Mars in Libra balancing Uranus in Aries

I have the day off and am watching videos of Lenny Bruce.  What a sweetheart.  What a great living example of Mars in Libra.  What a testament to the fact that a debilitated planet is often far more beautiful and inspiring than one that has power.

Also in the back of my mind are the photos of the palatial mansion in Ukraine abandoned by the Russian backed president in the wake of the popular uprising.  Nothing has been destroyed.  All those shiny floors, the sparkling crystal and panes of glass, all the bad art and reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture is unharmed after the crowds of amazed citizens danced through to gawk at what their taxes bought.  The galleon….well television viewers have probably seen this tens of times but I’m including a link anyway.  Luxury Ukraine presidential home revealed  Mars in Libra….  Grinding to a halt.  Noone really stopping, just the fact of relative motion.  Relative to Earth, Mars is barely moving.  Libra.  Not too high, not too low.  Right in the middle. 

In late July Mars will enter- with more speed- Scorpio, the sign it rules passively.  And do not forget that Uranus is only 1/3 through Aries; it entered the explosive sign in 2011- so after this period of relative civility the pumped up planet of revolution will get a behind the scenes boost from quietly ruling Mars, as will Saturn, which has been in Scorpio since October 2012.  Red hot revolution, disposited by raw energy and secret power, is currently tempered with a prolonged dose of diplomacy.  So much unrest, for so long, and still 4 more years to go.  Links to The Bangkok Shutdown  and the diplomatic flurry

I repeat this over and over, the last time Uranus was in Aries was during the years of the fascist party’s rise to power. 

Uranus was in Aries April 1927- March 1935.  In May 1937 Saturn entered Aries while Uranus was putting down roots in Taurus.  By May 1939 Jupiter had entered Aries and was catching up to Saturn- Fortune and Consequence meeting in the sign of open hostility.  In May 1942 Saturn had caught up with Uranus at the end of the sign Taurus, the bull, the worker, the stubborn one. 

Uranus in Aries now- 2011-2018.  Every day, any signal reaching us from that planet literally jumps over the horizon once any point on Earth hits the peak of its daily revolution.  When the Sun with its court of Venus and Mercury come through, when Moon sweeps through in a couple of days, or Mars in a month, or Jupiter in a year; when any planet comes through Aries we see its signal leap over the curve of the Earth as we are going down.  It is all because of our tilted axis. 

But Mars, right now on the opposite side of the solar system from Uranus, is seen as we are coming up; it first becomes visible to a spot on Earth climbing from its low point.  Mars in Libra takes 2 1/2 hours to complete the same rising arc that Uranus in Aries makes in 1 ½ hours.   The planet of war is actually balancing the warring planet of revolution!

Link to post about Lenny.  His birthchart showing Mars in Libra is at bottom of post.

It's Getting Warm up Here: Sun in Pisces

Today is February 23 and the Sun is almost to the 5^th degree of Pisces- a poetic way of locating its position from the top half of Earth.

On January 1 we were in the 10^th degree of Capricorn, lined up between Jupiter at the top of the solar system diagram and Pluto way down at the bottom.  Now, less than two months later, Earth has moved into the position where it is roasting more of its side than its feet.  Since Raleigh is in the Northern half of the globe that means we are getting a better share of Sun’s photons and other signals.

The above diagram of the solar system is not to scale and I left our closest siblings out of the picture.  We are pretending they are not related to us and only following the planets that make really big circles. 

I talked about Mars slowing down last week, click on the shaded text for a link to that post.  We are about to pass through the straights of Mars/Sun, then Saturn/Sun.  In the astrology chart above, since Earth is at the center, things look a bit different: we see the Sun on one side, approaching opposition to Mars first and then Saturn.  

See Neptune on the right side of the first diagram?  In the astrology chart the planet of generational vision appears right beside the Sun.  We will see the Sun leave Pisces in less than a month, but Neptune won’t enter Aries (the sign after Pisces) until 2025.  How many babies will be born with Neptune in Pisces?  We haven’t had babies born with Neptune in Pisces since the start of the Civil War.

At 5:53 am Raleigh was almost to the top of her daily spin round Earth’s axis.   When we are so close to the top that we could just about shoot an arrow over the curve of the Earth, it is called Sagittarius.  What will those cave dwellers think of next?!

Now…another first for this blog….Today I am including a little diagram of where we saw the planets in the actual sky from Raleigh at 5:53am.  You can see the little house and the steps where the person came out their door facing North and walked around to the South and looked up.  

Along with a few distant stars that were bright enough to outshine city lights, Venus was coming up in the east, the moon was just east of due south and then Saturn and Mars were west of south.  That’s a close up view so you can’t see the whole line of the ecliptic, which is not exactly imaginary and not exactly real- I guess you would call it the yellow brick road the planets follow through the sky.  Sometimes they go a little above it and sometimes a little below.  This morning they were all a little above it.

The main diagram, with the house and bug eyed planet gazer, shows a close-up view of the sky, so you can’t see where the ecliptic descends on the horizon.  The last diagram shows things from a wider view so you can see how the ecliptic was intersecting the horizon at that moment.

Yes, the ecliptic is skewed to the west, not centered as the hands marching around the perfect circle of the clock.  But what does it meannnn?????   It means that we are children of the universe and we have a right to know our real place in it.

Mercury Overtakes Earth Again!

 Once again Earth is overtaken by Mercury.  You would think after 4.5 billion times around the Sun the larger planet inhabited by the children of GOD would catch on to the little booger’s technique for getting ahead.

Mars Slowing Down and The High and Low of a Daily Revolution

Before diving in to these Aquarian maps of the solar system I want to tell the story of a friend learning Tai Chi.  She is taking Tai Chi for the second time after an aborted attempt over 15 years ago.  After plenty of concentration, practice and returning to the first level class right after completing it, her joy in what she has learned is infectious.  Every time she talks about this new skill she is learning she recalls the first time she tried, so many years ago, and how discouraged she was.  There was only one teacher for more than 10 students, and she was taking the class at night after a long day at work and caring for a family.  This time she is retired and taking the class with a group of people dedicated to sharing this physical form of meditation with the wider community, and this time she is having much more success.

When she showed me some of the movements she has learned, it seemed as though energy was being made visible through the graceful motions of her hands, arms and entire body.  The motions looked elegant, yet had required weeks of sorting out which direction to move, and when, for every part of the body.  Even as I was amazed at the beauty of her movements, she was laughing about how clumsy she was compared to more experienced members of her group.

Like Tai Chi, astrology is a lot harder than it looks.  Even with someone leading you through the concepts, it requires diligent concentration to visualize what seems like a very simple system of planets circling a fiery ball.  Do not be discouraged if you have trouble making sense of the pictures and numbers.  Begin with something that intrigues you- for me it was the moon.   Study just one planet- and when you have 30 minutes where your mind is not occupied with daily tasks, try to picture how its cycle unfolds in the actual sky.  One short glimmer of life on this revolving sphere will make you feel so connected to real heaven - that chances are good you will want to see more. 

Earth catching up to Mars

The 3 featured planets for today are colorized; Earth, Sun and Mars.  Earth is getting ready to catch up with, and pass Mars.  Each day as earth gets closer to Mars, the planet of war seems to go a bit slower.  A month ago we were seeing Mars move forward 23 minutes a day, which is still pretty slow compared to 45 minutes a day last April.  Today it will only advance 10 minutes, or 1/6 of a degree.  (The sun appears to move about 1degree/day.) 

Next Friday Mars will advance 6 minutes, or 1/10 of a degree.  Friday, Feb 28 it will advance 1 puny minute, or 1/60 of a degree.  It will stand there, like a bunch of soldiers waiting for orders, Sat and Sun; then Monday it will go backwards one measly 60^th of a degree.

Fast forward to the future:

We will be lined up between Sun and Mars April 8.  Mars, the first planet beyond Earth’s orbit, is the cycle of separation; Venus and Mercury never get far from the sun, while Mars, with a cycle of only 2 years compared to Jupiter’s 12 gets to wander far and wide with the big ones.  So we associate this cycle with the process of separation.  This time around Mars spends 8 months in the sign Libra, it entered the sign of cooperation in early Dec 2013 and will not pass into Scorpio until July 26 of this year.  Every night, for the next several months, we can see the planet of war move across heaven at the balanced elevation of the celestial equator.  The warrior is learning to walk the tightrope of diplomacy.  Anyone born Oct 19-21 is energized by Mars today.

You can see Mar’s big sister Venus has recently overtaken Earth in her orbit.  She is now on her way and this summer will be approaching the far side of the sun from us. 

The High and Low of a Daily Revolution

Next up in this post –the first time on this blog - we zoom in for a close-up of earth, and show Raleigh’s high and low points in her daily trip round earth’s axis.  Today we reached our high point (Capricorn the goat) at 8:38am.  We were half way down to the bottom at 2:38pm. (Aries on the Midheaven)  Then, depending on the clouds, we will see Jupiter high in the sky when we are at the bottom (Cancer the Crab) at 8:38 pm.  

A point in the Northern hemishpere at its highest elevation is facing Capricorn on the Midheaven (MC)- while a point at its lowest elevation is facing Cancer on the MC.

Here are three charts for today showing when Capricorn, Aries and Cancer were on the Midheaven for Raleigh.

Raleigh was at the peak of her daily revolution at 8:38 this morn - the sign Capricorn was on the MC.  The midheaven is what we see when we look due south where the Sun is found at midday.

At 2:38pm Raleigh was half way to the bottom of her daily revolution and had already turned so the sun was getting ready to set in the west instead of rising in the east at 8:38am.  Any point on earth halfway down from the top faces Aries on the MC.

Cancer the Crab on the MC means we are at the bottom

Notice how the line for the Midheaven is straight up in Capricorn and Cancer, but inclined to the west for Aries.  When we are at the top or bottom of our revolution we can see as much of the ecliptic coming up in the east, as what we are turning away from in the west.  It is like climbing up one side of a mountain, and, upon reaching the top, being able to see equally what is on the side of ascent and what is on the other side where you are about to go down.  When you get half way down the mountain (Aries) you can’t see much of what was on the side where you came up, but you can see a lot of the side where you are descending.   When Aries is on the Midheaven and we are half way down, we can see more of the ecliptic coming up in the east than what’s going down in the west.

In a somewhat similar way, when we are at the bottom of our daily revolution, we see the path of the ecliptic highest in the sky, and we see an equal amount of it coming up in the east and going down in the west. 

There is not a chart today to show Libra on the midheaven.  When we are rotated half way to the top we can't see much of the ecliptic in the east, but we can see a lot of what is setting in the west.  Any chart for the northern hemisphere should show a line for a Libra midheaven inclined to the east, since the visibility of the plane of orbit is cut off in that direction.

Happy Birthday (a little late) to John Dancy-Jones!

This is one of the first charts I ever calculated way back in the days of the Thursday Night Open Poetry Readings.  I bought “The Handbook of Humanistic Astrology” at the Paper Plant, a very lucky find as back in 1985/6 there were few books floating around that explained how to calculate a chart.  

Here is a prettier version of the same chart.  I wrote that the moon in Sagittarius is the soul of a philosopher, but another sentence that can be made with that astrological placement in the 11th house of reputation is the soul of a publisher of wide repute.

 And last of all a chart for how the Raleigh Rambler has evolved up to this point in time, his 61st year.  This below is a progressed chart- a chart for 61 solar days after the moment (which may be approximate time) of John's birth.  The progressed moon in Pisces is about 18months into a 2 1/2 year period of swimming with the fishes in the wine dark sea. 

Happy Birthday John!

How Long it Takes a Sign to Rise

Watch as the line through the top of the circle labeled ‘MC’ moves back and forth like an inverted pendulum.

This is a series of charts to show the varying amount of time it takes for different signs to rise.  You can also follow the opening and closing of the line of the midheaven (MC).

The zodiac marches in regular time at the rate of 4 minutes/degree across the MC.  When we look due south (or due north from the southern hemisphere) we see the ecliptic move at a steady pace across the sky.  But when we look to the east or west it is a different story.  While Aries takes less than 1 ½ hours to rise, Cancer and Scorpio take almost 2 ½ hours.

The series begins with Aries rising and Capricorn on the midheaven.  The eastern sky opens quickly while Capricorn and Aquarius are crossing it (east is on the left), but begins to close when Pisces comes across.  The line representing the midheaven gradually moves back to the middle until it is straight up again in Cancer and then moves further and further east through Leo, Virgo, Libra and a few degrees of Scorpio.  In Scorpio we see the line begin moving back to the middle.  It snaps straight up from Sagittarius to Capricorn and the cycle begins anew.

I will make another post with a full explanation of how the chart maps our daily revolution from a specific point on the globe.

On the chart for Sagittarius rising don’t let the line pointing to the beginning of the 11th house (0degreesLibra04minutes) confuse you.  The MC is 11Virgo49.

Venus backs up almost all the way to Pluto

It was like a cross between a blown kiss and a peck on the cheek.  In fact, as I was putting my car in gear to back it down from the driveway Felix knocked on the hood and crossed his arms like a big X over his chest with the look of a sweet son to a grandmother.  I had been berating them for drinking and playing the music loud.  All they wanted was some juice in their battery so they could start the truck up and get the music going again.

“You know more than me,” Felix slurred humbly after I’d retrieved the cables from the trunk and was bringing them around to the front of our two cars where the two all night drinkers were waiting.

He gave me an opening and I pounced, “Are you drunk?” 

“A little bit.”  God I can see how she would have fallen for him.  But at the moment I am thinking of Eugenia washing dishes and cooking, and leaving before the sun comes up for her job at the bakery.

“And you’re going to drive drunk?”  Yes.  Yes.  You’ll see in a minute here.

“Nooh.  We just want the music.”  That’s all.  Why would I be on their case? “She’s not brava.”  This word I need to become more acquainted with.  Brava.  They usually ask me if my dog is brava, meaning I guess, does she bite?  I’m drifting in my mind like a car taking a corner a little too fast, wearing down those tires and swinging the occupants in a powerful arc, sometimes you just gotta take those turns in a hurry.

The cables are connected and I return to the driver’s side to start the engine.  I wanted America to do this but she deferred, I guess no matter how much I try to control it people must find it very evident that I am a steam roller today.  I tell them again not to play the music loud and tell Felix he should help his wife with the chores.

“She’s sleeping!”  He said.  I am turning ‘brava’ over in my mind as I look for the words.

“Yes.  But I’ve heard her yelling at you when she’s had you up to here!”  hand up to my eyes like showing how deep the snow is in Buffalo.  He laughs, the laugh of the relieved drunk.  They’ve got their music back and Maria is not mad.  They can pick a cd and get another beer.  Soon the others will be up and come drifting up to the truck.

But wait!  Maria can’t get into her car!  The key is locked in and the car is running.  Punctilious Maria, who would not give the cables to Felix until she had turned off the engine, has locked the keys in her car while it is running.  Oh no!  Yes, the 2^nd key is there on the hook in the kitchen.  How many little stumbles there have been just to get the music going! 

First America came in after a little back porch toke and wondered if I have cables Felix could borrow.   Sure, they are in the back of my car, I don’t know the word for trunk.  Here are the keys.

Then she comes back in several minutes later, asking about a different charger she’d seen me using that doesn’t need another car.  Oh, the plug in charger.  But “Why don’t they jump it off their car?”

“Because he's arguing with Eugenia.”

So I put shoes on my feet and take the plug in charger out to the fence.  “Oh.  Where are the big cables?  You plug this into the house?”

“Yes.  It takes at least two hours.”  And I realize they are picturing America describing one of those chargers that has power in ‘em, like a portable battery for giving the one in the car a quick boost.  “No.  This one doesn’t have any power in it.  You have to get the power from the house.”

Only after this series of exchanges do they push the car back in the driveway far enough for me to pull up beside it.  Meanwhile in my house I had given America my assessment of the situation.  “I don’t know how the women live with these men; with all the drinking and loud music.”  It’s 9:30 in the morning for Christ’s sake and their battery is already dead from an hour of loud music. 

“Well you must feel the same way about me,” says America.  So I have to explain the difference which she knows very well.  It is why she lives with me and not her sister.  She can’t stand living with a bunch of men who get drunk and yell and leave beer cans all over the yard and blast loud music at all hours of the day and night.  She lives with me because when she’s ready for the party to be over she sends her buddies home, shuts the door and returns to her peaceful existence.

“Look at Nati, she’s constantly cooking and cleans up after the whole bunch.  Same as Eugenia and Suzanna.  I don’t know how they put up with it.”  Nati is America’s sister.  They were both living together in a party house when I met them.  America slept on a cushion on the dining room floor with music blasting and at least 5 men, usually a whole bunch more partying in the yard.  Suzanna stayed in her room with her daughter and the television.  That’s back when I had energy to spare and loved the all night parties right down the street.  It wasn’t till I started having health problems that I began to resent people who could work all day and then party half the night. 

But that Maria is gone now, as Suzanna says, the Maria who danced out in the back yard with all the men in the neighborhood.  Christmas of 2012 I went over and asked them to turn down the music.  The windows on the house were shaking and I did it.  I did not go over for a plate of yummy food as they thought when they first saw me duck into the big tent.  No, I went right past the women and children to the dj and asked him to turn it down.  “Felix told me to turn it up,” he said.  So I had to approach the burn barrel with all the guys clutching their bud lights and coronas and get Felix.  “You have to turn it down,” I said.  “It’s too loud.”  Ooh poor Felix.  But they did turn it down and Felix was a sweet heart in the morning.

So, it has all turned out ok.  I did not want to be a good neighbor and put shoes on, so I chastised those men without mercy.  Now I sheepishly brought out the 2^nd key and laughed about how the one complaining of drunk and disorderly men had locked her keys in the car.  “Are you drunk Maria?”  Felix asked?

“No,” I said.  But immediately lit up with a mischievous smile and said “No, but I had a little toke this morning!” 

“I love you Maria!  Let’s get together!”  effused Jesus.  His nickname is Chupitas after a drunk and disorderly character on one of the Mexican comedy shows. 

“I don’t go with drunks.”  Laughs from both of them.  “But I would love it if you came over sober for a visit.”  Jesus/Chupitas is the most literate of the whole bunch.  Years ago I brought out a copy of “Los de Abajo” by Mariano Azuelas and Jesus was really excited to see it and have someone to talk about books with.  I’ve tried to get him to come over in between drinking with the guys, but it just never happened.  “I will!” he slurred, “You can help me get papers.”  That’s when I closed the door and Felix knocked on the hood to send me the hug through the windshield.

Sounds like the same tune that came on when I started my car is playing.  It started out just piano but now there are more instruments.  One of the many perks of living with a teenager is the music.  My son wants to hear something good and fiddles with the dial until he gets it.  I stopped listening to KNC when I kept getting the metal show.  But a lot of times I start my car after my son has used it and get the coolest music from Shaw or KNC.  This is great piano music, the kind of stuff that makes me glad to be human. 

By the time I’ve backed my car into its spot and am making my way up my driveway, they have the music going.  It sounds so fresh in the morning air.