The Capricorn Full Moon and Mercury in Cancer

Crater Apollodorus and part of Pantheon Fossae on Planet Mercury

(photo credit: Messenger Spacecraft - NASA, JPL, Johns Hopkins Univ Physics Lab, Carnegie Institute of Washington, July 2011)

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With July’s Full Moon being in Capricorn and that Capricorn Full Moon occurring a mere day before  Mercury enters Cancer, we might well think these two items are connected.

After all, everything happens for a reason, right? The unfolding of life, the inter-meshing of schedules and cycles... ultimately they all have a purpose for we are what we have come to be in this very moment.

You know... this moment when we’re looking ahead a couple of days to July 12th, when at 11:26 in the morning (UT/+0) a Full Moon at 20 Capricorn signals the cresting of some effort or the fullest monthly extent of solid, dependable growth. The Full Moon is always a ‘high tide’ time emotionally, whether good or bad. We cry, we rejoice, we mourn, we wonder...

...and then the moment ends. The Moon moves on, as do we, proving in that procession of processes how all things, all moments, all thoughts are but phases of much larger, longer passages.

Crucial, even pivotal though they may be, moments are transitory. That we know that as humans reflects in how hardly a soul born of this Earth will pass through the whole of a full-phased life without pausing to recall... reminisce... to for one moment be engulfed in some vivid robe of memory which like a spell falls upon us in that moment when we lift our eyes and behold the poignancy of the Moon in one of uncounted moments when as we stand reflecting on it, the Moon rides high in the sky positioned exactly so that for that short time we are able to witness the full reflection of our stellar Sun - astrology’s image of life, consciousness and our very capacity to be and become aware.

The Full Moon at 20 Capricorn (glyph chart)

July 12, 2014 - 11:26 a.m. (UT/+0)

The Full Moon at 20 Capricorn (text chart)

July 12, 2014 - 11:26 a.m. (UT/+0)

As for the concept of connection, that’s relatively simple: as Mercury enters Cancer (on July 13th at 4:46 a.m. UT/+0 time), because the sign of Cancer is ruled by the Moon, that connection becomes not just automatic... but axiomatic.

And knowing the difference between those two things - especially as that may (or may not) apply to your personality and tendencies of choice, that is likely to make a difference not just during these couple of days, but either through the whole of this next day-to-day lunar cycle (July 12-August 10)...or during the whole of the time that Mercury transits Cancer, which would be from July 13th until late on July 31st, UT/+0 time.

The thoughts and all the choices to do, not do, do this (then that) or that (and then this) - all that is the Mercury side of this equation. And let’s not forget, we’ve already felt Mercury’s influence in Cancer this year. Back on May 29th (of this year) Mercury entered Cancer as Venus entered Taurus. In that ‘first part’ of Mercury’s 2014 Cancer transit we mostly just got time to focus and get mentally directed...and then Mercury went retrograde. That was back on June 7th, with the theory being that whatever we came into that period focusing on...that by working on, working past and through the details of life in general over the next few weeks (of Mercury retrograde) we would come to a better perspective on what our choices are, what they entail, why they work the way they do...

...and through that a clearer understanding of our own (Mercury) thinking (and like as not our Venusian values) will have emerged in a more clarified and precious or viable...even enduring state.

So these cycles would seem tied together - and not only in that their horoscopes, being but a day apart are not going to vary by much.

And yet, they do vary some - so we should start there.

The Full Moon itself is positioned at 20 Capricorn, a degree which by decanate - in being part of Capricorn’s last ten degrees is without reservation about our world, how we react to that world and how what we put out into our world affects or fails to affect us...with the specifics of this degree being focused on where we have all failed our own expectations (not the task - our expectation of our own ability with the task) with for better or worse some ‘degree’ of self-critique being encountered along the way.

This is not to say this degree is about failure - it isn’t. The tangible result may well result...and yet we thought it would be more. Or better. Or more satisfying.

And it’s generally not.

With the Moon the functional symbolism of our feelings, the Moon in a grand cross well may be (if I may be pardoned this untoward reference) our feelings are ‘hung up’ on something, with the other three corners of the cross being undecided, un-reconciled factors we must contend with.

On one hand we have the Aries effort - the willingness to make the effort to hold onto [Pandora] hope while dealing with the [Eris] untoward and unexpected occurring in [Industria] connection with some effort, be ours or someone else’s. It will surely feel [South Node] simpler...even convenient to stand our ground and know only our own position. Yet in beneath the hardest of hard veneers there will be anywhere between an inkling and a certainty that there is a reason for the actions, statements and positions [Mars-Ceres-Vesta] of [Libra] others.

We [Spica] know we [North Node] should consider the other side of every coin. We know that the person we [Arcturus] would like to know we were being would do that.

And yet, there is another side of things to consider...the [Sun] recognition that sometimes we have to pay the [Castor] cost, whatever that involves and in spite of all the reasons in the world. It’s our passion - and here I refer not to the passion of lust but rather those many [Amor] passions ignited by the simple emotional [Cancer] experience of being alive in this life. Plus or minus, this life as well as our life has an effect on us - and in that, spurs us to learn from the experience and the emotions experienced during the experience as both data and motivation.

That’s just Cancer. And into and through every life, a bit of Cancer will wash, time and time and time again.

As the Moon has phases, Cancer manifests through the display of moods others see and which we appreciate ourselves being impressed by.

Seen from the lunar cycle ‘side,’ July-into-August is a time for achieving - and indeed, considering the reputation of Moon in Capricorn for promoting haste, we may reach for the stars and at least arrive at the top of some very tall mountain.

But when we get there...how will we feel? Will we want to be there?

Less than twenty-four hours after the Full Moon - a highlighting of our feelings - Mercury moves into Cancer, initiating a more thoughtful... even analytical examination of why we feel (or have felt) the way we do. What do such things mean to us... and why do they mean that personally and culturally (which may be two very different things)?

By the time Mercury reaches Cancer, the Moon will have reached 0 Aquarius where, in conjunction with Medea it represents moments and situations where  though we know ‘should’ from ‘preferred,’ not all of us will opt for doing not that which is hardest but hardest for us... and not all of us will hold ourselves to being worthy of our own ability to find and work through all the challenges which lie between us and those [Aquarian] all-encompassing and most universal (and/or universally responsible) of all solutions.

Our reactions to such things - in the most general sense will be the source of most frustrations and feelings of restraint during Mercury’s three week transit of Aquarius... and perhaps because of this,  some of us will divide our time between ‘things of the world’ and a natural here-and-there contemplation which examines why things affect us as they do - and how useful it may be to understand ourselves in the context of others (and our world) as within our design for our life.

As for the grand square created by the Full Moon, that will have faded in every effect apart from memory by the time July 12th becomes the 13th. However... given that the Sun will still be at 20 Capricorn as Mercury enters Cancer, the Sun will still be in opposition to charismatic fixed star Vega - an emblem which is evidencing its ongoing conjunction by Plutonic obsession through disruptions and displays throughout our waking world.

As Pluto ‘transforms’ the norm, so Pluto coming upon Vega in an era when Vega has long shone as a conceptual light of inspiration will naturally turn many a positive to negative... and some negatives to positives. History is rife with such tales.

And perhaps - as with so many things Mercury - it’s all about our choice. Will we combine our [lunar] feeling intentions with our [Mercury] thoughts and work to mesh their purpose? Will we be so frustrated as to refuse all overtures of kindness?

Things are [Arachne] neither simple, nor uncomplicated - but they’re not impossible, although [Vesta now at 24 Libra], we can expect to encounter flecks of defensive-aggressiveness either in our Self or others. Such feelings (and the attempt to bluff your way past them or avoid them altogether) are basic... they’re just about how vulnerable humans feel when - in short - they’re made to feel their Self feeling.

Given current [Mercury in Cancer] dynamics, the easiest fallback point is ‘protection’... or perhaps ‘self-protectiveness,’ depending. From there, some of us will recognize that our approach (the challenge of the t-square, a figure which requires that personal ego be subjugated to a greater-than-personal purpose) has been too limited and too ‘exclusive’ to ourselves and ‘our own’ - and among them, some will step forward and make the leap from the exclusive identified as ‘mine’ to the all-embracing which acknowledges no boundaries.

For those who come through this period having grown, their reward will be the opportunity to try.

Meanwhile, those who don’t grow will interrupt.

One other thing to be aware of over these next few days in particular: Jupiter is about to change signs, and because of this is currently resident at 29 Cancer, a degree deeply enamored of beliefs, traditions and perspectives of substantial heritage. Spoken of in the Sabian Symbols as ‘A Daughter of the American Revolution,’ there is a side to this influence - as typified by Dane Rudhyar - which well may be typified as ‘glorification of the past,’ regardless of our national origin.

Over the next few days we will all experience, witness and be exposed to many things which reflect Jupiter’s ‘expansion’ principle. Will we grow only in our [lunar] personal sense where will (ego) is our divining rod...or will we summon our native strength of belief to the task of bettering our life through a [Mercury] thoughtful embracing of the whole of life, however that is defined?
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Astrologer’s Diary: Political Times

One of the photo's from NASA's 'Earth at Night' series (2012)

Initially I thought of this post as a form of ‘update’ to a piece logged into the astroPPM flow as of January 11, 2011, namely ‘2011’s Fixed Star Eclipses and the Eclipsing of the US Congress’ which for a mélange of reasons likely obvious and inexplicable has been wrested from relative reader obscurity to the position of number one all-time read post here at the blog.

Mind you...all this happened without anyone so much as commenting or sending me an email. But being not insensible to interests being expressed (and well aware of the sudden swelling of noise, discord and violence around our world) lists were duly compiled, birth data was dug out, charts were cast and research was begun.

What turned up?

Something which though not entirely comfortable, is highly informative - if you consider things from the metaphysical perspective, that is.

First, a full and proper confession: I did not pull charts on every last living member of the US Congress. There are hundreds of congress people and not even a dedicated researcher such as myself was up for that task.

So what list was used? Simple: the US Congress has two houses - the House of Representatives and the Senate. If you head either chamber, you went on my list (hello, Senator Reid and Representative Boehner) with the same ‘invitation’ being extended to majority and minority leaders and their respective party whips.

(No, I’m not going for that joke. That's just too easy.)

After that came a group of congress people thought of as Those Who Stand in Front of Cameras. In other words, if you’re a member of Congress whose name has become engraved amidst the folds of my gelatinous if retentive brain merely because you show up on the news all the time, you were on my list.

To those of you who are students of astrology I will answer what is often the next question I gets asked about such studies: where do you start? My answer is generally ‘anywhere,’ though dates (or ranges of dates) help, as that will give you a time period in which to look for planetary stations, eclipses or some other ‘celestial notice’ to test against your mass of charts.

Which is what I did, with the celestial notice in question being April’s 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse, an eclipse which occurred in conjunction with fixed stars Schedir and Hamal.

- link to -

April’s 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse

(Pt. 3: Stars and Patterns)

What I found was that there was a definite split by party. While by no means a 100% occurrence...which is not to say every Republican and/or every Democratic members was affected, nor would those which were ‘hit’ by the eclipse affected identically...there was indeed a pattern: if aspected by the eclipse, Republican congressperson charts tended to be aspected by conjunction or opposition as opposed to the eclipse squaring objects in the charts of Democratic congress people.

Here are a few examples...

Speaker of the House, John Boehner (Republican)

November 17, 1941 - Reading, Ohio - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

Speaker of the House, John Boehner (Republican)

November 17, 1941 - Reading, Ohio - Aries Wheel (text chart)

With Mercury at 6 Scorpio, the 8 Taurus eclipse was in opposition, indicating testing situations and trying interpersonal matters, all of which have to do with the ability, manner, purpose or denial of [Scorpio] profitable connections, all of which would have been in what might be called ‘oppositional focus.’

Because no time is given for Speaker Boehner’s birth, no Moon is shown in his chart. However, given its position at dawn (2 Scorpio), unless the Speaker was born in the first few hours after midnight (say, by 4 in the morning) his Moon will be in Scorpio and will also be involved in the opposition by eclipse - which would be a rough emotional ride for anyone.

Heroes and villains alike have quailed under such pressures.

Moreover, Mr. Boehner isn’t out of the celestial woods as yet. Also highlighted in his chart is Juno (the principle of ‘management’ or ‘protecting the use of XYZ through proper application of management’) at 28 Libra, a degree which brings up one’s ‘mental culture,’ particularly where integrity, honesty and willingness to try/work/make an honest effort are concerned.

This Libra Juno is going to be eclipsed by October 2014’s 0 Scorpio solar eclipse.

And yes, that will be by conjunction.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican)

June 6, 1963 - Richmond, Virginia - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican)

June 6, 1963 - Richmond, Virginia - Aries Wheel (text chart)

When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his recent bid for re-election in the preliminary (primary) round, everyone was shocked. Everyone who didn’t have his chart, that is. Eclipses atop Black Moon Lilith are all about a ‘mass rejection’ whether that’s by others or by us. With the natal Black Moon in Scorpio anything which promotes or provokes emotions or emotionality (or emotional responses) is the venue - and with Black Moon Lilith conjunct Sabine (a point which can mean ‘raped’ but more often refers to a confinement or some sort of restriction) in the natal chart, when added to the idea that Mr. Cantor’s primary fell within the purview of Neptune’s early June 7 Pisces station, Neptune opposition Pluto (transformation) + Ceres (standing for defense) + Hebe(helping) + Deucalion (independent morality) + Child (physical children, childhood, immaturity, innocence)... that would seem to be the ‘recipe’ for voters evidently feeling Mr. Cantor was (reportedly) “too liberal” on immigration (that being the Neptune opposition) and too “out of touch” with their needs... which caused him to be ‘eclipsed’ (voted) out of office.

The charts above are less typical than some in that they have dual signals, but they are fairly typical of Republican charts as sampled...with the caveat that yes, those who would speak out (be seen on the news) would probably be those people whose charts were being eclipsed and who experienced that as passionate experiences, be they pro or con. And on the other (Democratic) side we have charts like this - the chart of Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House last time the Democrats controlled that chamber:

Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat)

March 26, 1948 - Baltimore, Maryland - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

 Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat)

March 26, 1948 - Baltimore, Maryland - Aries Wheel (text chart)

Holding to standard (Ptolemaic) 5-degree orbs for conjunction, opposition and square, the eclipse at 8 Taurus is not in conjunction/opposition with the Nodes of this chart. But it was in square to Representative Pelosi’s Pluto, just as it is in square to Pallas (dispassionate perspective) and all the many indications of variable pressures denoted by Pluto in the chart of Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat)

June 22, 1949 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Aries Wheel (glyph chart)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat)

June 22, 1949 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Aries Wheel (text chart)

Yet the details to all of this (interesting though they may be) are not nearly as illuminating as the idea of how distinctly charts of party members fell into pattern with each other, which makes sense if we think of how ‘like minded’ (or even relatively like minded) people would tend to gravitate towards one rather than the other party - particularly in what has come to be America’s basically two-party system.

And that leads us to the charts of the Republican National Committee (known widely as ‘the RNC’) and the Democratic Committee (known as ‘the DNC’).

Republican National Committee (RNC)

June 17, 1856 - Philadelphia PA - Noon (glyph chart)

 Republican National Committee (RNC)

June 17, 1856 - Philadelphia PA - Noon (text chart)

 Democratic National Committee (DNC)

May 22 1848 - Baltimore MD - Noon (glyph chart)

Democratic National Committee (DNC)

May 22 1848 - Baltimore MD - Noon (text chart)

One of the issues the RNC is dealing with (and which it has been dealing with for a couple of years now) is the rise of the Tea Party wing, a segment of Republican thought which seeks to change the status quo in a rather across-the-board kind of way, making its point by (among other things) working to bring about Eric Cantor’s primary defeat.

That movement to change the party from within the party is a hugely Plutonic sort of process, and with Pluto in Taurus the issue is values while Pluto’s placement in the 8th points to the ‘field of play’ being a place where values must be negotiated and joined, whether within the party or across party lines.

(Just to note: this being a chart for a worldly ‘entity’ it automatically gets a noon time, so we know the house placement.)

Being that this chart dates from 1856, fixed stars Hamal and Schedir are not at their current position of 7 Taurus - they’re at 5 Taurus, which puts them exactly in conjunction with the RNC Pluto, a combination which will tend to point to potent tenacity if a cyclic tendency to expand and contract depending on how the idea of ‘restraint’ (Schedir) is internalized and dealt with.

More important in this moment, this 5 Taurus Pluto-Schedir-Hamal was eclipsed in April and will be eclipsed again in October, pointing to an extended period of turmoil which will naturally reflect and be reflected in the work and feelings of party members.

The Democratic Party isn't going to escape turmoil either - both parties are solidly founded in Piscean Age ethics and thus will inevitably change as we move into increasingly Aquarian Age times. So we can expect more turmoil...but that turmoil is part of what might be called 'necessary evolution' - the trading of one set of considerations for another. Piscean ethics are always emotional. Aquarian ethics are always conceptual.

It's a process, one in which metaphysically, individuals feeding into (or on) a given party’s turmoil... or an industry's challenges...or the debates of one or many nations - they are all responding to the overture of our times. Political parties, being theoretical entities which operate within a realm of ideas, formulating concepts as 'product' are always going to be more wholly ‘theoretical’ than anyone of flesh and blood corporeality could possibly be.

And that would be why they...along with all things theoretical, conceptual and to some extent "not real" (like the internet) represent the means by which the influx of our times stimulate our lives...our thoughts...our perception of the world we live in.

This is what seemed so interesting to me. As we enter the Aquarian Age...

The wheel of the Aquarian Age (Aquarius rising)

   

...Scorpio - the sign which tests our security - rises to the top of the wheel. In that position, on an individual basis it represents our desire to achieve or gain enough power over our life to feel secure - though surely some will interpret that as simply the lust for personal power.

And that’s the test for governments as well. The point at the top of the horoscope wheel - the Midheaven - is also the cusp of the 10th house, a house which in the worldly sense speaks to everything which structures our life, which ‘runs’ things we then deal with (or don’t deal with). In positive mode the 10th is inspirational and motivational. In negative mode the 10th is restrictive, paranoid and suspicious.

This is the polarity we all will be dealing with for the whole of the Aquarian Age - all 2,160 years long of it. Aquarius is the sign of systems and mass collectives, of the marketplace and everything which powers our world... our thoughts... our willingness and ability to join together... or not.

And here’s the point: Aquarius is an air sign, and air signs function through considerations of thought and concept, which makes it not at all surprising that the reality of functionality which is - and which is going to be  the Aquarian Age is making itself known not just in this instance, but across societies and our world through the theories we like or don't like. Which we discuss, debate, deny, which we excuse ourselves from any responsibility for (lack of responsibility is a famously Aquarius negative quotient)...which we debate, explore, abandon, work to purify, get upset about and yes - occasionally explode and go up in smoke about. Aquarius calls our attentions to foibles so that we can take responsibility so that we have an opportunity to conjure up the type of inventiveness which gets us past our sticking points and testing times.

Note please...not their sticking points, our sticking points. Aquarius functions well only when all points in the system are engaged, properly utilized, attended to and kept current. Though Aquarius honors equality and a lack of those distinctions which under the winner/loser, ruler/ruled, rich/poor, upper/lower class Piscean Age were both common and accepted, there will come a time - probably not all that long from now - when Aquarian imperatives will provide the means by which such things as cast, gender (as identity) wealth and other such  qualities become less important than our humanity... a humanity which, to put it in Aquarian terms, we will adopt and adapt to as soon as we are truly done being inhumane - most of all to our Selves.

Not that all this will come to us as easily as breathing - which is good cause to see and grasp and understand what is going on in American politics. Yes, there is a level at which it is entirely about the laws and budgets and human beings.

But it's also about the flow of time... and when it comes to Aquarius, though Aquarius honors equality, its early manifestations are often disruptive, elitist, intolerant and far from the stuff of dreams. It takes time for us to learn that as individual as we all are, we only all gain when we all pool our knowledge, when we become willing to let go of personal priorities and cease  arguing about ownership in favor of discussing the ideas which really  count.

Which is really what politics is all about - if often challenged by.
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October’s 0 Scorpio Solar Eclipse (Pt. 1: the Map and Basics)

 A map of the path for this year's Solar Eclipse at

0 Scorpio which will occur on October 23, 2014 at 9:58 p.m. (UT/+0)

A sense of advancing plight overtook me while listening to news of desperate and desperately deceived parents risking the lives of their own children, paying fees to smugglers willing to subject others to dangerous desert crossings on their way to a United States border the crossing of which would bring only limited respite while inflaming long-postponed (and of late, deadlocked) US domestic issues.

All through the week the story kept spreading. First came the stories and photos out of Texas and Arizona showing children being housed in makeshift Red Cross-equipped quarters by a government which had neither invited them, nor which had seen any reason to set up boarding units for plural thousands of children. It was a mess - one helpfully not helped out by the US Congress, which for reasons of its own seems hell-bent on not working through the problems and business of the nation which funds their paychecks.

(Need I say how evident it seems that the U.S. Congress doesn't study metaphysics? On the other hand, I do - which would be what I've been thinking about of late...what does it mean in a greater and more metaphysical scope that any legislative body of any nation would simply take to sitting on its collective, quill-grasping thumbs?)

More to the present day reality speaking of which (politics, that is), political rhetoric ran hot and noisy with the next act in this drama - a crowd turning back buses loaded with undocumented moms and kids in California...which rather filled out the scope of the eclipse map as it applies to the United States, with the additional given that the nations from which these people are arriving are also getting eclipsed.

Plus there is the fact that this is the final North-Node-in-Scorpio eclipse we're going to have for a while, which signals a sort of cumulative effect of all the North Node/Scorpio, South Node/Taurus issues which have been building in our lives and in our lives as a product of our ability to live with/in our world, home, lifestyle, belief set, relationships, commitments (etcetera) over the past couple of years.

And this 'last of the series' is at zero, no less. As a metaphysical numerical signature, zero represents the most basic of all basics. It represents the need to start from zero and the possibility that all will be reduced to zero given our ability or inability to deal with the implications of the sign being triggered.

Which in this case is Scorpio, that 'fixed' water sign which invites us to fix ourselves, lest others 'fix our wagon' for us. (Badly, that would be.)

Considering this along with the Sabian symbol for 0 Scorpio (which I will type out here for you in a moment) I felt moved to post the October solar eclipse map. Not only is forewarned forearmed, but seeing as the intensity of what's going on at this point is the sort of thing we would expect to see during the two months immediately prior to an eclipse but not as yet...well, that suggests a level of concerted consternation (and upheavals) yet to arise from this eclipse map.

An event map generated by the USGS for the June 23, 2014 earthquake which shook Alaska's Aleutian Islands to a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale.

Speaking of which (the reference here being 'upheavals') there was an 8.0 (prelimitary reading) earthquake in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on June 23, 2014. This is also in the solar map zone...and we are about three years out from the 13 Capricorn solar eclipse of early 2011 which preceded Japan's Fukushima quake. That Japan itself is not included in the eclipse map isn't itself surprising - nor is the fact that this recent quake occurred to the east of the former, as that's the direction eclipses 'rotate' as well.

It's all part of a singular mechanism - the same one we're all part of. 

Without knowing exactly why this next ‘eclipse season’ seems to be giving us such a clarity of foresight (or in the case of the quake, foreshock) of what’s to come, it is worth noting that the “standard” two-month ‘breaking down’ of situations (or resistance to things) we would anticipate with an eclipse occurring on October 23rd would begin on August 23rd (give or take).

Is there something about our times which extends eclipse effects? Are we merely dealing with a chaotic combination of influences?

Yes - but that doesn’t seem to cover the astrological bill, even when we take into account that this next eclipse will be positioned at 0 Scorpio - a degree which with whatever else it may be, would also be a signature for ‘karma coming due.’

As usual, we will as humans no doubt assume that karma means someone else’s karma and act accordingly - which when we talk Scorpio generally means acting badly towards the whole while purely focused on the first-person personal.

All of which makes the prospects of a U.S. election season occurring under this influence truly flinch-worthy.

And yet...and yet the point of any eclipse coming to a ‘zero’ degree is to take things entirely down to basics - which with Scorpio is going to refer not to ‘the ills within’ we saw with the Taurus eclipse exploding the myths...our myths of mythic Self...within the frameworks of fixed stars Hamal and Schedir...no, this next eclipse is going to be all about the ills we create in our own lives and all the destroying of the potentials and possibilities we set ourselves up for through not holding that which is ‘without’ (others, our cities, societies, world, planet, etc.) in as high a regard as we hold for those instinct-driven desires for personal validation and security.

The Sabian symbol for 0 Scorpio reads as follows: A CROWDED SIGHTSEEING BUS ON A CITY STREET, an image Marc Edmund Jones’ original interpretation spoke of as the fundamental human eagerness to expand one’s social horizon and to experience the results of collective achievements and new ways of life. This interpretation, which dates from 1930, probably should be thought of in more modern terms since in today’s world there’s as much ‘exploring of the world around us’ which takes place electronically as through any other means.

And that, my friends, is the hallmark of the Aquarian Age - an idea which seems more and more important to think about as we live through a stretch of years rife with the turbulence of one set of patterns evolving into another...as people and parents born under one age inevitably struggle with their children and a society which is going to naturally have some ‘phasing in/phasing out’ issues of its own - a quality we can expect will appear over the months ahead (because October's eclipse is in opposition to fixed star Mirach) in a more or less obvious forms as well as in ways far more subtle (and perhaps more painful) where life's (eclipse) processes cause us to meet up with where our 'easy going' feelings of friendship are based neither on strengths (theirs or ours) and/or our ability to 'own' how willing we all are out of human necessity to deceive ourselves.

You know...that famous 'risk now, pay later' thing?

Known for great accomplishments where sufficient personal strength to deal with frustration, 0 Scorpio seems to bring things ‘to a point’ where intensity of aim and/or focus either breaks through, breaks down or breaks under the weight of some fallacy (innocent or otherwise). Just as the immigration situation is doing in the United States, all matters 0 Scorpio threaten us with our worst (though we all would rather fear the worst about others) in such a manner that we think we can be 'defended' (most of all against being overwhelmed by our own feelings) when the real issue is about adjusting to reality/realities with the understanding that no one gets to have 100% of what they want in life.

That 100% of the want, that is the ideal - which at its best Scorpio teaches is less attractive than that which is achievable and though not ideal, validating in the fact that we have lived up to and achieved our level best as human beings. 

People often act immature in Scorpio situations. Scorpio asks that we experience our own sense of vulnerability through ‘agreeing’ to tolerate the flexing of our emotions through interactions with others...and through choosing to risk/not risk tomorrow’s gains, opportunities and growth based on how secure we are with ourselves - on the inside.

When things go wrong under Scorpio, we will always tend to blame others. And yet, just under the surface - our surface - is that thread of searing Scorpio angst which says ‘I chose to get involved.’

In the end, the biggest tests of Scorpio are all about not our defeats, but about learning how most defeats are defeats of ego, not worth - and how for some of us, only through having our ego defeated can we come to recognize that truly lasting Scorpio power which has everything to do with that cognizance of others which inspires sufficient respect that they become...and remain...conscious of us, as well as willing to respect us both equally, separately and together.
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