2007 June : Big Sky AstroBlog

Jun

27

Greetings, all. I’ve posted a new article for the Full Moon in Capricorn, exact on Saturday June 30 at 6:49 am PDT:

The Gifts of Our Fathers
When the Sun is moving through tender Cancer, we grow nostalgic for childhood summers, ice cream trucks, and the safety of our mother’s protective embrace. But it’s all too easy to stay nestled in her arms for too long instead of venturing out of your shell and tackling the world. At some point, Cancer’s baby must leave the tidepool and learn to fend for herself. Teaching us how to take care of ourselves was dad’s job, and the Capricorn Full Moon reveals how well those lessons were learned. Dad may have been loving, cruel, or absent; successful or a failure. But his example undoubtedly informed your values and visions about your place in the world….
(go to article)

June 27, 2007 | 5 Comments

Jun

25

Apparently brides and grooms will be hurling themselves down the aisle in record numbers on July 7, 2007, under the assumption that (1) 7 is a lucky number; and so (2) a wedding date of 7/7/07 just has to be triple tremendously lucky. One wonders, of course, whether this “luck” would be embraced and celebrated in such numbers if 7/7/07 didn’t happen to fall on a Saturday. Somehow, I doubt it.

Astrologers, of course, use different measurements to evaluate the good vibes of a particular date. Here’s the chart for 7/7/07, cast for (what else) 7:07 p.m. in San Diego:

Bearing in mind that in electional astrology we consider the starting point of the marriage to be the moment that vows are exchanged, let’s assume this is the moment when our deliriously happy couple blurts the fateful words, “I do!”

I wouldn’t have recommended this as a wedding date for a couple of reasons. The first, of course, is that Mercury is retrograde. Weddings are enough of a logistical nightmare without dragging along retrograde Mercury in his most mischievious trickster mode; and from what I’ve seen, marrying while Mercury is retrograde really does carry his impish, upside down, car key-hiding, email gobbling energy into the union like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe. In short: while Mercury retrograde is not the kiss of death for a wedding chart (that would be Venus retrograde), I avoid it as much as possible.

Second, this chart lacks an approaching harmonious angle between the Sun and Moon - in my experience, the single most important factor in a wedding chart (other than making sure Venus isn’t retrograde). This chart is just ten hours or so after a quarter moon, in fact, when the Moon and Sun formed a contentious square. And even though the aspect is past, let’s face it… the Moon in Aries and the Sun in Cancer go together like chalk and cheese.

That said, there are things to like about this chart. Aries isn’t the best sign for the Moon in a wedding chart (too much “me” energy), but here it harmonizes beautifully with Venus, Saturn, and Neptune, ending on a good aspect to Pluto. At 7:07 pm the Sun is in the 7th house (there’s that 7 again!), the traditional house of marriage, and the rulers of the 1st and 7th houses (Moon and Saturn) - representing the wedding couple’s rapport with one another - are in easy trine aspect. Nice.

All in all, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it looks like the best wedding date ever. But I’ve seen worse charts end in happy marriages, so let’s send a shout-out to all those lucky couples who will be rolling the marital dice that day.

June 25, 2007 | 3 Comments

Jun

14

This evening’s New Moon in Gemini (8:13 pm PDT) reminded me of the following short piece that I wrote many years ago, and I decided to share it here. Happy New Moon wishes to you all.

In the summer of 1988 I spent a long weekend in the place where I grew up, a tiny town in southern Indiana. As this is not a place I return to often or eagerly, you would be safe in assuming there was a specific reason for the pilgrimage: in this instance, a reception in honor of my aunt and uncle’s golden wedding anniversary. As a rule, I’m not a person upon whom familial obligations exert much influence; but this aunt is the older sister of my father, whom I lost when I was very young. She has my father’s face. I had to go.

The reception was held in the community room of a small country church, and around mid-afternoon–just about the time I had reached my absolute peak of boredom (yes, I have a Gemini moon: to paraphrase Descartes, “I am bored, therefore I am”)–a man who was a life-long, close friend of my parents sat me down and gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life: for an hour or so, he told me stories about my father, sketches of a real, live, breathing man who had actually existed, who had friends and adventures and (joy of joys!) even a nickname! (I’m crazy about nicknames–kind of a Gemini shortcut, I think.) You know, no one in my life had ever really talked to me that way about my father; it’s always been “the husband,” “the brother,” and of course, the mythical absent father. In fact, most of the family never talks about dad at all, I think because it hurts too much, even after all these years. They remember him not necessarily with words, but in the way a Virgo moon remembers, or a Pisces moon, or a Taurus moon. I have a Gemini moon: I need stories.

Later, a childhood friend of mine showed up and pulled me outside for a visit. We leaned against her car, sheltered from the miserable summer heat by a grove of shade trees, and she talked to me at length about her recently failed marriage. She was beginning to ramble, and I was growing fidgety, until I was distracted by the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, that beautiful whispery sound…and then, from that small but crucial distance, I could hear the quavering emotion beneath my friend’s droning litany: she really was about to splinter into pieces. I stood there for awhile, perfectly balanced between two voices I dearly loved, the familiar voice of my childhood friend and the voice of the wind in the trees. Had I focused on either voice to the exclusion of the other, I couldn’t have heard either of them so well.

June 14, 2007 | 2 Comments

Jun

11

My pal Susie at Suburban Guerilla wrote a lovely epitaph about the demise of the very Plutonian Sopranos, and even gave me a shout-out in the process. Thanks, Susie - and farewell, Tony.

The fans at Television Without Pity are bitterly divided today on the conclusion of this fine series, but I absolutely loved it. As the screen went black I threw back my head and laughed. Well played, David Chase!

June 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment

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Sign of Leo

Moon sextiles Mercury at
4:20 pm on Jul.5, 2008

Moon opposes Neptune at
5:22 pm on Jul.5, 2008

Moon trines Pluto at
3:05 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon goes void of course at
3:05 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon enters Virgo at
4:04 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon conjuncts Mars at
9:19 am on Jul.6, 2008