as the focal point of their combined energy, why not play? The Moon is about kids and family, the Sun is all about kids and creativity, so why not play? Or read Tolkien?
Venus is also trine Uranus in Aries, another sign symbolizing the young or young at heart. Fancy this, Venus has the almost undivided attention of the two warring factions symbolized by the Pluto-Uranus square. Remember that Venus was in Gemini (another sign devoted to chlldren) when she made her famous occultation of the Sun last year, a moment that will have meaning for a century. In Dell Horoscope magazine (June edition), Alan Oken says this:
“The so-called ‘esoteric rulers’ make up the second set [of planetary rulerships], and these apply to the life of the soul. In the case of Gemini, the soul-centered ruler is Venus. Gemini on the Soul level serves to coordinate the pairs of opposites in order to bring about a greater harmony in life.”
If we view “thinking” and “intuition” as opposites, or products of the two sides of the brain, then who better than Venus (through her connection to Gemini on the soul level) to find a way to dissipate the blockages between warring factions (symbolized by Pluto and Uranus these days)? I see it as play or read Tolkien.
Venus is also at the south bending between the north and south (Moon’s) nodes in today’s New Moon chart. One of the ways the south bending directs any energy that conjuncts it (through symbol) is to give “it” away. Venus symbolizes love, pleasure, money, and when in Leo, play and creativity are “it”. It could be the start of a personal growth in shooing away the negative vibes of a transiting Atlantis conjunct a Cancer New Moon. And it will do your soul good.
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