Now it’s been 10,000 years / Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew / Now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night / The twinkling of starlight
So very far away / Maybe it’s only yesterday
— “In the Year 2525,” the #1 hit at the time of the first Moon landing.
It’s now the last week of August, and we’re just a few weeks from the equinox. It seems like a moment ago when it was the last week of July and we were a week from Midsummer.
For those whose minds are focused on space, or those who grew up witnessing history as the Apollo program made its way into there, I want to take another moment and commemorate the life of Neil Armstrong.
A civilian pilot, Armstrong was the first person that we know of to set foot on an extraterrestrial world — the Earth’s Moon [see related article looking at his astrology].
It’s difficult to put this into context today. We think of the late 1960s as ‘modern times’ though most TVs were black and white and people were still impressed by transistor radios, and relatively few had ever been to an airport.
For context, this was the year that both the Concord and the 747 flew for the first time, so it was a big year for aviation in general; that aspect was Jupiter conjunct Uranus in the first degree of Libra, opposite the Aries Point. Jupiter has the sensation of knowledge and flight (connected to Sagittarius, also associated with flight) and Uranus is often present for breakthroughs and inventions. The two are conjunct for a little while every 14 years. This time it was in the first degree of Libra, a sensitive point in the sky as it aligns with the September equinox.
Imagine the astonishment of watching shaky images of two men stepping out of a fragile spacecraft (characterized by its gold foil-like substance in various places) and leaving human boot prints across the powdery surface of another world. Imagine the guts it would take to do such a thing — to have yourself placed on the surface of another planet, with no guarantee of getting home. (Nixon had even prepared a speech to use in the event that Armstrong and Collins got stranded on the lunar surface.)
For those of us back on Earth, it’s a reminder of how far we are from everyplace else, how isolated on our own planet. It may take much wider context than we have, and many more years of observation, to account for how this event influenced consciousness and our sense of existence; but we know that that Neil Armstrong led the way. I describe his chart in an article below, though I will sum up again and say that his astrology reveals him as a mystic, an adventurer and a peaceful warrior. Eagle scout and engineer — it’s all there to see, described as an offering in service and a clairvoyant intellect.