The Perseid Meteor Shower is active from July 29th to August 26th and “shooting stars” are visible all night long during this time throughout the Northern Hemisphere. As the skies darken, look to the NNE where the constellation Perseus [below the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia]...
August 6 to 13, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Mercury and Saturn
It’s mid-summer and we have just put the bookend on the 2009 series of summer eclipses. Whew! From the first July 7th Full Moon lunar eclipse, to the second New Moon solar eclipse on July 21st, to the third and final Full Moon lunar eclipse on Aug. 5th, we have traveled many actual and metaphorical miles. We have experienced the metaphysical metamorphosis of ecliptic phenomena and its accompanying planetary change.
From the wild phantasmagoria of Michael Jackson’s death and globally covered memorial service, to the up close and personal passing of Captain Jack Carey and his touching, down-home memorial service at the Telluride Town Park, we have been awakened and transformed. And that’s what eclipses are all about.
July 30 to August 6, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Mercury and Saturn
When I was a little girl, my Mother used to load my brothers and sisters and me up in our red and white 1958 Chevy station wagon – I think it was on Fridays – and we’d make the exciting journey to the big, modern Safeway supermarket on South Colorado Boulevard in Denver. It was always a big event because the refrigerator would go from empty to full, and in summer we’d come home with bags of fresh peaches, watermelon, strawberries and bing cherries – yum! But, perhaps even more exciting than the groceries, we were also allowed to pick out a new Golden Book from the children’s section of the store, and that meant opening new doors in the fascinating worlds of information and imagination. Those glistening golden bindings just shimmered with anticipation.
One of my favorites was entitled Grandpa Bunny Bunny. It was a sweet tale of a Grandpa rabbit who taught the little bunnies about the magic of nature and prepared them for life in Earth’s changing seasons. He was a supreme storyteller and magnificent artist. He showed them compassion and love, patience and grace. They came to depend on his direction and guidance, and when the day came that Grandpa Bunny Bunny was no longer in his hole, when he had passed on, the little bunnies were lost in their sadness and grief.
July 23 to 30, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Mercury and Saturn
Honoring a Brother-In-Arms, Walking on the Moon and Feeling Our Cancer-ruled Emotions
We humans are emotional creatures – the Buddhists use the term “sentient beings” – and we are subject to waves, and sometimes even oceans of emotion.
The Cancer zodiac month, and the three consecutive lunations that took place in Cancer recently - two of which were eclipses - illuminate and constellate the strong connection and partnership that emotions have with the human body, mind and spirit. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, and those born under the sign of Cancer are referred to as Moonchildren. Is it any wonder that man walking on the Moon and Michael Jackson’s moonwalk have been subjects of collective awareness lately?
Synchronistically, both space age and pop icon moonwalkers bring up plenty of Cancer-fueled emotions. The first contrasts the security, familiarity and comfort of our home planet Earth with the austere, life-forbidding landscape of the Moon. The second reminds us of our primal urge for attention, recognition and praise. Both generate feelings of wonder and awe, shining light upon the personal desire for security and stability, comfort and belonging. We are awakened to our inherent fragility and dependency upon a safe, nurturing, life-sustaining environment in which we can develop, blossom and grow. And emotions play the primary role in determining our quotients of well-being.
Recently a very good friend – a member of our extended family - passed from this world on to the world of spirit. His 3D, physical-body earthwalk has ended. He is now walking in another realm, flying in a different dimension.
Mother Teresa and Princess Diana both passed on during the Virgo eclipse cycle of 1996. My own beautiful, sweet niece Lise passed on during the Scorpio eclipse cycle of 1994. Captain Jack Carey, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Arturo Giatti and Walter Cronkite passed on during the recent eclipse cycle in Cancer.
July 16 to 23, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars, Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Cosmic Cancer Eclipse Energy: Let Mother Nature Nurture
This week, on July 21st, we experience the celestial event of a New Moon total solar eclipse [it will not be visible in North America] at 29º 26’ Cancer. The recent June 22nd New Moon also took place in Cancer - at 01º 30’ - and the Full Moon lunar eclipse of July 7th came to fruition at 15º 24’ Cancer/Capricorn. That’s a lot of Cancer/Capricorn action and reaction, motion and emotion!
Two consecutive New Moons in the same sign is highly significant, and because these two lunations bracket a lunar eclipse and one of them is a New Moon total solar eclipse, it represents a mega-message for the collective regarding the themes and issues of the sign involved. It's as if the cosmos blasts energy and information via experiences, events and circumstance to the people here on Planet Earth.
July 9 to 16, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
I can’t stop thinking about Michael Jackson. I know it’s crazy, but it’s true. And even while I’m feeling crazy-busy about getting ready for a two week camping trip up in Idaho - paying bills, packing clothes, doing all the funny-nutty things we do before we leave – his story keeps tracking across my brain – and filling up my heart.
It seems to be all about home and family. Children and parents. Love and success. Working to get recognition for our talents. Feeling good when we do. What an incredibly gifted boy and man. And what a sad, sad end to the fairy tale life.
I watched the memorial service on and off while I was cleaning, organizing, packing, taking care of business and wrapping up loose ends. CNN covered the entire event, commercial-free. And then, on into the evening, we continued to have the boob-box tuned in to coverage of the day. All I can say is that I’m blown away, and I can’t stop thinking about Michael Jackson.
July 2 to 9, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Once again, this week’s “eclipse window” opens to some rather stunning world news as the Sun and Moon move into the exact opposition aspect of a lunar eclipse on July 7th. Taking place at 3:21 a.m. MDT @ 15º 24’ Cancer/Capricorn, this particular eclipse illuminates themes of home and family, mother and father, parent and child. Also highlighted are the dichotomies and polarities of traditional parental roles and relationships, themes of nurturing and caretaking, family of origin issues and issues related to professional status, achievement and/or failure.
The most outstanding collectively experienced media event – and one that perfectly constellates the Cancer/Capricorn archetype – is the death of pop-icon Michael Jackson, his multi-dimensional life story and the multi-faceted jeweled legacy he leaves behind. His unique and eccentric lifestyle, whether a direct or indirect result of his aborted childhood and unusual family conditioning, serves as a rich tapestry for all to examine and reflect upon. The love, nurturing and emotional security characteristically found in childhood at home (Cancer) appears to have been sacrificed for the financial gain, professional achievement and economic success of world-wide recognition, wealth and fame (Capricorn).
June 25 to July 2, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Down here in the West End, the baby bluebirds have left their nests and are learning to fly. They are being fed fresh bugs by their attentive parents as they huddle together on the lower branches of a small ponderosa pine tree in our front yard. Across the mesa, on the Full Circle Ranch, baby raccoons huddle together in the top of an aspen tree and a spotted fawn curls up in the tall, green grass below. Baby colts and fillies nurse in the field next door and tiny baby rabbits run in the forest. The Canadian geese are tending to their goslings and my husband even saw a mother bear and her cub frolicking in a meadow next to Naturita Creek from our canyon rim above it. The roses are starting to bloom and the desert cacti are covered with blossoms. Everywhere I see fresh life being sustained by nature.
The Sun has moved in to the tropical zodiac sign of Cancer, and the sizzling season of summer has begun. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the season of nurturing and growth, when plants and animals depend upon the nourishing rains and nutritious foods of the Mother Earth for their survival and development. And, it’s a time for us humans to nurture and care-take, to water and weed actual and metaphorical gardens, to take care of our children, our families and ourselves.
June 18 to 25, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Returning Friends and Recurring Seasons - Happy Birthday and Summer Solstice
It’s Bluegrass in Telluride and for me that means music and motorcycles. It’s also one of my best friend’s birthdays [June 20th] – he’s the latest degree of Gemini possible - a “cusp baby” – which means he’s a highly evolved, clever and talented trickster [Gemini] taking his first “baby steps” into becoming a nurturing, loving, sensitive, willing to be vulnerable and get in touch with his “feminine side” [Cancer] kind-of-guy this time around.
Every year he makes the journey from Steamboat to Telluride, via Gateway and Redvale, stopping by our tree farm ranch to spend a night in the bunkhouse “cowboy room” or speed up to his rented condo at Riverside - depending on who and which toys he has in tow. It’s been a sweet sixteen years since we met him in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico, where he was staying over Thanksgiving in the house next to ours, with a newborn baby boy named after one of my favorite constellations – Orion.
June 11 to 18, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury Evening: Saturn
Collective Evolution, Planetary Healing, Inner and Outer Peace...
Planet Jupiter goes retrograde in the early morning hours of June 15th, joining asteroid Chiron and Neptune in their apparent backward motion through the late degrees of revolutionary Aquarius. This ongoing planetary convergence constellates an evolutionary shift of individual and collective consciousness, opening doors of heightened awareness and changing perception. For all of us, this is a time to see the forest for the trees, look at the bigger picture and open our hearts to the multi-faceted possibilities of our ever-expanding Universe. Forgiveness, compassion and spiritual generosity are tools for crafting a new global reality, based on the principles of equanimity, equality and acceptance. We are all together on this planet as one family, one evolving force. We are interconnected, inter-related natural creations, affecting each other via our thoughts, words and deeds. We must detach from petty thinking, racial bias and economic or cultural exclusion, and instead recognize the common denominators of our existence, share common visions and take a leap of faith that we can heal each other and ourselves with acceptance and loving-kindness.
