Tuesday Night High Moon

We had a new Moon at 9:30 this past Wed night.  It might be visible as a very thin crescent tonight (Fri March 20) in the Western sky or not till tomorrow night.  Look for it above the horizon where the sun sets.

By Tues (24 March) it will be getting pretty thick, coming to its first quarter.  When the Sun sets it will be fairly high in the southern sky. 

This chart shows where the Moon will be Tues: and the arrows point to its position Wed and Thurs night around sunset for Raleigh NC.

We know it will be high because the chart shows it is almost in Cancer.  Anything in Gemini or Cancer is high in the sky.  Anything in Sagittarius or Capricorn is low in the sky.

It will still be high and a wee bit thicker Wed night - and just to the West of Jupiter.  Then on Thurs night it will have passed Jupiter along the ecliptic and be a bit to the East of the great benific.  Great Benific is especially true of Jupiter Wed and Thurs because the Moon is near it and the Moon rules in Cancer.  Maybe we will notice nurturing that supports  healthy growth on those days.  

I never look for anything down here on earth anymore.  I study the charts, contemplate the future line ups and basically forget about them as I enjoy the passing of the days.  

Here are charts for Wed night and Thurs night.

If it's not too cloudy you might can spot the Moon well before sunset, like maybe around 3pm or later, if you carefully scan the Eastern sky.  Below is a chart showing where Moon would be in Raleigh's Eastern sky at 4:30pm Wed.

In the afternoon when the Sun is still up the Moon will be rising in the East.

I know a lot of us are freaking right now.  Along that line it might be helpful to notice the Sun meeting Saturn in the first (Tues Night March 24) chart on this post.   Saturn is just overtaking Neptune.  The slow and sober limit setter passing on the inside lane of the insanely slow planet (Neptune) of generational vision, as in social movements, ideas taking hold and carrying great masses of people on a slow but very powerful idea wave.  The meeting of Saturn and Neptune is historic and will take a year.

This week as the Sun 'catches up' to Saturn we may feel like something is holding things up in this Arian rush of ideals that's got the world all stirred up.  The brief few days of relative discipline could be a relief for some.

Here's another copy of the first chart with Neptune, Sun and Saturn pointed out.

Why I Cannot Forsake My Principles

The title of the 5000 word Andreyeva Manifesto, Why I Cannot Forsake My Principles, was repeating a phrase Gorbachev had used.  "I cannot forsake my principles."  This Leningrad chemistry teacher said she had to speak out against perestroika because it was destroying the country.  Many people agreed with her.

Venus is in top right quadrant near Jupiter.

Notice Venus at 7 ° Taurus near Jupiter.  Venus is ruling in the sign of the worker.  Saturn is ruling in the sign of government and tradition.  So many people felt lost when Stalin and Lenin were being denounced as murderers.  Workers who had suffered under the soviet dictatorship had been groomed to love their leaders.  

Mars, the planet of the soldier, is exalted in Capricorn.  Andreyeva's declaration, that it was wrong to tear down and trample upon the memories of the men who had lead the USSR through world War 2, was uplifting to many veterans who had given so much for their country and felt that their sacrifices were being spat upon by the degenerate younger generation.

In last week's post I included links to 2 articles about the firestorm her manifesto generated, and a photo of the paragraph in the Gorbachev bio about the hardliners voicing their agreement with her at the Nineteenth Party Conference.  

When Nina Andreyeva's opinion piece was first published in March 1988 Mars was in the historic lineup with the outer planets and they were all going forward.  They were all in Capricorn, the sign of government.  You can see 5 planets; Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Mars and the Moon all in Capricorn in the bottom right quadrant of the chart.

The Moon, associated with soul, such a slippery concept, difficult to hold, like breath, is in its fall in austere Capricorn.

By the time of the big Party Conference in June Mars had advanced 70 degrees along the ecliptic to the sign Pisces.  The outer planets had turned retrograde and the Saturn Uranus pair were backed into the last two degrees of Sagittarius.  That's the chart shown in last week's post.

Gorbachev worked hard in the months after the hardliners' journalistic IED to prepare a response to combat their attack.  He thought his philosophical approach would win the day.  But as the paragraph (photographed from his bio) in last week's post demonstrates, he was wrong.

Saturn was catching up with Uranus.  The curmudgeonly planet of limits was overtaking the planet of social revolution.

I said I was coming to the sad part of Gorbachev's bio.  Regardless of how he saw his life and work, I find this moment in history to be extremely touching.  The people of the Soviet Union were learning awful things about their past which until then had been hidden.  They were making peace with their particular national tragedy.

Hardliners Boo Gorbachev's Perestroika

I'm reading Gorbachev His Life and Times.  I think things are about to get very sad.  On page 359 we get the account of the Nineteenth Party Conference.  

Click to enlarge.

Mostly party hardliners devoted to the old ways had come into office through the new, more democratic elections.

Saturn is lining up with Uranus at the end of Sagittarius, which is the Scorpio section of the philosophical sign.  Gorbachev was such an idealist.  Oh how he loved his country but loved the western democracies too.  

Saturn and Uranus are circled.  They look like they're in Capricorn, but they're at the end of Sagittarius.

The two slow planets are going retrograde.  In the pages leading up to this account of the big conference we get a good blow by blow of the Andreyevo Manifesto.  Remnick Interviews Andreyeva.  Here's another  account Quillett account of Andreyeva Manifesto.

I can't wait to look at the ephemeris for 1988 and a chart for March 13 when the lengthy denunciation of Gorbachev's initiatives was first published.  

Virgin Head Slap

I just had a head slap moment, calling for an oganic time stamp.  It started out with a video interview of Dr Gad Barnea about an ancient Jewish temple on the island of Elephantine in Egypt.  He mentioned the temple of Khnum just a meter away from the old Jewish temple.  Ok.  Geez.  How many of these fascinating side alleys would have been dead ends for me back in the 80's!

So as I'm searching for info about Khnum, next thing I know someone is talking about Neith, warrior goddess wife of potter/creator God Khnum.  (He fashioned babies from clay of Nile and put them in wombs of pregnant women?)  And bam.  They mention that Neith, this warrior goddess, is a virgin.

And the obvious finally became obvious to this little Catholic girl, wondering all these 60 odd years, what is this obsession with Mary being a virgin?  Of course the goddesses of old religions would have been virgins!  As first generation goddesses they were immortal, self created entities.  

It finally came to me that Mary's virginity was less about morality than about her association with early creation stories. 

The chart below is my organic time stamp of wakey, wakey moment.

I circled Jupiter in Cancer.  You can see it just under the horizon on the right side of chart.  Note the tiny little number 6 on inner part of that pie slice.  That means Jupiter is passing through the 6th house also known as the house of study.

As Raleigh, NC was facing the last 3rd of Scorpio, Jupiter was sinking under the western horizon.  That area of the recently visible, but now INvisible sky is the 6th house of study, also associated with the virgin.  The word virgin originally referred more to female youth, as in the period of life before child bearing age.

This year Jupiter is exalted as it passes through Cancer, the sign of nurturing.  The trust and faith associated with Jupiter are exalted in the cultic wombs of families and church groups.  I'm enjoying learning about various old cults as the disappeared foundations of current cults. 

Here is link to interview about Jewish temple destroyed around 410 bce.  

Interiew about Jewish temple in Elephantine Egypt

Ahriman the Enslaved Lion

It's a freezing Tues morn, the sun is almost up, I can see the green blades of hardy flowers-to-come poking through the brown leaves in my front yard.  The neighbor cat was here earlier, when the green blades were still dark shadows without color, checking the water dishes, and seemed to get something out of the one I filled yesterday.  Maybe that bowl did not completely freeze over last night.  

The term 'flowers-to-come' reminds me of the name 'Lucifer' applied in olden times to the morning light of Venus.  Right now Venus is an evening star, shining brightly from very high in the western sky for more than an hour after sunset.  It's funny to think of Venus as the dawn star coming to be associated with evil, but then again maybe it shouldn't seem so unlikely after all.  

Those green blades as promises of flowers to come are kind of like Lucifer reflecting, to us earth bound creatures, the Sun's light from under the horizon.  Smarty pants wandering star that he/she is.  Shining like a wanna be Sun and changing roles from one part of their cycle to the next.  Who was it that decided he/she needed to be punished, thrown down and imprisoned in a lower place?

Venus near Saturn under  Raleigh's eastern horizon

Well, regardless of what the stories relate, or how people interpret them, Venus is alive and well and very near her meeting with Saturn.  They are circled in blue in the chart above.  Notice that they are within Pisces ♓, indicated by the blue symbol in the nearby section of the outer wheel.

I wanted to go back to bed after watching the Sun rise, but I'm working on this essay instead.  I left the house of a customer yesterday who complained of how much extra effort it takes to complete tasks while pushing a walker around where ever she goes.  I told her about another customer in a wheel chair and yet another who is blind.  Usually a more supportive remark of sympathy comes to me; that response during our end of the day conversation felt a bit off.  I kept thinking about how she might feel like a whiner compared to others with similar or worse 'crosses' to bear.  

Crosses of existence like the kind people talked about in the old days before the Roman Empire.  Literal physical limitations beyond the normal limitations of lifespan or the oppression of gravity.  Limitations beyond the inability to see the Sun while it is shining on the other side of our planet, beyond being bound to physically exist in only the present.

The above and beyond kind of limitations like not being able to walk, or see, after years of being a productive citizen.  Finding it impossible to breathe without a chemical cloud to soothe your lungs from seizing up and filling the space left by your contracted diaphragm.  Imagine never smoking anything in your life and being diagnosed with copd!

A few months ago I watched my blind customer fall and take a nasty gash on her forhead from the corner of a table.  I was too slow to intervene and her son had to leave work to take her to the e room for stitches.  I'm learning from her to be alert instead of tied up in knots determined to prevent any disasters.

I learn something different from every customer.  The common thread among all of the lessons is compassion.  That's associated with Picses, the last step in the solar cycle of bio generation.  Venus doesn't rule in Pisces but does receive praise in that segment of life's unfolding.  Venus is exalted in Pisces.  

Saturn of course is not (praised in Pisces).  But the planet of limits is praised in the sign of the harvest (Libra),when there is plenty to go around and forethought ensures saving for the future along with fair distribution.  

Venus is lining up with very sobering, slow proceeding Saturn in the sign of compassion and hope for a brighter future.  I'm thinking of all the people in my life struggling with very discouraging physical problems.  I'm very grateful for modern medicine, with all its imperfections, just like me with all of mine; the medical institution is striving to aid us in the fight to survive.  

Lion headed figure from the Sidon Mithraeum.  500CE.  An ivory colored statue of a naked human male with lion head and folded wings.  A snake is wrapped around the legs and torso. The serpent's head is at the neck just below the opened mouth of the lion's head.

I learned about the lion headed figure this week.  Some sources associate these images with Ahriman, a Persian name derived from Avestan Angra Mainyu.  Like our Latin Lucifer I suspect this icon refers to not so much to an evil being as a powerful creature trapped in the serpentine cycles of the solar system.  There are many variations of this icon found in the Mithraeums popular among the Roman soldiers.  From the account of Tiridates being lavishly celebrated by Nero I get the impression the Romans were smitten with serious admiration for some of the eastern cultures they encountered in their conquests.

Example of Lion Headed statues found in Mithraeums 

This one includes zodiac symbols on its body.  I like the way this image illustrates the way we can feel as powerful as lions and yet at the same time hopelessly entwined in the creeping process of evolution.  I guess the whole point was to remember the ultimate process above and beyond our limited lifespan.  

 

Much Needed Laughter

 Gotta record this.  Reading 'Son of Hamas' on my day off.  Interspersed with devastating testimonies from Breaking the Silence - mostly IDF soldiers telling about how they witnessed abuse or themselves abused Palestinians.  It appears from their financial transparency pdf and this link that they receive a good bit of funding from Open Societies Foundation of George Soros.  That's some serious support of free speech aimed at uncovering sobering truth.

I'm taking a break, by the way, from 'Sequel' by Rachel Maddow.  

Compared to the Maddow book, 'Son of Hamas' by Mosab Hassan Yousef and Ron Brackin, is much more fast paced and emotional.  It is Yousef's autobiography of Palestinian childhood, imprisonment in Israel, and now I'm in the period where he is 'working' for Shin Bet which basically means he's getting paid to go to college and meet secretly with his Israeli handler.  

Mars just met Saturn yesterday.  You can see the pair setting on right side of chart.

Quick cut to astro stuff.  This my blog so we gotta gaze upward for a moment.

Jupiter is closing in on its meetup with Uranus.  That's happening in the last 3rd of Taurus and it's a pretty big deal since these two outer planets last met in 2010/11.  But the arresting pair that's got my attention right now is Mars and Saturn.  I'm seriously digging into war, statehood and all sorts of national conflict.

This biography of the oldest son of one of the founders of Hamas is taking me to the depths of the Israeli Palestinian war.  He mentions historic moments like the Camp David Summit, but from a perspective I've not yet encountered.  He throws very few dates around, but plenty of gut wrenching stories of torture and abuse on both sides.

His dad is a flawed sweetheart, a true hero trapped in a very bad place.  Yousef is a very confused young man wondering who he can trust, feeling very lost, but guided by his father's abiding kindness.  I repeat, the kindness of Yousef's father is flawed; no matter how strongly Venus shines, Mars is always still present in heaven.

I've just come to the part where Arafat has succeeded in igniting riots after Sharon's uneventful visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque.  By the way, I did not know Sharon's visit was a staged message to voters that he would not tolerate the Palestinains bulldozing archeological sites of Jewish Temples; there apparently had been video footage in the news, during the preceding weeks, of archeologists shaking their heads in disbelief at the bulldozers hauling away mounds filled with who knows how many ancient artifacts to a land fill.¹

Yousef had driven his father to the mosque.  Arafat had called him the night before requesting his help as a Hamas leader in bringing the Palestinians out to protest.  When they couldn't get a crowd up at the mosque his father dutifully went to Ramallah to help bring people out into the streets.  Yousef expressed outrage at his father for doing Arafat's bidding and then drove off to go camping near Galilee with his friends.  

He had no idea about the riots unfolding until he got a call from his Shin Bet handler.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in Galilee camping with some friends."

"Galilee!  What?"  Loai started to laugh.  "You are really unbelievable," he said.  "The whole West Bank is upside down and you're out having fun with your Christian friends."

*     ♡     *     ♡     *     ♡     *    

I've watched a few videos with this guy, Mosab Hassan Yousef.  He exudes intense, brooding anger and self confidence.  He speaks against people adopting false identities. 

I'm mostly thinking about the corrosive influence of war, of Mars, of the ugly reality of the constant battle for survival that we all face every day.  But some survive incredibly brutal fights and come out ready to tell the rest of us what they have learned.

The moment I got that relief of laughter, when Yousef's Shin Bet handler was laughing at the absurdity right beside this very explosive, deadly sobering situation -at that moment the deadly sobering pair of Mars and Saturn were setting in the Leo duad of Pisces.

^{1.  From Son of Hamas Yousef and Brackin Page 130 "Sharon's visit was designed to send a silent but clear message to Israeli voters: "I'll put a stop to this unnecessary destruction."  In planning the trip, Sharon's people had received assurance from Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub that his visit would not be a problem as long as he did not set foot in a mosque.}

^{"He came, he looked around, and he left.  He said nothing. He never entered the mosque.  It all seemed like a big nonevent to me. On the way back to Ramallah, I asked my father what the big deal had been.}

^{"What happened?" I said,  "You didn't start an intifada."}

^{"Not yet," he answered.  "But I have called some activists in the Islamic student movement and asked them to meet me here for a protest."}

^{"Nothing happened in Jerusalem, so now you want to demonstrate in Ramallah?  That's crazy," I told him.}

^{"We have to do what we have to do.  Al-Aqsa is our mosque and Sharon had no business being there."}

^{I wondered if he was trying to convince me or himself."}

Egyptian King Farouk Invades Israel 1948

I'm seeing a lot of stuff on the net about Israel/Palestine.  I'm not going into my personal feelings here, just adding some pertinent info that seems to be falling through the cracks.  The chart is for the morning several Arab countries invaded newly declared Israel.  Pluto and Saturn in their historic meeting were rising as the invasion unfolded, with the new Moon right between them.  All three planets were in the Leo section of the ecliptic.  A collection of 'Arab kings' were determined to expel a newly formed state of 'western colonizers' and rushing to beat each other in a grab for power.

A quote from Wikipedia article on King Farouk:  In May 1948, the prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha advised against going to war with Israel, saying the Egyptian Army was not ready for war.^[182] However, King Farouk overruled him, as he feared the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was clamoring for war with Israel.^[182]

The Wikipedia article on Farouk is long but packed with enough salacious details to satisfy any fan of lush life exposés. 

This is from the Wikipedia article on Azzam Pasha:  Azzam believed that King Abdullah of Jordan had decided to move his forces into Palestine on 15 May, regardless of what the other Arabs did, and would occupy the Arab part of Palestine (blaming other Arab states for failure). King Farouk resolved to contain Abdullah and prevent him from gaining further influence and power in the Arab arena.^[30]

I'm deeply disturbed by current events.  But that's ok.  It motivates me to learn as much as I can about the situation. 

I've watched several videos of Israeli Oct 7 survivors.  I've also watched some videos about and by Edward Said.  I like Said, but feel compelled to raise my hand and say, "Yes, you have an important account to give the world about the suffering of your childhood community of Palestinians, but what about the Arab invasion?"

One last quote:  At the last moment, several Arab leaders, to avert catastrophe – secretly appealed to the British to hold on in Palestine for at least another year.^[147][148]