Third Night of the Moon: Earth and Water

Earth and water on the Grandmother Land in Ulster County, NY. Photo by Eric.

Today is Monday, August 1, 2011. The Moon is in new phase; the Sun-Moon conjunction was exact Saturday, so Monday is the third night of the Moon — what is technically the heliacal rise, or the first night the crescent is visible. The ancient Jews used to go on a mountain and blow a ram’s horn each month when that happened. That horn is echoing from the hills, heralding an exciting week.

Earth & water - photo by Eric.

Observational astrology is the passion of our friend and contributor Gary Caton, and he wrote to me tonight with a few thoughts: “It is perhaps somewhat paradoxical, but the Moon operates on two levels. On the one hand she is the most obvious figure in the night sky and is at the forefront of any astrological analysis because she carries the collective mood. On the other hand she represents the deepest part of our psyche, the innermost layer of the onion if you will, and the last stage of the alchemical process. So the first visible appearance of the Moon is a great time to look for signs and synchronicities regarding any prayers or affirmations you made around the New Moon. These could represent the channels through which a very deep alchemy is working over the next six months until the Full Moon in that sign (where there was just a New Moon).”

This is another way of saying: work the fields of manifestation patiently, nurturing your life and using intention and a sense of cultivated growth, as if you are growing crops. Overnight the Moon drifts out of late Leo, makes a conjunction to the mysterious point Transpluto (sometimes associated with negative self judgments), then ingresses Virgo at 4:43 am EDT.

The Moon will be rather busy all morning: it will promptly make an opposition to Neptune in Pisces (both being watery, creative and dreamy influences), followed by a conjunction to Mercury in Virgo (which is slow and powerful in the sky, slowing to a retrograde Tuesday evening — more on that in a moment). The Moon picks up the visionary energy of Neptune in Pisces and carries it to Mercury in mental, focused Virgo — this looks like the translation from idea to expression. Write down your fleeting inspirations. Do your best to remember your dreams in the morning, and get them on paper no matter how odd they may seem; they could contain precious drops of wisdom. Remember that the Moon is building momentum, and is still at the seed-phase where you can guide the flow of events, made decisions and reverse your thinking on matters you thought you had settled. If you’ve made a choice you no longer like, it’s okay to choose again.

Later in the morning (at 11:38 am EDT), the Moon opposes Chiron, adding what may be the sensation of a reality-check or sobering awakening. Go with the flow, without letting any external events influence your feelings unduly. Remember the wisdom that you made contact with as you began your day. We have moments when life seems unusually intense and that may well be the nature of the Moon-Chiron opposition. Then the Moon aspects master psychologist Pluto in Capricorn (earth to earth, a trine). Do your best to observe your responses and reactions, and remember that people will give you about as much space to be yourself as you allow yourself. It’s easy to express and extend that as tolerance of others. That’s not just good for the world — it’s good for you. So keep your wits about you, including the especially useful one known as your sense of humor.

We will be back at noon EDT with astrology by Len Wallick.

Read about Eric’s new Mercury Retrograde report — and hear the extended introduction free at this link.

Here is a Mercury retrograde summary audio podcast:

10 thoughts on “Third Night of the Moon: Earth and Water”

  2. Yeah, Eric, I think we are share the same basic perspective on what is happening, and many of your other commenters do too, with great insights.

    Krugman in the Times is calling the deal a complete catastrophe, on multiple levels — for the economy, for the democrats, for our quality of life.

    To me, I see it as the last capitulation of democratic govt to corporate interests. The businesses didn’t like it when Obama squeezed through a bunch of small eco-related changes in his first term — like more reviews on mountaintop-removal coal mining, more species added to endangered species act, more restrictions on plastic packaging, higher fuel efficiency in cars, etc..

    These were small consumer (eco) victories in the big scheme of things, and lord knows we had waited DECADES to get them passed, but they must have infuriated big business, which pays so much money to own our govt.

    So they decided the way to zero out our gains was to just de-fund all these new measures, and they cooked up the debt ceiling crisis to do it. And they are going to get away with it.

    To me it just says there is no point in the democratic process anymore, it has been completely corrupted and undermined.

    Democracy is dead in the United States. RIP Democracy. I hope we see you again sometime.

  3. This “crisis” was written about by two authors in their book, “The Fourth Turning.”

    Here’s the website that explains that we are in a 4th turning which is a crisis time, similar to the time just before the French Revolution: http://www.fourthturning.com/html/history___turnings.html

    Though it is not exact and has questionable dates and such, the book describes our current crisis very well. This book was copyrighted in 1997.

    Here’s the blurb about it:

    “Just after the millennium, America will enter a new era that will culminate with a crisis comparable to the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. The survival of the nation will almost certainly be at stake.

    Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history as a series of recurring 80- to 100-year cycles. Each cycle has four “turnings”-a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling, and a Crisis. The authors locate today’s America as midway through an Unraveling, roughly a decade away from the next Crisis (or Fourth Turning). And they recommend ways Americans can prepare for what’s ahead, as a nation and as individuals.”

    According to their timing, we are deep into the “Crisis” period of the Fourth Turning.

    I wonder how their cycles correspond to astrological ones?

  4. Here is what the unsigned Astrotabletalk guy said. The one point I like is that Uranus square Pluto will come with crisis that calls for deep structural change. But he stops short of demonstrating that he understands the problem:

    I think what we are seeing in the US is a crisis of Democracy. It is the political system itself that has brought the US to this pass. Republicans or Democrats, allowed to govern, would have different solutions, which one might or might not agree with, but at least there would be some sort of solution, via a reduction in government spending.

    I am not sure what he means by extreme, except ‘extremely limited’ in that the venues of influence would require multimillion dollar lobbyists and making a lot of campaign bribes. I am not sure what he means by solution, unless he is referring to a ‘final solution’. This is not about ‘agree with’ unless you think your opinion on torture, or having nearly 2% of the adult population in jail, actually matters at the moment.

    And I think the US has this political crisis because their form of Democracy is extreme. Like I said, it has a paranoid element that denies power to the person who has the power. (Kennedy used to bemoan that Khrushchev had far more power to govern than he did!) America needs to let the governing party/person actually rule, and then deal with the consequences. Otherwise it will never grow up as a country. You see it in teenagers, who are rebelling against/afraid of adult power, and yet vulnerable to charismatic leaders.

    I am not sure what he means by democracy. I don’t recognize the US as a democracy, or even as a participatory republic; I recognize it as a plutocracy and a corporatist system: rule by the elite (plutocracy) and the merging of corporate and government until the two are inseparable (corporatism) until Blackwater is part of the government but not subject to the Constitution, and infant police are born with Tasers.

    We are indeed living with the results of decisions the governing party that ruled by shock and awe from the late 1990s through 2008, and which the opposition party went along with. Hillary Clinton made one of the ‘great’ floor speeches in favor of the Iraq war. This in effect means we have one party, but it’s operating with the perception of two differing philosophies, which causes a lot of confusion. And that may go so far — it may work so far — but there is nothing stopping The Party from doing anything it wants, in this case eviscerating environmental regulations as the dead hostage we don’t get to hear about on TV or on most websites.

    The difference between Democrats and Republicans is a little like the difference between Coke and Diet Coke. Coke has high fructose corn syrup that will mess with your hormones, clog your coronary arteries, spike your blood sugar and make you fat quickly. Diet Coke has NutraSweet that overloads your blood with amino acids and formaldehyde, and causes CNS damage, seizures and brain tumors. But both are sweet.

    Or — perhaps more simply — the Pubs and Dems are part of the same energy picture, with Pubs playing the role of Carcinocin and Dems playing the role of Anacardium. Please see my article from Saturday, The Tea Party: Cancer in the American Psyche.

  9. There were a lot of disgusting anti-environmental riders tacked onto the Senate bill, that is true.

    And truly it’s high time we stop expecting these people to take care of us. Working on environmental issues my whole adult life, the thing I’ve always been up against was the government.

  10. Contact your house member and tell him or her to VOTE NO on the debt ceiling measure!

    It’s a pure and total defeat. The business interests are going to be able to zero out every small victory we’ve had in the past three years in environmental and health protections when they make their $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

    Besides, Obama already said this was unacceptable — he said he wouldn’t accept all spending cuts and no revenues gains.

    But that’s is what they now say they will do!

    They are going to de-fund the EPA. The are going to de-fund higher fuel efficiency for cars. They are going to de-fund the FDA’s new toxicology program to study the health effects of plastics and other chemicals.

    They are going to un-do every good thing we have fought for.

    CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN! TELL HIM TO VOTE NO!!!!

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