{"id":66742,"date":"2013-05-06T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T04:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=66742"},"modified":"2013-05-05T22:21:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T02:21:38","slug":"b-is-for-beltane-and-an-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/astro-daily\/b-is-for-beltane-and-an-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"B is for Beltane — and an Eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By my reckoning Beltane was Sunday at 4:18 am EDT, meaning that’s when the Sun reaches the midpoint of Taurus. That in turn is the midpoint between the equinox and the solstice (known as the cross-quarter). It’s a tipping point of the year and for us in the Northern Hemisphere, a moment when we know spring has actually arrived. <\/p>\n

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Kermit and his pet B.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That is, unless you live in that swath of Iowa, Kansas or Minnesota — hardy people out there, who are currently buried under enough snow to require front-end loaders to move it out of the way. <\/p>\n

Beltane is a time for the ritual of Hieros Gamos<\/a> — playing out the sexual communion between God and Goddess, symbolic of the harmonization of opposites. We spend a lot of time frustrated with our opposite, and this is a time to release that and reach a natural state of harmony. <\/p>\n

For this event, the Moon was in Pisces (it’s in Aries now), and Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pallas Athene are all in Taurus. It’s quite a chart. Mercury is making an opposition to Saturn in Scorpio (exact yesterday, but still in effect). Since we’re on the topic of sex (apropos of Beltane) this aspect is worth a moment of reflection along the theme of sexual communication.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There is potentially an imbalance to be aware of here. You’re not hallucinating if you’ve noticed that many people put a lot of energy into stuffing or otherwise denying their desire. There are many reasons for this: fear, the notion of losing control, the need to feel like a moral person, not having a model for how to express the energy, some form of old pain or grief, guilt, shame, etc. — and it’s very difficult to negotiate with these emotions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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But Mercury wants to; it wants retrograde Saturn to open up and let out some of its feelings. Mercury is asking Saturn not to be so invested in the past. Mercury in Taurus makes perfect sense, but this is not about sense. I would suggest that instead of trying to convince anyone to change, or waiting for it to happen, that you find people on your wavelength and share with them. Otherwise what you’re doing is making someone else’s hangup into your own, which becomes a kind of excuse not to be free to choose for yourself. <\/p>\n

“Trying to get someone to open up” sounds like trying to work out parental material with a partner; that rarely works. <\/p>\n

This is a special Beltane season, since there’s an eclipse coming on May 9 at 8:28 pm EDT. We’ve covered this eclipse in a recent SKY column<\/a> (a regular feature in our premium membership mailings). The eclipse also contains a cautionary note about parental material — it’s conjunct Pallas Athene. That’s a caution about doing things designed to get your dad to approve of you. <\/p>\n

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Created by Good Vibrations<\/a>; endorsed by Pres. Obama, the Tea Party, the FDA and Planet Waves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One nice element in the eclipse chart is that Venus will have moved into Gemini by then, where it’s open to additional viewpoints, and more concerned with having a good time than it is with monogamy or commitment. Mars in Taurus is closer to the South Node, so it’s an integral element of the eclipse. There’s a message there about being aware of attachment, and what that means as opposed to loving someone. You don’t need to let go of desire or pleasure or even love when you let go of attachment; what would help is if you have enough self-esteem to recognize that love is real. <\/p>\n

Which brings me to masturbation month. Sometime in the 1990s, the Good Vibrations sex toy stores in San Francisco and Berkeley designated May as Masturbation Month. This is interesting given that Beltane is the season of coupling, but I associate Taurus, where the Sun is through most of May, with masturbation. Think of this is Hieros Gamos with yourself. <\/p>\n

Plenty of what goes on within a person involves conflict between and among various inner male and inner female archetypes, and explored consciously, it’s possible to have a lot of fun and bring yourself into tune. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By my reckoning Beltane was Sunday at 4:18 am EDT, meaning that’s when the Sun reaches the midpoint of Taurus. That in turn is the midpoint between the equinox and the solstice (known as the cross-quarter). It’s a tipping point of the year and for us in the Northern Hemisphere, a moment when we know … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1734],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66742"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}