Month: March 2011

a heads up for May 2011

Tight Quadruple Conjunction of the First Four Planets – Last Happened Over 100 Years Ago

from UK Astrologer, Alison Chester-Lambert via Astrologer, Marcia Buchart

View of Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury rising over Manzanita, Oregon May 9th, 2011

One of the rarest and most auspicious planetary alignments happens in May 2011. And with luck we will be able to see it, since all the planets are visible and rise before the Sun early in the morning.

If you didn’t understand any of that, I’ll just explain – the Sun is at the centre of the Solar System. Around it are the planets, with Mercury nearest, then Venus, followed by Earth, then Mars and Jupiter. All of those planets can be seen with the naked eye and actually Venus is the brightest thing in the sky after the Moon. Jupiter is next brightest.

Each of these planets does its own thing in its own orbit, with Mars and Jupiter taking years to go right around the Earth. Venus and Mercury on the other hand, are never more than a quarter of the sky away from the Sun. They trundle along in front or behind it, being seen in the early morning or late night twilight.

However, from May 9th to the 13th May 2011, a very rare planetary alignment takes place. These four innermost planets, (apart from Earth) all visible to the naked eye as bright stars, will group together and rise before the Sun each day, making an incredible spectacle for those with a good view of the Eastern horizon. The last time these four planets were in such close alignment was around 29th October 1910, over 100 years ago.  They came vaguely close in 1915, 1955 and 1966, but nothing like as close as they will be in May this year.

What does it mean?

Jupiter is known as the bringer of good fortune and confidence. He joins Venus who represents success, achievement and pleasure plus Mercury who communicates, connects and transmits the energies to Earth.  Mars rounds off the quartet with boundless energy and it all happens in the exuberant Zodiac sign of Aries, which hopefully won’t get too out of hand. For this is the most alive and on-fire you can feel! All together, these planets describe an auspicious energy which can bring considerable success. They should be greeted with enthusiasm and joy for the opportunities of personal strength and potency they represent.

So what was happening back then in 1910 when they last met in this way?

Strangely, in 1910, they were in the exact opposite location in the sky from the 2011 event!  And I have no explanation as to what this means. With regard to world events, nothing much was recorded, which really confirms my prediction that events like this tend to bring fortune to individuals.

They are a gift of excitement and success from the Cosmos to whomever reaches out for it.  Just to put you into the energy of the times, a Google search will reveal that the second air ship to cross the English Channel arrived safely and a man flew 61 miles in 62 minutes, winning the Gordon Bennett cup. Carl Jung was writing letters to Sigmund Freud and a Professor of the philosophy of mind and logic, Alfred Ayer, who wrote `Language, Truth and Logic` was born. Since the quadruple conjunction then was in Libra, the title of his book is no surprise to astrology!

Since these are difficult times generally, and the Cosmos contains much to shake humanity from 2008 until 2016, it is nice to focus on a good omen for a change. I do hope this forewarning can enable you to do something really positive with the energy.  Remember it is about feeling vibrantly aware of your fire, potency, eagerness and SELF! You might want to watch how you handle others; things could get a little sharp as everyone wants their own needs met FIRST.

Technical Details:  The planets begin the formation at 22 degrees of the Zodiac sign Aries on the 9th May, with Venus, Mercury and Jupiter staying within a degree of each other until they reach 25 degrees on May 13th.  Mars is just 6 degrees of arc ahead and still technically closely conjunct.

Very Best Wishes,  Alison Chester-Lambert

www.midlandsschoolofastrology.co.uk

www.alisonchesterlambert.com

facebook: Alison Chester Lambert – all welcome.

Twitter: www.twitter/astrologer2

re-what?

From a quick post (he calls the post “a cosmic blip” )  by Astrologer Phillip Sedgwick:

Remember, it’s Mercury retrograde time from March 30th through April 23rd. Great time to review things in progress. Not so much for signing new contracts, entering agreements and all documents related to new launches. Check all facts and figures before sending them out the door. However, there’s always the midpoint day in the retro cycle when things can actually if signed on this date and only this date during Mercury retrograde. This time it’s April 9th. Use it well.

Starting at 11:17 GMT on April 2nd through 23:47 GMT April 4th, we have the Moon, Mars, Uranus, Sun, Jupiter, Eris and Mercury retrograde all in Aries! Get clear. Shoot straight. Remember the tendency to react in a hair-triggered, supercharged manner prevails. State your agenda and wait ten seconds before stating it again. Play nice in the sandbox. Avoid badger mentality. Remember, everyone wants to turn the world around to their favor, just like you do.

Especially for Horizon Course attendees–

As requested–here is the .pdf file with the images from the presentation at class #1 in the Horizon Series with Carol and Claudia

Enjoy.  Picturing the Cosmos .pdf

Pluto is alive and well and living in Paris

Painting in the catacombs in Paris - photographs by Steven Alvarez

Cataphiles (people who love the Paris underground) tell me this sort of thing is perfectly normal when you return to the surface; you can’t help it, they say. You picture the cool, still freedom of the underground, with all its possibilities.

Heads down Capricorns!   Go to: National Geographic Article-Paris Catacombs

Since Pluto went into Capricorn in November of 2008 (and is now at exactly at the same degree as my Sun) I’ve been fascinated and listening for stories from ‘down there’.  Plutonian tales. Stories that may shed light on this archetypal power lurking in my ancestral DNA.  I mean he IS Hades — the God of the Underworld which I prefer to call the “other world”.  He is the Lord of where diamonds are forged and darkness reigns, the dead are buried, the unseen is well –dark and invisible, right?

So yes, in addition to watching the financial markets dive below the horizon (Capricorn structures reinventing economies), experiencing fear of the unknown, being a little scared, even starting a blog– life has been — how you say– INTENSE!!

So when I stumble upon articles like this one in National Geographic called Paris Catacombs–the invisible becomes visible.

And that, as my colleague, Carol Ferris said at our first Horizon seminar on Sunday, is one of the jobs of the astrologer–to make the invisible visible.  Yes.

Take a tour through the Parisian catacombs.  What do you see?

They're called cataphiles, people who love the Paris underground.
In an abandoned quarry tunnel under Paris, with the faint rumble of Métro trains far overhead, a painter known as Lone adds the last strokes to his masterpiece: a mural based on Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin's "Isle of the Dead." Entering the quarries is illegal, so cataphiles like Lone prefer nicknames. It took him more than a year to finish the painting. In all, he estimates he has spent 2,500 hours in the quarries.

I see possibilities.  How amazing is that!

I’m going to walk around town as a secret cataphile–

Into the 19th century those caverns and tunnels were mined for building stone. After that farmers raised mushrooms in them, at one point producing hundreds of tons a year. During World War II, French Resistance fighters—the underground—hid in some quarries; the Germans built bunkers in others. Today the tunnels are roamed by a different clandestine group, a loose and leaderless community whose members sometimes spend days and nights below the city.

They’re called cataphiles, people who love the Paris underground.

I’ll get back to you with a report from Pluto later–for now–I’m going to look at the art.

Claudia

The Long Road (Part 2)

from Teresa Jordan’s blog-The Year of Living Virtuously (weekends off)

Go on over to her blog–and be inspired by Teresa–you won’t be sorry–you’ll be inspired.

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. —Friedrich Nietzsche

How do you want this to change your life? —Peggy Battin, speaking to an honors English class about facing adversity.

In the fall of 2008, at the age of 66, Brooke Hopkins retired as a professor of English literature at the University of Utah. Much beloved by his students and the recipient of every teaching award the University had to offer, he was also an avid outdoorsman and traveler. He and his wife, Peggy Battin, a renowned medical ethicist, had plans.

continue reading at Teresa’s site:  http://www.yearoflivingvirtuously.com/

people and pups

Baz (not pictured:Ralf and Jilly)

After a particularly wonderful class this weekend, and amidst earthquakes, sirens, a tsunami, bombings in Libya, walking the dogs in the park, spring arriving,  listening to many stories both anxious and inspired–I am left with a precious life–made more so by having all of you in it.

and as per Marcia’s post I caught the wave.

What wave did you catch this auspicious weekend?  Let us know.

Zen and the Art of Astrological Surfing

by Marcia Buchart


It is quite striking that this “supermoon”-the full moon while the moon is at perigee, its closest approach to earth-occurs just before the cardinal ingress of the Sun into Aries.  The cardinal signs are presented in astrological lore, as far back as the Hellenistic authors (Dorotheus of Sidon; Ptolemy; Vettius Valens; Paulus Alexandrinus) as signs signifying action!

The “moveable” signs, they were called, the places in the zodiacal year where things are begun, where shit happens.  If you wanted shit to happen, you wanted cardinal signs prominent in a chart.

A full moon is a place where it is made obvious-because of the brilliance of the illumination-what must happen.  As Dane Rudhyar writes, “What was mainly felt in the past is now seen. This may mean a revelation or illumination.”

The path to be taken is clearly marked.

What does this portend for the Sun’s ingress into the action-oriented sign Aries?  (What does this have to do with surfing, for Pete’s sake??)

Just this: the point where a surfer must “catch the wave” is before it actually forms, before it assumes its particular shape.  An astute and experienced surfer can feel in the pull of the water when this is about to occur.  And the art a surfer must nail is feeling when to jump up and catch the very cusp (point) when potential energy is becoming kinetic energy.

They’re not actually thinking this, of course.  No surfer is analyzing wonky geek concepts such as “potential energy” or “kinetic energy”.  They’re feeling (ruled by the Moon)-in their bodies (ruled by the Moon, in older astrological traditions)-the interplay of the pull and the draw of the water (ruled by the Moon) and instinctively choosing the moment to throw themselves into the current, in order to convert kinetic energy into a unique path for them (Sun ingresses into Aries! Ta-daaaaah!).

Do this successfully, and you ride.

Muff it, and you either wipe out or you miss it.

Why is this metaphor so apropos?  Because the Moon drags the tides after Her.  The Moon displays Herself in all the fullness of Her power-not in a cardinal sign, but in a sign that signifies flux and the gathering of “potential energy”-nearly a full day before the Sun makes His ingress into Aries.

So you have the building of the wave (supermoon) but you, by yourself, must catch the big waves of the tide at the moment of action and ride it in (Sun ingress into Aries).

You might wipe out; you might ride it all the way in.  But don’t miss it.

note from Claudia

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.” Theodore H. White, The Once and Future King

Years ago in listening to a tape of Liz Greene talking about Pluto, I recall her saying something to the effect that the only way through difficult times/transits is through art.  I don’t think she was saying that art saves lives or that we should all run to our canvases (what canvas?  I can’t draw a straight line!).

remember tape recorders?

But what I got from that taped lecture was that it is art that allows us to see the unseeable, think the unthinkable and be with mystery.  Art as antidote to fear.

It is in writing, in color, in music and in the art of conversation, and even in finding images for a blog (from tape to blog?) that I find an antidote to the fears. In addition to practical actions (note to self:  get more water to have on hand, listen to Rachel M. explain radiation, be informed), I search for writings and pictures and music so I can ‘be’ present to life and suffering and joy and compassion.

The Japanese people are being a work of art in and of themselves.  No looting.  Much sadness. Days of being with the tragedies and now being with each other.  I’m learning so much from them.

Below is an article I found this morning that appealed to me.  More to come.

To quote Astrologer, Len Wallick:

Over uncounted millions of years, life on this planet has become as a cycle in rhythm and harmony with the seasons. Our own kind, humanity, became as a part of those cycles. We developed a story to account for the rhythm, mythology. We also formulated a method to keep track of the harmony, astrology.

We, at Skydog Institute, are listening for the stories to account for the rhythm and using the method of astrology to keep track of the harmony–and we’ll share these with you–dear client and friend and family.

What We Are Doing – The Vernal Equinox

By Len Wallick

Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”
– W.H. Auden

The Sun calls on us to become. We reach the Vernal Equinox at about 7:21 pm EDT this coming Sunday. Earth is reaching one of the two points in its orbit where the axis of rotation is not tilted either towards nor away from the center of the solar system. When that happens, the direction of Sol’s incident light is perpendicular to the equator. At that time the entire surface facing the Sun is exposed to the light equally. Equator, equal, equinox.

continued at: Astrology, Horoscopes, Monthly Horoscopes, Weekly Horoscopes, Daily Astrology Blog, | What We Are Doing – The Vernal Equinox | Daily Astrology & Adventure by Eric Francis.

Letter from Sendai – March 15, 2011

This letter has shown up on several posts.  We are very grateful to have it.

Sendai, March 15, 2011

Hello My Lovely… Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you. Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend’s home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candle light, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

The famous Matsushima bay near Sendai – one of Japan’s most scenic spots. The tsunami most likely will have caused devastation to the villages along the bay, to the islands as well as the oyster farms in the area. Image by David Ooms via flickr.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets. Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, “Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another.”

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often. We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things; others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time. Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled.

The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend’s husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again. Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don’t. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,
With Love in return, to you all,
Anne See More

Supermoons produce high tides. This is known.

from Astrologer, Marcia Buchart

Supermoons produce high tides.  This is known.  If you have to set sail—if you have anything that needs to get off the dock and on its way—pay attention to this time!

In ordinary maritime schedules supermoon high tides are yet another factor to be compensated for.  Grumble, grumble, grumble.

But.

In individual life endeavors, they present the times the surfer can “catch the wave”.  Have you ever watched this process; have you ever seen it happen?

Go to YouTube; there are videos, especially at this time of year, films of the winter storms bring the waves to the Hawaiian Island beaches.

The humans are out there on their boards…drifting…paddling…backpedaling to stay in place ‘in the zone’…

And suddenly…

The wall of water rises behind them.  Frantic activity.  Mad paddling.  People rise up on their boards.  Some wipe out.  Some miss the timing.  But some few…hit it.  They’ve caught the surge, they’re in the tube, they’re on that thin line of creative actualization, they even…ride it all the way in, peeling out before the wave finally collapses.

So…

Is there some area of your life that is waiting in the zone, waiting for that perfect wave to ride into shore?

Maybe…it is now.  This weekend.  Even if you live in the heartland of America, go online and find a tide table.  Notice that the tides are not in sync with the Moon’s pull in time; they do not exactly match it.  Luna/Selene shoves the waters of the Earth in front of Her by about 1.5 – 2 hours  (or, perhaps, drags them behind Her with a 10-11.5 hour drag).  But look at the times of high tides.

And get ready to catch the wave.  Cowabunga!

re: Howdy Doody and Kowabunga and those of us old enough to remember

” Howdy Doody scholars have suggested that Cowabunga! Is “subliminal or coded profanity.” But Buffalo Bob Smith “strongly resented any insinuation of profanity and respond to the charge in ‘Howdy and Me” by Mr. Smith and Donna McCrohan (New York: Plume Books, 1990): ‘.the implications of Kawabonga were always squeaky clean.’.

Kawabonga, in any event, was soon taken up by surfers, who changed the spelling of Cowabunga! It was an all-purpose cry of exultation.”

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