Blue Moons, Pisces oppositions and storms, drownings and beachings
During August, we experienced what’s known as a Blue Moon – two full moons in one month. This is largely because our calendric intervals and our lunar cycle do not perfectly overlap. As a result, for the first half of 2012, we have been experiencing Full Moons at the beginning, rather than the end of the month, as we would expect.
This particular lunar event, which took place in Pisces, seemed to coincide with several Neptunian-type events involving large amounts or bodies of water, including several drownings amongst holiday makers in the UK[1], Spain[2] and Portugal[3], the mass beaching of a pod of pilot whales on the coast of Scotland[4]; and Hurricane Isaac in the US, which flooded parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. Many remarked that it was almost seven years to the day that Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, which does seem rather uncanny.
According to one news report:
After crossing southern Florida – where it left some 100,000 homes without power – it [Hurricane Isaac] strengthened further before veering inland towards Louisiana, eventually making landfall at Grand Isle, approximately 90km south of New Orleans, at 10am local time on 29 August.[5]
This particular Full Moon involved an opposition along the Virgo-Pisces axis: The Sun was situated at around 8 and a half degrees Virgo whilst the Moon, Chiron and Neptune were all placed diametrically opposite it – between 1.5 and 8.5 degrees Pisces.
This particular axis seemed to highlight the need to balance hard work, dedication and caring for others versus the importance of nurturing and protecting our own health and well-being. It also draws attention to the diametrical opposites of pragmatic detail and everyday life on one hand, and spiritual wholeness and ethereal realities and practices, on the other.
The stranding of nearly 30 whales could perhaps be interpreted as a sign from nature that humanity has lost its way a little on the spiritual level, or that we humans need to take care of the planet and oceans in order to safeguard our own futures. Thirty is a highly significant number – reflecting the average number of days in a lunar month…Somehow this seems to synchronistic to be an accident.
In terms of the hurricanes, if we look at the closest times and dates that they struck, it is quite uncanny to see that, in both instances, the Sun was located at roughly 6 degrees Virgo (there is less than one degree of difference between their positions) – the sign of Mother Earth. Although the Moon was not full at the time of Hurricane Katrina, Uranus was sitting opposite the Sun, at around 9 degrees Pisces. So, in both instances, the Virgo-Pisces axis was activated…
It is interesting to note that the early predictions of the first astrologers, the ancient Babylonians, included weather phenomena, as can be seen by studying omen texts such as Enuma Anu Enlil – the two were not seen as separate from each other. Indeed, Adad, at one time the Babylonian god of storms, (an early equivalent to the Greek Jupiter) was also the god that ruled liver divination – one of the primary ways of foretelling the future besides astrology in ancient Mesopotamia.[6]
An even more compelling coincidence is that Mercury, following in the footsteps of the Sun, entered Virgo in the early hours of Saturday morning, the 1st of September. This is the sign of Mercury’s exaltation. In explaining why Mercury may be exalted her, Gavin White makes a fascinating connection with Adad:
MERCURY & THE FURROW (Eastern half of Virgo)
On the celestial sphere the Exaltation of Mercury is set between the Babylonian constellations known as the Furrow [Virgo] and the Raven. The Raven (our Corvus) is held sacred to Adad, the god of rain and storm, which accords very well with the astrological nature of Mercury, who is said to bring rain and flood to the land. The constellation of the Furrow was depicted in Babylonia as the goddess Šala, the wife of Adad, whose oversized barley stalk symbolised the fields in autumn when they are about to be seeded with the coming season’s crop. The association of rain-bringing Mercury with the Furrow and the Raven, sacred to the barley goddess and her storm-bringing husband, beautifully sums up the seasonal aspects of autumn when the rains return after the summer dry season and the farming year commences with the opening of the sowing season.[7]
If I was an apocalyptic sort, I could draw attention to the doomsday flood predictions of the so-called Mayan Prophecies, but I think that would be a little sensationalist and hysterical, especially given the recent statements made by archaeologists concerning the discovery of new inscriptions relating to the Mayan calendar which show that Dec 21 2012 is simply the end of one five-millennium cycle and the beginning of another[8] – not the end of the world, as many non-experts are predicting[9].
Uranus-Pluto square
On a slightly different note, many of us began to experience the return of the technological problems that plagued several large financial institutions in late June when Uranus last squared Pluto (24th)[10]. This may have had something to do with the fact that during July, Uranus went retrograde, retracing its steps back towards the square with Pluto.
Given how active this planet has been in driving social reforms such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, youth disaffectedness (August 2011 riots anyone?) and political unrest in Greece and other Eurozone countries, as well as the technological revolution within business and communications, it will be interesting to see whether we will experience a return to such issues when a retrograde Uranus and Pluto square up again mid-September.
References:
[1] BBC News – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19456163
[4] BBC Scotland – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19455719
6 Wikipedia, ‘Adad’ – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adad
[7] White, The Exaltation System in Babylonian Astrology: http://www.skyscript.co.uk/exaltations.html
[8] BBC News – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18644636 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16000331
[9] National Geographic – http://natgeotv.com/asia/2012-the-final-prophecy/about
[10] BBC news – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18590868
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