The Moon is in Cancer! We see it wayyy high up when we are crawling across the bottom of the whirrrellld!

Agh!  Correction!  Yesterday I said the Moon would cross from Gemini to Cancer on Monday and it is already less than an hour from the border crossing as I write this.  The Moon rules in Cancer.  Yesterday it was serving as a balance to the superpact of dedicated reform in Sagittarius, and really didn’t have much influence.  It was kind of a radio free ‘this is not as important as you think it is’ voice in the background of all the charged up mental energy—today in Cancer things will be different.  There is a real emotional pull in this sign.  Geez, now that I have mentioned it I feel like I have to give a good portrait of the Cancer section of the zodiac.  Ugh.

Ugh.  I wanted to write about Mars going into Aquarius a few days ago, something I did not get around to noting yesterday.  The Moon will be in and out of Cancer in less than 3 days?  Why should I take the time to describe that passage?  Cancer is the bottom of the heap, if you live in the northern hemisphere, that’s why we see it soo high up.  The Moon will come up pretty late tonight.  I’ll make a chart in a minute and post it here….

If it is not too cloudy go out and see how highhhhh it is.  Just to make sure you get the idea, look at the Sun over some trees in the middle of the day and note how high it is.  Then go back out and look at how much higher the Moon is over those same trees when you look tonight.  That’s the difference between Sagittarius and Cancer.  (Sun is in Sagittarius.)  There are other things, like hmm.  Now that Moon is in Cancer it will be above the horizon less every day, instead of more every day.  Cancer is the principle of water….drip….drip….drip….slip slipping away.  In some ways it is more subject to gravity than solids.  We think of it as lighter because the light goes right through it, but water – water is special.  Cancer is all about water.  How hard it is to hold it, how responsive it is to the pull of the Moon. 

In Mayan astrology, which I don’t know diddly squat about, but came across a beautiful expression….Mountains of water.  That immediately made me think of tides and the Moon.  I’ve also been thinking today of Gravity’s Rainbow.  Never read it.. Saw my boyfriend reading it years ago.  I thought “ugh that looks wayyy over my head.  Too many cultural references I will never get.”  But now as I am thinking a lot about tides and the Moon and the precession of the Moon’s nodes and all the different cycles that affect the tidal wave that seems to move around us as we turn on the Earth…. How there is not just one wave of the tide, but a rainbow of waves that occasionally unite in one big sucker…….whoah!!!  Sailor overboard!  Assistance.  Assistance.  Turn the boat around.  Waves that were invisible uniting.  Cancer.

Ok that’s it.  The Moon is in Cancer today, a little bit past the balance of yesterday.   A bit wiser to the reforming pair of Mercury/Sun.  Not shouting about that.  Maybe giving a little shine to Venus over there.  Venus with her fate filled zeal and galactic federation seal.  She’s still got a few degrees to go in Sag and then it’s on to Capricorn.  Ugh.  Princess Di on all those state visits.  You reckon she ever missed just taking care of the kids and figuring out how to support their growth as capable citizens when she was facing those people making the big decisions?  You reckon she ever got tired of feeling small around all the deciders?  Venus in Sagittarius is an inner planet in the big leagues, just like Mercury.  They excel at the little stuff that adds up to the big stuff, not the institution building that brings it alllll together. 

Let’s see still want to say a bit about Mars in Aquarius.  Lots of hoppin around here.   Want to get back to studying my cycles of the Moon’s nodes precessing, and the Saturn/Pluto cycle.  Really close to finishing another boring video.  This one will be about Saturn/Pluto.

Mars in Aquarius…..Here I will put a chart for the moment Mars entered Aquarius from Raleigh, my little town.   

Ok.  Mars is exalted in Capricorn.  Standard image for me is athlete on pedestal receiving medal.  No.  Good soldiers do not express non state sanctioned opinions by solidarity fist raising, or hands in air mimicking street kids surrendering to authority.  Soldiers put their minds on the shelf at home and PUMP up the adrenaline.  Listen to that drum beat and rush to the battle.  Mars in Capricorn is done with the battle and getting licked by the state.  Good soldier.  I’ve been reading quasi anarchist literature in the last 24 hours.  Can u tell?

Mars in Capricorn is the soldier rubbing shoulders with the higher ups.  If that soldier behaves, or did what the state wanted, or somehow earned respect from people in power it gets to shine a bit with them.  But the party only lasts for 30 degrees.  Then what?  Then it goes to Aquarius.  Now this is …..shifting here to geo stuff…. This is where we are going down.  Aquarius is more the water pourer than the water bearer.  It kindly lets those molecules get together, together, together, and gain a little more weight till they start just falllinnn out of the sky.  Actually we are just turning down in our daily revolution.  But there is so much going on with the Earth going around the Sun and all, those cave people were trying to incorporate the concept of going down in our daily revolution with an increase in energy from having the Sun up a wee bit longer when it got into that sign, or any other planet for that matter.  Aquarius.  Mars in the sign of water pouring out of a bucket.  A human is turning that bucket.  A human up in the sky.  Plato said something about human souls being special.  I can’t remember what, he said a lot of things that seemed pretty absurd.  It is hard to decide what to keep and what to toss out.  But there it is.  A human letting water go down.

Mars is kind of done in Aquarius.  It  makes me think of Eisenhower and Washington and General Grant.  Not to mention the Egyptian army that were the big heroes until they were the deciders.  Nobody likes the ones deciding.   Well for everyone that does someone doesn’t.  It is not good for popularity, Aquarius.  You kind of have to not give a you know what, in Aquarius.  You have to let it alllll go.  Something matters, but it is so high up there only the weightless will see it.  The ones on the ground doing the lifting will not see what is at eye level for the soldier in Aquarius.  We’ve got a few more weeks to think about Mars in Aquarius.  It takes a little time, we can revisit the soldier in the sign of the guru …..now let me make these charts and get back to my studies.

Thanks a lot for reading these posts by the way.  I really appreciate having an audience.

I really like these astro maps!  Here's a pair for when I started making charts for this post.  It's about an hour after I started writing.  You can see the Moon has moved over to Hanoi and Mongolia.

Now the map version. This one is not cropped as much as the one for 11:33.

Mercury on far side of Sun

Mercury is getting really close to Sun in the chart now.  We see the pair in Sagittarius which means any location on Earth’s northern hemisphere lines up with them as they are almost to the top of their daily climb.  The vista of the oncoming ecliptic is expanding more than exponentially at this point in the day, it is snapping open like a blossom in time lapse photography.  We reach this point every day, sometimes in the dark, sometimes as Sun is rising.  Right now (late fall) Sun/Mercury are high in the sky when we near the top of our daily climb.

That 'MC' at the top of the bold line is not the handle for a DJ.  It is a Latin abbreviation for Mid Heaven which is the part of the zodiac directly in front of Raleigh NC.  Think of the zodiac as a high fashion belt that becomes thin at two points and from those skinny spots, widens like a shield. The skinny spots are the beginning of Aries and Libra where the ecliptic crosses above and below the celestial equator.  Sagittarius is one of the two areas where the belt is as wide as it gets.  It could be considered an illusion generated by our revolution on a tilted axis or we could say it's an objective view of heaven from an Earthly perspective.  Another effect of our tilted view of the universe is that when we are coming down from the peak we have an awesome panoramic view of what's ahead, while the climb gives us a fantastic perspective on where we've been.  We go through this opening and closing of the oncoming vista every 24 hours. 

The opening in Sagittarius is about 5 times as fast as the closing in Gemini.   Sagittarius literally represents a  sudden widening of perspective that occurs in heaven every day.  The physical reality the zodiac represents is actually a lot more amazing than the predictions people have been making for more than 2000 years.  It takes a bit more concentration and is a lot less titillating, but the rush of insight is one that will stay with you long after the predictions/outcomes evaporate. 

Here is a chart for March 6 to show the Sun's light dawning as we near the peak of our daily climb and so see Sagittarius on the mid heaven.  

Sometimes I think I should be honest and call this blog what it is: Really Boring Astrology: without Concern for the Future.  For people who just wanna know why they do stupid stuff now.  Or why something they thought was such a smart move yesterday looks kind of silly today.  Or vicey versey as in damn that big mistake that looked like the end of my world turned out ok after all.  Tangent.  Tangent.

Jupiter is coming to a standstill.  While our minds are revved on Mercury conjunct Sun in Sag, the dispositor (overseer, or advisor) appears to be going nowhere. 

The world is passing the philosopher, aka hurler of thunderbolts, by.  When we all head off to work, or whatever we do, Wed morn, Jupiter will be backsliding.  That tickles me, probably because right now Moon is in Gemini.  Scroll up and see the Moon at the bottom of the first chart in the mischievous sign of the twins.  The Moon has passed all those sober planets (Saturn, Pluto) and mature signs (Scorpio- Capricorn) and is on its way to lining up with Jupiter in Leo.  While Moon is in Gemini, facing the pack of true believers in Sagittarius, it is like a quiet heretic, keeping its skepticism of high riders to a few cryptic remarks.  Gemini Moon makes a pact with the reformers;  "Go ahead with your propaganda fest, but you won't have an audience till sundown after my family members have earned their bread in the fields."  As committed believers race off to the urgent event, Gemini Moon fills the house with good smells and pleasant conversation.  "See ya when you get home!"  calls Gemini Moon from the opened doorway.  When they get back, the silver tongued Moon will be ready for their stories of fantastic conversions and verbal victories.

This balance is sweet but short.  The Moon quickly moves on to Cancer on Monday then Leo on Wednesday, where it too is caught up in the fire and under the influence of the backsliding philosopher.  The healer is bound to bring love to all.

Saturn Closing Semisquare with Pluto

It’s been awhile since I talked about any aspect other than a conjunction.  Today Mercury lines up with Saturn while Saturn is in a very special point in its cycle with Pluto.  First a chart for Mercury conjunct Saturn.

 They are close enough for lots of target points right now, but the nearest to bull's eye will be 2:37GMT Nov 26. 

Now a chart showing the houses for Pluto.  

I drew a circle with the houses marked off starting at 12degrees Capricorn (Pluto's current location), and numbered them.  You can see Saturn and Mercury are smack in the middle of the 11th house.  It is called a closing semisquare with Pluto because it is 45degrees behind Pluto.  If Saturn was at 27degrees Aquarius it would be in an opening semisquare with Pluto.  It was at 27 Aquarius in April 1993, but back then Pluto was in Scorpio, so it was a full 90 degrees out front instead of 45.   

Once you spin the wheels history starts jumping out at you.  Above is the conjunction of Uranus and Neptune in 1993 which makes me think of the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune.......

Astrology is such a distraction.  We were talking about when Saturn was in an opening semisquare with Pluto and now I'm reading about the Iran-Contra affair which Wikipedia says began Aug 20, 1985 when Saturn was wrapping up its conjunction with Pluto. 

Ok I've got to get back to the subject at hand.  Saturn opening semisquare Pluto vs. Saturn closing semisquare Pluto.  It is the closing semisquare we are in today, near the end of the cycle.  Here is the opening:

One last note about that chart up there---Saturn was in that opening semisquare with Pluto from Jan -Aug 1988.  It takes a long time to get from one stage to the next in its doe C doe with Pluto.

So let's take a little breath.   Ahhhhh.  What we've gotten into is a discussion of the 38 or so year cycle of Saturn lining up with Pluto.  It all got started when I saw that Saturn is now in a closing semisquare with Pluto.  I took the opportunity to show how planets can be related to each other by aspects (conjunct, square, trine, etc) or by the number of houses the faster moving planet is from the anchor planet.  Saturn is now in the middle of the 11th house from Pluto and will hover in that stage of their relationship until Sept 2015.  It has Pluto's number.  It knows the deal.  The 11th house from the anchor planet is its Aquarian house, or its place of absolute knowledge.  Saturn has reached that point of fully understanding Pluto and is able to work with that knowledge.  Neptune on the other hand is still in a very immature place with Pluto and will be for more than another century.  Uranus is about to enter Pluto's 4th house.  Most of the violence we've been seeing these last 4 years is associated with that opening square between Uranus and Pluto and the coincidence that the tender period in their cycle is coming while Uranus is in the sign of exploding seeds.

The chart that started this historical wandering among the planets shows that Saturn entering this mature step in its cycle with Pluto is joined for a few days by Mercury.  Mercury is logistics and perception.

Here's a chart for the Moon meeting Mars late tonight. The Moon lining up with Mars in Capricorn is healing waters of tradition bathing the exalted hero.  Not a spring tide, just enough to lighten the load in the fight for survival.