{"id":28313,"date":"2010-09-02T05:13:08","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=28313"},"modified":"2010-09-02T05:13:08","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T10:13:08","slug":"into-the-fourth-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/into-the-fourth-quarter\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the Fourth Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Len Wallick<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Hopefully your local weather provided the opportunity to get out under the night sky this week. We hope you will make a habit of it as we in turn offer encouragement and tips regarding what to look for and where to find it. The idea is for you to form your own relationship with the luminaries, planets, stars and constellations, then pass that information on to your friends, family, lovers and most importantly to children.<\/p>\n

In his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451<\/em>, Ray Bradbury writes of a world where burning books is considered an entirely proper and normal way to preserve the established order. There are even a class of civil servants, ironically called firemen, whose job it is to find books and burn them. However, there exists a secret society of people that seeks to protect and preserve the most important tomes by committing them to memory and passing them on.<\/p>\n

Your humble servant suggests you consider the possibility that our personal contact with the cosmos, taken for granted over thousands, if not millions of years, may be at risk just as the books in the fictional story. Perhaps there is no intent, no conspiracy. One would hope. The lifestyle, air and light pollution that keeps us from knowing the sky as our ancestors did may simply be inadvertent, but the consequences are the same, leaving us without important knowledge. One could do far worse than to learn the Moon by heart.
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We can start by what you may have seen if you were up late enough last night. Yesterday the Moon reached the last quarter. That means the halfway point between the Full Moon and the New Moon. As you will recall, the Full Moon is an opposition between Sol and Luna with us here on Earth sitting between them, like an audience in a movie theater between the projector and the screen. The New Moon on the other hand has Luna as the pickle in the middle. Which is why we can’t see it — the Sun is shining on the other side. That’s a conjunction of the two luminaries.<\/p>\n

So if full is an opposition and new is a conjunction, what’s in between? That’s right, a square. The luminaries are at right angles to each other from our perspective. It even looks the part with Luna’s full visage cut squarely in two.<\/p>\n

For a lot of folks there is something about the third quarter that is challenging, even confronting. A last call of sorts, before the close of business initiated by the Leo New Moon just about three weeks ago. Maybe there is also an intuitive sense of vertigo. After all as we watch the last quarter Moon rise in the East, whether we know it or not, the Earth is heading straight for it.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Moon always moves out of the way. And after all, this phase is just part of a cycle. Properly speaking there is no beginning or end, just a phase.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, we find a fascinating bit of synchronicity today. Just as the Moon reached the third quarter of its cycle yesterday, today finds Luna and over a dozen planets (major and minor) about three quarters of the way through their respective signs. Somehow it seems appropriate to take the long road towards looking at that concurrence by going outside again (weather permitting) and taking up where we left off last night.<\/p>\n

Please remember that last night we followed the extended curve of the Big Dipper’s handle until our eyes were led to the bright star, Arcturus. Tonight we want to begin earlier. This exercise will work better for those who live in the more temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The line that leads from Arcturus to the star Spica is a rather more precipitous drop than from the Big Dipper’s handle to Arcturus. Not quite vertical, slanting towards the South. It helps to locate Venus first, that bright steady diamond on the western horizon at sunset. That’s the neighborhood. Start with Venus, and proceed to the left to find the brightest twinkler nearby. That’s Spica.<\/p>\n

This is where your latitude will make a difference. You see, unlike the North Star, the Big Dipper or Arcturus, Spica is very close to the ecliptic: that imaginary line in the sky near which the Sun and planets can be found. The position of the arc of the ecliptic will depend on your latitude and the time of year. Therefore Spica is what you might call seasonal.<\/p>\n

Your faithful correspondent lives in the northern Puget Sound basin between the 47th and 48th parallel. From this place Venus, Spica and Mars are already quite close to the horizon at sunset. For someone, say in the southwestern part of the United States, this trio would appear to be higher in the sky for longer. Nevertheless, if you are anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer, Spica is not long for the evening. It will be gone in another month. Arcturus will follow in November. See them now while you can.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Venus and Mars grow apart gradually as one slows down while the other speeds up. Both of them are about three quarters of the way through Libra, an air sign. The Moon reaches the same position in Gemini, another air sign, today. As discussed earlier in the week, signs designated by the same element tend to play well together. It would follow then that planets in different signs that share the same element would have something in common, something to talk about.<\/p>\n

If the Moon could talk with Venus and Mars today, where would they find empathy? Well, they are are all near the end of some very long cycles. Mars has looped and rolled back and forth across the ecliptic over this past year or so. Now, like Spica, it is not long for the night sky. Venus has risen as far towards the East as it can go during its tenure as the so-called evening star, now it is slowing down in preparation for its own vanishing act, after which it will reappear on the other side of the sky at the opposite time of day. And Luna, well, we have already touched on that.<\/p>\n

Don’t know about you, but the imagination of yours truly suggests that these three heavenly bodies could be feeling a bit diminished by now. On the last furlong, waiting for their second wind, looking forward to a new cycle just around the curve. And they are not alone. Eris and Sedna are out on the edge of the solar system. Ceres is in the asteroid belt along with Hygiea, Hidalgo, Terpsichore, Magdalena, Amor, Apollo and Osiris. Chariklo, Varuna and Logos are looping like laces in between. All of them are entering the fourth quarter of their respective signs and all of them are feeling it.<\/p>\n

And how about you, are you feeling it? As we traipse the last days towards an equinox, are you tired? Do you feel like you could sleep in a couple extra weeks on any given morning? Does it seem like a cycle is closing? Are you ready for the boost of a new cycle beginning? Thought so. Such a pick-me-up is actually close at hand. Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and from an unexpected quarter. Its something very much like a New Moon in its physical manifestation of three bodies lining up.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your time this week; tomorrow Eric is back with the Friday edition and weekly horoscopes. Among other things he’s going to tell you about Mercury’s conjunction with the Sun.<\/p>\n

Offered In Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Len Wallick Hopefully your local weather provided the opportunity to get out under the night sky this week. We hope you will make a habit of it as we in turn offer encouragement and tips regarding what to look for and where to find it. The idea is for you to form your own … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}