Katniss from The Hunger Games

The Full Moon in Scorpio is a powerful place. It combines the nurturing quality of the Moon with the fierce and unforgiving energy of Scorpio. Artemis represents the Moon as a strong female, at home in nature and confident within herself. We can see a modern interpretation of Artemis in the portrayal of Katniss, the main heroine of The Hunger Games.  Katniss has an integrated balance between yin and yang. She carries her bow and arrow and is a fierce and skilled warrior, but she kills only to protect those she loves. Her goal is not to win for personal glory, but to save her family and friends. There is even an Apollo figure in her close companion Peeta, who is engaged in what could be seen as more yin pursuits. He is a baker, a cake decorator, and when called on to protect himself, he uses his skill of camouflage and disappearance. He is an artist who is motivated by love and devotion as he finds his way through the game of life. This movie that pits violence, superficiality, and oppression against values of love, family, and sacrifice has struck a note in our national psyche. The combination of balanced masculine and feminine energies create the shift that Katniss and Peeta’s society so desperately needs. This is a modern day myth, pointing the way to our own personal and societal transformation so that we might never see the fractured world of The Hunger Games.

To Do: This entire weekend, from Friday to Monday morning, will be filled with the light of the Moon. During this weekend try to slow down. Take deep breaths, engage in your body, eat more mindfully, let others go in front of you in line, and allow yourself time where you have no agenda. Imagine that you are in a perfect place of balance; not a static rigid place that you need to defend, but a flexible, moving point of balance that rises and falls like the ebb and flow of life. When you find that place of balance within yourselves you can find a way to be a creative, musical, healer who is in touch with your inner knowledge. When you find that place of balance you are powerful, clear, and directed, taking aim with intention to bring your goals into manifestation. You might be thinking that such balance is too much to hope for. But in fact, it is the natural order of things. Day and night find their moving point of balance, Sun and Moon dance through the month as they come close and then move apart again. Life is always changing. Take this Full Moon as a time to slow down, and participate in the flow of life

From the Washington Post by Joel Achenbach.

Look to the west after sunset Sunday night and, unless clouds impede the view, you’ll see three worlds.

One is the moon, a thin crescent, upturned like a smiley face. The second is Jupiter, a gas giant reduced by distance to a bright dot. It’ll be just to the left of the lunar smile, like a beauty mark.

Above the moon and Jupiter, about a fist’s distance away on an outstretched arm, will be Venus, beaming like a headlight.

The last four weeks or so have been a spectacular time for stargazers, or, more precisely, planet-watchers. Venus and Jupiter have had a conjunction, and on March 13 passed so close to each other in the night sky that they could have exchanged business cards. Throw in the moon on Sunday and Monday nights and it’s a must-look situation.

“When you get a configuration like this, people who don’t normally look up above the horizon find that their eyeballs are being hijacked,” said Alan MacRobert, an amateur astronomer and senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.

More news is on the horizon: On June 5, Venus will transit the sun, the last such transit until 2117. With a safe solar filter, the tiny black dot of Venus will be visible as it gradually moves across the sun’s face.

Meanwhile, the sun is acting up. We’re building to a solar maximum, which means lots of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, northern lights and the potential for damage to satellites or the power grid.

And by the way, there’s a new theory afoot that the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg sent into the shipping lanes by tides associated with a rare arrangement of the sun, Earth and moon.

Dare it be said: The solar system is trending.

What’s unfolding Sunday and Monday nights is a reprise of what happened Feb. 25 and 26, when the crescent moon slipped past Jupiter and Venus. The two planets have a conjunction like this about once every 24 years, said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory.

This is what’s known as an evening apparition of Venus (it can be a morning star or an evening star), and it has been particularly sublime because the planet is relatively high in the sky. The second rock from the sun is near its greatest “elongation” — as far as it ever gets from the sun as seen from Earth — and so it’s up in the sky for a long time before it sets.

It’s also preposterously brilliant. Its magnitude is almost at the maximum for Venus — minus 4.4. (The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object.) On a moonless night in a dark place, you can see your shadow in Venusian light, Chester said.

“The circumstances for this evening apparition are about as good as they get,” Chester said. “Then you throw Jupiter into the mix, which is usually the second brightest planet, then you’ve got a couple months when the moon is playing footsie with them. And that’s what makes it particularly interesting.”

Those unfamiliar with such things should be warned that planet-watching is a subtle pleasure, enhanced by the right attitude. Not much actually happens. The planets don’t zoom around. Nothing collides or explodes. There are no cameo appearances by comets. The moon and planets will drop below the horizon by late evening and some people may feel the need to find an after-party.

The action in the sky, gentle though it may be, incited among ancient people some of the first stirrings of scientific inquiry. They didn’t know what a planet was, fundamentally. “Planets” comes from an ancient Greek term meaning “wandering star,” and thus describes the behavior of the objects rather than their nature.

In ancient times, the heavens clearly revolved around the Earth, wheeling nightly on an axis pointed in the northern hemisphere toward the star Polaris. But anomalies among the planets required explanation and investigation. Mars, for example, had the perplexing habit of migrating east across the firmament and then reversing direction for a couple of months before reversing yet again.

Not until the 1500s did astronomers, led by Copernicus, put together a fairly accurate model of the solar system (minus planets yet to be discovered), with the sun at the center rather than the Earth. Only then did it become clear that the retrograde motion of Mars is due to the Earth passing it on the inside lane of the orbital speedway.

The irony of the Information Age is that people have forgotten so much of what their forebears knew. This is an era in which people talk of TMI — too much information — even as they couldn’t name a single star in the sky. Many people would no more learn the names of the stars than figure out how to boil lye to make soap.

“All this stuff was common knowledge among ancient people. Even people just a few hundred years ago, your average farmer would be keeping a very close eye on the season, they’d be keeping a very close eye on the moons,” Chester said. And yes, “moons,” plural. The moons had names. The last full moon, for example, was the Full Worm Moon, because it’s the time of year when the worms start moving around in the soil, Chester said.

Owen Gingerich, a professor emeritus of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that the spectacle in the western sky is so beguiling that “even our graduate students are aware of what’s happening.”

That’s an inside joke because graduate students in astronomy do all their work now on computers and with equations and don’t spend a lot of time acting like Galileo and looking through telescopes.

In certain respects, the planets are old news. The cutting edge in astronomy is the search for extrasolar planets — which orbit distant stars — and the investigation of the mysterious dark matter that is indirectly detected through study of the motion of galaxies. Cosmologists hope to understand the “dark energy” that is causing an acceleration of the expansion of the universe.

But the nearby planets still have surprises. A probe orbiting Mercury discovered evidence of ice at the poles of the little planet that is seemingly fried by the sun.

And this past week, scientists announced that they’d come up with a better measurement of the width of the sun, achieved by studying two transits of Mercury. The sun is 865,374 miles in diameter, plus or minus 40 miles.

Now, about the Titanic. The ship hit an iceberg late on the evening of April 14, 1912. Where did the iceberg come from? The authors of an article in the latest issue of Sky & Telescope contend that an unusual abundance of icebergs in the shipping lanes that year may have had an astronomical explanation.

According to Donald Olson, a professor at Texas State University and the article’s co-author, on Jan. 4, 1912, the moon was at its closest approach to the Earth even as the Earth was at its closest approach to the sun (the orbits are not perfectly circular but rather are elliptical). This created powerful tides noted around the world.

Icebergs calved in Greenland would normally have grounded in shallow water along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, Olson said. But those unusually high tides would have dislodged the icebergs, and sent them on a roughly three-month journey down to the shipping lanes, where one of them greeted the great ocean liner. That’s the hypothesis.

“We can’t prove it conclusively because we don’t know where the Titanic iceberg was precisely in January 1912,” he said.

But his larger point is that astronomy can provide information about historical or cultural events. Olson has also studied Van Gogh’s painting “Road With Cypress and Star.” The painting shows a crescent moon close in the sky to a bright star. Look closely, and there’s another star, much smaller. Olson’s research suggests that the bright star was Venus and the smaller one Mercury.

There’s actually a fourth world in that picture, one that will also be on view in the coming nights as the moon, Venus and Jupiter dance in the western sky. The fourth world is obvious yet subtle: It’s the one we’re standing on, the one that, in Van Gogh’s painting, grows a magnificent cypress tree.

You can even see the Earth in the sky, sort of. In a good location with a dark sky and little light pollution from the city, you’ll see the “dark” part of the crescent moon illuminated in an ashen light known as earthshine. That’s sunlight that has bounced off the Earth (which would be nearly a “full Earth” if seen by a moon walker) to light up the night on the surface of the moon.

Olson said he and his students will be looking at this weekend’s grouping of celestial objects through the clear air of central Texas. He expects it to be spectacular and memorable.

And also inspiring — perhaps for the next Van Gogh.

© The Washington Post Company

Susan Seddon Boulet

BE BOLD!! That is the message of this New Moon in Aries on March 22nd. Spring began on Tuesday when the Sun entered the sign of Aries. Aries is the first sign in the zodiac and represents bold action and new beginnings. Now with the Moon also in Aries, it  doubles the urge within to begin something new.  Taking this Spring energy to absolutely new heights,  Uranus, the planet of rash and unpredictable action, joins in to make this New Moon even more exciting and intense. Then toss in Mercury, also in Aries, and it time to take flight.

Perhaps you have been feeling an onrush of energy, like you are about to jump out of your skin. It may be coming out as anxiety, irritability, or a generalized funk. This is because there is a major change in the air. This is a powerful rush of energy in the world, like a change in frequency that is pushing our ability to download information to a new speed. We are feeling overwhelmed right now with how fast everything seems to be going. Its as if the solar flares that reached their peak a few weeks ago have short circulated not only our satellites and technology, but also our inner wiring. There is a sense of being jangled, on edge, as if there is too much caffeine in our system and we are stuck in high gear.

To Do: Sit down, take some deep breaths, and close your eyes. Turn your senses inward and feel the frequency of your energy. You can do this by pretending you are sitting in your car and the motor is running. How fast is it running? Is it just humming along, quiet and in the background? Or do you feel like it is reved up, ready to take off?   Or, to use another analogy, imagine that you are a powerful eagle like the one in this image. You are charged with the energy of the sun and your wings are flapping as you leap to take off. But you realize that your feet are bound, so you flap and flap and flap your wings trying to break your binds and take off. Faster and faster you flap, but all that does is heighten your sense of frustration and limitation, leaving you exhausted and discouraged.

This energy of the New Moon in Aries conjoined Uranus is an opportunity to look within and see what it is you really, really want to do right now in your life. Do you want to travel? write? have children? get a new job? run around the block? Whatever it is, this New Moon is saying to Just Do It! (I think Nike must have been inspired by a New Moon in Aries…) And if you are feeling held back, don’t fight against that which limits you. Instead, look at it clearly, make the changes you need to set yourself free, remove the binding from yourself. You are the only one who can do it. Ah…. set free…take flight… You will have time to ground and center this energy when the Sun goes into Taurus, which is on April 19th. Until then, put your attention and your energy to cutting the cords that bind you and set your vision on a new horizon.

Rachel Carson

March 8th, 2012. Full Moon in Virgo on Thursday at 4:39 am. est. Virgo, the virgin, is an Earth sign, and a practical steward of the natural world in which we live. Virgo applies her skills of observation and deliberation to the real world, right here and right now. I wanted a real woman to represent Virgo, a woman who was natural, earthy, and epitomized a life of service. This image of Rachel Carson called to me. Scientist and author of Silent Spring, she documented the effects of industrial pollution on the natural world. Her words initiated the environmental movement and guided us all in a new direction. She believed that the natural world was a necessary part of humanity’s spiritual growth. She said: “There would be no peace for me if I kept silent.”

Her eyes are piercing. They demand that I wake up, that I look clearly at what is around me, that I don’t space out and pretend it will all go away. She is serious, concerned, taking action. She carries the tools of her trade and has grounded her love and compassion in her engagement with the natural world.

To Do: Look Rachel Carson in the eyes. What is she asking of you? Demanding of you? Have a conversation with her. Ask her why she cares, how she got started, what meaning did her service bring to her life? Tell her about what your neighborhood and community needs. Tell her the ways you think you can contribute.

We all have a purpose. Some interior light in us burns bright and there is a desire to shine like the Sun. We might try to keep it down, or maybe we don’t know quite what it is, or perhaps we don’t believe in ourselves. But all of that hesitation matters for naught when the Moon is in Leo, because with Leo there is a strong desire to express yourself with visible actions in the world.

Leo, the Lion, is usually thought of as the King of the jungle. Described as a wild and powerful masculine energy, he uses sheer power of will and brute force gets his way. But there is also a feminine Leo energy as seen in Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian goddess whose name means “she who is powerful.” When we think of goddess energy we usually think of the compassionate loving energy of Kuan Yin, Green Tara, or Mary. But there is another aspect of feminine spirituality that is fierce and powerful,  charging through reality with an intention that is unstoppable. This life sized statue of the lioness Sekhmet was one of hundreds created in ancient Egypt in an attempt to gain the favor of this volatile goddess. Sekhmet was the daughter of the Sun god and her headdress represents her solar qualities. She was known for a belligerent nature, full of fury and aggression. But when pacified, her ferocity could be redirected so that she became a potent and valuable protector of the young and weak.

This Full Moon think about your own fierce nature. Meditate on this powerful image of Sekhmet. See yourself as the fierce lioness. Acknowledge the anger and aggression that you have within yourself. But instead of holding your anger in, which can lead to depression, or directing it to those closest to you, which can lead to conflict, see it as a powerful and useful energy that can be a force for good. See yourself transforming your anger into a stable ball of radiant light that lies within you and surrounds you.  Breathe deep and connect to your clarity, calm, and spiritual wisdom. From that state of calm, focus on your ball of light and using mindful action, direct it purposely into the world.

Dragon’s creative and spiritual energies lend support to the transformations indicated by the end of the Mayan Calendar.  We are fascinated by the mysterious Mayans as we try to figure out what spiritual lessons the end of their era brings. Although some people are trying to bring fear to 2012, most people aligned to a spiritual resonance are looking at 2012 as a year of powerful transformation. Instead of focusing on the ending of this era, I have been thinking of the beginning of a new era, which astrologically corresponds to the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Aquarius is a new time of global transformation, an increase in consciousness, and the development of social transformation. It is highlighted by our technological renaissance and global interconnection. The fact that the fate of all humanity is intricately intertwined as never before is evident in ecological, political, economic, and social interactions. I am fully convinced that this is a year of major transformation, and it is a time for each one of us to step up to the plate and make the difference that we always wanted to make. Whether that is in your family, community, or world, and whether it involves the environment, education, or religion, the time is NOW. Now is the time. This is the Year. Break free, reach out, take a risk, be bold, be a dragon!

To Do: I’ve always loved dragons and if I admit the truth, I have wanted my own dragon for years. Dragons are powerful, majestic, loyal, magical, and fearless. What better time than this Chinese Year of the Dragon to realize that these are all qualities that already exist within ourselves. We all have a dragon. We just need to learn how to train it. I think a good way to start this Year of the Dragon is to watch How to Train Your Dragon (Dreamworks, 2010, illustrated above). This is a wonderful parable about trusting yourself, believing in your talents, even when they are different than your family and society, and making friends with what you fear, turning that fear into your most powerful ally.

Susan Seddon Boulet

The Moon is full in the sign of Cancer. This is an especially powerful place for the Moon since the Moon is more at home in Cancer than she is in any other zodiac sign. The Moon is feminine and represents the feminine energy in each of us. She is the Great Mother, the Divine Feminine, your Soul, Anima, your own mother, and the nurturing mothering part of you. The Moon rules the oceans and when she is in Cancer her emotional capability is limitless like the ocean. The ebb and flow of the tides are connected to the Moon and symbolize our changing passions. When the Moon is in Cancer it is as if the ocean is at high tide and overflowing; there is a fullness of love, compassion, and caring. There is no barrier to giving and receiving love. She stands bold and beautiful during this Full Moon in opposition to the Sun in Capricorn, the patriarchal power of acquisition and control. She acknowledges Capricorn’s need for structure and boundaries by providing containers – a bowl and cup – practical tools to share her gifts to the world.

For You: Meditate on this beautiful image of the Divine Feminine. Imagine the Moon as this goddess, so full of compassion and love that her cup runneth over. She holds in her hands an offering to the world, knowing that what she offers is just one part of her vast gifts. She looks down on all her children and shines her light equally on them, no matter where they live in this vast world, or their race, sex, religion, politics, or social status. We are all one under the Moon. The same Moon that you see tonight is the same Moon that children are seeing in Africa, and that the warriors are seeing in Iraq. Now imagine that you are this lovely goddess and that in your hands you hold a cup that is running over into a bowl that is seated on your lap. See yourself looking at the vast world, all the people, animals, birds, trees, the air and water. Feel your love and light illuminate it all. Know that you have a gift to give, and that it is only one part of who you are. See yourself overflowing with grace. Take a deep breath and acknowledge the gift you have for the world. See it clearly. Make a conscious choice to reach out and share it with love.

The celebration of Christmas was linked to the Winter Solstice since Jesus represented the birth of the Son that promised to bring the Christ light on earth. And it was the Magi, Astrologers from Persia, who recognized the Star of Bethlehem as heralding the time, place, and importance of his birth. It may be dark and cold outside, but the Winter Solstice and Christmas point to the knowledge that the seeds of life are alive under the hard earth, ready to rise up when the days become warm again. Life, like the Sun, is never ending and always renewing. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is also around this same time. This year Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 20th and commemorates the re-dedication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Lighting the candles of the Menorah over the eight days of Hanukkah is a very special ceremony of remembering the light.

During this holy season remember your internal light, the light of the Son/Sun. Winter gives us many opportunities to remember the light within and to find a way to give it birth. Houses are illuminated with tiny lights during the dark winter nights. In our homes we build fires that bring warmth and comfort to the coldest part of the year. Every time you light a candle this winter, take a moment and remind yourself of the light within all life. This is a good reminder that no matter how dark it may look, that the light will come again.

NEW MOON December 24th

The Winter Solstice occurs when the Sun moves from the zodiac sign of Sagittarius into Capricorn. The Moon also moves into Capricorn on December 24th. When the Sun and Moon are together in the same sign, an event that occurs every month, it is known as the New Moon. The New Moon is a time of new beginnings. Since the New Moon takes place in Capricorn, a solid and practical earth sign, take some time on December 24th to think about what you want to bring forth in the area of real, practical, concrete actions. Consider what type of structure you need to create in your life to bring you success in some physical aspect of your life: exercise, job, healthy eating, cleaning your house, fixing up your home, changing your career, and so on.

NEW YEAR 2012

These questions are the perfect thing to ponder as you head into the New Year, one of my favorite rituals of new beginnings. This New Year Eve be a bit reflective and think about what the last year was like. What were your successes, challenges, accomplishments? Then on New Year’s Day, take some time to think about the upcoming year, 2012, and set some broad visions for what you want this new year to be. Then develop some concrete action steps to bring those visions to action.

In Mexico many Mayan cities are starting a year long celebration leading toward December 21st, 2012. They are seeing that date as a time of renewal, not an ending. Popular culture and the media have hijacked the end date on the Mayan calendar as a time to spread fear. But most Mayans and archeologist see that date as referring to the end of one age, and the beginning of another. Much like the end of the Age of Pisces and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Many Mayan priests will burn incense, chant, and offer prayers for the new era that will begin very soon. Imagine the world you want to see at this time next year. Think about what you want to be celebrating on December 21st, 2012. Keep a positive vision for the world and take practical actions to manifest that vision. Doom and gloom  forecasts only create more doom and gloom. Resist the power of the dark side!! Bring the light into your heart and let the force be with you. Let this year of 2012 be the year that you step out fully and bring all your gifts, no matter how big or how small, into the world. We all need each other doing all we can in order to make this new era one of peace, justice, and unity. Just for starters, Egypt just had the largest women’s demonstration in their history as thousands of women marched through Cairo on Tuesday calling for an end to military rule. You go girls! Let’s all step up to the call like we never have before in order to bring a wise and caring feminine vision to the world so clearly in need of a new way.

Gemini by Eric Williams

During this Full Moon on Saturday, December 10th at 9:36 a.m EST,  put your attention to connecting your spiritual and physical realities. Since the Moon represents your intuition and Gemini is in charge of your thinking, this is a good time to combine them into intuitive thinking. Intuitive thinking comes from slowing down your fast moving monkey mind and letting it rest on the gentle flow of the reflective ocean that is illuminated by Moonlight. (Pause for a second and imagine the ocean at night, illuminated by the Moon. Now imagine your mind as a yacht gently floating on the water. Ahhh.)

Most of us stay in memory thinking, recycling the same thoughts over and over again. We get stuck in patterns of the past. Albert Einstein said that “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” It’s time to  come up with fresh thoughts and new ideas.

To Do: Meditate on this lovely image. See the two young women as the part of you that is still hopeful, still curious, still wondering about how the world works and how you can best become engaged in its beauty. Then shift your focus to the dove. The dove has long been a symbol of spiritual connection. It is the dove that announces to Noah that the destructive flood has ended, and it is the dove that represents the seed of the Christ Child given to Mary at the Annunciation. See your own inner light, your own spiritual link, and imagine how your life will be different if you send that light out into the world, fearlessly, freshly. See the dove’s brilliance, hear the flapping of its wings, watch it sparkle in the light as it takes flight. Then watch it return to you, create a nest for it, nurture it so that you can send it out again and again.  Fully establish your link to spirit, your connection between heaven and earth.