I Heart Eclipses!!!‏‏‏

From: Pardis Barjesteh
Sent: Sun 1/25/09 2:10 AM

Greetings Earthlings,

Yes, it's the moment you've all been waiting for: Eclipse Season is upon us once again!!!

Most of us hear about eclipses when they are visible to us and they seem to happen every once in a while. The fact is they happen twice a year in pairs, with sometimes a third one thrown in for good measure. Now we all know what a New Moon and a Full Moon look like. On a New Moon, the Moon and Sun occupy the same zodiacal degree, say 6 degrees Aquarius (1/25/09)--the Moon lines up exactly between the Sun and the Earth, so the Sun shines on the Moon, but we see it not. On a Full Moon, the Moon and Sun occupy opposite zodiacal degrees, say Sun at 21 degrees Aquarius and Moon and 21 degrees Leo (2/9/09)--the Earth lines up exactly between the Sun and the Moon, so the Sun shines on the Moon, and we see it all. But even though they are longitudinally aligned, more often than not, they are not latitudinally aligned, because the plane on which the Moon revolves around the Earth is tilted in comparison to the ecliptic plane on which the Earth revolves around the Sun. I gave up trying to find a good diagram on the web. Try to think of it this way--imagine the Earth moving around the Sun as a hula hoop that is horizontal. Now picture the Moon going around the Earth as a slightly tilted hula hoop. So as the Moon moves from the lowest part of its hoop up towards the highest part, at one point it crosses the flat plane of the Earth's hula hoop, and that, my friends, is the mysterious point referred to as the North Node of the Moon. Conversely, when the Moon reaches the highest point and circles back down, it crosses the Earth's ecliptic again, and this is the equally mysterious point referred to as the South Node of the Moon. These two points are a seriously huge deal in natal charts! I have heard that Jeffrey Wolf Green says that when God looks at a chart all he see are Pluto and the Nodes--like, that serious! And even though we usually only look at the Moon's Nodes, all the planets have nodes, but that is a subject for an advanced lecture on Evolutionary Astrology, so forget I even brought it up. In Vedic Astrology, the Moon's Nodes are referred to as the Dragon's Head (North) and Tail (South). If you want basic keywords, just think Karma (South) and Destiny (North). But we digress and the eclipses wait for no one.

At the time of New Moon, if the Moon is on the lower or upper tilt of its hula hoop, so between the Sun and Earth, but below or above the line connecting those two, it can not block out the Sun. Only when it is close to crossing the ecliptic going up or down (in other words when one of the Nodes is at the same degree as the Sun and Moon) will it block out the Sun. [It's late now, so I have lost all perspective--somebody please reply to let me know if this is common knowledge and/or if any of this makes sense, or if you are utterly bewildered and have no idea what this has to do with anything.] The closer it is to that crossing point is what makes it approach a total eclipse versus a partial one, and whether it is day or night where you are determines if you are even able to see it. OK, so here is the really cool deal--the reason we get eclipses is because it just so happens that the Sun is about 400 times the size of the Moon and about 400 times as far away from the Earth, so they both appear to be the same size when viewed from Earth. And if I recall correctly, these two (our day light and our night light) are the only two objects that happen to have this relationship to us. Coincidence? Please! What random universe are you living in, and if so, why are you even reading this? I told you I wouldn't take it personally if you unsubscribed. OK, enough with the astronomy lesson; pure science is so boring--why should we care?

I know an astrologer who says if you want to see astrology working, just chart the path of your life against the eclipses. Here's the deal. The Sun goes from dark to light, as it were, in the course of 24 hours, and the Moon does the same in the course of 28 days. When an eclipse happens, these cycles are essentially compressed within a few hours, so it is as if our natural sense of time passing is distorted and we have entered some sort of time warp--it is kind of like a portal to a vortex in time, and there is an opening to a shift--a natural cycle of growth is being concentrated into a few short hours. After the eclipse, everything appears to go back to normal, but nothing is ever the same again. Now, if you are familiar with your natal chart, you would want to see where in your chart the eclipse is occurring in order to see where the shift is occurring, in which house and in relation to which planets. If you are not familiar with your chart, simply take a moment to observe and reflect upon where you are noticing change in your life (and depending on where it is in your chart and if there are significant things in that eclipse degree, you will feel it more or less than others--also eclipse effects may be felt in the period +/- three days and also at later times when that zodiacal degree gets activated, and they last until the next eclipse season and set the tone for the time between the two). I really wish this made more sense, but I have a plane to catch tomorrow, and we are running out of time. I guess if you asked me flat out why I heart eclipses, I would have to say, because you never know what's going to happen, but you know something will, just the thrill of anticipation, even if it is just bracing for a head-on collision with a brick wall, because despite all my Taurus, I have learned enough about cycles to admit that change is good, and stunning when it happens in the blink of an eye.

The New Moon Solar Eclipse will be at 11:55 pm Sunday 1/25/09, and this eclipse season will last until the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse at 6:49 am Monday 2/9/09 (all times Pacific). The Nodes move backwards through the signs, moving through the entire zodiac about once every 18 years, so they spend about 1.5 years on each pair of sign axes. This pair is the last in the Leo/Aquarius axis, after which they will move on to the Cancer/Capricorn axis. If nothing else, think about changes in the expression of self (Leo) and community (Aquarius), your shining light (Sun-ruled Leo) and the collective genius (Uranus-ruled Aquarius). I truly wish this made more sense than it probably does, but that's the best I can do for now. If you do experience anything unusual, I would love to hear about it. As you likely know, Monday is the Chinese New Year, which of course always takes place on a New Moon, but this year is blessed by an eclipse, in Aquarius no less, with Jupiter making the scene to boot (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tob1.htm). Gung Hay Fat Choy!

And why not end with a conjunction of two of my favorite things: wikipedia and etymology, do with it what you will, (perhaps think of what you would like to see eclipsed or cease to exist in your life or on the planet, presumably that which does not sustain healthy growth, and then as we should always consider doing at the time of the New Moon, plant seeds of good intention):

An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another. The term is derived from the ancient Greek noun ἔκλειψις (ékleipsis), from verb ἐκλείπω (ekleípō), "I cease to exist," a combination of prefix ἐκ- (ek-), from preposition ἐκ, ἐξ (ek, ex), "out," and of verb λείπω (leípō), "I am absent".[1] When an eclipse occurs within a stellar system, such as the Solar System, it forms a type of syzygy—the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a straight line.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse

And yet still for good measure, patient reader, (though it seems in conflict with a geocentric astrology, I like to thing of it simply as consciousness of our revolutions in the cosmos) some final words from Buckminster Fuller born with Sun in Cancer, conjunct Jupiter, and forming a grand water trine with Uranus in Scorpio and Moon conjunct North Node in Pisces (how cool is that?):

The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the Earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet's surface at that time. Everything else will follow.
Final interview before his death, "NewsCenter4", WNBC-TV , 1983
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

With blessings from the cosmos,
Pardis