Feb 10 2010
Moon is slow, last quarter; Mercury is in Aquarius
Mercury has entered Aquarius, signaling that the December-January Mercury retrograde is indeed a thing of the past. This is a faster-moving mental energy, more oriented on ideas than on labor, and suggesting that you lean into the habits of taking notes and solving problems.
Planets for Kingston, NY, at 8:18 am EST, showing Uranus (in blue) precisely in the ascendant, with Jupiter (in green) in the 12th house. The Moon is not shown but is above and slightly to the right of what you see here. That big cluster of planets is stuffed in the 12th house. Because the Sun is there (seen in red), you can tell it's close to sunrise.
Contrast with: the Capricorn Moon is moving about as slowly as the Moon goes — under 12 degrees a day, being distant from the Earth. That can give the feeling of too-slow progress or the sense that one’s feelings are frozen. For astro-historians, William Lilly, the Elizabethan astrologer, once said that the Moon acts like it’s retrograde, when moving slowly.
This, as she moves toward the New Moon in Aquarius (exact Saturday), described in detail yesterday’s subscriber edition. I sampled yesterday’s edition to the Cosmic Confidential Diary, for those who would like to see it.
Luna does not reach Aquarius until 6:32 pm EST / 11:32 pm GMT on Thursday. (Note, the reason I don’t give Australian time is that it’s difficult to make the conversion by brain, there are different Australian zones, and obviously it’s not cool to make errors in aspect times. I will get us in the habit of using GMT if those down in Oz will learn how to do the conversion from the time in England to the time where you are.)
What we need to be watching is the Sun as it approaches Chiron-Neptune: that is going to intensify things, and push certain things to what feels like a crisis point. The less conscious one is, the more one becomes a puppet to the planets. Heck, it’s difficult enough when you’re really paying attention. Sun-Chiron has the feeling of both intensity (generically, that is what Centaurs add, but they have specific themes). To wit: the injury of maleness, and/or being aware of what father struggled/struggles with. The Sun-Chiron conjunction happens once a year and we are now in its moment.
This is the time to remind everyone that men experience certain specific kinds of psychic and physical injuries, strain and challenges that are endemic to the male ‘role’ they plan and are indeed expected to play. It’s really great when women honor this and assist them, just like it’s great when men recognize that women have certain extremely challenging roles, and life goes easier when men assist with them.
Sun-Neptune says: be realistic. Look for what you’re not seeing. Listen for the truth, including the truth of peoples’ intentions. Are they saying what they are doing and doing what they are saying? Are you? Here is what I can tell you about Sun-Chiron-Neptune in alignment: no deceptive scheme is exempt from being exposed under this astrology. That includes self-deceptive schemes that end up deceiving others. Neptune in Aquarius has done a fine job of fogging things over. Chiron will do a fine job of helping those with their eyes open to see the light.
Free trial offer to our premium horoscope service, written by Eric Francis.
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18 Responses to “Moon is slow, last quarter; Mercury is in Aquarius”
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Alise Marie – thank you so much for your kind comments. That is such a sad story of your father. It seems that fear does indeed love company, and often never more so than with family, the very place it ought not to be, can be where it begins and never ends.
How lucky you both are to have such a strong connection between you, even if it is not happening as often as you would wish. Despite others choosing to fan the fear, it sounds like his fire is still burning gently deep within. I hope it burns more brightly for him in time.
Many families are a source of strength for us – but not always. Mine, for example, is a fear party and for that reason, I just am not able to spend too much time with them.
I love your response Jude – so wise, so true, to quote back some of it, “But I can’t help but notice that those who can’t flex to accommodate the social/political growth around them are the most likely to join this number. It feels like a kind of rage that things will not remain as they always were. It reminds me that the more we fight for our limitations, the more they show up.” I’ve found this to be so true.
Liz x
Hey Patty
I fell in the ice yesterday and today I really feel it. Maybe your hubby will rethink in the morning. I’ll keep the good thought!
I guess my husband qualifies as an old geezer too. He fell on the ice today and knocked himself out at the bottom of our driveway. A young man in a pick up truck stopped when he saw him on the ground and awakened him by putting snow on his face, and then took him up to the house. We didn’t get his name but I would like to thank him for the good deed. I wasn’t home. I guess the old geezer is ok but he won’t go to the emergency room for a check-up. Some changes are worrisome because I know intuitively that something else altogether might be coming round the bend.
Hazel, that is an amazing story about a beautiful man. And you!
I am particularly moved on the subject of men’s struggles at this particular time, as I have been observing my father unraveling for the past several years. Always strong, artistic, fearless-that was Dad. He was a photographer, flew an airplane, rode a motorcycle, loved to wander in the forest…all alone, “me-time” activities. Growing up, his “selfish” behavior was always pointed out within my family; in fact, he was simply always true to himself. He enjoyed life immensely. After a motorcycle accident left him laid up for a year, his fire went out. In that year he spent lying on the first floor pull-out couch (he couldn’t make it up the stairs to bed, much to the chagrin of his wife who found his condition embarrassing), those closest to him shook their heads, pointed fingers, and gasped in horror at what happens when you have a “dangerous” hobby. He was out of work, adding to the newly-shattered sense of self worth, and the collective fear of his friends and family took its toll on him. It’s been three years, and this firebrand of a man has now become the effect of all that fear. And guilt. I continue to be there for him, on the rare occasion he opens up, but i don’t see the spark.
May we, as women, always dig deep within our hearts to extend love to the men in our lives. To each other. To ourselves.
Trying not to rush this as I am just in…..and then just out again….sooooohhh…..
I keep getting a sense of the invocation I once took to integrate the male and female energies in a Red Indian sweat lodge…Inipi…
Monday ..Tuesday ..there was a hint of darkness as Lilith and Part Fortuna linked hands to threaten my financial stability…this though faded as the tempo did indeed begin to speed up…..now as the Moon heads for Aquarius…late Capricorn…it tells me to work that feminine energy into a structure…or the Sun will just laugh at her Mooniness as they date…and we are headed for a double headed Yod….of which Len wrote last week… but this time featuring Mars as the point with Pluto and Jupiter/Venus in attendance….. and Saturn and Mars likewise attending to Jupiter/Venus. In the UK the new Moon gives a 4 degree Sag Asc……. this too is right in line with all of the Yod featured Planets. Its looking really good…!!
So as the Sun Moon conjunction approaches….Venus changes sign….
It is as if the good old ploughman….has agreed to sit in perfect harmony with the farmers wife…but she has not quite realised what is about to ‘appen….while she struts a little line dance in Aquarius….
Jupiter is sat waiting to harmonise the whole agenda. There is very definitely a sense of maleness that is finally relieved of the burden of Neptunian illusion……. relationships can flourish as Venus slowly recognises what is sitting right up close….. and any lingering doubts slowly fade……..as Lords Saturn and Pluto and Jupiter ensure that her and Mars become one with the wishes of this years once only Sun Moon Aquarian Erotica conference…!!
Fathers everywhere suddenly started listening to Ian Dury………. Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD9AFG1
PH
Some men are coming alive. Not long after I moved to this new village, while walking my dog, I met a man in his 70′s (also walking his dog), who has become a dear friend. After chatting with him for about 5 minutes, I discovered he was experiencing the most extraordinary time of his life. Not 18 months before, his beloved wife of 34 years, had died of cancer. He found himself alone, and his plans for a future retirement bliss with his best friend and love, just a distant dream that never was. I found him fragile, desperate for contact, for someone to listen. I did just that. I met him and walked with him often.
Not long after, his dog also died – and he really lost it then. With a loving son distant in another country, and a loving daughter distant due to a severe mental illness, he is on his own. His wife was the social connection, and he followed her around as she made it all happen. He’s clever soul, a Doctor of Science, and in good health as well as mind. Apart from, of course, the grief and accompanying depression. He has really been through it and there have been times I wondered if he would make it. My partner and I have made him lunches and dinner and warmed him with food and conversation. I let him walk my dog (who loves him) to fill the gap until he finds another one of his own to love – he is still deciding that one, but uncertainty and fear have their hold on him and decisions don’t come easy.
The thing is, almost 8 months after I met him, I see a person who is blooming. Yes, depression has the well trodden path connecting in his brain, even he knows that. he sees a counsellor twice a week so he can let his thoughts, feelings and grief flow out – that and his ideas for a new life. He gets comfort from that. But he has joined all sorts of different social events, or means to be social. He takes himself out. He has started a course in Mindfulness, so he can learn how to take himself out of the depressive, self-berating thoughts and find some peace. He is learning how to live his life without someone else, he is learning to do something he never wanted to do, never thought he would do (his wife was 15 years younger and they truly believed that he would go first – imagine his surprise) which is to live alone, he is making friends, he is stretching himself – his head and his heart. He has a way to go, but he is doing great. I am very proud of him and I tell him so.
Yes, some men are coming alive.
Just a few impressions to share. First, thanks, Eric, for the comment that, “The less conscious one is, the more one becomes a puppet to the planets.” The transits that lifted me out of my shoes when I was a kid now feel more like mosquito bites. The more we know and accept ourselves, and get on to our own patterns, the less likely we are to be tossed in the air by whatever stressors the stars indicate. The more conscious we are, the more proactive to eliminate the issues that we like to hide from ourselves. Hence, fewer surprises and life-bending catastrophes.
Next, regarding fathers, I’m watching my Dad literally calcify himself to death. He’s been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, as have a growing number of old guys around the Patch. Seems like I hear about a new one every week. I’m sure that lifestyle has a good deal to do with that, but I can’t help but notice that those who can’t flex to accommodate the social/political growth around them are the most likely to join this number. It feels like a kind of rage that things will not remain as they always were. It reminds me that the more we fight for our limitations, the more they show up.
Some say that the Greatest Generation – WWII folks – fought/sacrificed as no other to ‘save’ the world and now see that as being frittered away, along with their legacy. There’s a kind of political naivety there, though, that messes with my head. Our confidence in government enjoyed it hay-day from the 30s to the 60s. With the exception of Eisenhower who was more Independent than Republican, we’re looking at Democratic policies that grew a healthy middle class so the elders sharp turn Right seems more a nostalgia trip complicated by Pluto in Cancer self-protection. Or perhaps it has to do with their first-hand experience with an ‘enemy.’ Everything was clear enough when they felt attacked from without by an obvious foe. Now they’re still resonating to the cold war rhetoric that we’re being attacked from within by those who want to change everything we hold dear. Perhaps only the old timers will remember what Pogo the Possum said, but it remains true today: We have met the enemy and he is US. And that’s STILL too liberal a concept for many of the GG’s to swallow.
As regards the burden of males, I have a healthy respect for what I DON’T know in that area. Still, it seems to me that the older generations are the Poster Child for how this works, and no doubt WHY it’s good to carefully observe our fathers and see the cost of it. We’ve grown so much in just a few generations, but we still have the imprinting that authority belongs squarely on men, while women have other things to do. In a society schooled to believe that every ‘mans’ home is his castle, then the whole responsibility for the Kingdom is on their shoulders. Judging by the past, not all had the talent for it. A home should be a collaboration of its inhabitants, and we’re closer to that then we’ve ever been — but the old notion of what home/family is had to break down for that to happen, giving Christocrats fits to this day.
We can only have true confidence in ourselves when we get over this notion that the weight of the world rests on us, understand that our mistakes are the inevitable process which leads to progress and that we can only be right [as in correct] for ourselves, not others. Here in the Patch … where time HAS stood still, on some levels … I see way too many men who accommodate their wives referred to a PW’d and watch the young women trade themselves away for someone (with a job and a pickup) who will take care of them. These old concepts die hard and the baggage of inherent male authority/dominance takes a dire toll in broken families and nasty Karmic gigs.
I got an e-mail from an elder the other day with a link to a nostalgia site of the 50s. He sent it along with the comment, “When women were women and all sox were white.” Fewer choices, safer territory. We still have a lot to heal.
Oh, and Shanna — me, I’ve had shovel envy. Maybe it’s because I’m the contractors daughter, but I can spend a content afternoon browsing at the True Value. Maybe that’s why I’m happily single … just me and my power tools.
A short and sweet column from the WaPo about what men want:
Men: The original shovel-ready project
“As I write this, we’re bracing for up to 20 more inches on top of two feet in much of the Washington area. The novelty is cooling off. But there is a reason “the best snow shovel on the planet!” is called simply: “Manplow.” I think I can safely assert that no woman has ever suffered shovel envy.
Since the blizzard began, the shovel has become not just a tool of necessity but a symbol of purpose and meaning, about whose absence the usual existential lament is more acute in a city that lives so much in its head.”
I have been watching Juno-Eris brewing at about 22 Aries…which suggests a structure getting some vibrations of individual identity shaking it…the structure being marriage, and knowing Achilles just went through there fills in a blank or two…the influence of confidence on marriage and marriage (and Juno’s particular role as ‘the identity of or as marriage partner’, amplified in Aries) on confidence…the confidence of and in marriage itself. The Moon is coming up on all of the above.
Then as it moves into what you describe as collective territory sextile Saturday’s New Moon. Dale O’Brien reminds me that Aquarius is elite territory rather than collective; Pisces being collective. But Neptune here has caused the two to infiltrate. The modern political archetype is Joe Blow and his soccer mom milf, but see they’re divorced neighbors and…
Neptune in Aquarius has also brought a measure of power to the people, in the form of a democratic medium being placed in the hands of many…the Internet. But the power is unconscious and much of the network’s awareness tends toward facebook. Chiron ‘coming across’ Neptune says that certain people are figuring out they have this ability to ‘communicate’. Later I’ll post the new Tom Tomorrow, which describes this beautifully.
Achilles speaking from Aries asks: do we have the [self]confidence to handle this — which is really silly — to handle the ability communicate? I think the question is less about can we press the buttons and more about: can we handle a message? Can we handle an idea? Do we trust ourselves with ideas?
The American people are having an issue with this one.
There is something up in our ability to communicate. We talk a lot, though there seems to be a gap between words and actions that we’re not quite picking up on, because of all the talking.
Correction to my post. I meant to say Hercules and not Achilles above.
Either way, they both represent courage. In my mind Achilles was the human extension of Mars.
Hope this clarifies things.
john
Achilles has just pulled up to 25 degrees Aries. Some obvious aspects there, eh?
Eric
Isn’t it funny that our human propensity is to look for patterns in times of chaos to make sense of what is happening that is hard to understand? Mythology, by the sheer definition of the word, looks to the past. Maybe we are now forming our own myths of the future. This is indeed a time with mythological potential.
Achilles is the Greek symbol of courage – I know firsthand. In Greek there are two words: Tharos (courage) and Thrassos (this is hard to translate, almost like courage with rudeness). It’s the difference between being bold and honorable and being bold and not respecting the consequences to yourself or to others.
I propose that confidence is a higher octave of courage, a positive byproduct of applying courage with integrity. Is there a planet that has those qualities.
Don’t know why I had to unload all this info but if it’s helpful, so much the better.
John
thanks john, this has a lot of resonance for me right now:
“through this particular Chiron conjunction we come face to face with were our Confidence is placed – or misplaced – and how we can develop genuine confidence for ourselves and use it in healthy ways.”
John,
I am with you on this. I discovered this in myself. Once when I was about 23 I had my first darshan with a guru named Gurani Anjali, my friend JJH’s guru. It lasted about three minutes. She sat me down on a yoga mat, looked at me and said, “You have maturity. It’s confidence you need.” That took a while and I am still getting there.
I will look at the role of Achilles in this chart. That’s an asteroid that deals with false confidence and false lack of confidence. It’s a good one. Thanks for your thoughts.
Huffy, yep – it is going around.
e
Eric – It’s quite uncanny that you emailed the question “What are men going through? What are our fathers going through?” because I’d been thinking just yesterday how I wanted to write to you about this, but didn’t know where to. An extraordinary number of fathers I know, or know of have been falling sick or literally have passed away. My own father is getting over a heart attack and quadruple heart bypass (he’s 78), two friends of mine recently lost their fathers (they’d been sick for a long long time) , a colleague of mines father has just had a heart attack. And talking to other people – I’ve found out that it’s happening to many. Recently – a lovely guy I worked for (in his seventies), sadly, went into a deep depression and physical decline, and he has now decided to retire. And I keep thinking – boy are the men getting it in the neck right now – especially the older generation – and realise that it must be a very challenging sky for a lot of geezers.
Liz xx
Eric
In response to your post from yesterday and today’s sequel, I would propose that, intuitively speaking, this energy may have to do with the development of confidence in our ability to see our strengths as individuals.
Confidence as a concept is often more valuable than self-esteem. I feel that through this particular Chiron conjunction we come face to face with were our Confidence is placed – or misplaced – and how we can develop genuine confidence for ourselves and use it in healthy ways.
john