The Virgo Moon — and Nessus square Asbolus

Today is June 7, 2011. The Moon is making its way through late Leo; it’s creeping along at under 12 degrees per day at the moment (its slowest, which means it’s far from the Earth) and after being void of course most of the day (unless you have an affinity for that odd bit now at the end of Leo — Transpluto), will ingress Virgo Tuesday at 3:33 pm EDT. There, it will get a grand cross rolling between Jupiter and Pluto, as well as make an opposition to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. So that is what’s called a kite pattern: a triangle, with an extra point at one end, just like a kite is shaped. That’s also what you would call a lot of lunar aspects in a few hours. So expect a fast game, many changes in circumstances and an interesting evening.

The Virgo Moon may be inviting you to do something introspective, studious, healing-oriented or involving deep connection. Make sure you go to an appropriate depth for the circumstances you’re in. Given the Virgo Moon picking up all that Pisces well into the night, alcohol or cannabis could take you out of your depth. Know who you’re with, know the territory you’re in and know thyself.

All week I’ve been describing outer planet movements — such as Jupiter’s aspects to Neptune, Chiron and Pluto. I checked a special ephemeris my friend Tracy Delaney at Serennu.com wrote so I could track aspects among weird planets that nobody else lists, and I found an interesting aspect that I forgot was happening. It’s a square (90 degrees, full of tension and power) between Nessus and Asbolus — two centaur planets. Centaurs are odd, edgy little critters that tend to cross a lot of orbits of other planets. I happen to have a fair amount of experience with both Nessus and Asbolus. These are relatively new discoveries, from the 1990s, though they are among the oldest centaurs (Nessus was the third, and I am pretty sure Asbolus was the fourth discovered). Both represent primal level forces; the centaurs all have that quality but Nessus and Asbolus lean toward the animal level more than many others. The centaurs always blend animal and human themes; that is their essence. Sometimes this manifests as a struggle between what you might call primal vs. psychological.

Nessus is about the cycles of karma which include deception and revenge. I give it the key phrase ‘the return of karma’ and my cousin Melanie Reinhart says ‘the buck stops here’. As for Asbolus, its name means carbon dust. I attribute this to the concept of what all life has in common: the need to survive. So we get an interesting connection between a kind of angry glitch in human consciousness and an even deeper connection that all living things share. Yet as a square, this is being expressed as an internal phenomenon. Make sure you can distinguish the difference between the drive for power and the will to survive. There is a difference and it is a meaningful one.

Let’s consider these two centaurs meeting in an exact square (Thursday, by the way, but they are s-l-o-o-w planets) in another light: sex. With Nessus, we have some of the darker sexual impulses coming out, including potentially inappropriate contact (please — remember the ‘potentially’ when you use Nessus, because it is only a potential), as well as a kind of cycle of jealousy and retribution (which, by the way, can get mingled with scandal and sexually transmitted infections). Then there is Asbolus, which is about whatever all living things need to do in order to survive — and unless you’re a plant that clones or a single-cell critter, that would include some form of sex. So here we have a basic biological instinct shot through the prism of human psychology at just about its worst. That is the struggle we face when we apply judgment to the sexual expression of others — no matter what it is. Everyone can be made wrong. Currently, it’s all vogue to make male politicians into society’s sexual scapegoats, while we insist they be manly to the max while as pure as Johnson’s baby shampoo.