Archive for June, 2018

Full Moon in Capricorn — June 28, 2018, 04:53 UT

Thursday, June 28th, 2018

Last night, if the sky was clear, you were able to see a bright spot beside the Full Moon. The Full Moon occurred in Capricorn, and the bright spot was the ruler of the sign, Saturn. The Full Moon is always an opposition of the Sun and the Moon, and now there is also Saturn opposite the Sun, reflecting its light.

There was also a third body with the Moon and Saturn, but so small and distant that you were not able to see it, not even if you had binoculars. It was 330836 Orius.

It is difficult to find any information on 330836 Orius. Still today, after nine years since its discovery and five years since its naming, I am not able to find even a Wikipedia page in English. I think this is due the fact that planetary studies are quite America centered, and 330836 Orius was discovered by Latvian astronomers Kazimieras Cernis and Ilgmars Eglitis at Baldone observatory in Latvia.

330836 Orius is a minor planet which belongs to the centaur class. Its orbital period around the Sun is almost 100 years and its diameter is approximately somewhere between 30 and 80 km. It was discovered in April 2009 and named in January 2013 after a centaur from Greek mythology. Centaur Orius lived in the mountains, and was killed by Heracles in the riot at centaur Pholus’s cave, when Heracles tried to steal the wine, which was common property of the centaur tribe.

Finland’s best-known film director Aki Kaurismäki (born April 4, 1957) has a conjunction of the Sun (identity), Venus (values) and 330836 Orius in Aries. The conjunction is trining his Saturn in Sagittarius and in sextile to his Mars in Gemini. Aki Kaurismäki’s film characters are usually people living outside the mainstream. Despite the melancholy and the setbacks that characters are facing, they are persistent, and there is hope for a better world.

Aki Kaurismäki has twice boycotted the Oscar awards. In 2003 “The Man Without a Past” was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of the best foreign language film, but Kaurismäki refused to attend the Oscar ceremony as a protest against the U.S. war in Iraq. In 2006 “Lights in the Dusk” was chosen to be Finland’s nominee for the best foreign language film, but Kaurismäki refused the nomination as a protest against President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. In an interview Kaurismäki once said: “The meaning of life is to acquire personal moral principles that respect the nature and other human beings and then follow them.”

Other examples of 330836 Orius can be found here:

New Moon in Cancer — June 24, 2017, 02:31 UT

New Moon in Gemini – June 13, 2018, 19:43 UT

Wednesday, June 13th, 2018

The New Moon at 22+ degrees of Gemini was in conjunction with a trans-Neptunian body 19521 Chaos, which was discovered almost 20 years ago. 19521 Chaos has an orbital period of 309 years and its orbit never crosses the orbit of Neptune.

In contemporary language when we speak of chaos, we are usually referring to a state of confusion. However, 19521 Chaos is named after the primeval state of existence in Greek mythology, the dark, formless void preceding the creation of the universe. The first gods appeared from that void, including Gaia (Earth). Chaos was a creator like no other. It is almost as if the ancient Greek had been aware of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang did not come out of nothing. There was a chaotic state, where time and space as we now understand them were yet to form. Our current understanding of time and space cannot be applied to the time which preceded the Big Bang. It was a moment of great transformation. Stephen Hawking, who meritoriously studied the origin of the universe, has an exact sextile aspect between his Sun and Chaos in his natal chart.

Dualism and polarity are important principles of astrology; there are two poles in everything. The phrase “edge of chaos” has come to refer to a metaphor that some physical, biological, economic and social systems operate in a region between order and either complete randomness or chaos, where the complexity is maximal. It is this area slightly off the familiar ground, where new energy takes form and fresh solutions emerge.

Among the events which have taken place, and the people who have been born, while the Sun has been conjunct Chaos, are the following:

Feb. 9, 1916 — Tristan Tzara “founds” the art movement Dadaism, an art movement of the European avant-garde. The Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-capitalist protest in their works.

Feb. 14, 1922 — Finnish Minister of the Interior Heikki Ritavuori is assassinated. The murder of a government minister is a rare occurrence in Finland.

Feb. 20, 1925 — Robert Altman, American film director was born.

Feb. 21, 1925 — Sam Peckinpah, American film director was born.

Feb. 26, 1932 — Johnny Cash, American country singer was born.

Feb. 27, 1932 — The Mäntsälä rebellion, a failed coup attempt by the Lapua Movement to overthrow the Finnish government, occurs in Finland.

March 7, 1940 — Rudi Dutschke, German radical student leader was born.

March 9, 1942 — John Davies Cale, a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground, was born.

Apr. 11, 1970 — Apollo 13 is launched toward the Moon but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later. Despite great hardship the crew returned safely to Earth.

May 10. 1994 — Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president.

June 6, 2013 –Edward Snowden discloses operations engaged in by a U.S. government mass surveillance program to news publications and flees the country, later being granted temporary asylum in Russia.