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).