An Ingress Yod of Lunar Fullness

A hot air Balloon fashioned to look like the Church of the Monastery of St Gallen

(photo credit: Bohringer Friedrich, June 2008)

Every time I think we’ve gotten to the end of this month’s complications, something else comes up. I’ve experienced that in my life and it’s also true in astrological terms.

Not everything has been in-your-face obvious, but the trends are there. The moments are there. Maybe it’s (in part) because I’m someone born with a chart heavily canted towards water, all sorts of emotional issues, challenges and questions have been  surfacing, which certainly goes with the ongoing grand trine in water. I know this is time for me to do things – I can feel it. I can also feel how importance the people in my life really are to me. And how we’re all thinking our relationships through.

For those with natal charts heavy in air or fire, I can just imagine how tough…how uncomfortable, even unnatural this time must seem. ‘Earthy’ (earth sign)  folks have it a little bit better, but I’ve seen not just a few of my earth sign friends bogged down in mental mud about what’s worth what and what really priorities really are.

Or what they should be – which goes with the ever downwards ebbing of the South Node in Taurus. Elements are – to put it in Sherlockian terms – elemental, my dear fellow humans. You don’t have to be a Taurus to feel this nodal ‘countdown’ acutely; any major movement in any sign of like element chimes to others of like elemental orientation – it’s just more pronounced when it’s in your personal sign.

Earth to earth, water unto water, I guess we’d say.

And then there’s air. This month’s Full Moon occurs at 6:17 in the evening (UT/+0 time) of July 22nd at 0 Aquarius, a degree known for great ability which needs to be tempered with the needs and focus of the moment. Responsibility, realistic feasibility, consideration of resources and possible consequences at stake, such are the question marks which go with 0 Aquarius. And when we think of the Full Moon being at this degree, that ‘highlights’ a moment when that which we have been forming, formulating, working or hoping for reveals its possibilities.

Or the lack thereof.

The 0 Aquarius Full Moon - July 22, 2013 - 6:17 p.m. (UT/+0)

(Aries Wheel, location not specific)

There will be some cases where positives or negatives are about us. Then again, this is one of those moments when you may arrive at something you’ve been thinking of doing and say ‘no…I’ve changed my mind.’

Maybe the time isn’t yet ripe. Maybe your ducks aren’t yet in a row. Maybe you’ve decided your time, energy and priorities are better invested elsewhere.

Or maybe you're just hesitant about something you know is right but which is trying (on a personal level) whichever way you cut it.

Being positioned at 0 Aquarius, all the aspects to this Full Moon start in the preceding sign and flow into the next, as we would think of by realizing that the 5-degree conjunction orb would embrace anything between 25 Capricorn to 5 Aquarius. Part of this idea is expressed in the lore on 0 Aquarius as a degree – there being great potential BUT it needs to be tempered by structure, well thought-through planning and all that.

Whether you’re talking about the personal focus which is the Capricorn/Aquarius conjunction, the ‘being confronted’ by quality of a Cancer-to-Leo opposition, realizing through the Libra-into-Scorpio or Aries-into-Taurus square how there’s more to this moment than you anticipated or continuing along in a Taurus-to-Gemini or Virgo-to-Libra mode, any of these are going to be far, far more “acute” (if you will) if the aspect you’re thinking of is closer to exact.

Why that would be goes with why I didn’t mention the Gemini-Cancer or Leo-Virgo inconjunct (adjustments needed) aspects or the typically somewhat off-putting Sagittarius-into-Capricorn or Aquarius-into-Pisces semi-sextiles which would be all about not being quite on track (at least with others).

What I’m getting to is that this Full Moon comes cloaked in the guise of a Yod.

The aspect part of this is simple: Yods are finicky configurations in and of their own accord…where many planetary pictures allow for aspect spreads of 3 or even 5 degrees, Yods are really only ‘in force’ when the three points involved (the points of the ‘Y’) are within 1.5 degrees.

And in this case, we have that – although old-fangled astrologers may get huffy about the…granting that one of those positions is occupied by Pallas and Phaethon, neither which are even dwarf planets. But Pallas is the third largest member of the asteroid belt (known to be) out there. It’s also in a 1:18 resonance with Jupiter, a fact which is rather lovely on the metaphysical level when we stop to think how back in 1802 (when Pallas was discovered) the idea of magnetic resonance wasn’t known.

And yet the asteroid still got named ‘Pallas,’ which in being short for Pallas Athena directs us to the story of how this particular Greek goddess was said to have ‘sprung full grown from the brow of her father, Zeus.’ And who is Zeus in planetary terms?

Jupiter.

So it would be sensible to say that Pallas always carries the need or desire for knowledge or knowing, which with Pallas we think of as being ‘dispassionate’ because the goddess was not ‘born of’ any passionate act.

And let’s face it – Zeus/Jupiter was famous (if not infamous) for his passionate acts…which many of us express through the ‘passion’ with which we pursue ‘things’ Jupiter in our charts.

Jupiter and Antiope by Rembrandt (1660)

Ah yes, Jupiter.

Anyway, here we have a Full Moon expressed with the Moon in Aquarius highlighting the energy of the Sun’s Leo ingress. And facing off against it. Given that the Sun in Leo is always about what we can create and want to do, this Full Moon is ‘highlighting’ the need to consider the implications – which yes, ‘highlights’ the meaning of the Moon’s 0 Aquarius placement.

Reasons, people! Whether we like it or not, we need to have a reason to be doing what we’re doing and a plan for getting it done!

But yes, there’s more. A Yod is made up of one point (in this case the Moon) which is inconjunct to two other points, one of which is at the 150 degree inconjunct point – in this case Pallas/Phaethon - and the other of which is at the 210 degree inconjunct point (within that fussy 1.5 degree orb).

In this Yod, the 210 degree inconjunct point is occupied by Venus-Regulus, a combination which is all about ethical results, against which Pallas/Phaethon could be thought of as a ‘rush to perspective’ which in common parlance, particularly as positioned in the emotional ‘basics’ sign of Cancer might be better phrased as a ‘rush to judgment.’ Such judgment may be external (as in others rushing to judge you). Or it may be all about your having rushed to judge someone or something – and if so, that is probably based on your ‘emotional habits,’ if you will.

Then we get to the ‘solution’ of any Yod (Yods being one of those difficult-to-live if plain-enough-to-solve sort of configurations). The Yod of this Full Moon expresses an ‘adjusting’ force as Pallas/Phaethon. So this Full Moon comes a need, or a traditional expectation that you will choose in a given way. Or act in accordance with what you think is safest. Or that you will respond out of (emotional) habit or merely go along with the known, the easy or the comfortable. The other ‘side’ of this Yod (the 210 inconjunct position) is saying ‘ethical results’ are the best way to get/have what you want. Or that ethical considerations at least are wanting to be considered in the building of alliances.

And yet, the solution to this Yod is also plain. Yods tend to ‘hang’ us on the horns of a dilemma (which sounds seriously uncomfortable). One might say they have a point. But the ‘point’ isn’t what we will tend to think it is as the quandary expressed by the ‘rock and hard place’ horns of the ‘Y’ isn’t the solution of the Yod.

No? No. The solution to any Yod is defined as the midpoint between the two inconjuncts…which in this picture would be the point in opposition to the Moon.

And that would be the Sun.

So...! If there is something you really want or feel you need to do in order to be, become or grow into being the person you know you should be deep inside, this is a moment which highlights that choice. “Sitting” on the Moon’s point – the highlighted issues of plans and societal mandates – that may be part of what you’re dealing with.

But in the end, the object is to be you. Considering everything else which is going on this month there would seem to be much going on which is about ‘breaking out of our shell’ or maybe breaking away from some situation or preconception or estimation of what’s true, or what your limits are – or aren’t. Every year when the Sun comes into Leo life presents us with an opportunity to be and have more of what we want for ourselves…but it can’t all be about just what you want (which would seem to be where a lot of Leo sort of plans go awry). Much as taking a vacation to a beach in the middle of a war zone would have its problems, when we set out to do anything Leo – in this case, expand the bounds on our possibilities or what we can possibly do, be or create – we have to take our ‘real world’ surroundings and the others in that real world reality into account.

Associated at the ‘primary level’ with our pre-teen years, Leo has a whole ‘idolization’ quality which doesn’t always quite live up to the hype (or maybe that’s our imagination) if you meet it in the flesh. Known for ‘what it looks like’ this is sort of the ‘dream date’ syndrome which has us going for the thing which looks fabulous, but which in reality may not be all that satisfying.

The solution with Leo – always and forever – is to use Leo energy to invest in your Self…not what you provide yourself with.

That difference between ‘Self’ and ‘yourself’ is pretty much the Leo game. To make something of who you are takes a lot of hard work, which is the first Leo divider. In some realms, the dream is more appealing than the work it takes to get there. But even if we are willing to take on that effort (which would be ‘step two’ in the Leo process) we have to at least understand what the world around us likes and how the world around us works.

This brings us to The Leo Process Part Three: the Being Your Own Person thing. We are each and every one of us asked to be our own person. An individual who is known as who they are. That confronts us with the challenge to not just be that person, but to be willing to not be like everyone else. For a lot of people, this is a horrifying prospect as it carries with it the ‘risk’ of all we go through in being different, being unique, being an individual.

Oh, rejection! We all hate rejection.

This gets to the heart of the fixed sign process, a process which is all about being willing to stand out for the unique person you are…and to thus be respected for what you have come to know yourself as and accept yourself for being…which individuates you as something different so that you can garner the rewards of individuality.

That ‘separating’ of our Self from the easy-to-sublimate-me-in-the-group non-confrontational dynamic is the Leo-Aquarius process. That which follows is the forging of alliances in this world, alliances which start with our being willing to risk initial rejection in favor of forming eventual alliances. That’s where we test ourselves against our own willingness to own our power to be who we are and earn the respect which ultimately leads to our  greatest rewards, all of which is part of the Scorpio/Taurus challenge.

The zodiac works in overlapping groups. Most of us think of it in elemental terms: fire, earth, air and water.

Then, when we juxtapose elements against modalities (or ‘mode’) we start seeing that there are  many ways that elements ‘express’ their nature. But it’s only once we assemble all of this into a zodiac wheel that we see life’s fullest expression: the cycles and the natural tendency to start with ‘who I am’ and ‘my understanding of self’ first quadrant, the still-localized ‘learning how things work’ second zodiac quadrant, the out-in-my/the-world interactive third quadrant and the ‘full worldly perspective’ of the forth quadrant.

As the Sun move into Leo on July 22nd at 3:57 in the afternoon (UT/+0) time life moves into a ‘I want to do…(insert goal)’ mode which this Full Moon may ‘highlight’ in terms of the shifting of your gears.

Then again, it may represent a moment when you realize you aren’t moving and you aren’t growing. Or when you refuse to change, grow or alter a single plan.

All may have a true and valid place in your life, in the world, in the greater scope of your personal process. That’s for you to decide. And with Venus also changing signs on the 22nd (at 12:42 p.m. UT/+0), chances are you will at least be considering the yea’s and nay’s and your mental ‘this works, that doesn’t’ list.

Venus in Virgo isn’t known for fun and frolic. But it is known for getting things done. Sometimes that’s all about the grumble-grumble stuff we HAVE to do…and sometimes that’s all about what we deserve to have done so that everything else in our life will work better because we have some inner balance.

With royal fixed star Regulus currently positioned at 0 Virgo there is an ethical question being asked. And while the most basic of ethical questions is whether we are living our lives so as to fulfill our potential as a human individual…there are those ‘other questions’ (pesky though they may be) which ask us whether we work and play well with others.

- link to -

THE ROYAL STARS OF PERSIA (Part Two): REGULUS

Any time we talk about Virgo, we’re actually talking about one end of the Virgo-Pisces polarity. Virgo works so as to support the whole in which we live. This is why Virgo people are so often so intuitive by nature, though the earthy nature of Virgo as a sign tends to often push the instinctive ‘knowing’ to one side. With Virgo, the reality rules – and well it might, as reality is where we really live.

So we have Venus’ ingress of Virgo, a symbolic pressing to focus on processes which will lead to concrete results and getting things to happen in real time…set against life (the Sun’s) visionary Leo motivation.

ALL at a Full Moon, and a Full Moon which is itself set up as a Yod which points to that Sun in Leo.

Plus (by the by) this is when Mars is moving into position to oppose Pluto from Cancer. Change is thus in the works, it just depends on whether we are willing to challenge ourselves to work with it or whether life is going to foist change upon us.  

Put in most simplistic terms, this would seem to be a moment all about who we can be, not that person that others think we 'should' be. And so long as we remember that we are part of this world and not simply endowed with ‘amazing powers’ to be who we want to be without taking anybody else (including their feelings or their hopes) into account, life will support our forward motion.

All of this would seem to be about celestial signposts. Where life is raising blockades, where life is saying ‘no,’ that suggests we may be on a wrong track. Or we may have left something out. Or we may simply be being too much about our vision without any consideration of the world we live in, the humans we interact with and the fact that life really is about growth and not just about our personal desires.

This is a lunar phase, so it’s unlikely to signal any ‘end of the world’ moments. But all moments, all clicks of the cosmic time wheel do mark our opportunities to become more aware.

And thus we move on…hopefully into an ever more authentic world of our own making and design.
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The Sagittarius Lunar Eclipse: Next Steps

An artist's rendering of a lunar eclipse as seen from the Moon

(credit: Lucien Rudaux, 1874-1947)

Arriving at long last at the final eclipse for the first half of 2013, we are taken into the realm of early Sagittarius. The degree 4 Sagittarius is obviously one of the first ten degrees of this most worldly of fire signs. So at once we know that which happens during these few days – and particularly on the date of the Lunar Eclipse (May 25) are emotional high water marks or ‘illumination’ points, as are all Full Moons.

And that this particular eclipse occurs in Sagittarius, that is about our ‘vision’ for ourselves and how well things are – or maybe aren’t going. Sagittarius and the 9th house which is native to Sagittarius is where our ideas reach the ‘application’ stage. It’s where the rubber meets the proverbial road and we our efforts either gain traction or our wheels begin to spin.

So the next time you hear someone in the media (a Sagittarian business) talk about ‘political spin’…now you know how apt that term is, right? Everything about the media is Sagittarian and 9th house in nature as the 9th house is all about ‘getting out there’ or in the case of information, ‘getting the word out there,’ which is what connects Sagittarius to travel, publishing, formalized religion, the media and education all in one. And since fire signs are at their heart about the ‘right thing’ (i.e., the honest and correct thing), thus we come to law and legal proceedings as a sorting out of what’s true or not true, otherwise known as ‘letting everybody know whose guilty of lying’ or breaking some law.

I love understanding why concepts which sound so different fall under the same sign, don’t you?

In particular, 4 Sagittarius is a degree known to carry peace as its core and basic aim. But be forewarned! When there’s ample provocation, the normally sunny and cheerful 4 Sagittarius energy flips, becoming fraught with righteously ‘right-driven’ energetics.

One of the things to reckon with here is the fact that in a season of evolutionary earth-and-water (Taurus-Scorpio) change and growth, this is the “odd element out.” That’s not to say fire is an ‘odd’ element (they’re all odd sometimes!) but rather that Taurus and Scorpio are a polarity.

So the Scorpio lunar eclipse against the Taurus solar eclipses have been part and parcel of the same sort of process, namely that of getting us more in touch with our inner self at a more realistic and tangible level.

Then we add in Sagittarius. In terms of zodiacal order, Sagittarius represents the next step in the process. So things which have been afoot or getting started now proceed. Some of us will try and ignore the possible glitches and find that the glitches don’t ignore us. (I hate it when a glitch bites me, don’t you?) Then again, some of us will proceed with caution and recognize the glitch as it appears, reflecting on what has been learned of late – thus avoiding the pitfall.

Or at least grappling with it, preparing to cross the pit without getting clobbered by the pendulum.

Harry Clarke's illustration for Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum' (1919)

(Yes, I’m in an Edgar Allen Poe mood.)

It’s decently easy to see this lunar eclipse as inspiring us to get our get-along into gear so as to get things done. And some of us will do just that. Those who have experienced the intensity of April-May’s Taurus/Scorpio energetics as oppressive or constricting may well now feel liberated and go bounding off along their path.

And sometimes that’s just the idea.

Then again, sometimes that’s just foolhardy.

Considering this is Sagittarius we’re talking about, it would seem to all depends on whether you’re properly prepared and willing to ‘see’ your way through the problems, the challenges, the places where your ‘truth’ meets up with a world which has a few truths of its own. How do you fit in? Are you willing to fit in? Can you swim in a ‘big pond’ with the big fish? Or maybe you’re a big fish encountering small fish hoping they’re not going to flounder.

(I’m guessing flounders really hate that expression.)

 
The semi-sextile between Scorpio (the April lunar eclipse) and Sagittarius is generally some challenge to our ego. Call it feeling offended with the fact that some idea of yours doesn’t work…or that someone has called you on some inconsistency which amounts to having traipsed out into a crowded street without remembering to get dressed.

(And you’re not a nudist.)

It may be simply that you realize you’ve been on the wrong track. Or that your ‘right track’ is more wrong than you thought.

That’s the lunar/lunar eclipse side of it. And then we have the solar (Taurus)/lunar (Sagittarian) side of this evolutionary process. For some, this will be the 210 degree yes, I get it shift into positive gear. For some this will be the oh gosh, now I realize I still have work to do (also known as ‘I’m not as free as I thought I was going to be’) moment.

But never fear…lunar eclipses are truly emotional signposts. Their effects have an ‘acute’ cycle which lasts about three months. Then what we learn (or – ahem! – don’t learn) fades back into the woodwork. When all goes well, the evocative moments which occur around the time of any lunar eclipse ‘meld into’ the greater shift denoted by the solar eclipse – in this case the issue of Taurean self recognition, self valuation, re-evaluation, recognizing how much more you can grow – all that stuff.

Not that anything in the Taurus-Scorpio neighborhood of our lives is done or anything. Hopefully you’ve heard me when I’ve said that this Taurus-Scorpio who I am and who I am with regards to others cycle (which includes the ever popular ‘how to get ahead in life without falling flat on my face or otherwise getting embarrassed lastingly and beyond belief’)…how that cycle as denoted by our yearly ‘eclipse seasons’ (two each year) began in November of 2012 and are going to be with us through October of 2014.

That means there’s a total of five ‘eclipse seasons’ which feature either Scorpio or Taurus solar eclipses, of which we’ve now gone through two.

Get the picture?

With this eclipse, as with seemingly every eclipse, we get a couple of planetary pictures. The first is a t-square which features the Sun and Moon – the stars, the ‘us’ in this celestial drama.

Sun – Hel – Aldebaran is pretty plainly a challenge to integrity. Phaethon-Chaldea is ‘quick to choose the old way’ whether that’s the old way out, the old way of doing things, the old way as in ‘traditions’ or just some stick-in-the-mud thing…in the mental sign of Gemini this could even be the old way of viewing mentality or wanting to go with what you know instead of learning something new, and so on.

But then again, this is a lunar eclipse. So with Sun - Hel - Aldebaran being in Gemini and in opposition to the Moon's position in Sagittarius, might this also be 'finding the flaw' in someone's thinking? Or the plan? Or the means and methods currently being employed?

In this scenario, Moon in Sagittarius would represent the finding out (or learning) the truth about some thing...or how life (the Sun) has been made harder (Hel) by some (Gemini) idea or thought which can no longer be held as having (Aldebaran) integrity. 

This seems particularly apt considering how this 'Sun and friends' grouping is positioned as the goal of the t-square. So we want to probably make it hard to be challenged, perhaps? Or maybe that which we have been insisting on doing has actually been making our life harder? Perhaps in our efforts not to have our integrity challenged, we've put ourselves in a position to be our own worst enemy to our own integrity?

And yet…and yet…this is Moon-Hebe in Sagittarius we're talking about. So the Moon-motivation is emotionally driven. It may be convictions. Or some monetary goal. We may be driven by habits or that fervent need to be right which is sometimes the 'down' side of Sagittarius. Hebe being the the idea of being of service (and optimally, being rewarded by being of service), maybe the question is whether our aims are misdirected in trying to get the world to work for us rather than being of service in the world and thus earning our rewards. 

If you want to get all gnat’s derriere about this diagram (which I tried to get in constructing it, and man – there’s a whole bunch of gnats who are ticked off at me!) ….you’ll notice two separate t-squares drawn in the image. That’s because squares and oppositions have a maximum range of 5 degrees. So while Hebe (at 2 Sagittarius) squares Fomalhaut, Neptune and Deneb (which by now I’ve typed so many times I’m beginning to think it’s either a law firm or a singing group)…and Hebe also opposes anything between 2 and 7 in Gemini (which here would be Phaethon, Chaldaea, Sun and asteroid Hel), Hebe is not in opposition to Aldebaran.

AHA! Integrity is not opposed by Service. A good thought indeed. And one which would seem to imply that there is some merit to be being of use and doing something useful while going forward in this world.

The Moon, on the other hand does oppose Aldebaran. So there’s something emotional which is being confronted by questions of integrity.

In short, what I tried to do is color code this drawing so you’d see the two slightly different t-squares. (You can let me know if I get a passing grade on this effort – just leave a comment.)

Either way, the “t” to this t-square is Fomalhaut Deneb and Neptune. Fomalhaut says we succeed only where our aims, our means, our methods and our ability to face ourselves as part of the process is neither corrupt, corrupted or corruptive.

Oh…and by the by, this has nothing to do with whether you like something. In the land of Pisces (read: Piscean ocean) it is the greater Creation Manifest which sets the terms, standards and lines which must be face and not summarily crossed.

Deneb, which gets less press than it probably deserves, is a shamanistic energetic. But since shamanistic energies have to do more with nature and time and evolution and existence than mankind and our Earthly lives, this may be why we talk less about this star than we might otherwise.

People – understandably – get very routed towards Things Earthy and Materialistic. It never ceases to amaze me that people will ask why they don’t feel like they’re living a ‘spiritual’ life when all their attention is on Earthy or Earthly means of understanding.

Be that as it may, people often reject the esoteric then wonder why they don’t understand it.

Anyway…since Deneb and Fomalhaut appear from our Earthly perspective to be so closely aligned (which holds true even if you go back a couple of thousand years) it’s likely we simply interpret Deneb’s rather ‘other worldly’ intuition and potency as part and parcel of Fomalhaut.

But with Neptune in the mix? Personally, I’ve been wondering if this isn’t why we’ve been seeing more and more investigation into the paranormal (at least we’re seeing more of it here in the US) as Neptune has moved through the end of Aquarius and into Pisces, ‘awakening’ the ‘mass consciousness’ which is so very Neptunian to energies which are beyond the norm – and yes, very much Denebian.

Will this ‘expanding of our knowledge’ which is so Sagittarian mean that we will see something more in the way of thinking of the world and our universe in a more – dare I say – whole or holistic sort of way?

Maybe. On the other hand, it may bring challenges to same…which is fine. One of these days human beings are going to wake up and realize that E=mc2’d means we are all contiguous. And then they’re going to realize what that means, and that those who are able to release their egos are not (almost by definition) the people who are limited.

That’s my Sagittarian eclipse statement for the day!

But in the t-square? That Neptune-Fomalhaut-Deneb is what we have to get past. And those who can’t get past it are going to be taught a lesson by it (probably through the auspices of someone or something which can embody that energy)…and that will set them back on their Moon/Hebe derriere.

At least their emotional one.

And from there the question becomes, how do I make this work?

Ah, life…ain’t it grand?

Moving on to t-square number two…

 
Where t-square number one focused on the ‘us,’ the Sun and Moon of this eclipse, this next t-square focuses on the Nodes. The nodes, as we remember, are groups and collectives and relationships…and our relationships with groups, others and collectives.

Read this starting point as: North Node-Psyche in Scorpio as the ‘you need to’ (North Node) deal with the mind or mindset (Psyche) of the Scorpio (joint) dynamic.

Then we get to Vaticana, Sualocin, Juno and Icarus, all in Aquarius, the land of results, acceptance, income and finding one’s place in the world, the community, amongst your peers – all that stuff.

Juno-Icarus is a straight-forward need to manage impatience and not to jump the gun. So no gun-jumping. Evidently haste will lead to waste now – that, or a hole in your shoe.

Another fixed star with an ineffective PR firm, Sualocin is totally of this world, though it describes that which charms us and maybe 'enchants' us, but which we can't quite put our finger on.

So maybe we’re being tempted to try to get past some challenge by saying we don't understand? Or maybe we'll try to charm our way out of something? Maybe we’re realizing that real self-discipline (Juno) is that which requires that we think not of ourselves as the object, but that which drives the success of the project or aim.

Ah yes…maybe so. (I’m moving into my Charlie Chan imitation now.)

Vaticana, which I have been doing some research on, is not the Vatican. By that I mean, while the Vatican is related to the same idea which gives us the astrological symbol Vaticana, Vaticana does not say “Catholic Vatican.”

Think of it as something akin to a 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' sort of thing. 

The original concept behind Vaticana comes from the Etruscan name for the hill upon which the Vatican stands. And while I could bore you with a bunch of history about who did what when and how that hill came to be where the Catholic Church built its global "HQ," I won’t. What's important here is that the Vatican has come to be the name for that place where the Catholic church has centralized itself - and the not-unsubstantial amount of power ceded to it by various Italian heads of state along the Roman way (which is not to be confused with the Appian Way, which is a whole other Roman way.)

A section of the Via Appia  - that most famous of all Roman
roads. This section, replete with ancient stones, runs through
a section of Rome itself.

(photo credit: Kleusky, September 2005)

Vaticana, main belt asteroid number 416 is a very main belt asteroid – by which I mean it’s an asteroid which pretty much stays near the center of the asteroid belt. That 'centrality' relates very nicely to the idea of the hill the Catholic church built upon, centralizing its power.

We all have Vaticana in our charts. So where we see Vaticana, by sign, by house, by association with other asteroids, planets, nodes et al that points to where or how we will build our power.

Or perhaps resist building power. That can happen too. 

Currently in Aquarius and in this figure atop the cross quarter line at 15 Aquarius, Vaticana suggests very strongly that part of this lunar eclipse is about moving from a ‘thinking about’ or ‘planning phase’ into an active phase which by its nature is public, worldly and maybe even global.

The question would be whether Vaticana supports aiming for personal gain in Aquarius…or whether this asteroid is one which says power built only for the benefit of the self will come to grief.

If you look at Vatican history, that would seem to be the tale.

Anyway…the goal of this t-square is also interesting, as it’s expressed by South Node/Menkar, a making it easier to intersect with the collective in such a manner which makes MY life and MY relationships to those I interact with easier.

Apparently this is all about whether you require others play along with you based on YOUR rules…or whether you’re willing to be part of the greater standard and submit your ego to the ‘greater good’ out of which will come your benefit.

Still with me?

Last figure…a grand trine in water signs.

 
Chiron is that thing we don’t know and which we desperately want to know…but which we can’t stand the idea of having to go through learning. In Pisces, Chiron represents all the touchy, disquieting emotional moments we’ve all had which have been set off through dealings with others and the general state of life itself.

Evidently that’s not letting up. (Huzzah - not!)

The North Node/Psyche in Scorpio we discussed just a minute ago. The only thing I’d add here is that of all the asteroids out there, Psyche is one of the big ones. Really! Asteroid Psyche is about 200 km across, which means its mass is about 1% of the entire asteroid belt (that’s an estimate, mind you).

But if the asteroid belt, in lying between the personal planets and most specifically Mars (motivation, impetus, action) and Jupiter (knowledge, gain, expansion) represents all that we ‘go through’ on the way to gaining that Jovian knowledge (from which we move on to Saturnine accomplishment, then knowing our Psyche is one of the big things we meet up with along the way.

So maybe this is a moment when you either get to know your own mind…or in not knowing your own mind (or whether your mind is being mindful) you continue to meet up with problems or pleasures.

This is a grand trine in emotional water, after all!

The most personal side of this emotional equation is Cancer – our experience of emotion on a very basic, humanistic level. Scorpio is about us and someone else. Pisces is about the world and life and all the ‘ugh!’ or delights which go with that. But Cancer? Cancer is our native, inborn feeling base. Once we knew we were alive as little kidlets, we started having feelings. That’s Cancer.

Vesta-Pappos is the shape (or nature) of the cost. Of what? Of being who you are and that involved in doing what you want, or maybe even need to do. Especially when combined with Charybdis - the requirement that we keep trying (and trying) lest we get eaten up by some monster – this raises the specter of this Sagittarius lunar eclipse as a time when we’re all dealing with something. Or some things. For you, that may be bills. For someone else, that may be some sort of feeling of failure. Or anticipation about what lies ahead.

Maybe all at the same time. That’s the thing about Sagittarius…there are many possibilities and our challenge is to find the one which works.

Then we add in Ceres – the idea of having, making or following a plan. In Cancer, Ceres asks that we keep our emotional ‘feet on the ground’ as we go about doing what needs doing. And in point of fact, in this grand trine, Ceres is a help in that it serves to keep us grounded – which may or may not be comforting for those of us who want to soar among the clouds.

Evidently it’s not yet time to soar.

The last symbol in this grouping is a much-loved on, fixed star, dog star Sirius. To have Sirius in any grand trine implies a touch of brilliance in the mix. But is that the brilliance which leads us on – or the brilliance of not going too far too fast?

Uh, yes. Whichever.

And maybe both.

That’s the thing about lunar eclipses…they evoke an understanding. When all is said and done we get a lot of celestial commentaries on the nuances of the situation, but the ‘solution’ to the question is that which we just ‘know’ is there.

It may not be what we like. Or maybe not what we want to hear from our guiding angels.

(But if they're our better angels, can it really be for our worse?). 

Those of us with Suns or Moons in early Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces are going to get the strongest ‘hits’ from this eclipse. The Pisces are trying to move on from something, the Virgos are getting into something, the Geminis are dealing with realizations and the Sagittarians are coming to a whole new understanding.

However this eclipse affects you and those you love, Iet’s hope it’s an enlightening and inspiring time. At it’s best, this is just the kind of eclipse which opens a doorway to a greater understanding of things which were beyond us mere weeks ago…

…and which now provide us with beacons of light, by which we walk into a more honest and wholly productive future.
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