PLANETARY ENERGIES

In this issue:

High Spring, Passion, and Finding Our Way

Beltane symbolism and rituals

Beltane this year

The Planets May 1—June 21

 

The Merry Month of May

 

“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”                          Honore de Balzac

 

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”                        Albert Camus

 

 

High Spring, Passion, and Finding Our Way

 

I walked Balthazar the dog in the Savernake Forest yesterday, on a beautiful spring morning, bright sun shafting through the oaks and beeches. The Savernake is one of England’s ancient forests, and although now a tenth of the size it was in the eighteenth century, it is still big enough to imagine getting somewhat lost in, and to find unexpected marvels – follies, monuments to kings, and wild animals. In Tudor times the Savernake was a hunting ground much favored by Henry VIII, who met his third wife, Jane Seymour, at Wolf Hall, home of the hereditary wardens of the forest, and a hop, skip and a jump from my house.

On this bouncy spring morning, a deer ran across the path a hundred yards ahead of us, and Balthazar ran after it. It was twice his size and anyway, he’s not a hunting dog and I wasn’t worried he would harm it, but called him back anyway. He came, most reluctantly, and the next second I understood why. I was now at the place where the deer had crossed the path, and the air was still heavy with its warm musk. I walked through a patch of hot, scented air that made me almost dizzy. It carried all the energy of mating, sex, and desire. It smelled of the earth, of spring, and of instinct immune to the mediations of intellect and morality. It stopped me in my tracks and made me marvel.

Sometime later the dog became excited again, and this time I didn’t see the deer, but walked through the hot wall of scent just the same, so I knew it had run through just minutes before. The smell was so strong that even an untrained nose like my own could follow the deer and trace its fast running journey through the trees. The smell got stronger and at this point Balthazar ran off the path, into the woodland, and disappeared. It was too much for him to resist.

It’s taken me a long time to understand how my dog operates, but after nine years, there are some things I know. One of which is that if he gets distracted on a walk, he will eventually return to the last place he saw me. Not where I would logically be going if I carried on walking, but the last place we had been together. So I waited, and called him every thirty seconds or so, and ten long worried minutes later he came tearing through the trees and up to my feet, managing to look both wild-eyed and sheepish at the same time.

So this got me thinking about losing our way and finding our way home, about the power of passion to enliven and also to distract us. And often, when an urge, a desire, an oh-so-attractive whatever, has diverted us from our path, the best way to get back on track is to return –either literally or in our imagination — to the last place we felt clear, to remember the last time we felt connected to the soul level of inner knowing.

But, oh, passion is a difficult thing to write about: like anything powerful in life, it is fraught with paradox. Some passions do indeed lead us to our fulfillment, others distract and deplete us. Campbell’s dictum to “follow your bliss” should always come with the caveat that bliss alone is not enough to make wise choices, yet sometimes, it is all that we have. Bliss, passion, and our freedom to make our own mistakes can lead us into folly, but that folly can also be the source of renewal and the unexpected opening to truth. So there’s no easy answer, no simple recipe for when or when not to follow passion, but at Beltane, the instincts, the land, and the pattern of the ages all encourage us to put desire above restraint, sensibility above sense, and to answer the call of our longing, wherever it may lead.

 

Beltane: Symbolism & Rituals

Beltane, May Eve, is the most glorious of the ancient fire festivals  and persists to the present day as May Day or the Spring Holiday. Historically the largest festival of the ceremonial year, at Beltane we celebrate the blossoming of spring, and the fertility of land and livestock. The name Beltane is thought to have meant bright or sacred fire, (bealltainn in Gaelic) and on this night the hilltops would be ablaze with huge bonfires, and the woods and fields ablaze with the fires of love.

Beltane occurs exactly at the opposite end of  the ceremonial year to Samhain/Hallowe’en, and celebrates life as Samhain honors death. Beltane is the time of conception, of the physical beginning of new life. It is the most physically passionate of the ancient festivals. Beltane falls midway in the annual passage of the Sun through the sign of Taurus, ruled by Venus, the planet of sexual love and sensual experience. At 15 degrees of Taurus this energy is ripe and charged for activation.

Like Mardi Gras, Beltane functioned as a ritualized antidote to the rules and laws of relationship and sexuality that keep society well-ordered. These rules, if adhered to rigidly, can cause depression, aggression, and general malaise. At Beltane the rules were lifted, in honor of the burgeoning, expansive energy of springtime, and the primitive need to ensure the fertility of the fields by sacrificing the individual personality to acts of sacred, impersonal sexuality.

Beltane was also a time when new bonds could be formed as inhibitions loosened, inspired by the blossoming, heart-opening atmosphere of full spring. Beltane/May Day is the juncture of the year hardwired into our DNA as the strongest moment of life-giving lust. Children conceived at Beltane were considered to be special, produced from the union of two people meeting the god and goddess within each other, and not just the temporal man and woman. The Maypole is more than just a phallic symbol: the twining of the ribbons around the pole evokes the DNA spiral, and symbolizes the eternal round of life.

May Day is still a festival in many countries in the world, and often associated with freedom and with labor (this was the time when hands would have been hired to work in the fields). Beltane coincided with the moving of livestock to summer grazing areas, an activity that took people out of their homes and into the woods and fields. Modern day equivalents for this include planting frost-sensitive flowering plants and crops, moving winter clothes to the back of the closet, buying new furnishings after the Equinoctial spring clean, and spending as much time as you can outside in the countryside.

Here are some ritual ideas for a modern day version of Beltane, taken from old ceremonies: Light a fire/candles, and let the smoke purify you, (you can also use sage or incense for this). Dance clockwise around the fire, praying for fertility (of body and/or mind). If you are attracted to someone, this might be a good time to talk to them about your feelings and see if they are reciprocated. Whether your relationship is new or old, it’s a great time to go with your beloved into the countryside for a day, or better still a camping  trip that allows you to sleep outdoors and perhaps build a campfire.  And this is an ideal time for a party.

 

Beltane This Year

Beltane is usually celebrated on either April 30 (May Eve), or on May 1. Before there were calendars, Beltane was signaled by the blooming of the hawthorn (also known as the may). And traditionally, the cross-quarter days were celebrated when the Sun was at 15 degrees of the fixed signs, in this case, Taurus, ruled appropriately by Venus, the goddess of love, fertility, and abundance.

This year the Beltane cross-quarter day falls on May 5, and we also have a New Moon in Taurus the same day. So this is a great time to celebrate Beltane this year, and is a highly activated period for seeding new creative projects, for planting literal seeds in the land, and for establishing new relationships, especially sexual and romantic ones.

 

The Planets March 21—May 1

Overview: Stations and Retrogrades, Changes of Sign

Lots going on this month. Comings and goings, but mostly good, with several planets moving into signs in which they are happier than the places they’ve recently been – Venus moves into Taurus, Mercury into Gemini, and Mars into Leo. Saturn stations before turning direct, Jupiter does the opposite a week later. In June Pluto retreats back into Sagittarius for five and a half months. At the end of May both Mercury and Neptune go retrograde on the same day. Fog city.

Neptune is conjunct the North Node of the Moon throughout this phase, which could show up as a spiritualization of some collective matter – I’m thinking Tibet being more center stage than it has been for decades, as an example of this. Chiron is also close by, and so this suggests that deep healing is possible, for nations/tribes as well as for individuals. If 20-24 degrees of Aquarius/Leo is active in your chart, then something deep could be coming up for review and healing at this time. Get help if you need it, and try to allow enough time to focus on this, because it could be a breakthrough time.

There are no exact aspects between any of the mid and outer planets throughout this coming period apart from a potentially inspiring sextile between Jupiter and Uranus on May 21. Saturn and Pluto are within orbs of being in trine, and are pulled together by Venus on May I. The aspect between Saturn and Pluto is almost exact on May 3 but not quite, and then Saturn moves forwards and pulls away definitively from retreating Pluto. This trine has been very potent over the past year, and most recently for people with early degrees of earth signs active in their charts. They’ve been experiencing a lot of activity, much of it good, but some of it also challenging. This will continue to be felt through the first two weeks of May.

Details

Thursday, May 1: Beltane. And a passionate day, with Venus having just moved into Taurus, its own sign, and immediately making a trine to Pluto, followed later by a trine to Saturn. Thus Venus activates the energetic influence of the Saturn Pluto trine and again activates the early degrees of the earth signs. This is all very supportive of sensuality and bodily pleasures, and of making concrete plans that for some may be quite big. In addition, the Moon conjuncts Uranus, sextiles Jupiter and trines Mars. Should be a pretty sexy and/or creative day.

(rest of the next six week’s astrological details for subscribers only)

 

Meanwhile, the cycle of the seasons continues regardless, and is there for us to marvel at and enjoy. So make the most of Beltane and the merry month of May by connecting with your passions, and enjoying the blessings of your life.

With love,

Lara

April 30 2008

 

THE OPENING OF THE HEART

“No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”
Amelia Earhart

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In this issue:

Springtime and the Renewal of the Heart
The Equinox this year: details for the Full Moon, Easter, & Passover.
Equinox symbolism: Rebirth & Resurrection
Planting Seeds
The Planets March 21—May 1
Libra Full Moon and the McCartney Mills divorce
Notes on Pluto in Capricorn: finances and fibrillations

(last four sections for paid subscribers only)

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SPRINGTIME AND THE RENEWAL OF THE HEART

The other day I was driving slowly down a country lane here in SW France, and noticed the fallow field to my right was absolutely full of white egrets. While I was looking at them, a great big hare bounded up out of a tussock and bounced off towards some unseen delight, long ears flapping, strong haunches powering him along. The image of his bounding fullness stayed with me for days, evoking the very spirit of springtime. This is the time of the year for enthusiasm to overcome doubt, for passion to conquer restraint, and for hope to challenge experience.

The Equinox occurs when the Sun enters the first degree of the zodiacal constellation of Aries in the tropical calendar. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and signifies birth, beginnings, zest, enthusiasm, passion, unequivocal desire, and action unfettered by inhibition or experience. It is the zero point, the place of all potential, with no baggage, no past, to weigh it down or tamper with its purity of intent. Thus Aries is associated with innocence and foolhardiness: the courage born of not knowing what can go wrong. It is symbolically related to the Fool card in the Tarot: full of potency and potential, but vulnerable to being tripped up by its own naivety.

Falling in love – with a person, place, endeavor, idea – is an essential part of being human. It often defies rationality and even wisdom. We may, as we grow older, imagine ourselves to be immune to folly and to being taken over by enthusiasm, but we lock ourselves down into certainty at our peril. Fully lived enthusiasm could be defined as the willingness to commit to what enchants us, to be drawn towards that which has energy for us. Sometimes this may lead us down false paths, but sometimes it leads us to our own grail. The willingness to be transformed in the moment by the joy of living keeps us young and vital.

The Spring Equinox, our collective zero moment, is the best time in the year to connect with your own purity of enthusiasm, to transcend middle-aged caution, common sense, and fear of change. With this zest the heart is renewed, and we naturally access a bright and fresh impetus for living fully.

THE EQUINOX THIS YEAR

This year, the Spring Equinox falls on March 19 at 10:48 pm Pacific and on March 20 at 1:48 am Eastern, 5:48 am in London, 6:48 am in mainland Europe.

The Equinox is immediately followed this year by the Full Moon at 2 degrees Libra, exact March 21 at 8:45 am Pacific, 11:45 am Eastern, 3:45 pm in London, 4:45 pm in Europe.

The Full Moon, symbolic of ripe fullness and fertility, following almost on top of the Equinox, makes these few days very potent.

In the Western Christian Church, Easter is calculated as the first Sunday after the Full Moon that occurs after the Spring Equinox, and thus is pretty much the earliest it can ever be this year, and will be celebrated on March 23. Due to the vagaries of the calendars, the Jewish and Orthodox celebrations that are symbolically equivalent to Western Christian Easter are almost a month later this year, with Passover beginning at sundown on April 20, and Easter in the Orthodox Church on April 28.

EQUINOX SYMBOLISM: REBIRTH & RESURRECTION

In the ancient world, the Spring Equinox was a major juncture in the ritual year, and a joyous solar festival of resurrection and renewal after the trials of the winter. In Northern Europe this time was known as “The Month of the Greening of the Earth”. This is a time of fertility–of land, birds, animals, and humans–and thus its related symbols include eggs, and the rampant, super-fertile rabbit or Mad March (lunar) hare.

The correct title is the Vernal Equinox, from the Latin for “equal night of spring”. The Great Sphinx is aligned to meet the rising Sun on the vernal equinox, and the Kukulcan pyramid at Chichen Itza is aligned with the equinoctal sunset. The vernal equinox, often also referred to as the first day of spring, marks the beginning of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, a celebration rooted in Zoroastrianism and lasting for 13 days. In the Southern Hemisphere, this date marks the Autumn Equinox rather than the Spring, and signals the onset of cooler weather.

Celebration of the Spring Equinox, the moment of magical equality of day and night, was replaced in the Christian tradition by Easter, which has the same magnitude in the ritual year, being the most important festival in the Christian liturgical calendar. Traditionally Easter was, and in some places still is, a deeply moving ritual of rebirth and resurrection, beginning on Holy Saturday in darkness with the Easter vigil, and continuing through the night and into the dawn of Easter Sunday with a ritualized acknowledgement of Christ’s sacrifice and the concomitant themes of death and resurrection, followed by mass baptisms and recommitment of faith, and concluding with a celebration of rich food replete with fertility symbols of new life. The Easter egg we eat today is a perfect symbolic food of this time, combining the fertility symbolism of the egg with the richness of chocolate, given as a reward after the Lenten fast.

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So enjoy the opening moment of the Equinox, and the passion of the Full Moon immediately following. It’s a strong beginning to full spring, and may it bring you joy.

With love,

Lara

March 19 2008

So Pluto is slowing right down for its station and shift retrograde in early April, and as it does so the Bear Stearns bank collapses, the markets tumble, and we see major jitters in the financial world. Welcome to the revolution of capitalism represented by Pluto in Capricorn.

But on a more frivolous note, here are some thoughts from the last newsletter on Pluto in Cap and fashion and food. Followed by some musings on the world role of Cuba over the coming decade.

Here’s an I-told-you-so moment. Remember a while back I said Pluto in Capricorn was going to mean a shift in fashion from anything-goes, boho-chic towards more adult, structured, practical, and smart clothing. Here’s a recent quote from the Guardian: “There’s a new mood on the high street, says Imogen Fox. And it heralds a welcome return to sophisticated, sensibly priced clothes for grown-ups.” Perfect Pluto in Cap!

The key here is to remember that Saturn rules Cap, and Pluto rules Scorpio, so try combining all these flavors (as if cooking with astrological symbols) and see what kind of dish you get. Certainly sensible and nourishing, but nonetheless slightly prestigious food. This is grown-up British nursery food with rich, deep tastes: curried parsnip soup, home-cooked steak and vegetable pie, apple and blackcurrant tart, Stilton and grapes.

And then if the dish became a mood, we find we’re talking businesslike, perceptive, and thinking for the long-term. It’s not necessarily flashy, but it is meaningful and intelligent, paring down the unnecessary and getting things done. Everyone I’ve known with a strong Cap/Scorpio combination in their chart is successful in their chosen career, and usually well off. They’re not always easy to deal with, but they know what matters. Pluto is going to shake up the places Cap gets stuck, especially when it gets caught in materialism, but it is also going to flavor this era with the Capricorn strengths of practicality, common sense, and good management.

Along these lines, I think we’re going to see Cuba become an inspiration to the rest of the world in terms of sustainability and low-impact living. Over the coming decade I think our collective attitude is going to radically change towards this country. Not surprisingly, Cuba’s 1902 national chart (Independence 20 May 1902) shows a Scorpio Moon and Saturn dignified in Capricorn (interestingly, conjunct the US Pluto). The other chart we can use for Cuba, the 1898 Treaty of Paris chart, also has a Scorpio Moon, and Mercury in Capricorn.

In this issue:
The New Year Finally Begins!
Chinese/Tibetan New Year
Imbolc: Rituals and Significance
Celebrating Imbolc Today
Imbolc This Year
All Change in the Heavens
February Eclipses
The Planets February 2—March 21
Notes on Pluto in Capricorn: fashion, food, Cuba.

The last four sections are for subscribers to the email version of the newsletter only. Click here to subscribe.

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THE NEW YEAR FINALLY BEGINS!

I find that the New Year doesn’t really get going energetically until early February, which is when Imbolc, the Celtic New Year, was traditionally celebrated. Sometimes astrological patterns wake the year up earlier, but not this year, with Mars retrograde all through January, holding matters back in general.

Perhaps it’s helpful to see the New Year as a phase rather than a moment: a period that runs from the Winter Solstice in late December right through to early February. In the UK tax returns are due at the end of January, which I find quite harmonious, as it means one deals with the old year in the first month of the new one. After clearing up paperwork, then creativity and fresh ideas for the future are free to emerge into the dawning light of the new year.

Early February has long been celebrated as a holiday in many cultures: in ancient Ireland it was Imbolc and Brigid’s Day, in the Mediterranean and later in all of Europe, it was Candlemas and St. Bridget’s Day. In the US Feb 2 is Groundhog Day, a celebration of the lengthening days causing small furry creatures to poke their noses out of their hibernation holes and sniff the warming air. The Chinese and Tibetan New Years also occur in this time period, usually falling somewhere in the late January, early February window.

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the land, refreshed from the resting period of winter and purified by frosts, is getting ready for cultivation, for the renewal of the agricultural year. This is a moment of quickening, as the spark of life reappears, coming up from its deep underground slumber.

CHINESE/TIBETAN NEW YEAR

This year Chinese and Tibetan New Year fall on Feb 7. Both are calculated in the same fashion: it’s sometimes said that it’s the first new moon with the Sun in Aquarius, which, while it is usually the case, is not actually correct. I’m not going to go into the whole saga of the complex Chinese/Tibetan lunisolar calendar, but in brief, the New Year is the first New Moon in the Chinese/Tibetan Year. This year the New Moon in early February is also a Solar Eclipse, making this a particularly notable beginning to the year.

In Tibet this holiday is called Losar (literally—LO means year and SAR means new), and is a fifteen day festival, the biggest in the whole year. Before the festival begins, the last day of the old year is used for cleaning up, and the festival itself is marked by a variety of religious and secular ceremonies to usher in the new.

In China the New Year is a huge celebration. I was in Beijing once for New Year and it was like being in a war zone: the noise of the fireworks was deafening and went on all night.

2008 is the Year of the Rat, which is the first sign of the Chinese zodiac, making it a new beginning of the twelve-year long cycle, a kind of double New Year. In Western astrology we can also see an amplification of the New Year theme because we have so many planets changing signs and directions around now, a theme I’ll develop in more detail later on in the newsletter. Several of these changes involve a shift into Earth signs, and in another parallel, this year in Chinese astrology is the year of the Earth Rat (there are five elements, so the Earth Rat year occurs once every 60 years). Earth Rat years are considered to be good for practical matters and for getting ahead in life (Rats being ambitious and able), but also deliver surprises and reversals. The last Earth Rat year was 1948, a year of great global change and reorganization.

IMBOLC: RITUALS AND SIGNIFICANCE

The Celts celebrated the beginning of February with bonfires and feasts, believing that the year begins when the Sun reaches the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, (15 degrees of Aquarius), marking the return of warmth and light and fertility in the Northern Hemisphere. Although often cited as occurring on February 2, the exact time of Imbolc is a day or two later, and this year falls on February 4, just before noon GMT (4 am Pacific, 7 am Eastern).

Like the other cross-quarter days (the festivals that fall midway between the solstices and equinoxes), Imbolc was a fire festival and a major holyday in the Celtic calendar. It was the festival of the lactation of the ewes: the word Imbolc is Gaelic for “in the belly” and referred to the pregnant ewes. Sheep were crucial providers of both food and clothing and the arrival of lambs was a time for celebration. The specific areas of dedication at Imbolc, associated with Brigit, the Irish virgin goddess, were virgins, healing, and poets. Imbolc is a virginal time: everything is new, purified by winter and becoming ready for impregnation, the sowing of the seed. It’s not clear how the association with poetry fits in here, but one can surmise that it’s because poetry is the purest of the creative forms and needs no tools other than the voice. (Extemporaneous poetry was the most highly esteemed of the Bardic arts, requiring purity of mind and clarity of intent in order to allow the voice of the divine to enter through the channel of the poet.)

Brigid/Brigit, also known as Brighid, Bride, Brighde, or Bridget, was a major goddess in the ancient Celtic pantheon. She was adopted by the early Christian Church as St Bridget and frequently associated with the Virgin Mary. She was sometimes a midwife to Mary and at other times conflated with her, as in medieval Ireland where she was known as Mary of the Gael and revered as a muse to poets. The Christians adopted the holiday of St. Brigit’s Day/Imbolc and called it Candlemas, integrating the old practice of lighting new candles on this day as symbolic of the new light, the new year, the new impetus for creativity. It is still the day of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, as February 2 is, forty days since December 25, the birthday of Jesus.

If you are ever in London, I recommend a visit to St. Bride’s Church in Fleet Street, one of the oldest churches in the city. There is an ancient crypt underground that one can visit and meditate in. Seven churches have been built on the site over the past two thousand years: this is an ancient place of worship, and has an palpable, deep, earth energy, very nourishing and feminine. Due to the proximity of the first printing press and the subsequent growth of the print trade, St Bride’s has long been associated with printing and journalism, and has a side-chapel with an altar dedicated to journalists imprisoned or killed in their line of work.

St Bride’s song

I long for a great lake of ale
I long for the meats of belief and pure piety
I long for flails of penance at my house
I long for them to have barrels full of peace
I long to give away jars full of love
I long for them to have cellars full or mercy
I long for cheerfulness to be in their drinking
I long for Jesus too to be there among them.

CELEBRATING IMBOLC TODAY

Simple things to do to honor Imbolc include lighting new candles throughout the house, wearing new clothes, and making lists of intentions for the coming season. If you want to have a feast, the dish of choice is roast lamb. But don’t forget that Imbolc is also a good time for a detox or fast, as the watchwords for this phase are purification and cleansing.

The purity of the Imbolc symbolism is very much part of the newness of the year. Life is refreshed by cleansing, by letting go. This is a time to release attachment to past pain, to let go of whatever out-dated stories about yourself and your life you are hanging onto, to allow the healing of forgiveness and acceptance to soothe old injuries of heart and soul.

It is an excellent time to review what has and has not already been achieved, and to assess which of your dreams you still want to pursue and which ones you might as well let go of.

It’s a potent time to clear away past disappointments, to let go of old ideas about yourself, and step fully into the present. And on the mundane and physical level, it’s a great time to clear out and give away all that stuff you no longer need.

IMBOLC THIS YEAR

Imbolc this year is followed almost immediately by a New Moon, which is also a Solar Eclipse. If you can, do all your clearing out and purifying before this New Moon, so you can really use the energy of the eclipse for a brand new start. This is a mega-new beginning, a doubled up New Year. At the eclipse both Sun and Moon are closely conjunct retrograde Mercury, and are moving towards the conjunction with Neptune, making this a strong period for spiritual work and healing. It’s also a great time to commune with the muse and write a song or poem. The New Moon is also exactly semi-sextile Venus, adding to the artistic nature of this period, and to possibilities for romance and romantic gestures.

We have a generous time period at Imbolc this year for noticing the opening of springtime within and without. From Imbolc (Feb 2-4) through to the New Moon and Eclipse on Feb 7 is a great time for eliminating and purifying, and the New Moon itself is an excellent window for meditating and asking for inspiration. Enjoy the gradual beginning of spring, and if you feel so moved, make some enlivening New Year resolutions!

With love,

Lara

February 1 2008