Friends, Cousins, Readers — here is your Full Moon audio. The article below — while a bit esoteric — looks at some of the subtler points of today’s lunar event. If you’re new to this kind of astrology, have a gander. It’s not quite “wear mauve, Gemini plays a role,” but there is some rich information and lots for the imagination. This article looks at some of the nonconventional planets that were closely conjunct this morning’s Full Moon. I explain them one at a time.
Tracy, the author of the Serennu Ephemeris, emailed me a minute ago with some late-breaking news, to say that this Full Moon, the one happening now, is conjunct Ceto, Deucalion and Poseidon.
In Greek myth, Ceto was or is a primal sea monster with several other names. He is the child of Gaia and Pontus. Pontus was one of the first-born generation of Greek gods, and early god of the seas. Gaia was his mother.
In planetary science, Ceto is known as (65849) Ceto is considered by most astronomers to be a centaur (in the class of Chiron, eccentric orbit-crossers) though I have seen it listed elsewhere as a trans-Neptunian object. It may be one of those points that defies easy categorization because it meets certain qualifications of both.
Deucalion is a character from a Greek flood myth. One day a long time ago, Zeus was pissed off, so he let loose a deluge, “so that the rivers ran in torrents and the sea flooded the coastal plain, engulfed the foothills with spray, and washed everything clean. Deucalion, with the aid of his father Prometheus, was saved from this deluge by building an ark, like his Biblical equivalent Noah and Mesopotamian counterpart Utnapishtim” (in the words of the Wikipedia editors, if you can believe them). In astrology he is a TNO. In astronomy he is (53311) Deucalion, a trans-Neptunian object with an orbit of about 295 years — a classical Kuiper Belt object. From an old article on the water worlds, I quote my colleague Philip Sedgwick: Deucalion relates to “understanding the flow (tides of life), manifestation ability, magical, resourceful, and seeing the talent in everyone.”