When I posted my weekly Alacazem Astrology column last Thursday, I had looked through my files and on the Internet for a good drawing or photo of the Scorpion constellation. I didn't find one. Then just a few days later, the Sky & Telescope...
July 7 to 14, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mars and Jupiter Evening: Mercury and Saturn
Magnificent, Magical Summer - la Tierra Madre y la Luna Diosa
Summer is magnificent and magical. Long, hot days and warm, embracing evenings cast spells on those who dance in the forests and swim in the waters of Mother Nature’s bounty. Rollicking rivers and bubbling brooks cascade through mountain canyons, travel across meadows and follow the land-curves to irrigated fields and gardens of harvest. Some of the water flows to the sea, some of it quenches thirst and some of it simply evaporates. Towering cumulonimbus clouds rise above swaying green pastures and parched, golden grasses, exploding in rain, electric lightning and rumbling thunder. Sunsets paint the skies with pink and coral as turquoise twilight slowly turns to night.
You can see by looking at these two star charts from the Sky & Telescope website how much the Moon changes from day to day, night to night. It's fun to track our most intimate planetary companion across the backdrop of the fixed star...
June 30 to July 7, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
The Sweet Love, Lust and Choice of Cancer Eclipse Energy
I’m reading about climate change and thinking about 2012. It’s overwhelming. There is so much information available to us today. I’m stunned by and in awe of the Internet. I can’t express how lucky I feel to be living right here, right now on this magically beautiful planet Earth. In light of all the craziness, injustice, chaos and insanity of human life in our newborn millennium, I can still see and experience the enchanting power of a sunset, the blessings of rain and the drama of lightening; hallowed thunder and shimmering rainbows.
June 23 to 30, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
"There are so many ways to implode or suffer these days. But every once in awhile we enjoy a small respite… In such a ritual-poor society as ours, sometimes, very occasionally, we get it right." Dana Gerhardt @ mooncircles.com
I’ve been writing my weekly Alacazem astrology column since 1988 – that’s 23 years of recurring weekly deadlines – and at times I wonder how I’ve done it. The answer is simple: One week at a time.
Today, the wind is strong and hot, gusting from west to east. Traveling across the sizzling sun-baked deserts of Utah to the snow-capped San Juans, air temperatures are in the 90’s. Tall grasses sway in the early summer sun, lush green meadows dance with gold and farmers are taking their first cuttings of the season’s hay. Irrigation ditches gurgle, mosquitoes bite and the sweet sounds of frogs caress the evening twilight. Yuccas and cactus are blooming in the pinion forests and pink rosebuds grace wire fences. I am grateful and blessed to be a part of nature, a human being living here on planet Earth, in southwestern Colorado, where the wild meets the tame and home on the range is still a reality, not fantasy. And yet, challenges remain.
I’ve noticed very few bluebirds this year. Headline news is all about climate change, wildfires, slow economic recovery, deficits and pollution, wars and loss, genocide. Uranium mills, nuclear energy, “clean” coal and hydraulic fracking. National and local real estate markets are bust, no new construction, no jobs, no loans, no money. Good news for the super-rich – there’s plenty on the market at very low prices – and bad news for those who have properties for sale.
June 16 to 23, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
The Roller Coaster Ride to Summer Solstice [June 21st]
June is Gemini’s month. The mutable modality of the sign is everywhere. From late May restlessness – the wind, melting snow, muddy creeks and emerging greens – to mid-June madness – packed pools, slow motor homes and fast motorcycles, raging rivers and roaring crowds – the perpetual motion of the zodiac’s first air sign keeps us moving, thinking and doing, round and round, over and over, again and again.
This year, June delivered both a solar and a lunar eclipse to our hearts and heads. We were asked to be flexible and adaptable, detach from outcomes and get comfortable with uncertainty. For many, this is a large and difficult order to fulfill. Earth signs love stability and order. Water signs thrive on emotional security. Fire signs like excitement and air signs think. Obviously, the last two are more inclined to accept – and at times even enjoy - the ups and downs of Gemini than the first two. The roller coaster ride upon which we have been traveling this month is coming to an end. The teeter-totter polarities, scary cliffs and deep canyons of the journey are leveling out. The racy pace slows down and the erratic stops and sudden starts disappear. As we round the last corner and coast into cardinal Cancer, the winds stop. Soft, warm breezes and gentle mornings greet the day. Summer solstice [June 21st] brings us the longest day and shortest night of the year. The season of sweet hot and sultry sizzle has begun. Happy, happy summer solstice! May you walk in beauty and live in joy. God bless...
June 9 to 16, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Of course, after all...it's Gemini magic in the window!
I’ve written quite a bit lately about eclipses and “eclipse windows.” Of course, I’m totally into observing and experiencing what comes along during these very portentous times. Sometimes it’s big and blasting – events make the message clear – and at other times, not so. Subtleties and nuances can be all I get. Just like life, it’s in retrospect that vision is 20/20.
For me, the June eclipses carry plenty of pertinent “Gemini” information. There’s the classic gossip – Weinergate – and the perennial scholastic and graduation themes. Games of sport for entertainment – baseball’s boys of summer and the NBA finals, transportation, travel and commerce – gas prices! - unemployment and our struggling economy, along with cartoonish politicos Sarah Palin (and her vaudeville tour bus), Newt Gingrich (announcing his Presidential run on Twitter) and Donald Trump (firing himself as a candidate) going on with his pomp and pompadour. I’m not sure if there’s any prophetic message in all this hoopla – except that we’ve been playing the game too long! - but I do find it humorous, after all. And that’s 100% Gemini.
June 2 to 9, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
"It’s another new moon: when the magically minded make wishes and astrologers attempt to divine this cycle’s intentions. But fates are personal. Even if a new moon chart could be forced to describe them all, no single astrologer could tell that many stories…"
Dana Gerhardt @ www.mooncircles.com
I always pay attention to what happens to me and how I feel at the time of solar and lunar eclipses. Prophetic, ominous, auspicious or propitious, whatever the adjective, the bottom line is this: Awareness is the golden key for unlocking the mystery, magic and magnificence of eclipses. With awareness, we tap in to both the subtle and obvious, ingest the physical and metaphysical; discern, interpret and intuit.
Last week I had the great good fortune to attend the West End edition of the Talking Gourd at the Livery in downtown Norwood. The featured speaker was Amy Irvine, author of Trespass, the highly acclaimed memoir of a courageous, half-crazed coyote woman “living at the edge of the promised land” – a book of love and loss, longing and belonging in the redrock spires and pink sand washes of southern Utah. Her presentation was focused on her current work-in-progress, Terra Firma, woven together with threads of Mother Earth and Father Sky, evocative dreams and devilish demons, sacred space colliding with uncertain territory. It was a rather mystical experience, for me, the beginning of a shamanistic quest. I could feel it in my bones. The eclipse window opened, and I jumped right in.
May 26 to June 2, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Ecliptic Awakening, Experience and Catharsis
I’m a big fan of “eclipse windows” – the days and weeks leading into, during and following the exact celestial alignment of the Sun and Moon at the time of solar and lunar eclipses. I’ve had some of my most devastating and ecstatic moments during these days and weeks. I’ve also watched the world experience and move through powerful events – the death of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa in the same week, G.H.W. Bush’s 1991 invasion of Iraq and the dramatic passing of pop icon Michael Jackson – that constellate the energies and emotions of the collective psyche and, ultimately, mandate transformation. The imperative process of awakening, experience and metamorphosis is cathartic. We face issues we might otherwise ignore, are forced to examine situations and conditions of people and places near and far, ingest data, witness reactions and shape-shift through the individual and collective deepening of our understanding and compassion for life here on planet Earth.
May 19 to 26, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Battle Zones, Gangs, Practical Needs and Personal Responsibilities
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve been traveling through a metaphysical battle zone lately. I feel grateful and blessed that I have a home that is not in foreclosure. I don’t live in a flood zone, on a fault line or in a location subject to tornados, tsunamis or hurricanes. I don’t live close to a nuclear power plant. I’m able to somehow manage to pay our monthly bills, buy good, nutritious food and prepare it in the style of the slow food movement. We’re in the process of building a greenhouse to extend our painfully short high-altitude growing season and I’m currently nurturing tomato and basil starts for my luscious, delicious culinary future. I do work that I love, maintain a daily spiritual practice, I’m healthy and happy and living each and every moment of my precious life. Bottom line: my life is good, and yet, inside and outside, the battles rage.
