Issue 11, March 2008

   Moon Magic
   Astrology Primer
  

Happy New Astrological Year!

Spring is really beginning to show its true colours around Tara now. The roadsides so recently grey and grim are speckled with the butter yellow of daffodils; once bare branches are ghosted with budding green and even the rosy hue of the Cherry Blossom has made its first appearance. So, in the northern hemisphere at least, the symbolism of birth and beginnings pervades this time as the Sun moves into Aries and marks the new astrological year.

Ingrid's regular feature on Full and New Moons this month beautifully bridges the dissolution of the current Pisces mood to the emergent energy of the Aries Sun and its opposing Full Moon on March 21^st. Meanwhile, Barry returns to the astrological houses for a more in depth look in this month's Astrology Primer.

 Enjoy!

Ingrid and Barry.

Moon Magic

“A Mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed, and plunging down,
Forgot that even in happiness,
Even lovers drown.”

William Butler Yeats

Full Moon in Virgo

Perhaps the lunar eclipse on February 21^st GMT passed you by not with a bang but a whimper, and simply signified nothing in your life. Yet we do believe that every astrological configuration serves a purpose, if you are willing embrace the potential for expansion of consciousness within the realms of possibility on this earth plane, and to work with metaphor to bring texture to our human existence. Eclipses, as we have said before, are like delicate watercolour brush strokes on the canvas of the horoscope. We may feel their effects if we allow ourselves the time and space in the distracted busyness of our lives to “tune in” and listen to that Still Voice of Calm.

An eclipse in the early degrees of Virgo emphasises the great importance on our inner world, a templum we may seldom enter if we become too enmeshed in the demands of the dragons of our dependencies and debilitating doubts. The Virgin goddesses were self possessed. They belonged to no man. This is the archetype of the man or woman who is self contained, integrated, and dependent on no one for “completion”. This Virgin Eclipse spotlights our human need for synthesis and integration of the psyche and the link between our minds and our physical bodies so that we can engage in the world with genuine integrity and humility.

So as we prepare for the spring equinox, let us use the symbolism of the lunar eclipse to seek inner at-onement, and wholeness even as we deal with the practicalities of the outer world.

New Moon in Pisces

The Moon turns to unveil her beauty to the Sun on March 7^th, in a sacred marriage of self and soul, the alchemical coniunctio give us a glimpse of the profound psychic importance of the rite of marriage as a symbol of union, as it is in the area of our relationships that we are at our most vulnerable unless we love in freedom from the heart. New Moon and a new monthly cycle in the great wheel of time. Use the Pisces energy this month to Love with Compassion, to Create from the depths of your Soul, and to Sing your Song… from the heart.

The Sun, a metaphor for vibrant Life Force, slipped into the watery sign of Pisces on February 19^th, igniting splendiferous rainbows over the moist, greening landscape. On February 24^th, Saturn, the great teacher, was poised in opposition to the Pisces Sun. This was our clarion call to discover our own inner authority, and ask ourselves, “Why am I creating this in my life?” If we want healthy, happy relationships, then why do we not experience them? If we want abundance and prosperity, then why do we hunger and thirst?

The watercolour Pisces mood this month suggests we abandon ourselves to the sweet song of the melusine, or mermaid, to soften, indulge and bring moisture and greenness back into our lives after the long dark month of January. Moisture brings the healing feminine back into our lives… it is through our tears, our blood, and the slippery wetness of our bodily secretions that we live and love. Through our soul songs—music, dance, and voices raised in harmony.

In myth and fairy tale, the melusine lives in the depths of the ocean or the mysterious darkness of the lake and falls in love with a mortal man, or he becomes enraptured by her ethereal charms. The union is often fraught with sorrow and difficulty, as the mortal tries to trick or impose his own rigid law upon his other worldly lover. Often it is the melusine who agrees to live with him on dry land. All goes well until her lover breaks his promise not to look inside the magic box, or allow her to go home after a certain period of time to sing her siren soul song with others of her kind. In other words, he disrespects the laws of the magical realm. His beautiful lover always disappears into the depths and he is left to grieve his loss… or he drowns in her loving embrace. Sirens, melusines, mermaids, all call men back to the primordial element of water, to die to self and emerge again with new wisdom. Water sustains Life. It represents purification, renewal, spiritual rebirth, as well as annihilation and death. The melusine symbolises the call to the unknown. The call to embrace change, and enter the magical realm between two worlds. This means setting out into the unknown, as we move from one space into another and lose ourselves as we descend into the deep of the unconscious.

Art "The Mermaid", Howard Pyle (1910)

Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, and it represents all of our poignant self-immolation, our soulful longings, our fragile vulnerability, and our sacrifice. Pisces suggests a meeting of two dimensions—the ordinary everyday reality of life and the Collective, interpersonal realm, often involving some kind of sacrifice as we dive deep and descend into the watery realms of the transpersonal land.

The challenge is to swim up to the surface. To bring with us what we glimpsed in the depths of the unconscious through our music, poetry, our movies, our playwriting, our mystical visions which respect the Mystery and Magic of the Otherworld.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare (1609)

Equinox

On March 19th we may feel the more assured of the springtime as the sap rises greening the bare branches of the trees. Primroses and daffodils offer golden splashes of colour to gardens and some grow wild in the hedgerows as the shy snowdrops hang their heads with the lengthening days.

Day and Night are in perfect balance now, so now is the time to plant a seed in the garden of your heart. A seed of faith and hope, a seed of self love so that you may love another fully and honestly. This might be a time to bring more balance into your life—making time for rest and play, making space in your life for relationships and establishing a balance between give and take.

Full Moon in Libra

The Sun moves into assertive, courageous Aries on March 19^th, the first sign of the zodiac, coupling with the Full Moon in Libra. Libra and the seventh house are traditionally associated with marriage and the marriage partner, as well as open enemies. The coniunctio or mystical marriage of alchemy also symbolises an inner integration, a new centre for the psyche so we are more conscious of our own inner needs and conflicts projected onto the other.

What we long for in our life partners, and despise in those who torment us, are often the very qualities we hold within ourselves. Marriage to another cannot create inner wholeness. So at this Full Moon let us take time to reflect on that sacred inner integration which was seeded at the Eclipse, and take some time this month to reorient ourselves.

Astrology Primer

In Issue 3 of our newsletter, we introduced the houses of the horoscope. There, we showed that houses are placed relative to the angles of the chart, with the 1^st house beginning at the Ascendant, and counting anti-clockwise around the 12 houses of the chart. Houses stand for areas in life where planetary energies play out. We described the meaning of planets placed in a particular house, as well as the importance of the sign in which each house begins.

Our aim this month is to delve into the meanings of the first six houses.

First House: how we meet the world

Associated with: Aries and Mars

With its cusp on the Ascendant, this is the house of beginnings. It's an indicator of our early childhood; it can be the first thing we do when we get out of bed in the morning. As we step into life, this is the face we wear to meet the world. The face may be a mask behind which we hide our true identity; or it may be the persona we choose to adopt in order to aid us in our journey to become who we truly are, as represented principally by our Sun sign. Traditionally, the 1^st house also describes the physical appearance.

Second House: what we value and hold

Associated with: Taurus and Venus

Possessions are the matter of the 2^nd house. Firstly, it's about our physical body-our very first possession. Later, it's about all the qualities of ourselves that we value, and perhaps fear to lose. And as we go out into the world, the 2^nd house represents all that we value or possess. Here are the physical resources that enable us to survive, most particularly money-how do we earn it and how do we keep it once we have it. The sign and planets in this house show what we desire and what we draw toward us in life.

Third House: what we learn in our local environment

Associated with: Gemini and Mercury

The 3^rd house is where and how we begin to think-and our first thoughts are usually about our local surroundings (after we've finished thinking about ourselves, of course!) and influenced by them. In this house we find our siblings, our neighbours and acquaintances. It's our local environment and day-to-day travel, and even our early schooling. In short, this house is our local context through which we undertake our first journeys, physical and intellectual. It's about speaking and writing, and often associated with professions like journalism or the media.

Fourth House: where grow our roots

Associated with: Cancer and the Moon

The 4^th house cusp is the IC, the lowest point of the chart. This house represents our roots and our home. This is where we feel safest, where we settle in to ourselves and lay our foundations. And the type of atmosphere we create in our own home. Our family of origin is found here, and traditionally our mother, or at least our perception of her. (Traditionally, the father is found in the 10^th house, although some astrologers feel these attributions should be swapped, putting the father in the 4^th.) As the lowest and darkest point in the chart, the IC represents both beginnings and endings, so the 4^th house also shows how we end things and bring thing to closure.

Fifth House: how we express our creativity

Associated with: Leo and the Sun

All that we create in joy as a pure expression of our own unique sense of being special is the matter of the 5^th house. It stands for children-the fruit of our loins-but also for our own Inner Child and every other child we joyfully create, be it a physical object we build, a project we conceive, a book we write or a relationship we co-create. This is the house of romance, expressing that "specialness" we feel in the early, heady stages of a new relationship. Anything we enjoy doing, that makes us glad to be alive, appears in the 5^th: hobbies, amusements and spare-time pleasures. The fifth house is ultimately about what pleases us; not what pleases the world.

Sixth House: where we deal with the day-to-day practicality of life

Associated with: Virgo and Mercury

In contrast to joyful self-expression of the fifth, the 6^th house is where the mundane realities of life appear and demand attention. This reality starts with the routines of our body and health and the need to look after them. If we neglect them, dis-ease and illness are the result. The daily routine of work and the adjustments we need to make to our lives in order to accommodate it are here in the sixth. Service is another keyword for this house, our service to others as well as those who serve us. In its essence, the sixth house is all about how we purify and perfect ourselves through mastery of the skills of daily living and through service to ourselves and humanity.

Next month: The seventh through twelfth houses