Altar at Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Photo by Eric Francis.
By Judith Gayle
WITH OUR retrogrades in place, and a series of trines and sextiles this month, we can enjoy a little breathing room in both the political picture and our own lives. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in fire signs are joined by Venus, taking her pass through Leo. The enthusiasm of fire is both warming and scorching, depending on the day, and it amps up activity, opportunity, and social patterns. Projects may come together a bit more easily this month, and the fifth house context of Venus will open our hearts to amplify our possibilities for creativity and affection.
For instance, with the kids out of school now, or soon, we may find ourselves with the inclination to welcome them with a nuzzle and a purr, not a growl. Gatherings with friends and family in these weeks of easier energy will give us a chance to show appreciation for one another, mix it up with laughter and enjoyment. The summer has the potential to be hot and heated, both, and expressing our pleasure in the company of loved ones now will set the tone for the months ahead.
Summer remains a mystery to me, here in the Pea Patch. I was startled in the last days of May by unexpected little lights in the night sky. It only took a moment to identify them as fireflies, the
majikal inhabitants of hot summer nights here in the Midwest. Lightning bugs aren't due in this area until the first weeks in July, along with fireworks, stargazing and picnics. I recognized them with a moan. Here was yet another sign of the climate speeding up, changing into something I no longer recognize. When I mentioned it to my son, he said he'd seen a news report that said they were "going." I said, "South?" "Nope," he replied, "just going." I cried.
Every weekend I enjoy a marathon chat with my daughter in Southern California. The conversation is always interrupted by the children's needs, reminding me that mothering is a full-time job and prompting amazement that I found the energy to make my way through it joyfully. This last weekend, Rebecca was admonishing five- year-old Gracie and her little neighbor, playing in the backyard, not to eat more than a couple of peaches lest they court a tummy ache. "Peaches, already? Isn't it way too early?" I asked. "They're ripe and dropping off the tree," she said with a sigh. "But the plums are hard little green knots. I don't know what's going on there."
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By Kirsti Melto
New Moon in Gemini -- June 15, 2007, 03:13 UT. Chart by Solar Fire.
THE NEW MOON occurs at 23+ degrees Gemini. Sabian Symbol for Gemini 24 by Marc Edmund Jones: "
Children skating on ice. This is a symbol of the persisting imminence of adventure in experience, and of the constant danger to self in failing to sustain or order the complex of things as they are. Implicit in the symbolism is the value of an established reality as a foundation for further refinement of personal capacity and skill. The satisfaction of a successful self-expression always must remain a dynamic impetus to further achievement, and so never become a static aplomb or a surrender to self as it stands. The keyword is
fun."
The New Moon conjuncts centaur planet Cyllarus.
The Sun, Moon and Cyllarus are opposite Pluto on the Galactic Core, trine Neptune and sextile to a triple conjunction of Mars, 1992 QB1 and Eris in Aries. Mars sextiles Neptune and trines Saturn. Saturn and Neptune are approaching their third exact opposition, which will occur on June 25. Saturn sextiles Cyllarus and forms a trine to Eris and to 1992 QB1. Neptune sextiles Eris and 1992 QB1. Mars = Sun/Neptune = Moon/Neptune.
Jupiter conjunct the Great Attractor sextiles Chiron in Aquarius. Jupiter sextiles also Juno-2003 EL61-Rhadamanthus conjunction in Libra. Jupiter = Chiron/Juno.
Mercury is moving very slowly at the moment of the New Moon; it's almost standing still, getting ready to make its retrograde station, which happens later on the same day at 23:40 UT. Mercury doesn't make aspects to any main planets, but it is in close conjunction with asteroid Industria. "Industria" is the Latin word for "diligence." Diligence is one of the seven virtues and the opposite of sloth, its counterpart among the seven deadly sins.
The New Moon semisquares Venus, which is in conjunction with asteroid Sisyphus. Sisyphus of Greek mythology was compelled as a punishment to roll a huge rock up a hill forever. Before he reached the top of the hill, the rock always escaped him and he had to start again. Martha Lang-Wescott calls the Venus-Sisyphus conjunction the "Mother Teresa aspect."
Both Industria and Sisyphus seem to have a relationship with a great amount of continuous work. Eric Francis explained the difference to me:
"I think that the key difference will be that Sisyphus work will seem pointless, while Industria work will feel like inventing a process to extract bromine from fossilized seawater, leading to many other developments (such as plastics and dioxins). In other words, industrialists stop at nothing. But look at the world they create."
Venus also conjuncts two centaur planets, Okyrhoe and Elatus. According to
Philip Sedgwick, Okyrhoe "promotes principles of discernment and conscious life skills." His delineation for Elatus is "expression of self and ego through word and writing."
Uranus squares Cyllarus and sextiles Sedna. Pallas is in close conjunction with Uranus. Pallas and Uranus oppose cubewano Logos in Virgo tightly. Another opposition in Virgo-Pisces polarity is formed by main belt asteroids Urania and Psyche. Urania is named after the heavenly muse of astrology and astronomy. Urania-Psyche opposition is aligned with the nodal axis.
Ceres occupies the discovery degree of Chiron at 3+ degrees Taurus.
The brightest asteroid, Vesta -- among other things representing issues related to work -- at 5+ degrees Sagittarius shines exceptionally bright these days, as Vesta will reach its perihelion (the point where an object orbiting the Sun is closest to the Sun) on June 16.
Eris = 21 Aries 28
2003 EL61 = 12 Libra 29 r
The Great Attractor = 14 Sag 08
The Galactic Core = 26 Sag 58
Today's responses to reader letters by Eric Francis are an archive selection from |
the Astrology Secrets Revealed forum, distributed while Eric is on sabbatical. |
Sunset in the north of France, facing the English Channel. Photo by Eric Francis.
Friday 12th August 2005
Stop Smoking?
Dear Eric,
I wish to quit smoking. It is a 30-year habit and one which I have been unsuccessful in the past in putting behind me. My birth date is March 24, 1959 and I was born at 9:15 am in Columbus, Ohio. Is there a better time to begin for success this time?
Sincere thanks!
Sarah
Dear Sarah,
It's never too late to quit smoking, and now is a great time, so congratulations on stating your desire out loud where several hundred thousand people can send you loving and supportive vibes. People click on this web page every minute who want to quit smoking, a choice I whole-heartedly support, because there is no singe more important thing you can do for your health or quality of life on this planet, none that I can think of anyway. So you have good company.
Addictions are complicated. But many people have managed to quit. You might want to find out how they did it. I suggest you ask some of your friends or colleagues what they learned from quitting smoking. I am sure that you will hear some interesting stories. I thought I would run this past Jonathan, who is a careful observer of himself and of life, and see if he had something to add to the discussion. "No matter how righteous you feel from giving up one vice," he said, "there's always another bad habit left to break."
I will interpret this, a bit, if I may. Improving our lives is a process. Life is a process. Astrology has a lot to say about processes, because it deals with cycles.
It seems that your relationship with cigarettes goes a bit about one full Saturn cycle, which is about 29 years. (If you're into astrology and somebody blurts out, mumbles or sings anything in approximate range of 30 years, your mind should respond: 'Saturn'.) So you are having this discussion just after the Saturn return of having started smoking. That's interesting. The Saturn return is a point of maturity and restructuring. I wonder, in that case, what was going on at the beginning of the cycle. That would be around the age of 15, or perhaps even 12 (around when Saturn crossed your Gemini ascendant for the first time).
Checking additional transits for when you started smoking, it seems you were under quite a bit of pressure. (Pluto was opposing your Sun, for example.) I think there might be a real benefit in going back to the beginning and taking a look at what your life was about; what expectations you had, what needs you had identified; and what you were dealing with at the time. There was certainly a lot of pressure to be self-sufficient; you may have been dealing with a sense of alienation.
Whatever the case, I would view the themes of your life when you started smoking as being perfectly relevant to your desire to stop smoking now. Addictions almost always function as a cover story for something else, and we need to get to what that something else is. This is one reason why they are so difficult to get out of. If we treat the addiction without looking at, and working with, the rest of the story, then 'quitting' is like trying to smooth out the surface of water with a canoe paddle.
If we were working together on a client-basis, I would also (based on certain chart factors) want to hear the most detailed possible account of your mother's pregnancy with you, and of the first six months of your life. I know you don't remember, but I would ask you to collect facts from relatives, make a list of everything you know, no matter how seemingly trivial, and have a good idea of who was around you and how they treated you.
There appears to have been quite a lot of emotional stress. Without getting into too many details, I can tell this because of the position of your Venus and your Moon. I think you are carrying around old grief that comes through your mum and other women in your family. This is likely to be a situation of 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. It is something that's so 'natural' that you barely notice it.
Smoking is a deeply emotional habit. There are all kinds of feelings and hidden feelings associated with it. Generally, people are quite angry at themselves for smoking, and I have never seen the idea proposed that the real addiction is to this self-directed anger. In homeopathy, the remedy tabacum (made from tobacco) is used to treat constriction of the heart. No wonder that cigarette smoke attacks the heart.
Smoking is often a cover for childhood grief. The habit can quite literally be rooted in this grief, and your chart speaks of this strongly. Of course, it's much more acceptable to walk around and say, 'I'm quitting smoking, everyone' than it is to say, 'My mother suffered some terrible loss as a young woman, which leads me to be in all kinds of fear that I don't understand, so I deal with it in these ways that don't work, one of which is smoking'.
In the physical and psychic sense, I view smoking as a holistic issue. It affects every organ and system in the body. It threatens the existence of the body in its current form (alive). And it has many connections on the emotion-spirit level. When dealing with such a situation, I suggest you think of it in terms of a whole system solution. You could look at quitting smoking as something you would do independently of everything else, or you could look at it as something that is part of an overall improvement in how you take care of yourself and a change in perception of how you think of yourself.
It's one thing to say 'I'm going to stop hurting myself'. It's another thing entirely to begin to help yourself in every possible way, and to orient on that as a purpose. Which is of course the real issue anyway.
Quitting smoking is ceasing to do something. If, at the same time, you put your energy into making three positive changes (or concrete improvements) in your life, along with this one subtractive change (quitting), you might find that you have better success. This will keep the focus positive. For example (you may already be onto these things, so they are just examples), you could learn about better nutrition and make improvements to the quality of the food you eat -- including its aesthetic quality. You could decide to have a more sensual experience of life, for example, more touch. You could pay attention to your social needs with greater emphasis, and start building the right companionship, or being around the people you love more.
There is of course the issue of how many of our friends smoke. Since coming to the UK Europe, I hardly know anyone who does not smoke cigarettes, and I find this truly distressing. This might be a good opportunity to seek out some non-smoking friends, as 'people, places and things' can trigger a return to old habits.
I also recommend that people going through significant life changes pay a visit to the homeopath. Homeopathy is a whole-system, non-toxic approach to healing. Homeopathy is deeply concerned with getting to the energetic roots of situations, and reaching these roots can bring on a lot of awareness, personal growth, and attention to health generally. There is someone named Ardianna Holman who works in London. She is young and very bright and has a true calling to the work. Perhaps she can help you as well. You can contact her
here.
Continued Here...
Evergreen trees, American southwest. Photo by Eric Francis.
