Post by Sowelu on Jun 21, 2010 8:10:04 GMT -5
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The Old Ballgame
By Len Wallick
Monday, June 21, 2010
The astrological events of this week are too big for one daily blog. Yet they also constitute a continuum. Today, your itinerant reporter will strive to make a beginning of it with a summary of the up to now combined with a metaphor to carry us forward. Hopefully it will serve to make more sense of things rather than less.
Today is the Cancer Solstice. In 240 BCE a Greek astronomer named Eratosthenes used the occasion of this annual event to estimate the size of the Earth. In doing so he proved for the first time that the Earth is a finite sphere. The playing field upon which all human life takes place was shown to have boundaries and limits. Thus it is clear that we are all in this together. All of us. No exceptions.
This week’s astrology reinforces that message as do recent events in the world and in our personal lives. Like all great truths, it is easy to say, but difficult to make it a permanent part of what we walk around with inside ourselves. Hardest of all is to practice it on the outside where we come into contact with each other. Be that as it may, it seems the time has come to do just that.
The message is expressed today with the Cancer Solstice. It continues through to this coming Saturday with the Full Moon. Which is also a partial lunar eclipse, and completes a grand cross in the first degrees of the four cardinal signs. This is as powerful a combination of transits and aspects as any one of us is likely to see in our lifetimes.
Let’s start with today. Astrologically, according to the excellent resources of serennu.com, the Sun reaches zero degrees, zero arc minutes, zero arc seconds of the sign Cancer shortly after 11:28 UTC (7:28 AM on the east coast of the United States). Astronomically, the excellent resources of the United States Naval Observatory agree with the time and inform us that it corresponds with the center of the Sun’s disc being directly overhead “at a point on the Tropic of Cancer in the southeastern corner of Algeria”.
That’s as far north as the Sun goes. Thus we experience a turning point commonly known as a change of seasons. As has been expressed many times on Planet Waves (and elsewhere), any event involving the first degree of a cardinal sign tends to correspond to the personal becoming political and vice versa. That synchronicity, demonstrated in experience time and time again, originates with the fact a change of seasons is something we experience personally and collectively at the same time.
Admittedly the details are not the same everywhere. In the northern hemisphere, the change of season is to summer and a warmer time of year. For our brothers and sisters south of the equator, it is the winter solstice and a time of cold. The differences, however, pale in comparison to the singular similarity. For all of us, no matter where we are, the change takes place at the same time on the same day on the same finite sphere of a planet. For a short period of time our personal experience, no matter how it may manifest itself is also a common (or political) phenomena.
But this is not your ordinary Cancer solstice. In the years and months leading up to today the first degrees of the other three cardinal signs have become occupied in a manner analogous to the bases being loaded in the American sport of baseball.
First up was Pluto. Setting a trend that other planets would follow, it moved into Capricorn twice. It made its first ingress on January 25, 2008, then in June of that year it retrograded briefly back to Sagittarius where it had spent well over a decade. On November 26, 2008 it moved into Capricorn to stay until the year 2024. Today finds it in the fifth degree, in retrograde, heading back to the first degrees as if to tag up. One on, and one out.
Next was Saturn. Following the pattern set by Pluto, two occasions of ingress. The first time into Libra was October 29, 2009 followed shortly thereafter by exacting its first square (90 degrees of separation) to Pluto. On April 7th of this year it retrograded back to Virgo, where it had spent over two years. It is currently direct again in the 29th degree of Virgo. On July 21st it will enter Libra again to stay until October of 2012. Two on, two out.
Finally Uranus and Jupiter. Uranus moved into Aries on May 27th of this year after about seven years in Pisces. It is still in the first degree of Aries. Jupiter followed on June 6th, just over two weeks ago (how long it seems!) after less than six months in Pisces. Two days later it exacted a conjunction with Uranus. The first such conjunction in Aries since July 15, 1927 and the last of this millennium. Although both planets will follow the pattern of Pluto and Saturn and retrograde back across the Aries point, that will not happen until late summer. Three on two out. Bases loaded, full count, everything on the line. Up to the plate steps the Sun. Having crossed the Cancer Solstice point, resonates with what we all have in common.
Now, at this point, many of you are probably wondering about what seems to be a digression into the baseball metaphor. After all, not all of us are familiar with it, it is not an interest we call have in common. Please indulge however, for this particular pastime has some unique attributes which bear directly upon the astrological synchronicity. The first is the fact that there is no game clock in baseball. The length of the game and when it ends are relative to the events that take place in the course of the game. These events in turn are determined by the actions of the participants.
The second distinguishing characteristic is the fact that there are no pre-determined territories to attack or defend. Finally the role of each player changes constantly. Like the time factor, the definition of the space in which the game is played and means by which a participant is identified is relative to the perceptions and responses of of each participant, separately and in sum.
For all of us, the field of play is our planet. It has boundaries and limits. It has cycles and seasons. It is what we have in common. Within those boundaries, limits, cycles and seasons we act according to our perceptions Those actions, individually and in sum, have consequences. Those consequences determine the course of events in our individual lives. They also determine the collective outcome in the biggest game of all, the only one that really counts, our lives on planet earth. To be continued.
Offered In Service
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