♌ Leaping Leo! ♌

Sorry for the messy graphics- think of all that text in the way as trees obstructing your view.  They must be good for something…..

The above is a screenshot from stellarium showing the sky from Raleigh at 1:20pm July 22, 2014. 

The vertical line through the middle is called the meridian, or midheaven.  It always bisects the blue curve which represents Earth’s equator projected out to heaven, or the celestial equator.  The red curve, which represents the ecliptic, is another story.  It represents the path the Sun makes in the course of a year, so to speak.  In other words things are not as they seem, and we are all DISLEXIC!

Not to worry though.  The zodiac is here to help us understand what is really happening.  And so is Stellarium.  They’ve got this nifty little button you can click to dim the Sun’s light, making the stars that are normally ‘washed out’ during the day, visible.  That bright ball on the meridian is the Sun.  You can’t see Jupiter right next to it, but you can see the last few letters ‘..piter.’  You might have to squint or use your reading glasses.

Back to the red line, or ecliptic; notice how it is off center, skewed toward the west.  That has something to do with the Earth revolving on a tilted axis, the trickiest thing you can meditate on in astrology, but the most important.  I believe it is the real reason we have the zodiac; but I’m just a housecleaner, so I could be wrong. 

Now check out this screenshot for 1:20 am July 22, again from Raleigh.

 

Here the red line for the ecliptic is lopsided to the east!  You probably can’t see the little light for Uranus, but maybe you can see the label in the eastern sky, where the ecliptic is crossed above the celestial equator.  Uranus is currently located in the 2^nd sidereal hour which begins at 15°Aries.  Aries begins where the red line crosses above the blue line.

If you feel lost, please do not give up.  This is heaven.  Just drop in now and then, take a look around, and pretty soon you’ll start recognizing planets and stars like familiar friends.

The down and up roller coaster ride on a tilted planet

Remember we said Capricorn on the midheaven means we’re at the top of our daily revolution and Cancer the Crab means we’re at the bottom.  When we ‘see’ Aquarius on the midheaven at 1:20am it means we are going down.  When Leo, the sign right after Cancer, comes across the midheaven, it means we are taking a graceful leap onto the table from the floor, like a cat.  Today, in Raleigh, Leo crosses the MC (midheaven) at 1:20pm daylight savings time.  Whenever anyone on earth sees the sun in the middle of the sky during the month of Leo, they know their little patch of earth is leaping up.  Meow!  Purrrrr….anything good on that table?