Taurus New Moon / Solar Ecllipse

A review
Another astrological event promising doom and or sudden, effortless rapture into the abode of the Gods has come and gone again without much fanfare.

Yes, the Blood Moon eclipse is/was a powerful one and yes, there are rumors of war in the Ukraine and Russia seems to be taking cues from NAZI Germany but this Eclipse, like all others, is going ot be more or less a hit and miss kind of thing, depending on your natal chart. The same goes for the Cardinal Cross, which I talked only a little about. I saw a lot of flowery language and polemics against patriarchy and it's demise but in actually, if you don't have planets around 13° of the Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) Then not much come of it.

These aspect patterns don't really create a buzz in the way that lunations and Eclipses do. They are indeed signs of the times but not really things that so noticeable in a feeling sort of way. Eclipses on the other hand bring with them a sense of 'something in the air' and a general feeling of acceleration, intensity and moodiness. Even then, you won't notice if you aren't paying attention or sensitive and aware enough to care. And even if you DO notice it, it still won't bring radical events if it's not aspecting your chart with some measure of exactitude.

Annnnnnyhew, here we are at another New Moon Solar Eclipse which seems to have gotten a bit less attention, which is funny, because it's still a major event and will probably trigger more people into crisis then that whole Cardinal Cross thing.

So, this Eclipse appears that it may be less intense than the previous full moon in Libra, but like all Eclipses it packs a punch especially if in certain, close alignments to your natal chart. Those with planets or points near 9º of the Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) will feel this the most and have to adjust and evolve in these times of stress and crisis. If the theme is "letting go", being passive or yielding unto fate then this may indeed be difficult as Taurus and the fixed signs tend towards a  stubborn, rigid nature, thus the term "fixed".

As always Eclipses bring major turning points, crisis and a feeling of intensity followed by release. The coming weeks will seem a bit more relaxed. April has been a tough ride for some of us and a period of acceleration and momentum for all.

The Nature of Nature
Taurus is an early sign associated with the initial stages of life ala springtime. Aries is the sprouts and Taurus is the lush, fertile rush of growth that is sustained and beginning to express and fulfill it's potential in the process of blossoming.

There are four primary kinds of love, according to the Greeks, and each one corresponds to one of the four fixed signs of the zodiac. Taurus is 'Epithemia', which has been described in a number of ways,  often as"animal love". Now, Before anyone makes a joke about Venus and Uranus conjunction in the sign of 'animal love', let me diffuse the situation by revealing it's deeper meaning: "overwhelming desire to give all". This is the somewhat egoless, primitive and pansexual nature of the wilderness. Because it's amoral, relatively thoughtless and indiscriminate (comparatively) it is sometimes seen as low or base to those who lived after the prudish, christian times.

Venus has an alter-ego in the form of Libra. Libra represents the ceremony of marriage and the social rituals around courtship as well as beautification, gifts and a lot of our ideas of romance. But like the scales that represents the sign of Libra, it is a made up creation, an artifice. It is our ideas about relating and our social conventions.

Taurus is pure earthly sensuality. Whereas Libra may be pretty or well mannered and nicely dressed it can be somewhat aloof and untouchable. Taurus, on the other hand is gorgeous and naturally alluring. It's not a painting on a wall but a waterfall or a feather bed. It's meant to be touched and embraced. All senses correspond to Taurus whereas Libra seems to be somewhat geared towards sign and sound. This is not a law of the astrological universe, mind you, but things tend that way. All signs have their own sensual values. But Taurus represents the value of sense generally and specifically.

Fertility and growth, as pleasant as they are come with other, less desireable values in Taurus. As mentioned earlier, it's known to be stubborn and sometimes maddeningly so. It's possessive but not in the Scorpio sense of head games and obsession. It see's people and situations as property, somewhat like a child, and all the early signs have a child-like quality to them. Further still, this sign is known to get stuck in ruts, it can be hard to get moving and is indulgent in the senses and pleasure.



How does the Eclipse effect me? 

This Eclipse looks fairly soft and the tightest, most exact aspect it receives is a harmonious sextile from Neptune which softens the vibe a bit but also adds an element of potential escapism and delirium. Venus, the ruler of Taurus, is in Pisces the sign of it's exaltation. Hopefully we can tap into the unconditional love at this time and give it away to the world.

Where this Lunation occurs in your chart will reveal what area of life will be effected, changed or challenged. For this you will need to look to your RISING sign.  

If you don't know your rising sign you can calculate with the free rising sign calculator at Cafe Astrology. : Rising sign calculator.

As always, this is an exceedingly brief look at what is going on for each rising sign and does not take into account a variety of factors that signify other evens in your life that can mitigate, exaggerate and modify these themes. (Email me to set up a consultation to get the real inside scoop on the astrological activity in your life at Ian @ pantheonastrology.com)


Aries :  2nd House: Self worth, money, wealth and finances, personal assets and values.  
 
Taurus : 1st House: Identity, self-assertion, selfishness, personal demands, physical health of the body, the Face and outer appearance.

Gemini : 12th House: Hidden issues, secret affairs, retreat, cooperation, hospitalization, retirement, completing old stories, self-undoing, reflection, subconscious drives and issues which inhibit free will.


Cancer : 11th House: gain & increase, money from career, groups, friends and Acquaintances, networks, cliques, Hopes, dreams, gains, personal and shared goals.

Leo : 10th House Career, profession, status & position in society, public standing, reputation, authority figures, bosses, fathers, awards, responsibilities, desire for achievement.
 
Virgo : 9th House: Travel, education, philosophy & religion, Ceremony & customs, teachers, teaching & learning, foreigners, legal issues, courthouses, broadcasting and publishing.

Libra : 8th House: intimacy, sexuality, psychological and occult matters, shared resources, inheritance, credit, loans, personal power of regeneration, crisis and emergency.

 Scorpio :  7th House: marriage, partnership, close friends, rivals, open enemies and all important one-on-one interactions.    

Sagittarius : 6th House: health & illness of physical body, work, service, routines, habits, co-workers, hired workers and staff.

Capricorn : 5th House: Love affairs, dating, games, fun, play fullness, entertainment and entertaining, performance arts, creativity, pregnancy and children. 

Aquarius : 4th House : Home & family, houses, real  estate, rentals, renovations and relocating,  roommates and all who live in the home.

Pisces : 3rd house: The Mind, writing and communications, siblings and neighbors, errands and movement within your local area, plans, media.

Aril 15 - Libra "Blood Moon" Lunar Ecilpse

This Eclipse follows the former New Moon in Aries in which I talked a bit about cardinal Cross as a sign of "World War 3", an already ongoing assault on the planet with the final goal the hearts and minds of human beings. Like the former lunation, this too is aligned with the "Cardinal Cross" alignment involving Pluto & Uranus the two heavy hitting, radicalizing and potentiating planets of dramatic and massive changes. More on this later. Frist let's look at this "Blood Moon Tetrad" thing that has people freaking out.

Blood moon paranoia
Full Moons and Eclipses are said to release unconscious content and are times of increased irrationality, impulsivity and general 'crazyness'. The range of influence for an eclipse is much wider than a typical full moon and stretches out weeks and even months before and after. The days surrounding the eclipse are especially powerful but it still has a kind of 'pull' beyond those days where it's most obvious. It is rather large splash in the waters of time, and considering it's alignment with that  generation defining "Cardinal Cross" it's no surprise that people have been getting extra crazy about this one.

 

So as many have already heard, not only is it a Full Moon Eclipse and not only is it aligned with Cardinal Cross, it's also part of a Blood Moon Tetrad, each of which could be names for X-men characters. The "blood" part is, as I'm sure you know, because of it's red color. The "tetrad" part is because it's 1 of 4 upcoming red-moon eclipses that will occur at various times through 2015. There is a lot of technical astronomical background to this whole thing, I won't rehash it here.

Suffice to say that they are indeed rare and only have, supposedly,  occurred about 3 times in the last 500 years and they will diminish and eventually become non-existent.

Because Eclipses were and still are seen as bad omens in medieval times a big scary, blood moon was extra ominous. It's such a naturally captivating astronomical occurrence that it's featured in the Apocalypse of St John, the grooviest chapter of the New Testament and generator of much modern madness. In it are all kinds of crazy, psychedelic visions which have inspired people with awe and fear for quite a while now.

While we are on this subject, the Apocalypse of St. John is one of several Apocalypse (apocali?) in the large collection of biblical writings, canonical and non. Apocalypse is Greek for "revelations" and is sometimes termed as such in some editions of the Bible. Revelation. Not doomsday. We tend to associate the two because in the Apocalypse (or revelation) of St John there are visions of the messiah returning to bring judgement to humanity. Thus we have tied the term Apocalypse with 'the end of the world" when it should really be associated with the "end of an age" which we most certainly seem to be in. The pre-post-post modern age.  a working title...


anyway, this subject is pretty trendy right now, because nothing sells like hot buttered doom and a lot is being written about and much of it is pretty awful.

Astrologers and some biblical scholars have looked at the blood-moon cycle as signifying major events relating to the Jewish people or, the state of Israel, rather. There have been some occurrences and major issues related to Israel and these Blood Moons. In example, Israel became a proper state Just after a Blood Moon, although closer to the New Moon Eclipse which followed.

There is a lot of excitement among those hungry for earthly cataclysm because they see the Eclipses falling on Jewish holidays. -Holidays celebrated on full moons, so It's not all that uncanny. Further there are plenty of Blood moons that don't fall on Jewish holidays.


False Prophet
Professional fear pornographer, pastor and amateur shouting enthusiast John Hagee, known for cashing in on doomsday predictions, is a major source for the fear and enthusiasm for this upcoming Tetrad/Blood Moon eclipse cycle. Try saying that three times fast. His latest book is called "four blood moons: something is about to change" and is a big gusty breath of hot stinky air on this subject. The books is not his first and he's written 16 books total, including  "If I were Satan" where he writes how exactly he would go about deceiving humanity if he were the personification of evil, and I am not kidding.

Think about that for a moment as we continue.

Interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, the Eclipse is closely angled on his Sun/Jupiter conjunction in Aries which is a sign of an aggressively (aries) egotistical individual (sun) who finds joy (Jupiter) in strife and the glory of battle (Aries).  His enthusiasm for being a leader in the theater of spiritual warfare has him utilizing astrology to support his act, a sin according to the Bible.

Like professional mush-talker and shit-stirrer Pat Robertson, John Hagee has his Mercury (Mind/speech) detrimented by being in the sign of Pisces and is a sign of deceit and illusion. For some this will manifest as trouble with details, getting carried away with imagination or letting their emotionality exaggerate the facts. For others, and certainly not all, this can manifest as willful deception and lying.  Adding to the potential for deceit is Mercury's tight opposition to Neptune (delusion/deception) which is great for inspiring others with lyric, theater, vigorous hand waving but terrible for giving details or keeping his shpeel tethered to reality. Neptune and Mercury are also signs of lies and deceit but much more acute than Mercury in Pisces.

So, coming around full circle, this Eclipse is a sign of John Hagee's personal involvement in spreading fear and deception regarding a fantasy of cleansing violence against the "unworthy human secularists, pagans, atheists, homosexuals, ect". It is not a warning on his part and has nothing to do with 'spiritual salvation" or desire for a better world. It is a prayer.  I truly believe that it is self evident that he, like so many other self-styled prophets of doom, actually want war against Israel, natural disasters and famine. He is gasoline on a fire and loves the smell of smoke.

I could go on with this, but I digress. In short he and his ilk are spellbinding their followers into giving over their power and belief in an attempt to bring about chaos, violence, and terror. Are you among them who have been troubled with fear?

Here is the deal, the actual deal, as far as I can understand.

Eclipses especially potent new and full moons and signify periods of crisis, major life events, transitions and revelation.  As full moons they also have the intensified quality of irrationality, release, compulsion. It also it seems that our free will is apparently limited or obstructed by the will of the outer universe of circumstance and fate during these times, no wonder they are/were seen as bad omens. I think that, essentially, power is the underlying theme of these periods and power can be creative as well as destructive.

Eclipses are signs of crisis and even when a crisis occurs, and Eclipse cycles can be powerfully positive as well.

As mentioned earlier, what makes this Eclipse so powerful is that it's closely aligned with the ongoing "Cardinal Cross" aspect pattern which is an alignment between 4 planets, each at 90 degrees from one another. The formation makes a large square pattern in a horoscope chart and is a sign of great tensions and activity. The Cross is between retro Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto. But what makes this particular Cardinal Cross so powerful is the feature of Pluto and Uranus, two of the heavy hitting and slow moving outer planets. The cycle of Pluto and Uranus is a sign of great revolution, conflict and revelation or "apocalypse. But, luckily, not the kind Hagee is selling.
 
The alignment between Uranus & Pluto is indeed a critical time which has occoured during great revolutions as well as times of famine. It was seen during the second world War, the rise of Facism and the great depression. It was again seen in the late 1960's when the Military industrial complex came into power, the Vietnam war shattered our romantic ideals of the nation and the flower-child and black power movement, among many others, came into power of their own. the Uranus-Pluto cycle is also a time of great technological developments seen during the invention of the telephone, photograph, television and discovery of the Neutron.

During this current cycle, starting in 2013, we have seen equally dramatic events: a meteor hit Russia killing over a thousand, floods, severe winter storms, sinkholes, earthquakes, tidal waves and great uprisings against state opression in the Arab Spring. We have also seen incredible technological advances and archeological revelations that continue to change the human story of our past. and so much more.

Although there is quite a lot of revolutionary activity going on between Russia and Ukraine, the Eclipse and Cardinal Cross are closely aligned to one of the birth charts of America. Obviously America is going through dramatic and epochal transformation and there is much secrecy & corruption being revealed at this time and much of the corruption and revelation are coming through technology.

Art and culture are mirrors for the psyche of the collective and not surprisingly the largest grossing motion picture worldwide ever is Captain America 2 the Winter Soldier, whose subtext is the longstanding and deeply rooted corruption and deception within the United States Government. While there is obviously creative license being used, it does touch upon actual "hidden" history such as Project Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists into the early rocket and space exploration program and the use of mind controlled 'super soldier' assassins ala MK Ultra (look it up).

As ALWAYS this depends on how it's aspected to your natal chart. If your chart is in alignment with the ongoing Cardinal Cross it will be obvious through major revolutions, breakdowns and departures in your own personal life. Accelerated developments and drastic, unstoppable change and tangled "battle of wills" will be hallmarks. The Eclipse will potentate or activate these themes but not necessarily more than the former New Moon which was in closer alignment to the planets than the Eclipse. Although this Cardinal Cross will be over, the  following Eclipse this Fall will be in direct alignment with the  Uranus-Pluto square and could be much more dramatic than this one.

THE ROYAL STARS
Turning away from fearful predicitons of doom and strife, this Eclipse has some beneficial elements. Firstly, the ruler of the Libra Moon is Venus who is exalted in the sign of Pisces, a sign of unconditional love and compassion. The Eclipse is aligned with two of the most beneficial stars in the sky as well, Spica and Arcturus both stars of the most dignified and elevated ideas regarding royalty and nobility. Both are associated with riches, prosperity and honor, as an aside.

Spica is the shat of wheat in the hand of Virgo the virgin. This wheat is the not simply the produce and treasure of earth but is a symbol also for the earths greatest produce: humanity. In ancient art this is seen in the coupling of Isis and her sun Horus and is repeated later with the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The great mother is the earth itself and the kings and queens of the world sit on her lap. Think of this in context of both earthly and cosmic intelligence and consciousness whom gave birth to us and to whom we are students and caretakers.



Arcturus is situated in the constellation Bootes who is a human character and his namesake means "bear ward" and is other times called "Bear leader-guardian", meaning observer of the "Great Bear" because of it's close proximity to the Big Dipper or 'bear constellation". It's an enterprising quality of leadership and is said to bring "justice through power".

I'm going to personally consider this a period where we can, through crisis of birth, bring out justice and equilibrium to our world through the power of life that is ever present in the intelligence of the earth, the being of the cosmos and the beating of our hearts.


How does the Eclipse effect me? 

Even if your chart is not part of the Cardinal Cross you may be subject to the dramatic wave of this Eclipse but only if you have planets near 25 degrees of the Cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn. Planets in 25 degrees of the Air signs (other than Libra) Gemini, Aquarius will receive the power of this period as wind in the sails and may find this to be a rather positive time of acceleration and empowerment.
 
Where this Lunation occurs in your chart will reveal what area of life will be effected, changed or challenged. For this you will need to look to your RISING sign.  

If you don't know your rising sign you can calculate with the free rising sign calculator at Cafe Astrology. : Rising sign calculator.

As always, this is an exceedingly brief look at what is going on for each rising sign and does not take into account a variety of factors that signify other evens in your life that can mitigate, exaggerate and modify these themes. (Email me to set up a consultation to get the real inside scoop on the astrological activity in your life at Ian @ pantheonastrology.com)


Aries :  7th House: marriage, partnership, close friends, rivals, open enemies and all important one-on-one interactions. 
 
Taurus : 6th House: health & illness of physical body, work, service, routines, habits, co-workers, hired workers and staff.

Gemini : 5th House: Love affairs, dating, games, fun, play fullness, entertainment and entertaining, performance arts, creativity, pregnancy and children. 

Cancer : 4th House : Home & family, houses, real  estate, rentals, renovations and relocating,  roommates and all who live in the home.

 
Leo :  3rd house: The Mind, writing and communications, siblings and neighbors, errands and movement within your local area, plans, media.

Virgo :  2nd House: Self worth, money, wealth and finances, personal assets and values.  

Libra : 1st House: Identity, self-assertion, selfishness, personal demands, physical health of the body, the Face and outer appearance.

 Scorpio : 12th House: Hidden issues, secrett affairs, retreat, cooperation, hospitalization, retirement, completing old stories, self-undoing, reflection, subconscious drives and issues which inhibit free will.

Sagittarius : 11th House: gain & increase, money from career, groups, friends and Acquaintances, networks, cliques, Hopes, dreams, gains, personal and shared goals.

Capricorn : 10th House Career, profession, status & position in society, public standing, reputation, authority figures, bosses, fathers, awards, responsibilities, desire for achievement.

Aquarius : 9th House: Travel, education, philosophy & religion, Ceremony & customs, teachers, teaching & learning, foreigners, legal issues, courthouses, broadcasting and publishing. 

Pisces : 8th House: intimacy, sexuality, psychological and occult matters, shared resources, inheritance, credit, loans, personal power of regeneration, crisis and emergency.