Solstice: It’s been getting dark out there

Hey there…

This phenomenon of the days getting shorter seems to get worse every year. At of this writing we’re about 12 hours away from the Sun’s ingress into Capricorn [exact at 7:04 am EST on Sunday], after which the days get longer for us in the Northern Hemisphere. You may not feel like you can feel this fact, a mere four minutes of extra light a day; but think of it as a big machine — the starry dynamo of the night — switching directions. This, we can feel. And not only do the days get longer, the compression effect of them getting shorter stops.

I clicked on Planet Waves (which is 10 years old as of the solstice) earlier and read that the asteroid Atlantis moved into Capricorn today; it is conjunct Pluto and the Sun in the solstice chart for tomorrow morning. To me this hints that the issue of technology will be one of the most significant of the next four or more seasons.

This also means that Atlantis is around the neighborhood of the coming Cap New Moon, which is a very complex chart and I know that two of our astrologers, Genevieve and Shanna, have both been wrestling with it a bit to create interpretations where we use this energy constructively instead of getting caught in the apparent negativity. I cover it in this issue of the Planet Waves subscriber edition, Astrology News, called The Capricorn Point.

This alignment in early Cap is interesting from a Mayan astrology viewpoint. The theme of Atlantis speaks to the “leap beyond technology” that our main Mayan mythmaker, Jose Arguelles, has been injecting into the culture for years. Atlantis is less about the leap and more about what happens when we become the product of our technology rather than being its creators.

This is a real problem, and we are quite caught in the vortex right now. I can see this, but I can also see it as one who uses technology basically for the express purpose of creating. I don’t think I would be so thrilled with this high-speed digital world if I could not use it to some greater good; there is not enough out there that is spiritually fulfilling enough to be its passive recipient. I really don’t know how so many people can have such incredible technology and not become obsessed with creating. It is true that there are lot more people doing a lot more with all these cool toys: homemade Youtubes, blogs, PowerPoint things…but I don’t think we’ve reached the critical mass point where we are, on balance, the ones creating the technosphere. It is, more accurately, being thrown at us like bricks.

One last Mayan astrology point — John Major Jenkins suggests that the position of the Sun on the first day of Capricorn (i.e., Northern Hemisphere winter), is what 2012 is really about. This point is very close to the dark band that crosses the Milky Way, known to the ancient Mayans as the Road to Xibabla. If you’re interested, I covered this a couple of years ago in Parallel Worlds but I’m having a little difficulty finding the URL. Anyway — this is the 2012 time of year and hey — it’s now just four short years to the infamous winter solstice of 2012, the last day of the 13th baktun; when the Mayan calendar goes to the date 13.0.0.0.0.

When the Sun crosses over that Pluto-Atlantis conjunction tomorrow, we should learn something about ourselves. I’ve just put the chart up using Tracy’s ephemeris tool. I’ve set it up with a 30-degree sort, so we can see everything that’s in the early degrees of any sign, where the Sun, Atlantis and Pluto are gathered in Capricorn. For the moment I’m skipping over anything NOT in a cardinal sign, so that what I’m really looking at is called a 90-degree sort. This is techie but anyway the idea is, when there is action early in the cardinal signs, you look at all the cardinal signs and see what’s there.

Of course, that means everything that’s gathered on the Aries Point. That link will key you in to what I mean by the Aries Point. Note, when I or someone else says “on the Aries Point,” what we mean is “conjunct the first degree of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn.” This “on” thing is a reference to a school of astrology that counts conjunctions, squares and oppositions as the same thing. It simplifies the chart and you don’t lose any detail. It’s interesting — you same to gain some insight into what’s going on, and where the Aries Point is concerned it is always big.

One asteroid that comes up is Eurydike, one that I have never used. I’ve got my 552-page repertory of asteroid and planet combinations by Martha Lang-Wescott open. She is describing Eurydike-Pluto as being about the balance of power in relationships where one person relies too heavily on another. The depended on person has power and they know it. She writes, “There is a shade of warning here. Consider motives when issues of dependency occur. Consider what happens when one relies on another who may be psychologically canny or carrying seeping emotional wounds. Consider the challenges to integrity that can occur when on depends on another for important things.”

Hmmm….well, it’s not a stretch to see that this refers to our dependency on technology. I don’t think it’s so much about using technology but rather using it as a substitute for human contact; for feeling. I mean depending on technology to tell us who we are rather than deciding who we are.

On this, the longest night,

Yours & truly

Eric Francis (in the midst of the Next World Stories extended horoscopes…I intended to do Aquarius today but ended up spending hours and hours on Libra… )