Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair,
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s time to change
— Train, “Drops of Jupiter”
Today is Monday, July 4, 2011, Independence Day in the United States. As the Moon passes by the midpoint of Leo, there is an Egyptian feeling to the sky — Luna is conjunct Isis and Osiris, figures in one of the most significant death and resurrection legends in Western thought. If skies are clear, the Moon will be visible as a thin crescent in the evening sky, itself resurrected after Friday’s eclipse of the Sun and New Moon in Cancer. The nearby planet is Mercury, which is currently the evening star. Referring to the Egyptian myth, in symbolic terms one topic Isis and Osiris focuses on is the turnover or evolution of the principle by which we guide our lives, a theme apropos of the days following such a significant eclipse.
As this happens, Venus moves from Gemini to Cancer, the latest planet to enter a feminine sign and also to cross the Aries Point. Though the Aries Point is technically the first degree of the zodiac, the three points that oppose or square that degree also count, and one of them is the first degree of Cancer. Each of these angles or cardinal points has a different theme, and the first degree of Cancer seems to influence that which happens at home, or shifts our idea of home. Anything in Cancer invokes the idea of mother and that which nourishes, particularly a deeply feminine planet such as Venus. We have an image of cosmic mother’s milk that sustains us as we live our lives here in the deeps of space, seemingly on the edge of nowhere.
Our current sky is more wet with feminine energy than anything we’ve experienced in many years. The Sun, Jupiter, Chiron, Neptune and Pluto are all in feminine signs, cooling and calming the energy after a decade dominated by fire and air. To many of us it’s seemed like there would be no end to the constant parade of aggression, war and the drive for more. Planets in feminine signs, particularly the gods of transformation Chiron, Neptune and Pluto, speak of a time when there is such a thing as enough. Add Venus to that mix and actual fulfillment may be possible, which is a sense of resting gently in who you are, what you have and what you are becoming. Water and earth working together nourish growth and foster a sense of contact with the planet that sustains us.
One planet currently in Pisces, in fact moving through the last degree of the zodiac, is Ceres, who is related to the Greek goddess Demeter. Demeter was connected to food, the cycle of life and death and the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. So with Ceres, we have something that reaches deeper than Western civilization, touching upon the ancient roots of our agrarian way of life and also the mysteries of individual transformation. That’s a little something to think about as you munch on corn, wheat and potatoes today.
BC — what a great story of growth with your mom, and what great timing. that idea of leapfrog-growth and the ripples that touch everyone around are such a wonderful reminder that while we can’t drag along those we love as we grow, our own changing and moving will affect them, in positive ways if they’re open to it — and vice versa.
The crescent moon was indeed beautiful last night (and tonight) over Upper New York Bay. There was something really comforting and stabilizing about it as the usual 4th of Ju-ly bursts of energy happened all around. Lots of amateur rooftop displays in my nabe.
“Our current sky is more wet with feminine energy than anything we’ve experienced in many years.”
Yeah, no kidding. I just came from a long weekend at my new family “home” (i.e. where my mother now lives), which is so dramatically, wonderfully different from the home I knew growing up. A little cottage by the water occupied by two human females (mom & her lover), two female dogs, two female cats, and one male cat who is rather more of a lesbian high femme, maybe the femmest of them all in that cottage, though my mother might fight him for the prize.
Contrast this with the old home of 15 years, a large brick colonial in a fancy suburban development and my mom miserable in a marriage with a man she abhorred, but lacked the courage to leave.
What I did this past weekend included rediscovering Tori Amos (To Venus & Back, highly recommended, like all her albums a vortex of unobstructed and very old feminine energy) and delving into the details and circumstances of my birth with my mom (hello, Cancer) in a level of detail & meaning we’d never approached before. Tori used to be very important to me, over a decade ago, and now she’s reminding me at a key moment of things I forgot I knew. And I’ve known the story of my traumatic birth since I was a child, but this felt like getting the unabridged, unedited version for the first time, and some of it was kind of shocking. The past coming back to me in this way is driving a healing process that’s pushing me into a new, free way of being that feels like a culmination of decades of work.
My mother and I have a fraught, painful relationship, starting from my birth on a physical level. But there has also been this way in which we have each, by turn, pushed each other into much-needed new territory, like leap-frog. When one of us takes a big leap forward, it ripples through the life of the other and shakes everything up in a Promethean way, breaking new ground on which the other can walk, onward to even newer ground. I feel so blessed for that. I’m just realizing all of this now.
For those who are curious, astrologically I think it works in my chart as a Scorpio moon and Uranus retrograde in the 2nd opposite Chiron in Taurus in the 8th. Her Taurean, 11th house sun, Mercury and Nessus fall into this setup conjunct my Chiron.
and another topic Isis and Osiris focuses on is..
WOOF!
(I’m being Sirius here..)
just munching on organic millet that has grown up underneath the winter birdfeeder…
Happy 4th! ( it is the 4th right? )
peace.
Eric,
Good catch with Ceres. Some interesting and evocative stuff coming around with that ostensible dwarf planet.
Speaking of evocative, the photo is all of that and more. The depth of the field and lighting combine with the mirror to give us a bit of K’an as not usually seen.
Thank you.