Renewed Responsibility

It is 8:31am Fri Jan 19 (2018) as I begin this 3rd part of my search for Arshad story. 

The Thursday evening I began knocking on doors was weirdly warm and humid, a strange change so suddenly after the bitter cold of the previous record setting days.  I parked in the area where I thought I remembered  first spotting Arshad the day I had gone to visit him.  He was already outside, so I did not have to find the door with his number.  His happiness radiated with speech and gestures of great joy.  The phrases were still difficult to recognize; I was thrown again into that lost feeling I used to get walking through the unfinished framing of houses under construction. 

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I grew up in a house built before the civil war within short commuting distance to Washington DC.  My parents were in the first wave of northerners settling around the nation's capital at the end of WWII.  As the farmland surrounding our three acres got bought up and turned into grids of mass produced houses, my mother took us kids through every development in progress.  She would speculate which areas of a concrete base surrounded by mud, construction debris and the coke bottles we kids collected to cash in for candy and trips to the movies....which sections would be bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens or living rooms.  It was a good exercise in reading a situation stripped of its customary cues. 

My husband, a carpenter, can walk into the the framing of a house getting started and feel completely at home, but I am lost, struggling to find familiar cues to orient myself in the naked bones of a future home.

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He thought he would never hear from me!  My call was such a wonderful surprise!  He asked if I had a car, and seemed surprised as he followed me to where I had parked.  He said something about a great car (teenage Nissan Altima built in 1999) and prepared to get in on the passenger side as he suggested we go for a ride. 

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I woke up this morning feeling a bit, just a tad, oppressed with the weight of this unfinished story.  Yesterday I enjoyed a day off from both house cleaning and blogging, and set out with boots, hat, scarf and gloves completing the coverup of my New Jersey Devils jacket, trudging up the snow messy street, across the highway that leads to the beach from Raleigh, for my friend's house.  The boots are great for keeping wet snow out, but not so good for walking.  I thought maybe i would turn around when i got a little ways and come back to recuperate on the couch.  The sun was bright and its light reflected with almost frightening brilliance from all the surrounding ice and snow.  I am more fearful of falls and fatigue in this 59 year old body.  Some ruts between snow were slushy, others were icey and then there would be patches on hills where the water had trickled down the incline immediately upon melting in the sun.

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This morning as I hid under the covers from my cat I thought about how far the moon had gotten from where it was when I began this story.  I wondered if it was in Pisces yet.  No, after feeding the cats and settling down to enjoy my morning tea, I saw that it is still finishing up the last two dodecs of Aquarius.  I looked out my front window at the Sun rising, remarked to America that it will now start rising a little more to the left every day.  She was standing in the living room waiting for a work buddy to show up.  A pick up job.  Catching work where ever it is available.

I have been aware most of the morning of my change in attitude about this series of blog posts.  I have progressed from vaguely wondering if it is worth all the effort to a strong sense of responsibility to complete the documentation and give it my best effort. Mercury is no longer coming in for a meeting with disciplinary Saturn as it was last week, the meeting is now behind them and the commitment to build something together has been renewed.  We build with words and small deeds in the same way construction crews build houses for families to live in.

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Well I surprised myself yesterday.  I crossed the highway to my friend's house and swept snow from his steps and car.  It was great to be out in the cold now that there was beautiful snow and the temp was just above freezing.  The clear skies and bright sunlight felt medicinal.  I often go for walks just to be out in the Sun, the way couples find things to do together because the company of each other feels so important to their spiritual well being. 

My friend's need for help is temporary.  He will be able to do his own snow cleaning next winter if all goes well with his healing.  Now, while he depends on his friends we are all figuring out our temporary roles.  Who will bring groceries, who will offer a cooked meal.  How will he show us his gratitude.  Though our friendship roles are all well established there has been a slight shift.  The furniture on the stage was switched between the closing and opening of the big velvet curtains and now we circle around an ottoman instead of exiting directly to stage left.

I worried about whether he wanted the help being forced on him as I enjoyed the chores in the snow.  He was gracious and invited me in.  No, I had just been for a visit the day before as the snow started falling.  I waited on the front porch as he went and filled a container of bean soup to take home for later.  Domestic exchanges of food cooked in kitchens warmed with their inviting smells.

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The fourth door I knocked on, in my search for Arshad, had a restaurant size box of cooking oil out front.  A woman on the ground floor of the first building I had tried would not come to the door, but was willing to talk to me though the front window.  She was about my age and two or three children were gathered with her, eager to hear the conversation and offer what help they could add.  She didn't speak English but understood my broken Spanish when I said I was looking for a man that was from another country.

First she pointed to the apartment just above hers.  "No," I said.  "I knocked on that one.  A little woman from Somalia?  Very dark skin?  The man I am looking for is not so dark.  He has a little bit of color.  He is from a country like India."

"Oh!  That would be the building  over there, the upper level."  And she pointed to the nearest building facing theirs from across the parking lot.

And with this distinction of the shades of our skins I got some direction of which doors to try.  I went back to my car and got my phone out.  I had knocked on three doors and met people from three different continents.  The initial courage that drove me forward was morphing to a sobering realization of how Plutonian this search was.  Imagine finding Pluto among the thousands of small bodies circling in the Kuiper belt.  What chance was there of finding this man from the other side of Earth whose full name I did not even know and whose phone number I had lost. 

As I looked at the upper windows of the other building, considering which one to try first, two cars pulled in to the lot and parked beside each other.  A man got out of the first one and after speaking to the driver of the second one went to the back and opened it.  I could not see the driver of the second vehicle, one of those big sport utility numbers that have taken the place of vans, and wondered if I was about to witness some parking lot exchange of merchandise.  I considered how accustomed I've become to seeing drug deals in parking lots.  Then I saw a woman and 2 boys getting out from the suv and thought, geez Mary Pat, what a susupicious mind!  I approached them and asked the man if he spoke English.  I went right into Spanish when he hesitated and told him i was looking for a man from Pakistan.  I had lost his phone number but he lived somewhere in these apartments several months ago.

The couple thought together and said the same as the woman from the window.  They also motioned to the units i had first knocked on, but I told them I had already tried and they were from other countries but didn't have the man I was looking for.

I thanked the couple for their help and approached the building with renewed hope.  When I saw the industrial size container of cooking oil in front of the door on the left I thought that would be Arshad's style and knocked there instead of on the right door where I hesitated looking at the carpet remnant for wiping feet that also made me think it could be his home.  I stood for a minute deciding and looking at the concrete hallway dingy with chipping paint and lots of cobwebs.  When I finally knocked on the left door with the cooking oil I could hear children coming to answer.  A girl about middle school aged answered and said yes she knew Arshad.  Of course it felt like a miracle.

And I am sort of, but not exactly, sorry to say I have to stop here at 12:30pm to go clean a house.  I would like to finish this story more quickly, but it seems to require a great deal of thought and I welcome the breaks from so much deliberation on how best to relate the series of events.

Documenting the Search

This is a continuation from previous post:  Desperately Seeking Arshad

A few minutes after getting the 2:48 chart from astrodienst, I left to take Ms. E on her errands.  She pays me $25 every other Thurs to drive her to the grocery store.  Sometimes we also go to the bank and or the pharmacy.  Even though she pays me for the service we consider ourselves friends.  She just turned 80 last week.  I'm not a very good friend;  I went to a birthday  party her neice gave for her at the neighborhood pizza restaurant a few years ago, but have not kept track of her Capricorn birthday since.  She is a Capricorn with a Pisces moon so she is too forgiving to worry over whether people remember her birthday.  She mentioned it on the way home from the pharmacy and grocery store.  "Aghh!  I completely forgot!  How old did you turn?"

She had a smile on her face.  "80."  Pretty cool!! 

The hour and a half we spent together was pleasant, as usual, and after putting groceries away, we said our good byes until the next time and I was on my way.

Instead of going home i went past my house and headed for the apartment complex where Arshad lives.  Or lived.  It has been at least six months since I met him there and drove us to the city center where we went for a walk.  A very fast walk.

I soon let him walk ahead of me and just fell further and further behind; he seemed incapable of slowing down.  I thought resentfully about the women I've seen following anonymously behind male family members and felt myself already engaging in a battle of will with this man from such a distant land.  When it came out later that he had been a farmer in Afghanistan, his long, purposeful strides made more sense to me.

He wanted to take me out to eat, but I had no appetite.  He was so glad that I had called him; it had been months since our meeting in the Walmart.  I had no idea where we should go, it was a Sunday afternoon and there were many people out and about enjoying the fine weather.  He slowed down in front of an old fashioned looking little place that said Remedy Diner and it looked cool to me so we went in.

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As I write today Sun Jan 14, 10:06am, there is a cat rescue operation getting under way in the park across the street.  A young woman's cat ran up a big old live oak, the kind with leaves all year through, and won't come down.  It has been up there since yesterday morning.  When the owner saw my housemate going to her car and asked about a ladder, I got drawn into the ordeal.  I have resisted getting deeply involved.  I declined to even see if the ladder in my garage was available, until this morn, when I learned that my other housemate had changed the lock when she replaced the rotting door.  No matter, I'm nervous about ladders in trees.

Now there are two people with ropes and safety equipment for climbing trees.  Yesterday my American helpful housemate called an arborist buddy and he got his hand on the cat but its claws were dug in to the bark and he was worried about squeezing it, so came down empty handed.  Now, I guess he has returned with another arborist to make a second attempt with a partner.

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I usually think of my writing as a self indulgent pass time, but maybe there is some value is this exercise.  I may never know.  If it was worth all the time and effort.  To anyone other than me.

Venus and Sun meeting Pluto.  There's also the Mars Jupiter lineup and Mercury coming in for a quick talk with Saturn.  To me, these random goings on are lovely manifestations of the stories writ in our language of heavenly cycles.  I want to preserve the memories for posterity.

But there are chores appointed for today in order to fulfill obligations tomorrow.  So before taking a break from writing I will fetch the chart for 5pm Thurs when I began knocking on doors in the Peterson Street apartment complex.  I will tell you now that I did not find Arshad.  That's part of what makes this account such a wonderful example of full, but invisible, Venus meeting Pluto.  The other part is the collection of little joys that came from the search.

There was also a great surprise right before going to bed.  But all of that will be documented with the 10:48 pm chart on a future post.

Desperately Seeking Arshad

Chart 1 ---Thurs Jan 11, 2:48pm
I was getting ready to leave for errands with Ms. E.  I had been teary eyed since 2:20 trying to retrieve Arshad's number from the phone that had gone wacky several months ago..  I had saved the useless device, in hopes of figuring out how to get contacts from it that had not transferred to my new phone through my google account.  The old phone still booted up, but random images from various apps just kept cycling regardless of what prompts I selected. 

I have thought about Arshad several times but yesterday I finally began to do something about it. (Though this was posted Sun Jan 14, I actually wrote the essay Fri morn Jan 12.) 

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I met him in Walmart a little over a year ago.  He came up to me while I was looking at the tablets, pointed to one and said "I pad?" 

"Umm, no.  Not exactly.  Almost."  I pointed to the label under it and read "Samsung.  I think Android tablet, but i'm not sure."  The blind asking the blind.

"How much?"  he asked.

I wondered if he thought I worked there, but my arms were full, with a new dish drainer and a box of golf balls.  I pointed again to the label and read the price out loud.

He looked like he might be from India, but his English was super limited.  The only Indians I know speak English better than I do.  He kept asking questions and I seriously wondered if there was a hidden camera somewhere.  I wondered what I would say when the farce was finished and the pranksters revealed themselves.  I wondered why this man was determined to talk with me about about Android tablets and I pads.  I looked around for an employee to help him, but suspected I was the one he wanted to talk to.

So we talked about ipads and Android tablets and I asked him where he was from.  "Refugio," he seemed to be saying.  Something about United Nations and Afghanistan. 

"You are a refugee from Afghanistan?"

"Yes!"  He was delighted.  He had made himself understood.  I asked him where he lived.  He wanted to show me on his phone.  He talked into it, "Peterson," he said, in his thick accent.  A pizza place came up.

I laughed.  Now I was delighted.  I never play with voice control on phones and this was my first time seeing how fun the mistranslations could be.  But I was also impatient.  I took out my phone and asked him to spell the street name.  When it came up on the map I said, "We are neighbors!"  and showed him how close our streets are.

Already we were friends.  But this had been a difficult 15 minutes.  Every sentence was an agonizing puzzle.  Each word took several tries before I could grasp what he was saying.   I said I needed to go over to the grocery section and get cheese.  We walked together, new friends in the Super Walmart.

"Afghanistan," I said, "which language do you speak?"  And typing away now on my little phone the tears are coming back.

"Urdu." 

You, the reader cannot hear the beauty of the way he pronounced that word.  "Urdu."

I think the sound was familiar to me from the hindibasha.com app.  My phone won't do flash, so I can't be sure.  It seems like one of the letters I used to click on for pronunciation uses the word urdu for an example.  As soon as I heard him say it I was transported to my explorations of Sanskrit.

I asked him if he knew the yoga sutras and began reciting, "Atta yoga nushasanam.  Yogas chitta vrti nirodha.  Tada drashtu svarupe avastanam..."  He was delighted.  He threw his head back, his ecstatic gaze directed toward the rows of fluorescent lights above and brought his hands together, "You have been to India?!"

"No!  The internet!" 

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We exchanged names, jobs and ages.  I learned he is a couple years younger and washes windows.  I said I was old and tired and he insisted 58 is young and I should exercise.  He told me he went to a gym.  He wanted to wash my windows and those of my customers. He asked if I like beer. 

Happy Charts

Yeay!  As of 7:40 last night (local time) or 12:40 am GMT we are at the beginning of the new cycle between Mars and Jupiter.  Yessirree it is a new beginning indeed, as now we have Jupiter, the ranking officer coming over the horizon before Mars the ignorant foot soldier.  To be led by one prepared with studied glances at the map of upcoming territory is a real boon, as opposed to following orders to penetrate unknown backstreets or swamps or realationship labyrinths from families to board rooms.  Leading with inspiration and confidence as opposed to blind courage.  The field soldier (Mars) has the advantage of strength but sorely misses reliable insight.  Now the leader (Jupiter) can relay strategic wisdom from the front of the line instead of the back.

The switch is circled in blue in today's first Happy Chart.  We in Raleigh were facing away from the Scorpio section of the ecliptic so the pair appears on our Happy Map under the horizon.  We probably should say Smart Map because whoever came up with this system is a genius.  But I prefer happy because it makes me happy to study maps of where I grew up hearing that God lives.  By the way, this is a two year cycle; Mars and Jupiter will have all kinds of adventures between the two of them, but we won't see them aligned again till March 2020.

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Thennnn---let's see if I can remember......Oh right, I thought geez that was a kind of quietly ruff changing of the guard.....and made a chart (Happy!) Or (Smart!) (Take your pick)  for Venus reaching fullfillment with the Sun.  They are circled (or highlighted) in green in the 2nd & 3rd charts.  That planet which they are both sidling up to is distant, disrespected Pluto.  The three way pile up is happening in the happy (Capricorn happy goat) sign of guvment.  As in circus.  I saw an amazing Russian circus at a Trump casino years ago with my traveling hero partner.  We were on our way to Germany and visiting his family near Atlantic City.  Some animal rights group left a BIG pile of d-u-n-g at one of the casino entrances.  I did not see it, I just heard about it.  There were elephants and guys doing barrel rolls on horses as they galloped around in circles, just like Eskimos doing barrel rolls in canoes.  There were also a couple of silent, graceful clowns tossing caps onto each other's heads from hundreds of feet across the venue- one guy was in the top of the stands on one side; he ran up the steps between members of the audience, and tossed a hat, pretty as you please, it wafted through the circus air and landed right on his buddy's head in the opposite stands.  That's the part my soon to be husband always recounts when we recall the free circus at a casino in Atlantic City, NJ.

I know it wasn't exactly free.  A certain beloved grandmum signed over the deed to her house one night and an uncle had to arrange a very expensive rescue.  They tell the story like my Mexican friends recount going to court for driving without a license.  These are the sad facts of life that people living on the edge must contend with.

I am running on a bit.  I wanted to mention one of my fave meditations- pondering the difference between the cycles of Venus and Mars.  You never see Venus, love, love, hippie flowers love!  far from the Sun.  It makes me think of some Lou Reed lyrics "I'm stickin with you!  I'm stickin like glue!"  Then I think he says something like, "anything thing that you do, i'm gonna do too."

So when Venus is in fulfillment (aka superior conjunction) it is invisible!!  It is obscured by the light of the Sun.   We on earth never come between Venus and the Sun.  Whereas Mars is up all night long when it's in fullfillment wSol, but, I love this, it is so cool to just let this stuff swim in my grey matter, it is going backwards!  Backwards along the ecliptic, that is.  This is like finding out your parents actually had television and listened to the Rolling Stones; the ancients actually watched heaven ( I reckon that's what happens when you don't have tv).  They spent so much time contemplating a bunch of boring pinpricks of light, they figured out that Mars was far out and we go between it and the Sun, while Venus is close in and we don't, we just can't come between them.

They thought about what this had to do with plants and animals and how both life forms have evolved over the millions of cycles of Venus, Sun and Mars; that plants, like Venus are stuck like glue, but animals, like Mars can travel.  So Mars is drawn with an arrow coming away from the circle of the Sun, while Venus is drawn as a cross (the happy point of two lines intersecting, horizon and meridian; the cross of existence, being in a body on earth) under the circle of Sol.

Well, I have said most of this before and I'm not too crazy about repeating it, but I will keep on keepin on like a seed putting out new shoots every spring. 

Mars meeting Jupiter

Last night I was reading a review of Daniel Ellsberg's latest book about the uber scary inside history of nuclear proliferation.  The reviewer tells us that the depths of secrecy, the levels of classified information he penetrated, were staggeringly frightening.  I could feel the anxiety building.  "I am a slug.  I should be beating a drum about the dangers of bombs, I should be climbing barbed wire topped fences and sprinkling my own blood on nuclear warheads instead of cleaning houses for so much money and writing a preachy blog about the sky as actual heaven."

Oh Scorpio!  You deep dip in the ecliptic highway!  How grateful I am to the unknown ancients for the illuminating riddles passed down to the present.

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I have been enjoying the red glow of the sun's corona from the little window in my front door.  My house faces about 30degrees east of south, so the Sun is directly in front at 10am, after rising only 30 degrees to the left of that, during the winter.

I live in the Northern Hemisphere.  Readers from the Southern Hemisphere will know that I live on the opposing half of earth because they face north to see the Sun.  They know how different their world view is from mine because they have seen both.  Since such a large percentage of humanity faces south to view the Sun, and it adds a whole extra layer of difficult-to-conceive celestial mechanics in order to imagine the view of the small percentage that faces north, we simply ignore it.  But while the people facing north, from the other end of earth's axis, are constantly exposed to our model of reality, theirs is exactly the opposite.  They must repeatedly translate in their minds what we say about the Sun's whereabouts in order to make it square with their objective view of heaven.

That's sort of an aside, but then again it is at the heart of what I consider to be the real value of astrology; learning to objectively grasp the view of others, including an imaginary being that can rise above the solar system, or even our galaxy and perceive its discreet events as part of a greater whole cosmos, or ornament, created by some almost, but not quite, unknowable expansive nonentity.

Still far afield from Mars meeting Jupiter in Scorpio.  Ok.  I'm getting there, I swear.  The skies were clear this morn, as inner city skies go, and I stepped out, crossed to the park facing our house, to get a look at the pair coming together.  I had not seen them for over a week, when there were still at least a couple of fingers between them.  They were soo cute!!  Right together!  Like a couple able to hold hands, except that they are out in public, strolling along the ecliptic.  I could see the stunted Libra to Sagittarius section of the ecliptic; from Spica due south, Jupiter/Mars to the left (adorable!), and then Antares further left and low on the horizon.  

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This brings me back (from far afield!) to my remarks about Scorpio being a deep dip in the planetary highway, and seeing the Capricorn, aka winter, sunrise from my front window.  Here is the deal--from that same little window in my front door I can not see a summer sunrise.  The Sun comes up at least 20degrees north of east, almost 45degrees to the left of where I see it dawn in winter.  I can only see the section of the horizon that is south of east.  That's what mean when I say "the Scorpio dip" in the ecliptic.  We see Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn come up well south of east, their arc across the sky is shorter, and lower, than the arc of Gemini through Leo.

Why??  The secret is in the mascots.  The crustacean crawling onto land from the sea, the arrow shooting to the heights, and the goat on the top of the mountain tell us that heavenly motions are the opposite of what we see from Earth.  We see planets in Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn lower and lower on the horizon because we are being elevated at the county fair.

I don't have to shout about nuclear proliferation or anything else.  I can listen to, admire and respect the people who live with that cumpulsion; mine is to shout about heaven and then cringe at the sight of this obsession spinning forth through me, into the cosmos. 

That ability to cringe at my own behavior and to put the shame in greater context tells me that I am being elevated.  I can let go and watch the universe shape me as it shapes the people I admire.

Pied Pipers

Today's chart refers to my Nov 2 post.  I put a blue smudge over Venus and Mars in the 5th House and a green one over the Moon in the 11th house.

5th House - children, creative self expression, falling in love

11th House - peers, reputation, community respect

Aries - first sign in zodiac, first step in unit cycle of becoming.  Coming into being.  Birth.  Explosion of seed.  This first step in the unit life cycle is ruled by the planet Mars.  Mars spends a smaller portion of its cycle in a balanced position with the Sun than any other planet.  

Libra - seventh sign of zodiac, seventh step in unit cycle of becoming.  Cusp of maturity.  Reaching balance between individuality and universality. Bearing ripe fruit.  This seventh step in the unit life cycle is ruled by Venus.  The cycle of Venus is associated with the period of human gestation (conception to birth).

The clumsy red arrow shows the direction we see the planets take as earth revolves on its axis.  At 7pm as I entered the camp of the enemy (Roman Catholic turned atheist astrologer) the nearly full Moon was rising in the eastern sky.  If you have good eyes you can see a little 11 in the house occupied by the Moon at 7pm.  That 11 simply means the Moon rose recently and was near the end of the lineup to rise again.

The Moon was in the sign ruled by Mars, but Mars, right across from it was in the sign ruled by Venus.  And Venus was home.  The planet of kindness was in the step of the unit cycle associated with generosity.  Venus was in Libra. 

Generosity.  Generate.  Genesis. 

I was shocked when I found the entry for gamma eta nu.  I was surfing  a few Greek sentences in a side by side translation of Plato's Republic <--ugh!  But discovering the connection between the Gaia we so often read about in encyclopedic listings of classical myths and the actual Greek word for Earth was worth all the time I spent lost, wandering through the old dialogue.

Gaia: gamma eta, Earth

Gen: gamma eta nu, of the Earth (eta is pronounced like an English long a)

As in - kata gen kai thalassos,  'by land and sea.'

Genesis is what springs from the Earth by virtue of the Sun's 'arrows.'

  

We Need More Drama

Theatrical Drama First

Last night I gave my neighbors a ride to church for the Wed night religious instruction leading up to First Communion.  Last 2 years they went every Wed night to prepare for the boys' baptism, and now they have another year or two for Holy Communion and then Confirmation.

They normally meet for lessons in the cathedral downtown, but last night, they were obligated to go to the evening mass celebrating All Souls Day.  It was held at the beautiful new building on Centennial Drive.  The boys urged me to get out of my car to have a quick look inside the church. 

I could hear music and singing and the inside was just magnificent with artfully lit arches, statues lining the walls, a palatial alter area and just so many breathtaking architectural flourishes.  If you have ever been to the casinos in Atlantic City NJ you'll know what I mean when I say it reminded me of those buildings. They replicate grand architectural styles using less expensive materials.

But this building replicates grand cathedrals instead of palaces.  There is a whole nuther mood to the opulence, or at least there was for me.  I ran back out to the parking circle and moved my car to a space in the parking lot.  I was drawn to the beautiful building and wanted to experience the mass there with my friends.  The chorus had a lot to do with it.  I was looking up front in the left nave for someone with a guitar or violin, but could see noone standing to sing or play instruments.  I wondered if the music was a recording being played over the sound system.  During communion, when people were leaving the pews to receive the consecrated bread and wine, I asked Nati where the music was coming from, was it recorded music?  She pointed to the back and I could see The chorus and musicians in the large balcony at the rear of the church.

I had asked Nati, when the assitants were filing down from the raised alter area to help distribute to the Host to the congregants, if she needed to get past me to go receive communion.  No, she is not allowed because she is not married.  Ahh yes!  I had forgotten about all those rules!

All through the service, especially the sermon, I thought about how we got from Zeus and Saturn in the sky to the Son of God walking around on earth.  Several years ago when I volunteered to take a customer's mom to mass I had struggled with anger and jealousy toward the power of the Christian establishment.  Last night I watched the children playing in the pews, the priest reading the gospel and wondered what they were thinking, if this communal spectacle satisfied them. 

It never satisfied me.  I loved it and still do.  I remember kneeling next to my father one Sunday and asking my father if the man up on the alter was god.  I was talking about Fr. Ernst the priest with a German accent.  I used to count how many seconds it took him to finish a sentence.  He projected his strong voice slowly, with great theatricality, almost as though he were chanting measured verse.

My father was irritated with the question.  Years later when my older brother protested the priest's request for a fee to baptize his daughter, my father said matter of factly, "it's a club and to be a member you have to pay dues."  He studied geological engineering in college.  I think he assumed we understood the god stuff was to be taken with a grain of salt and felt disappointed that we needed that laid out.  Maybe if I had asked the question after mass when we were in the booth at People's Drugs having scrambled eggs on toast with cokes, or in his case a glass of beer with foam at the top.

Last week Miguel asked who came first the cave men, god or the dinosaurs.  We were only a block from home after picking them up from their lessons.  Oh what a wonderful question!  He and Alfredo were having a jolly time.  It began with Jesus.  Alfredo had been to Williamsburg for a class field trip and wondered if that was the time of Jesus.  I said Jesus was long after the dinosaurs but before the American Colonists.  They were very enthusiastic about collating historic events.  But that god question right at the end was a doozy.

I told Miguel he should ask his teacher.  I'm not sure if she will be much help.  One of their religious education teachers showed them a video of the Host bleeding when someone dropped it on the floor.  "It was REAL!!  The blood of Jesus."

"Do you believe that?" I asked.  One brother did, the other piped up with examples of fake videos.  But the teacher said it was real. 

Numeric Drama

Tuesday night I started thinking I should have taken a longer section of Libra and Aries to demostrate their different rising times.  (Previous post)  I figured Mars was above the average tree line by 5:30am and Venus by 6:50am.  That's a time difference of 1hr 20m.

The AC (ascendent) for those times in Raleigh was:
12Libra13 for the 5:30 Mars rise
  28Libra45 for the 6:50 Venus rise

Again, that's 1hr 20mins for 16degrees32mins of Libra to rise

Now the same section of Aries crossing above the AC later that same day and location:
  12Aries09 rose at 5:00pm
  28Aries52 rose at 5:44pm

So the equivalent section of Aries takes only 44mins to come up over the eastern horizon. 

The 16degree spread in Libra takes 36 more  minutes to rise than the same spread in Aries.

Libra Rising

Now is a good time to get a feel for the difference in the sky between Libra and Aries - or at least take a first step toward understanding. 

I was out this morn at 5:40 looking for Mars rising in Libra.  I thought I saw it but was never completely sure the whole time I hung out studying the constellations. I was waiting for Venus to come up.  When it did, it was of course bright and unmistakable.  But the distance in the sky between the faint light of Mars and brilliant Venus was farther than I thought it should be.  From the chart I knew they were only 16 degrees apart.  That 16 degrees in the sky looked more like 25 to me.

It took a while for me to become certain I was 'seeing' the longer rising time of the sign Libra.  I hope I can get another chance to observe in the next couple of mornings, while Venus is not much more than 15 degrees ahead of Mars in the zodiac.  15 degrees is 1/2 a sign. 

I made charts to show the difference in time between Libra and Aries rising.  We can't directly observe Aries rising right now, but Stellarium gives a good visual approximation.  Here is a link to a quick video showing the way the ecliptic changes through the hours.  Planetarium software helps find your way around the starry bowl, but it is no substitute for the real deal.  You have to go outside and see in the big expanse just how dramatic the difference actually is.  Once you see the variation from one sign to the next you will know the zodiac signs are not about the constellations, but about the changing distance between the ecliptic and the celestial equator.

And then there's the math.  19 mins for a small Libra section to rise vs 11 mins for the same section of Aries to rise.  I put colored smudges over the local times at the top of each chart.

The 4 charts:
5:40am (green)   13d Libra 29m rising

5:59am (blue)   17d Libra 25m rising

5:07pm (red)   13d Aries 21m rising

5:18pm (redder)  17d Aries 36m rising

AC is an abbreviation for ascendent.  It tells which degree of the zodiac was coming up at the the given time and location.  It took 19 mins for 4 degrees of Libra to rise and tonight, even though we can't see for that daggone Sun, it will take 11mins for 4 degrees of Aries to rise.

So if you get a good look at Venus and Mars while they are rising in Libra, there are a good two weeks left, you can compare that to a planet or two rising in Aries when the next opportunity comes along.  Starting at about 5:40 or 6:00am look east, where you see the Sun come up in the mornings, for the faint red light. Then pay attention to how far it rises until bright Venus comes up around 6:20 am.  The distance between them is what 16 or 17 degrees looks like in the sign Libra.

Happy sky watching!

   

Jupiter and Sun

Sun is lined up with Jupiter today.  This is a chart for this morning in Raleigh. 

I put a green smudge on Jupiter and Sun, and a blue smudge on Saturn.  Saturn was coming up on Raleigh's eastern horizon.

Zodiac and Galactic Plane

A (not so) quick clarification

It has been over a year since I first started talking in posts about the angle of inclination between the ecliptic and the galactic plane.   It was a major revelation for me.  While searching  - how is the solar system situated within the Milky Way? - I did notice lots of people asking the same question on forums. There's lots of info about where  (Orion arm), but our orientation is rarely addressed.

I've gotten really slack about just weaving the concept into posts as though people have some familiarity with it.  For those  who don't, here is a link to the post where I first introduced the concept.  Between the Sun and Galactic Plane

I will include an image at the bottom from Brian Fenerty, which was the first graphic representation I found on the internet.  It came from a really cool astronomy page about how fast earth is traveling.

Not too long after finding some good graphics and learning how to set the view from the perspective of the Galactic Plane on Stellarium (free downloadable planetarium sodtware for your computer) ,  I rigged up a 12in earth globe at an angle to a table surface similar to our angle with the Galactic Plane. http://mpkellagher.blogspot.com/2016/03/trash-globe.html?m=1

So all this talk about Cetus the whale being on the midheaven when we face down into the bottom of the Milky Way, or Cygnus the swan being on the midheaven when we are turning down ... is related to our angle to the plane of the Milky Way.

To make sense of the constellation myths takes some focused meditation on actual heaven, as opposed to the heaven we grew up hearing about,  but like Plato I think the angle of the spheres that the stories refer to are a lot more fascinating than the surface entertainment value.  I know Socrates showed respect for the morally edifying qualities of the myths, but was inclined to censor the ones about gods behaving badly.

Timeaus, where I got the clue that the constellation stories were more than novel entertainment or edifying tales, is one of the few dialogues written by Plato that is not in the voice of Socrates.  Socrates was more occupied with catching intellectuals sleeping at the wheel than actually teaching trigonometry or celestial mechanics.  Plato used the voice of a younger man named Timeaus to outline some of the basic concepts of astronomy.  I was lucky to find a well annotated side by side translation by Benjamin Jowett.  I get a thrill out of unravelling the riddles of what appears to me to be a memory system infused with a timeless sense of humor. 

I say 'appears to me' because I have yet to see any similar  approach to the constellation stories outside Plato's Timeaus.  I do not yet have a page dedicated to an explanation of the constellation stories that refer to the galactic plane, but I do have a page about the mechanics behind the mascots of the zodiac.  I invite you to check it out and see if it makes sense to you. 

So, to paraphrase Plato; there are two circles and they make a cross like the letter X. 

If you're like me you'll think he's referring to the ecliptic and the celestial equator.  I assumed Benjamin Jowett did not know what he was talking about when he said Plato meant one circle is the ecliptic and one is the galactic plane.  Later, when studying the Fenerty image you see below, I saw the light.  Ha ha.

There are 2 systems being poetically described in the stories of the old constellations.  (This does not include constellations named after the time of Plato.)  One system is the zodiac which explains the relationship of our tilted earth to the ecliptic.  The rest of the old constellations like Pegasus, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Cetus and Orion (under world characters), Auriga, Canis Major, Argo Navis. Cygnus, Aquila (Milky Way coming up or Milky Way going down), then a couple from the upper dome of the galaxy - Ursa Major and my favorite, contained in the 26,000 year circle of the moving north pole, Draconis.

I know this is a lot of information to take in at one go.  Please do not give up on making sense of heaven.  It is worth your time to focus on these riddles when you are in a seriously meditative mood.  Once you 'get' the stories the gods will be your good buddies for like for ever.

 

Planatery Ephemerides

Sometimes you look at a chart and see that a planet is retrograde and wonder when it started its backward motion.  Or you may see a planet at the beginning or end of a sign and wonder about the exact moment of crossing.  The Planetary Cycles and Sign Ingresses files at astro.com are an excellent source for gaining quick, precise answers to these questions.  All it takes is a few clicks and in less than 30 seconds you can download the file you need to see how time was flowing before and after the moment you are studying in a chart.

Planetary ephemeris files are a bit different from basic yearly ephemerides.  Nowadays there are many basic yearly ephemerides available for free on the internet.  Some sites even have the files as web pages that do not require downloading.  While the yearly ephemeride files at astro.com include the midnight Universal Time (aka GMT) positions of all planets and the north node for every day of the year, the planetary files focus on the exact Universal Times for points of interest in the cycles of individual bodies.  So instead of just knowing Jupiter entered Scorpio sometime after midnight UT on Oct 10, 2017 you can see the exact moment of ingress.

A few posts back, in Microscope to River, I included screenshots from the 2017 astro.com ephemeris.  Today I present a series of highlighted screenshots showing how to navigate to the ephemeris and download a file for Jupiter.  You need the Adobe pdf app to open and read the downloaded files, or another app to read pdf files may work. 

The first image shows where to click on the astro.com home page.  After selecting the Astrology drop down menu scroll down and click on 9000 Years Ephemeris.  Yes, 9000 years.  Amazing the wealth of perfectly good data people give away for absolutely nothing.  This form of generosity is a constant source of inspiration for me..

Scroll down past the few explanatory paragraphs and the list of centuries and select Planetary Cycles and Ingresses.  From there you can pick your planet and the time period you are interested in. 

For current Jupiter info you want the 1600 - 2100 file under the heading  Jupiter cycle data.  The 4th image shows where to click.  Unless your device is slow it should not take more than a fraction of a minute to download.  Since the file begins at 1600 you have to scroll way down to get to 2017.

The last ephemeris image shows Evening set highlighted on Oct 13 in green and Morning rise on Nov 8 in yellow.  Just above the green line you can see that Jupiter entered Scorpio  Oct 10 at 13:20 UT.  Raleigh converts UT to eastern time by subtracting 5 hours (8:20am) and then adding an hour for daylight savings, giving 9:20 am.  We check our balance of time by requestiing a chart for Oct 10, 9:21am Raleigh to see if it shows Jupiter at 00Scorpio.

You can see Jupiter at 00Scorpio in the chart that wraps up this post.  It was a bit above the eastern horizon in Raleigh, but of course invisible because of Apollo's many arrows.

Another Busy Mercury Transit

Can you spot Mercury and Sun above the eastern horizon in the chart for 8:33 this morn in Raleigh?  And Jupiter right on the line?  Sun is only 15 degrees behind Jupiter in the Zodiac.  It will catch up to Jupiter in about 15 days.  Up until a few weeks ago we could see Jupiter for a few minutes in the west at sunset.  Now the Sun is so close that the bright shining planet is invisible.

Soon Venus will also disappear.  It is coming closer to Sun every day.  But the Sun, with Venus in tow, is moving further from Mars.  So while Jupiter is gone for a few months, Mars is just beginning its long journey through the night sky.

Sometimes it is wise to just focus on the movements in the charts and not try to figure out what is really happening in the sky.  Like taking a few bites from a sandwich and saving the rest in a plastic bag in the fridge.  If you keep looking at the Sun and Moon and other planets like you're opening the fridge to check out what's available, you'll remember the rest of the sandwich is there when you're hungry for it.

Reading the Old Timey Map

This is what Venus and Mars 6:23am in Raleigh this morn looks like in the chart.  Venus is so bright it is unmistakable.  It is maybe a finger ahead of Mars.  Mars is very faint and red.  At 6:23 they were about a thin hand (fingers pointing sideways) above the trees. 

The second chart shows when they were first visible above the trees at 5:50am.

Acid and Electric Stars

I was thinking about electrons and how the physicists on Quorum keep repeating that they are not particles.  I recalled a conversation about clean, mild acid and how that feeling in my jaw when i'm tripping reminds me of  electric stars.

Electric star is a game I learned from skydivers.  An opened wire hanger is inserted into a live electrical outlet and a group of people hold hands with the two people nearest the outlet  holding the "live" wire.  As people drop out of the group the current feels progressively stronger.

I only did it once, but the current running through my body was a cool and intriguing feeling.  I wondered if being able to participate in another electric star after all these years would help me better understand electrons.  It was the first time I had ever thought of that one experience in an electric star as educational.

I made a chart for the moment.  The Leo section of Sagittarius was rising here in Raleigh.  Saturn, which just entered the Virgo section of Sag was right there on the eastern horizon.

Remember, as you look at the chart, that we residents of Northern Hemisphere look south to see the equator and ecliptic, so east is on the left and west is on the right.  Everything under the horizontal line is on the far side of earth from Raleigh.

Mercury was on the MC, which stands for Medium Coeli, a latin abbreviation for midheaven, which is the same thing as due south.  In other words, Raleigh was rotating to the closest point with Mercury in it's 24 hour cycle.  (We faced closest to the Sun at about 1:02pm today)

There is a key at bottom left of the charts if you're not sure about the symbols for the planets.  Mercury is right near the MC in the first chart, and Sun is right near MC in the second one.  Then you can see the Moon at the bottom of the chart 'opposing' them.  I think of opposition as fulfillment, as in full Moon shining through the night.

Many Meditations

The chart is for Thurs afternoon in Raleigh and shows Venus catching up to Mars.  It will be late afternoon in England and the Sun will have set in Pakistan.  But for all of us on Earth the planet of kindness and harmony will be meeting the one of strife.  They are the two closest to us, we live between them in our orbit around the Sun.  This meeting occurs as Venus travels toward the far side of Earth's orbit with Sun.

In terms of the zodiac, that poetic breakdown of the realtionship between our celestial equator, our bulging waistline projected like a circular light stick that children carry for night fests, into the heavenly heights - the relationship between that imaginary but at the same time very real belt and the belt of our parh around the Sun; kindness meets striving in the Aries section of Virgo. 

You can see them together at 19 Virgo near the top of the chart.  I've come to think of this section, just after the halfway point of the sign of apprenticeship, as the step where the student has reached fulfillment of study and practice and must now put their new awareness to the test of the unknown.  I picture a student teacher in front of his first students or a scientist  executing her first experiment.

A couageous step in learning is the place where these two planets meet. 

Meanwhile Moon is in Aries, Mercury is racing at top speed of the inner track around the far side of the Sun.....

And because Sun and Mercury are in Libra they are both disposited by, or disposed to listen to and heed the advice of Venus.  Jupiter in Libra has been diposed to Venus all year, and since Saturn in Sagittarius has been disposed to Jupiter, and Pluto in Capricorn disposed to Saturn we have all roads leading ultimately to active kindness.

But kindness itself, the actual planet Venus, will be on the front line helping Mars strive through this learning challenge, this trying out of fresh ideas. 

There are so many avenues for meditation in every chart.  The opportunities for wisdom are far beyond my little mind.  I slip into contemplation of this moment like a swimmer letting herself down into the water. 

Why is the glyph for Virgo so similar to the one for Scorpio?  Could it be the cross at the foot of Virgo's two humps shows crossing above the ecliptic while the Scorpio arrow shows shows climbing toward the final ascent?  As planets advance through Virgo, Libra and then Scorpio we see them progressively lower in the sky.  The change in Virgo is rapid, but only apparent to those who consciously measure the change from one day to the next. 

The m with the cross reminds me of our day trips up mountains in childhood.  We ran through the foothills eager to get to the real fun of scrambling over boulders and jumping across crevices.  After an hour of hiking we could look down and see a limited view of the fields and roads from where we started. As we ascended the mountain the valley fell farther behind and smaller in relation to the expanding horizon.  Libra glyph, could it be a cloud hovering over a horizon?  Then before the final Sagittarian thrill of running around for various views from the top, we had the Scorpio scramble over craggy terrain.  The switch backs and hairpin turns made it seem like we were going nowhere.  We had to watch our step and keep track of how younger siblings, or the dog that got out of the house and tracked us up the mountain, made dangerous passages.  We started gauging time to see how much daylight we had left, some days we had to face the sad realities of delayed starts and turn around before reaching the top.  Scorpio - so close we hated turning back - such an investment of time and energy seemingly wasted.

Virgo, Libra and Scorpio - the ascent that leads to the only comprehensive understanding of where we actually began.  And when we look at the sky it appears as a descent. 

Jupiter through Gaze of Patanjali

3rd pada, 52nd sutra
The yogi should neither accept nor smile with pride at the admiration of even the celestial beings, as there is the possibility of getting caught again in the undesirable..

4th pada, sutra 29
She who, due to her perfect discrimination, is disinterested even in the highest rewards remains in the constant discriminative discernment, which is called dharmamegha (cloud of dharma) samadhi.  [Note: The meaning of dharma includes virtue, justice, law, duty, morality, religion, religious merit, and steadfast decree.]

I copied the above 2 Sutras from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Tues at lunch and ran off to clean a house.  I anticipated writing a post about how we were being set up for success.  I could see the Moon three short days from meeting Jupiter, and Mercury ruling the pack of planets hovering above earth in Virgo and Libra.

Remember that Libra is at the top of the ecliptic which stands nearly perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way.  It's actually closer to a 60 degree angle.  This is why people fortunate enough to live under dark skies see Cygnus the Swan in a  white river of stars stretching east of north to west of south. 

When the Sun is in Virgo we earthlings are facing up into the olympian dome of the galaxy during the day.  As we turn away from Apollo (aka Sun) toward night, our heavenly gaze crosses from above to below the plane of the galaxy.  This is why the ancient poets made stories about a young boy diving into a river day after day until the gods turned him into a swan.  When Cygnus is in the middle of the sky, whether visible at night or hidden in Apollo's bright arrows, we are rolling under our big ball suspended just a few light years above the plane of the Milky Way.

But enough of the celestial mechanics of our solar system -  that's ancient history.  Let's get to the heavenly lesson plan I thought was written on the blackboard for this week.

I saw Venus crossing from celebratory Leo to studious Virgo Tues night.  "Mercury in its moral mode will be ruling the whole roost, from near and dear Moon out to adrenaline soaked Mars," I thought with satisfaction.  Correct behavior appeared inevitable.  Yes Mercury can have a strong social conscience when in Virgo, known far and wide as the sign of the student.  The mischief it makes in Gemini is good comedy so it gets more air time, but Mercury can behave well in a number of situations, and beginning Tues night it would be advising all the inner planets passing through Virgo, because Mercury is the planet that rules the sign of apprenticeship.

The above two sutras came to mind as i thought about the prospect of so much politeness followed by the Moon lining up with Jupiter.  That's usually a kind of 4 -6 hour thrill ride in the basket under a hot air balloon.  The amazing science and technology coupled with the view 'from above' associated with Jupiter, can make even the worst situation inspiring and the best simply out of this world.

"We're gonna be high as kites Thurs night and Fri morn and pleased with our good behavior," is what i thought Tues as I anticipated the planetary motions on the days ahead.

Then Tues night it all seemed like a fading dream like the Roy Orbison song, "In Dreams I Walk with You."  The worries piled up so, I lost sight of the opportunities for apprenticeship and only felt the weight of failure.  Last night i was exhausted and thought about how Jupiter would be standing behind the Moon this morn.  My friends from Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador say 'apoyo' to mean support or backing.  When someone says 'te apoyo' they are saying 'i've got your back.'

I did not think of that last night.  I only thought,  "There will have to be a surprise, because right now i see no wizard of Oz balloon or good witch to back us on the horizon.  I see only bad luck and the heavy load that comes with it."

Then the call came.  There were actually 3 but 2 went to voicemail.  My friend wanted to talk about her son's chart.  We went through the chart over the phone and I was immediately struck with how fluent she had become with the vocabulary.  She was reading off planet positions to me with a timid confidence that made my heart soar.

There was my balloon, my good witch and wizard of Oz.  There was the hope that transcends worry.  There was the Moon meeting Jupiter.

So this morning I opened the mobile blogger app and looked at the sutras I had copied Tues.  Yes, after a little consideration I could see that in spite of the obvious setbacks, we, as students are enjoying success.  The worries only help us keep focused on the ultimate prize, rising above our individual self awareness to awareness of how we all are literally one.

I got up late this morn.  This is the first chart for the day.  You can see Moon less than a degree ahead of Jupiter in Libra.  In the chart they are rising toward the left side of the horizontal line.  Those symbols represent the reality that the pair were about to appear above Raleigh's eastern horizon.

My Very Busy Mercury Meets Mars in Virgo Day

The busy part started almost as soon as the conjunction had taken place.  There was a soft knock on the door from one of the neighbor children.  It was Crystal, wanting to play with a puzzle.  About 40 minutes later there was another quiet knock knock.  This time it was Millie.  Millie and Crystal are cousins and they are both in first grade.

We read some, played with puzzles and then Crystal asked if they could draw, so we got the paper and coloring pencils and markers out. 

At about 5:50 Millie said we shpuld go look for the sun.  We looked at the orange moon ball through eclipse shades and Millie danced around.  She danced a lot today, in between trying to jump on the pogo stick and swinging the hula hoop around her waist.

We went inside and the girls drew some more.  We talked about mothers.  They said they wanted me to be their mother.  I said ok.  They each gave me a peck on the cheek.  After a while I said I was tired of being the mother it was someone else's turn.  Crystal said she would be the mom.

About 20 minutes later there was another polite knock.  "I am tired," I said.   I was on the couch with my feet up watching the girls draw pictures to make a book.  "Ooh!  Crystal you should annswer the door since you're the mom!"

"Ok!" And she went to answer the door.  It was Millie's brother Jesus.  Their mom wanted to know where Millie was.  Next thing we had Eduardo knocking.  He is in 3rd or 4th grade.  He has big sweet eyes and walks like popeye.  Eduardo is the youngest brother of 5 boys.  Then finally came Millie which is short for Milagro which is Spanish for miracle since they finally had a girl.

It is cool to watch them all filing down the street to the bus stop in the mornings with their mom.

The boys made origami with big pieces of paper.  When it was almost sunset the girls and I went back out.  "You have to stand still in one place so you can see it moving.  Can you see it going down behind the trees?"

"Yes!"  Crystal could see it.  But Millie was dancing and running in circles with the eclipse shades. 

"Let me have those.  I'm afraid they'll get broken."  Mean mom, but they were too happy to be bothered.

Then they played on the monkey bars.  At one point Crystal had left the house crying.  She cried at the big oak tree in the front for a minute and then went home.  Jesus taped Millie's pages togther to make a book.  I taped Crystal's pages together and took them to her house.  Her mom was outside --her aunt and cousin were visiting.  I showed them the pictures Crystal drew and translated the words she wrote into spanish,  I told them about how I got to be the mom and then Crystal was the mom.  Crystal kept opening and peeking through the front door and then going back inside.

As I was leaving she came running up behind me wanting to come back and play some more.  We finished the book we had left off reading earlier and then watched the sunset as I described earlier.

Then a friend stopped by to visit while Millie and Crystal were outside blowing bubbles.  After a little while I asked them to go home so I could visit with my friend.  Crystal did not want to go.  She pouted.  But Millie put her bottle of bubbles inside and offered to take Crystal's.  Millie announced that she was going home and Crystal followed her. 

I had a short visit with my friend and then she left to go to a birthday party for a friend who is turning 50.

It was a really special day.  I wondered what it would be like, Mercury catching up to Mars in Virgo.  Every one was so well behaved.  Any time one person said something out of sorts another person improvised a response to smooth things over.  I congratulated the girls when they came to an agreement on sharing the eclipse shades.  They thought it was perfectly natural, but I was amazed and delighted.

Now a friend is calling!  More fun!  What a wonderful way to celebrate this very Virgo day.

Mercury looks like Venus with a little Moon hat.  It is right beside Mars, the circle with the arrow.  They are at 7 degrees Virgo.  Virgo is the green m with a little cross through the end of it.  You can see it on the top of the chart circle on the right.

Microscope to River

Going from chart to ephemeris is like looking at a drop of water under a microscope and then going down to the river to see the running body of water where the sample was extracted. 

The chart fixes a moment in time/space and magnifies it.  Today I am anticipating the moment Mars overtakes nearly stationary Mercury tomorrow morning.  It will be 5:37am in Raleigh.  The last image in this post shows a chart from Astrodienst for that time and place on our planet.  Much of the information in the chart can be found in the Sept 3 row of the 2017 ephemeris.  Before the chart there are 2 screenshots of the Sept 2017 section of the ephemeris (also free from Astrodienst).  The first shot is a wide view showing the dates and location of Sun, Moon and Mercury at midnight UT. 

UT is the 21st century version of Greenwich Mean Time.  In the process of going from coordinating train schedules to coordinating cell phones, the time engineers have made a few upgrades.  For our purposes though, it is safe to think of Universl Time as GMT.

The 2nd shot zooms in on the Mercury -Mars columns.  You will have to count the dates from Fri Sept 1 at the top to Tues Sept 5 when Mercury turns from retro to direct.  You can see that the numbers are decreasing from 29degrees47minutes to 29degrees16min Sept 1.  They decrease a bit less Sept 2 from 29d16m to 28d51m.  In other words Mercury regresses 31m Sept 1, and 24m Sept 2.  The numbers tell us Mercury retro is slowing down.  

We are at the creek (not exactly a river, but the flowing body of water I will visit when I finish this post to see how it is running after last night's big rains) looking at the oncoming water to see how fast it is moving before and after it passes a patch of rocks and debris.  Mercury will change direction as a leaf trapped in a whirlpool exits and continues toward the distant sea.  Or we can compare the decrease in Mercury's motion  to the slower running creek after the rain has washed to lower ground. Any allegory that comes to mind is a good place to start.  We are just looking for ways to feel welcome and relaxed purusing those  long columns of numbers in the ephemeris.

We won't consider here why the actual planet Mercury is changing direction; that's an exercise we can save for a future session of contemplation.

We looked at Mercury slowing down, now let's hop over the Venus column to the Mars column and find where Mars will overtake slowing Mercury.

Midnight UT Sept 3 

Mercury 28Leo51......Mars 28Leo29

Midnight UT Sept 4

Mercury 28Leo35......Mars 29Leo07

From the above figures we can deduce that Mars goes from 22m behind Mercury Sept 3 at 00hr to 32m ahead of Mercury  at 00hr Sept 4.  So we know Mars passes Mercury on the ecliptic highway sometime about halfway between those two times.

Since we are only astrologers and not math whiz computer programmers, we will have to guesstimate and get charts from Astrodienst check our guesses.  

First we want to make the terminology of time more familiar by converting UT time to local time.  Since we are 5 time zones west of Greenwich we know it is 7pm Sept 2 in Raleigh when it is midnight Sept 3 in Greenwich England..  Next we convert 7pm standard time to 8pm daylight savings time.  Converted to local time, our guess is halfway between 8pm Sept 2 and 8pm Sept 3. 

So I have a chart for 8am Sept 3 Raleigh.  You can see Mars 6 minutes ahead of Mercury in the 12th house.  I got a few more charts up and zeroed in on 5:37am, the last chart for this post.  You can see Mars and Mercury a bit lower, under the eastern horizon reflecting the earlier Raleigh time.

The chart for Mars meeting Mercury is like the micrscope sample, taken from the creek right when and where a floating stick was passing the aforementioned leaf in the whirlpool.   In the chart we see not just where the planets are along the ecliptic at midnight 00degrees longitude.  We get to see how the planets along the ecliptic appear from a specific spot on Earth at the moment in the 24hour period that Mars passes Mercury. 

And then....if we turn from the microscopic view of the chart back to the running creek view of the ephemeris, we can see that the leaf/Mercury will catch up.to the stick/Mars Sept 17.  

If you have followed this post and made sense of the relationship between the numbers in the ephemeris columns and the ones in the charts, congratulations !  You have accepted one of the challenges associated with Mars meeting Mercury!

Thanks for trudging through this post.  I am on my way to the creek. 

The

The American Ephemeris

The hardest working book in your library.

There are free ephemerides on line- I have several 10 year ephemerides downloaded on my phone from Astrodienst.  They take about 500kb memory, a lot less than a photo.  These are fine for looking up info for specific dates.  But, ultimately you want to enter sustained contemplation of longer cycles, such as Saturn's meetings with Pluto, which happen about every 35 years. (Oct 1914, Aug 1947, Nov 1982, Jan 2020)

The American Ephemeris for the 20th Century and the American Ephemeris for the 21st Century are essential references for gaining a sense of familiarity with these historic cycles.  You need to be able to flip back and forth within 200 years worth of daily data while reading about modern historic narratives. 

This morning I was thinking about the north node cycle and Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor.  I opened The American Ephemeris for the 20th Century to Dec 1931 when the NN backed from Aries to Pisces and followed the German empire rebuilding trajectory through the end of WWII.  I was able to easily back up to the Saturn Pluto meeting at the beginning of WWI, when Germany invaded Belgium.  I could hop from consideration of those two cycles, North Node and Saturn/Pluto, to thinking also about Saturn meeting Uranus in early May 1942.

With more data to ruminate on organic time your attention is distracted from emotional responses to history and drawn into deeper consideration of the delicate web of cause and effect that reaches ......far.....back.....like before tetrapods emerged from the salty sea.

We are less than 3 years from Saturn meeting Pluto.  Right now Saturn is 21Sag and Pluto 17 Capricorn.  So every month the Moon lines up with marginalized Pluto just 2 days after meeting sober Saturn.  It also means Pluto rises every day less than 3 hours after Saturn.  The  punches of life's grim realities are coming closer as the 2020 meeting approaches.

I used to read about people in war zones and wonder how they could sanely survive under such chaos.  I wonder how I would survive, how I would stand up as a responsible citizen in such situations.  The one answer that often comes to me is that chaos does not errupt from out of the blue, unless we make a concerted effort to ignore its existence.

Revolutionary change is often near to hand and we naturally adjust to its approach as all life forms do.  Do we think of ourselves as Herculean individuals charged with Olympian tasks, or do we take time out, while we are able, to contemplate the waves of change that we fear or struggle to hasten.

Today's chart shows Saturn near the red Sagittarian arrow rising in Raleigh (left side of circle just below horizon) as the Moon meets Pluto. 

Saturn and Pluto would be lower in chart for western US location at same Greenwich Mean Time (Universal Time).