By Len Wallick
Today is the New Moon at 23+ degrees Taurus. On the East Coast of the United States at 9:04 pm, 6:04 pm Pacific. That’s when the Sun and Moon form a conjunction. That means that they are in the same sign at the same degree of longitude. This happens once a month in most months.
If Luna’s orbit around Earth were in the same plane as Earth’s orbit around the Sun, every New Moon would find the luminaries not only at the same longitude but also the same latitude. Thus every such monthly conjunction would be a solar eclipse.
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However, that’s not the way it is. The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is at an angle to the ecliptic, another name for the plane of our planet’s orbit around old Sol. As such, Luna’s path intersects with the ecliptic only twice a month. Once on the way to going below it (at the South lunar node) and once on its way to rising above our orbital plane (at the North lunar node). When the Moon is in or very close to this node at the time of conjunction we actually have a solar eclipse. That’s why they are relatively rare. The last one was on mid-January of this year. The next one will be this coming July 11th.
The lunar nodes are more than just where eclipses can take place. They are perhaps the most important hypothetical points on an astrological chart. By hypothetical point, one means that there is no mass there. No chunk of rock or ice, no giant ball of gas. Periodically, however, an object could intersect while passing through on its elliptical journey. More often these points combine to form an aspect to another moving thing and bring their cachet to the combination. Karma, consequences, attachment, or release for the South node. Dharma, creativity, responsibility or embrace with the North.
Like nearly everything on an astrological chart, the nodes move. Perpetually in retrograde. Eternally separated by 180 degrees. In opposition forever. After about a year and a half the nodes transit into a new pair of signs. entering in the last degrees, leaving in the first. It’s been almost a year since the nodes moved from the Leo-Aquarius axis to where they are now, in Cancer and Capricorn.
When the nodes change signs, something curious happens. The New Moon takes place just a few days (or hours) before the Sun moves on to the next solar house. This is significant because one of the few things all schools of astrology agree on is the symbolism of a New Moon. It’s a germination, a seminal moment, the beginning of a new pattern that will develop as Luna waxes. When the Sun quickly transits from the conjunction to a new energy field, however, that pattern often does not get a chance to jell before it shifts.
As time goes on, the nodes progress backwards slowly, day by day. Incrementally, month by month. Back through the degrees even as the day of the New Moon moves back ever more deeply into a sign. Today is seven days before the beginning of solar Gemini. So we have a week for both luminaries to be on the same page. That makes a difference. We are beginning to feel it now. It will progress as the year continues, giving us a place to be and an ambiance to dwell in. It will come in handy.
So if the New Moon is a new beginning and we are now in a period when its germination has time to take root, what does this mean for the near future? Before we check other planets, let’s check in with ourselves. Solar Taurus is a time to stop, look around and take it in a bit. It hosts the mid-point between the Vernal Equinox and the Cancer solstice. How many of us however, have had the chance to honor this middle season? How many of us have been hunkered down or running around? That might indicate how to begin. Feel the ground with your feet. Examine it with your eyes. Look gradually up toward the horizon, then the sky. Take it in. Breathe it out. Spare a few minutes for simply living today.
Just as our eyes would rise from our feet to the skies, let us feel the same beginnings with the personal planets. Mercury is direct now. Slow, to be sure. Still deep in the echo phase, yes. Continuing through its storm period, probably. But direct in an Earth sign, Taurus. Accelerating towards a solstice. If that’s not looking up from the bottom, one might ask what is.
Venus, the ruler of Taurus is also looking upwards. On a merry chase, its new mission. Rising higher in the western twilight with every passing evening. Slowly but surely gaining ground on Mars. And wouldn’t you know it they will conjoin in Libra, the sign Venus rules, on the August evening when Venus reaches its highest elevation in the Western sky. No kidding. For real. So, in the midst of of our present fatigue, concurrent with our confounded rage, germinating from the tension and the polarity, and initiating even as are tempted to see an end, a happy meeting is being born under our very noses. All we have to do is witness. Hang around, why dontcha? Watch it grow and bear fruit. Who knows what could happen in the meantime? Sure is a good excuse to catch a break at the end of the day.
Appreciate this coming week for the now. Know we can trust where it is leading. Take heart in the expansion it implies. Believe the promise of the season. If there are burdens, push back on them. If there are shocks, rebound. Stay with us through the phases of this new lunar cycle. It will lead us where we want to go if we accept and remember that we know where that is.
Offered In Service
Ah but Len…it is that “intuitive call” of yours that I especially treasure. I lived in a family that was populated by a lot of air people so my own intuition was never believed or even given any validation. I am so glad you have this venue to share your intuitive flashes with all of us. (thanks, Eric.)
Eric and Tracy – please accept my thanks. Know you are both very busy people. Thankfully your efforts were not wasted.
My greatest and truly sincere thanks go to wandering_yeti. Without the healthy challenge of a skeptic, my admittedly intuitive call would have merged into the blogosphere un-noticed. Thank you for keeping me honest.
Tracy continues…
So it takes approx 2 years & 10 months for the new moon to gradually move backwards in degrees from 29+ to 0+, roughly the time it takes the nodes to move through two signs.
Which gives the observation that the nodal sign changes roughly coincide with lunations at the end or middle of signs, obviously with some variation, but the two cycles coincided exactly last time in 2009, as described in the article, which is the end/beginning of some kind of great cycle.
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Len — good call.
Tracy has been working on this question of the pattern of New Moons. I’m fortunate to know someone who is a talented astrology programmer; she learned computers waay back in the day when they were beginning to proliferate, segued into astrology at some point, and then started learning how to write scripts that access the databases where the information is kept. The databases can be accessed free through Swiss Ephemeris, you just have to know how to do it, and get good at it. She’s able to create calculation functions that simply do not exist anywhere else, because either nobody is asking, they’re not commercially viable, or because they’re too freakin’ hard to do (especially if they involve very distant planets such as Eris).
Anyway, vis a vis the question of New Moons (the position of lunations), she just wrote:
My take on her logic question is that involves the relationship of the solar cycle (360 degrees, 12 signs) to the lunar cycle (13 cycles per year).
Thanks Len, a lot of light offered here after the last few weeks when everything appeared to be under the demolation hammer and no hope in sight, but here after the new moon early this morning I am feeling lighter and feel now to perhaps move on to a new awareness, a very different day indeed.
Your deep awarness is a true gift to the many struggling souls at this time and your bloggers all add bits which are very helpfull to unravel the mystries which I am struggling and trying to deal with, the difficult tasks I have set myself in this lifetime seem never ending.
Also just to remind you all I just about missed autumn or fall this year due to the more difficult energies, autumn here is fantastic time not only with the changing colours and the shorter days with a sharper chill at nights as we head into the dead of winter,in this elevated part of Queensland and one can feel the withdrawing of energies as nature rests, sometimes I feel to hibernate myself especially lately.
I often feel there is little or no appreciation or even any remote awareness of life as it exists south of Amercia in the blogs especially in regard to the opposite climate, this is to say Hi this is Australia an extremly special place to me and winter is upon us.
Don
Downunder
“So if the New Moon is a new beginning and we are now in a period when its germination has time to take root, what does this mean….?”
Len: XO’s to ya. Gut first, science follows (and always it is arguing with itself).
Is that form follows function or — ?
Love, Life, Laughter and Looking forward to the next Len report,
Linda
One of the difficulties with relying on the written word is there are no tonal sounds to enhance the experience. I’m not at all certain Yeti intended to be disrespectful, but perhaps a quick flippant response. I confess I have often been caught out with someone taking offense when none was intended. Len, we don’t expect perfection from you, nor should you. We are all perfectly imperfect! Mortification is a waste of your considerable talents (smile)
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy the poetical writings you provide us. I’ve too much of a novice to understand all of the knowledge offered by you, Eric and the other erudite contributors at Planet Waves – but I’m learning! Your contributions put me in a space much like meditation; relaxed and peaceful. Many, many thanks.
Note from Tracy…
Hi – btw – from producing lists of direction changes for all the bodies for the aspectarians – the Mean Nodes are always retrograde, but the True Nodes change direction frequently – which makes sense if you think about what each of them are. The reason I use Mean Node in the aspectarians is exactly because the True ones “station” every few days and kind of take over the list that way. Of course there’s nothing to really station or be retrograde or direct, there’s just the position the hypothetical calculation gives you for any given moment, which we can choose to see as a pattern of motion, but it isn’t. The True Node darts around all over the place due to the highly theoretical way it’s calculated, from a snapshot of the Moon’s current position, which wobbles. The Mean Nodes are a smoothed-out, average “path” of the nodes.
x
PS i.e., all the stuff about Mean v True BML applies, but there is less difference between the two versions than with BML.
Thank you Len,
As an enthusiastic student of astrology I love to check in on the varying takes on the lunations, sometimes just to reorient myself to my “feeling” and process as it resonates with the “all”. At the beginning of the retrograde I felt invincible, towards the end I felt like teaching ” A Course in Madness”.
Too many blips on the chart to expound further… here’s to the New Moon!
hypnotic – been watching the July 11, 2010 TOTAL solar eclipse for some time now. Am studying on it. Have provided a bit of foreshadowing in the Daily Astrology. However, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. There is a lot to happen between now and then. Besides, need to study some more so at to give you the very best and most accurate reports possible. Will leave you with this tidbit for now Detective Hypnotic: “location, location, location”. How’s that?
wandering_yeti: Thank you. It is my intent to be 100% honest and in integrity with you and other members of the Planet Waves community. You are serving a valuable role of skeptic providing the check-and-balance to make sure that my intent is realized. Thank you, Thank you.
Half – Thank you. since i’m the eldest sibling nobody ever stuck up for me. It’s been that way pretty much my whole life. Feels good to have that rare support.
Eric: thank you for the benefit of your erudition and integrity. As you said, time will tell.
To all others: As you may know from times when i have been in error, it is a mortifying experience for me and i strive to correct the erratum promptly. i have sent an inquiry to another experienced astrologer asking for a parallax view. Perhaps i she find it necessary to consult with others as well. Will do all that i can to get clarification.
I’m hearing a lot about the upcoming solar eclipse during the cardinal t-square from various sources today. Synchronicity? Looking forward to hearing about it on PW, also as it will be very near my ascendant…
Len, thanks for the lovely piece and grounding…
Ladies, Gents,
On its face, it’s true that the nodal cycle is not directly involved with the routine lunar cycle. But I am not sure that Len is “wrong” here. I say this not out of theoretical knowledge but more so because it sounds like Len is speaking from observation, and he tends to be observant. So I suggest we sort this out that way.
The lunar nodes are directly involved with eclipses; they point the where eclipses happen, and eclipses happen in a precise pattern. So there may well be a relationship between the position of the lunar nodes (within a sign) and the tendency for lunations to occur in a certain place (within a sign, when the nodes change sign).
I’ve never looked for that, and it is an interesting observation; it’s a theory worth testing. That’s pretty easy to do: we can just look at New Moons around the time when the nodes change signs, which is every 18 months or so.
One thing I would clarify is that while the movement of the nodes is overall in retrograde, the early programmers who taught computers how to follow the positions of the planets (Neil Michelsen, among them) discovered that the nodes are direct a few days a week, though overall their movement is retrograde. They go against the tide of the chart, which is partly why they are so potent — they are the only commonly used thing that does.
Yeti, my feeling is that your statement may be a touch disrespectful in tone.. Just a thought..
The nodes changing signs has absolutely nothing to do with the timing of new moons. What are you talking about?
Blessings all and thank you so much Len for your daily peotry
The new moon embraces my north node and I am happy to be on the earth!
We are taking a break today. A fierce storm with straight winds blew through the city early this, like a tornado. Much damage, so two large school districts are closed. “Taking stock” is the order of the day.
Wonderful post Len. I can confirm the truth in what you say. Something is turning and opening right now and it feels like relief.
“Spare a few minutes for simply living today.”
That’s lovely advice Len.
I need to stop and smell the …….lilacs!
Thanks Len, I needed that. . . to get my feet back on the ground. It has been a very disorienting time. I almost missed Spring and wouldn’t that be a cryin’ shame!