Taking Stock

By Len Wallick

If astrology is telling us anything right now it is that this is a time to take stock. Today’s blog will honor that cue, first by going back to basics and then by demonstrating how the basics are coming together to deliver that fundamental message.

We are in the middle of Scorpio: a point in a sign that is seeing some significant visitors these days bearing significant gifts if we are listening. It is a threshold to a threshold; an idea I will come back to after describing the bigger picture.

The zodiac is depicted as a circle. The circle represents an annual solar cycle. The cycle is equally divided into twelve signs just as the Gregorian calendar is divided into twelve months. The zodiac, however, does not begin and end when the Gregorian calendar begins and ends. Nor do the signs begin and end when the months do.

About the only thing the calendar and zodiac have in common is the fact that one year represents one orbit of the Earth around the Sun. After that, the beginnings and endings of cycles in astrology are organized around the seasons of the Earth. Once a year, when the Sun is directly over the equator, heading North, that is the vernal equinox. It is the first day of the Sun in the sign of Aries; the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. (Obviously the occurrence of seasons is reversed for the Southern Hemisphere in this description.)

The Sun then seems to proceed North until it is directly above the Tropic of Cancer. This is the first day of Sol’s tenure in the sign of Cancer and the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

After that the Sun’s apparent motion is South until it is directly over the equator again. That is the greater luminary’s first day in the sign of Libra and the first day of autumn in the northern half of the globe.

Finally, the Sun appears to move South until is is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. That is Sol’s first day in the sign of Capricorn and the first day winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

All this apparent motion of the Sun is an illusion. The star at the center of our solar system does not move relative to our planet. Rather, the Earth is tilted. As it makes its way around its annual circuit, the relationship between Sol and the upper and lower halves of our globe will change, creating a cycle of its own — the cycle of the seasons, the basis of astrology.

Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn are the cardinal signs. When the Sun enters a cardinal sign it corresponds directly to a geographical event, that being the apparent motion of the Sun bringing it to appear directly over one of three imaginary lines that appears on every globe and map of the Earth. Astrology is geography and cardinal events are distinguished by the fact that they are literally global in their implications.

Over the last year or so, readers of Planet Waves have received a thorough tutorial on the cardinal signs, especially the first degree of same. Three points on the zodiac where the seasons begin have been long occupied and repeatedly crossed by major planets that take a long time to go around the Sun as compared to Earth. This phenomenon we have referred to as the cardinal T-square.

Hence the idea that we are in a time when long-lasting cycles are beginning and that those cycles will have global implications. Everything at once. All of us together. Add to that the late, great Rockie Gardiner’s observation that astrology is not destiny and it becomes apparent that those living now are both challenged and privileged to be taking part in the creation of our foreseeable future.

That brings us up to today, right now, when the outer planets of long cycle are re-grouping and narrowing their focus to two of the points where the seasons change. It is striking that we now find ourselves functionally between the predominantly three-point and two-point renditions of the cardinal point phenomena just as were are precisely in between two seasonal change points. In other words, the short, familiar cycles are synchronized with those that are long and unfathomable. That means something. That cycles synchronize and that the events of one cycle tell us something about the concurrent events of all cycles is as fundamental to astrology as the Sun itself.

Following every cardinal sign is a fixed sign, as if to fix the new season in place. Following every fixed sign is a mutable sign, as if to dissolve the template of that which had been fixed; then a new cardinal sign and a new season. It stands to reason then that the middle of a fixed sign is the mid-point between seasons.

Just as cycles synchronize with each other, the middle of a fixed sign resonates with the first degree of a cardinal sign. Each is a threshold. The cardinal threshold is the beginning of something new. The fixed threshold is the the perspective between beginnings, a place to take stock.

The Sun is now in Scorpio, a fixed sign and just a few days away from the halfway point. We are on the threshold of the threshold and this place has seen a lot of action recently. It is about to see some more. Let’s take stock.

Back on October 3, Venus and Mars last conjoined at the same spot where the Sun will be tomorrow when Chiron stations direct in Aquarius for the last time.

Back on October 7, the Sun and Moon conjoined in Libra: a New Moon. This coming Saturday there will be another New Moon in Scorpio and the two luminaries will find themselves conjunct at precisely the same degree that Venus occupied during the Libra New Moon. It is also the same degree where Venus stationed retrograde on October 8 and where, on October 10, it conjoined with Mercury.

This coming Sunday Neptune will station direct within two arc minutes of its discovery degree in Aquarius, one day before retrograde Venus returns to Libra and less than two days before Mercury makes ingress to Sagittarius. By the way, the discovery of Neptune was just over 164 years ago on September 23, 1846 when (you guessed it) the Sun was in the first degree of the cardinal sign Libra. The time it takes for Neptune to go around the Sun is just over 164 years. Talk about coming full circle.

You might say there is a hole worn in the carpet where we and the Sun are standing right now and for the next several days. This spot has seen a lot of traffic lately. We are approaching the middle of a fixed sign; on the threshold of a threshold. It is where the cycles of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Chiron and Neptune have recently or will soon be synchronized, either spatially or temporally or both. One cycle informs the other, halfway between the seasons, midway between the cardinal point renditions that will involve Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto. It’s a good place to take stock in regards to the cycles of each of those planets. Good thing we have a whole weekend coming up; there’s a lot to think about.

And what about Mars? We will get back to that puppy next week.

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