Post by Sowelu on Aug 2, 2009 23:35:52 GMT -5
Aquarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse
August 5-6, 2009
by Cathy Lynn Pagano
Lunar eclipses are like super powerful Full Moons. The Sun, Moon and Earth all align on the same plane, and for a few hours, the Earth blocks the light of the Sun from reaching the Moon. The Earth cuts off solar consciousness from the reflective power of lunar unconscious. There is a pause, a held-breath, when we get to see what's there in our lives without indulging in our usual emotional complexes. Lunar eclipses clear things out of our lives, especially issues from the past. But if we let go of something, we need something to replace it. We need a new story.
Normally, eclipses come in pairs - a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse. But this year, amidst all the other strong planetary influences, we have an unusual three eclipses in a row. This full Moon is a partial lunar eclipse, and it occurs on August 5th in the Americas and August 6th in most of the rest of the world. The end of the eclipse will be visible in the Eastern US.
This second lunar eclipse within a month opens the door to release any left-over illusions we still harbor that life will go on as usual. Lunar eclipses energize us to shed old habits and let go of the past so that the doorways to the future can open. In the signs of Leo (the Sun) and Aquarius (the Moon) we are asked to shed our Leo pride and drama, our arrogant belief that we are the center of the universe, and turn our attention to the needs of the whole, to the group.
Aquarius and Leo describe the astrological axis that symbolizes how individuals create and contribute to the group. Leo rules our physical children as well as our creative children. It is also the archetypal energy that can lead us to individuation. It is all about our unique creativity. Aquarius is all about ideals and the importance of the group mind.
When Leo and Aquarius work together, they create groups that value individual creativity and initiative, and that honor high ideals and the good of all people. With Neptune, Jupiter and Chiron all retrograding in Aquarius along with the North Node of Destiny, we are being asked to integrate new visions and possibilities for the future into our individual creative vision as well as our public lives.
The truth of Leo is this. Stories and images (movies, TV, news, radio entertainment - Leo) have a profound influence on the individual as well as the collective psyche. Violence on screen does beget violence on the streets and in homes. Talk and images that create hate have definite repercussions on individual psyches. When people only have stories of hatred and doom that explain the times they live in, they turn into mobs.
Leo's are artists, people who have a need to examine their passions and play with them. It is our artists who can tell us different stories. We need people in our communities to band together and come up with different ways they can use their artistry for create a different vision for our future. Not just the innovations we need to invent, but the stories that fit it all together and touch our hearts, the story that speaks the Truth. We need to take the new story to the streets.
We have a lot of artists in the world; not all famous, but great artists none the less. What if our citizen artists could band together and create venues for telling a different story? Like the flower children of the 60s, artists can offer people a vision of peace, as well as the truth of where we are and how we can all help to save ourselves and the Earth. Through storytelling, dance, film, music, art and writing, we can put our Leo strengths in the service of Aquarius' vision.
Leo has the creativity to imagine different stories. For every story of doom and destruction there is another story of the possibilities of new life. Stories that teach us how to get through this personal and cultural transformation in a positive way.
Many people are afraid and confused and need a "story' to believe in, a story to show them what the future might bring. Hopes of great prosperity must be replaced by similar hopes with different outcomes. The world that comes after is a world where we have to be stewards of the Earth and share resources with each other. If people can't imagine it for themselves, they'll let someone else imagine it for them.
Our artists can create stories about healing the future that will give people hope. Otherwise, we will be manipulated by corporate messages to live in fear and insecurity and imagine the total destruction of everything we love.
The commentators who spew dark and toxic ideas and feelings into our collective headspace can manipulate people into destructive and hateful behavior. This is not what we imagine when we think of America. These three eclipses mark a beginning that will flower in the next years into a renaissance of spirit, art and culture. To get there, we need our artists to become activists again.
And after living in the desert, I've discovered the truth of desert life: in the desert, you have to work together to survive. A group of artists working together can bring images and stories into the community in a powerful way.
And we can do it by performing at the local library, church hall or community center. We need our artists to awaken collective consciousness again, like the artists in the 60s did, (the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Jimmie Hendricks, Simon & Garfunkel). That's one of the potentials that next year's cardinal T-square of planets active in the 60s will energize.
An Aquarian group of artists might comprise of an astrologer to tell the Cosmic story, a storyteller to envision the future, a dancer and a poet to express the body/mind/spirit's new joys (as it withdraws from the addiction of conspicuous consumption), artists to feed our hearts with visual beauty, and musicians to take us all home.
This eclipse is not about manifesting anything immediately. We are just birthing it (Cancer solar eclipse) and now breaking out of the old shell that defined how individuals were related to the group. When we left our tribes, we became individuals. Now we have to take that individuality back and become tribes again – people who are connected and responsible for each other, like the Native American or Celtic tribes.
Leo also rules politics and politicians, representatives, investment bankers, presidents (the eclipse occurs the day after Obama's birthday), and the stock market. Aquarius rules the people, Congress, the Senate, Iran, and groups. Collectively, we need to release old behavior patterns that no longer serve these institutions and find the freedom, innovation and future that a renewed alliance between Leo and Aquarius can bring us.
As Pluto continues to retrograde back in Capricorn (it turns to direct motion on September 11) exposing the structural fractures and dead wood in our financial, corporate and government policies and ideologies, we can only watch in disbelief as our (Leo ruled) representatives and government officials still continue to defer to (Leo ruled) moneylenders/ corporate lobbyists on health care and food safety. These people and institutions are still caught up in a "me-first' belief that has brought us to the breaking point.
The (Leo ruled) entertainment of right wing "news' is getting more nasty, delusional and hateful. While our satirists are supposed to expose the fact that the emperor has no clothes on, hate-mongering spew poisons under the protection of freedom of speech. The masks are off, so hopefully people will get disgusted with the hypocrisy of people who say they're moral Judeo-Christians who only want what's best for us and yet act like the Devil himself.
The Leo trait of "self before others' needs to be excised from our national psyches, and rallying cries of "defeat Obama at whatever cost" are so blatant we can no longer ignore the truth that many of our elected officials are more interested in their (Leo) power (no surprise) than in the (Aquarius) welfare of the people they represent.
As our news media, like gluttons during a famine, continue to chew on peripheral issues, the people (Moon in Aquarius) are not being served by their representatives or the media. Where are the news stories about the food safety bill (HR 2749) being shoved through Congress under the radar? This bill does nothing to regulate the corporate food industries horrific policies which have made our food unsafe. While these corporate conglomerates are poisoning our food, small organic farmers are being run out of business. While Senators (blue dogs or hot dogs?) who received millions of dollars from insurance and pharmaceutical companies sway the national health care debate, Americans are losing out on real health care reform. Both these issues are Saturn in Virgo issues. Saturn can discipline us to take care of the issues or stay stuck in old viewpoints that no longer serve us.
But the cosmic energies are declaring that change is upon us, and so "business as usual' won't work. This eclipse says to each of us: just as you work to change your life, you have to take responsibility for the whole and start to demand that your representatives really represent you. The Aquarian vision that Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron is inspiring in us demands that we let go of old Leo self-importance and replace it with Self-realization and then compassionate action.
We keep hearing that "we are the change we've been waiting for' but that means that we not only have to change our own attitudes and beliefs but we have to take responsibility to change the culture as well. The world depends on us. Look at the Iranian people, standing up to power. Look at Americans, still being swayed by corporate lies. Since our national mythology says that we are the leaders of the free world, we need to do a better job of it.
The third of five oppositions between Uranus (the New) and Saturn (the Old) is building to exact on September 15th. This is a turning point. Will fear of the unknown stop the necessary changes that are upon us? The reality is that Saturn in Virgo wants health care reform. (It is an energy that is pushing us to be healthy.) It wants us to have safe food. But the corporate lobbyists and multi-million dollar ad campaigns they run to scare people will try to stop that. So will the Old win out against the New?
The truth is that it is how each person manifests Saturn's energy that will determine what gets done in the world. Saturn's reality principle can work with Uranus' visionary possibilities if we get the greedy, selfish Leo-ego out of the way this month. As we individually let go of the old Leo habits of self-indulgence, willfulness, fear-induced pride and blindness to others' needs (south node in Leo) and take up the Aquarian attributes (north node in Aquarius destiny) of creating win/win situations, making the groups needs paramount to personal gain and being objective in deciding those needs, we will transform ourselves and our world. Why aren't doctors and nurses having a say in our health-care dialogue? What do our representatives really know about health care? Or food production? When will the people's voice be heard?
This lunar eclipse can open us to find like-minded individuals who will join with us so we can help each other create our visions. It's about asking and being open to receiving. And it's also about how we demand that our nations and large organizations re-create themselves along more humanitarian lines. We have to re-create our government so that it will work for us, the people, rather than for corporations and their profits.
The Sabian Symbol for the Sun at 14 Leo is: A human soul seeking opportunities for outward manifestation; the yearning for self-actualization. This symbol indicates that it is our soul which wants to create positive experiences, so we have to get in touch with our inner being. That means knowing ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, our fears and hopes. It means being centered in our positive beliefs rather than ruled by our negative fears. When we follow our inner guidance which comes from the heart center, we can make the right decisions about our lives. Listen to the new realizations that come to you at this time.
The Sabian Symbol for the Moon at 14 Aquarius is: A train entering a tunnel; the ability to short-cut the process of natural evolution by the exercise of will, mental skill and physical self-discipline. This is a magical moment for all of us. If we are self-disciplined, we can produce results on the issues facing us that at any other time seem unachievable. We have to be persistent about what it is we want. And then find ways to manifest it.
Anyone with planets in the middle degrees of the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) will be most strongly affected by this eclipse.
The Leo Sun will oppose Jupiter (August 14), Chiron (August 16) and Neptune (August 17). This is be a time of brilliant creativity as we open our consciousness to the healing and vision of this Aquarian stellium.
Mars in Gemini will first square Saturn in Virgo on August 10th, pushing us to re-think our priorities and re-ramp what isn't working. Then Mars will trine Jupiter (August 13), Chiron (August 15) and Neptune (August 17) and sextile the Sun (August 17) dynamically working to bring the creativity that the Leo Sun enhances and new ideas and discoveries into the light. Find groups that you resonate with and work with them now. The group can achieve things that you alone cannot achieve.
Pluto forms a cardinal grand cross (4 squares and 2 oppositions) with 3 very feminine planets which symbolize our feeling, intuitive nature. Venus in Cancer opposite Pluto demands that we let go of anything that no longer nurtures us and those we love. The asteroid Ceres in Libra, the Great Mother goddess, squares Pluto, taking us down into the underworld where we can find those lost parts of ourselves which we neglected to nurture. And the asteroid Juno in Aries, the Sacred Partner, the fourth leg of the table, asks us to partner up with new and like-minded people.
Our feminine soul – the living, thinking, feeling spark of life within us – has been controlled and shamed by the patriarchy for thousands of years. So sometimes what we think we want is often not good for us. Our feminine soul has been twisted to patriarchy's demands, and this is a chance to let go of those wounded, deadening patterns once and for all. Both men and women need to re-connect with their healed emotional bodies so that we won't be afraid to open ourselves to change and transformation. It is the Feminine Spirit who brings transformation and re-birth. On this full Moon, open to her and you will open to new life.
And Happy Lammas! The first harvest is in.
Blessed Be,
Cathy Pagano
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