Archive for February, 2013

Full Moon in Virgo — February 25, 2013, 20:26 UT

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

The Moon was full in Virgo, the sign which is symbolized by a Virgin carrying a sheaf of corn. The Virgin represents purity. We connect the sign with the harvest time. The Sun in the opposite sign Pisces was in exact conjunction with the god of maize, Teharonhiawako. Magnifying Jupiter in Gemini was tightly in the midpoint squaring the luminaries.

Teharonhiawako is a binary Kuiper belt object with an orbital period of about 295 years. The name comes from Iroquois mythology. The large companion is named Sawiskera. The binary was discovered in 2001. The Iroquois call themselves the Haudenosaunee, which means “They Are Building a Long House.”

In the Haudenosaunee creation myth Teharonhiawako was a son of the granddaughter of the Great Spirit creation god. He became a farmer and was loved by the people. His cruel and destructive twin brother Sawiskera was a skilled hunter, and he was eventually conquered by his brother. The Haudenosaunee were a mix of farmers, fishers, gatherers and hunters, though their main diet came from farming. Corn was one of the main crops and considered as a special gift from the Creator.

Maize, or corn, has been grown thousands of years. It is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas. More than 85% of the US maize crop and more than 30% of the world’s maize crop was genetically modified corn in 2011. Genetically modified crops are plants, the DNA of which has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.

In 1972 an American biochemist Paul Berg (born June 30, 1926) created the first recombinant DNA molecules. His pioneering work led to the development of modern genetic engineering. Paul Berg has a square aspect between his Saturn and Neptune. A square aspect creates action. Saturn represents structure and Neptune’s principle is to dissolve the structure. In triple-conjunction with his Saturn he has asteroid DNA and Teharonhiawako.

GM crops can benefit farmers and possibly help to grow bigger crops in developing countries, but there are also many serious concerns regarding the subject. Potentially GM foods pose a big health risk, and there are environmental concerns, too.

In the past days a so-called horse meat scandal has spread massively in Europe. DNA testing on meat products has been carried out. Horse meat is not dangerous. The issue is not the horse meat, but the faulty package labels. We are entitled to know what we eat, or what exactly is in the food package that we buy. We are entitled to know if there is horse meat in the lasagna, or genetically modified maize in the breakfast cereals. The positive outcome of the developing scandal hopefully is that tracking of the origins of our food becomes easier.

Lastly I want to mention a newly named Centaur planet, Orius, although it is a bit too early to say anything about the astrological meaning of it. In the Full Moon chart Orius is opposite Jupiter, forming a grand square pattern with the luminaries and Jupiter. The minor planet was named after the Centaur Orius, who lived in the mountains, and was killed by Heracles when he tried to steal the wine of Pholus. The body was discovered in 2009 and the naming took place about a month ago. The orbital period is almost 100 years, and its orbit crosses those of Uranus and Neptune.

New Moon in Aquarius — February 10, 2013, 07:20 UT

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

The New Moon at 21+ degrees of Aquarius fell exactly square the lunar nodes on the Taurus-Scorpio axis. The luminaries aspected tightly several Centaur planets (Amycus, Bienor, Pholus and Thereus) and several orbit-crossing minor planets beyond Neptune as well (Eris, Haumea, Ixion and Sedna) at 20-22 degrees of the signs that they occupy.

When the Centaurs are present, we are dealing with the psychological term shadow. We all have a shadow, the rejected, irrational part of our psyche, which we tend to project into other people with feelings of anger and fear. The more these projections are unrecognized, the blacker and taller is the shadow. According to Carl Gustav Jung, the shadow may be in part one’s link to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.

Juan Revilla, one of the pioneering Centaur astrologers, has beautifully used a wolf as a metaphor of the astrological Centaurs. Quoting Juan: “The wolf is a part of ourselves that is socially feared and shunned. But he has great shamanic power. He is outcast and wounded, he can be both loving and fierce, he knows his ways amidst sheer emptiness and hunger, he lives in the solitude of far away and dangerous places. He is wilderness himself, inhospitable nature, like the dark forces of instinct inside of us, but he also incarnates the nobility and sacredness of the wild, and he may come to us with the wisdom of winter… as teacher and healer of our hunger and loneliness inside.”

Aquarius is known as the sign of equality and social grouping, among other things. The Sabian symbol for the New Moon is Aquarius 22: A rug is placed on the floor of a nursery to allow children to play in comfort and warmth. The symbol for the North node’s degree in Scorpio is talking about different kind of social activity: Hunters shooting wild ducks. Keynote: The socially accepted release of an individual’s or group’s aggressive instincts. Dane Rudhyar has clarified: “What this symbol clearly stresses is the socialization of man’s primitive instincts according to a cultural ritual. Social hunting is a regulated seasonal outlet for male aggressiveness – a safety valve for emotional pressures in human beings in whom animal compulsions and biospheric values are still strong.”

In Finland we are currently experiencing a fierce wolf hunt comparable to the one told by Nicholas Evans in The Loop. The book tells a story about a ranching town in Montana, where appearance of wolves reawaken an ancient hatred. It is a story about man’s fight against his own dark side.

The wolf is classified as a highly endangered species in Finland. In recent years our small wolf population has collapsed because of poaching. When in 2006 there were about 300 wolves in our forests, the current figure is about 150. An unusually ugly case emerged just recently in Perho. Three wolves out of a pack of five were shot dead. The Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute had been planning to equip the herd with tracking collars this spring. The illegal hunt had been well planned, and one of the poachers was in a high post in the local game preservation society.

The wolf-hatred is incomprehensible, as they have not attacked humans. Erkki Pulliainen, popularly known as “Susi” (“Wolf”) Pulliainen, a Finnish biologist and an expert on wolves, said a couple of days ago, that the debate on the evilness of the wolf has reached the point, where it may turn to an advantage for wolves.

Nicholas Evans – who has his natal Sun opposing a conjunction of Pholus and 1992 QB1 in his birth chart, by the way – has described The Loop: “It’s about a pack of wolves returning to a place where they had been cruelly hunted to extinction and how their return sets aflame old hatreds. In a way it’s a fable about racism: how ignorance brees fear and hatred and, ultimately, violence.” It is not surprising that lately in the Finnish news one of the hot topics besides the poaching has been racism in Finland.

The lunar nodes are the points in which the Moon’s orbit around the Earth intersects the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth. Thus the nodes involve all three bodies. The South node deals with the past and the matters that are familiar to us, and which we find hard to let go of. The North node shows the direction which we should strive for.

The Moon symbolizes our instincts and emotions; the Sun is the symbol of the ego. The lights were squaring the lunar nodes at the New Moon. Melanie Reinhart calls the points square the nodes as the “balance points”. The New Moon in Aquarius marks the moment in time in which we can let the Centaurs begin to do their healing job and start acknowledging our shadow.