Archive for June, 2020

New Moon in Cancer / Annular Solar Eclipse — June 21, 2020, 06:41 UT

Sunday, June 21st, 2020

Summer Solstice – June 20, 2020, 21:44 UT

The eclipse season of this summer began two weeks ago on June 5, 2020, with a lunar eclipse in Sagittarius. There are three eclipses in this eclipse season. On June 21, 2020, there was the New Moon in Cancer, which was also an annular solar eclipse. Two weeks later, on July 5, 2020, there will be another lunar eclipse in Capricorn.

On June 20, 2020, at 21:44 UT, the Sun entered Cancer. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Only about nine hours after the ingress of the Sun, on June 21, 2020, at 06:41 UT, the solar eclipse occurred in the first degree of the sign, in a close conjunction with the lunar North Node. The Nodes indicate the relationship between the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. They are points where the Moon’s orbit around the Earth intersects the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The North Node is oriented in the future. In both charts it is in the last degree of Gemini. Mercury, the ruler of Gemini is retrograding, which suggests challenges on the way.

The solar eclipse in Cancer occurred in a perfect square to the Aries point, which represents one’s relationship to the larger world around one.

The Cancer solar eclipse was in conjunction with the main belt asteroid 10 Hygiea, which in spite of its small size meets the requirements of a dwarf planet because of its round shape. Asteroid Hygiea is associated with preserving good health. It was named after the Greek personification of health, cleanliness and hygiene. She is reminding us, that although the pandemic restrictions are being loosened in many countries, the virus has not disappeared, and we still need to follow good hygiene practices.

The Minor Planet Center has announced two new namings of the trans-Neptunian objects in June 2020. Provisionally designated 2015 TG387 is now 541132 Leleākūhonua. It was discovered by American astronomers David Tholen, Chad Trujillo and Scott Sheppard in October 2015. Based on the letters TG in its provisional designation and the discovery around Halloween it was first nicknamed as The Goblin.

541132 Leleākūhonua is an extreme trans-Neptunian object (ETNO) and a sednoid. Its elliptical orbit fits exactly into the models of how distant objects should behave if Planet Nine exists. According to the official naming citation, “Leleākūhonua is a life form mentioned in the Hawaiian creation chant, the Kumulipo. The name compares the orbit to the flight of migratory birds and evokes a yearning to be near Earth.” Its orbital period around the Sun is about 35,760 years.

What was the world like 35,000 – 36,000 years ago, when Leleākūhonua last time was in this same position in its orbit? It was before the Last Glacial Maximum. Most parts of North America and northern Europe were covered with ice. The Neanderthals had disappeared only recently, around 40,000 years ago. The oldest cave art discovered in the world is from around 40,000 BP. Some of the early Europeans managed to survive the Ice Age.

The ephemeris of Leleākūhonua is not available at the moment, so unfortunately I am not able to place it in the charts yet.

The other recently named trans-Neptunian is 184314 Mbabamwanawaresa, a cubewano discovered in March 2005 by an American astronomer Marc W. Buie. The orbital period around the Sun is 302 years. In the astrological chart Mbabamwanawaresa is now at 8+ degrees of Scorpio opposite Uranus in Taurus.

184314 Mbabamwanawaresa was named after a Zulu goddess of rain, agriculture, and the harvest. “She is the goddess of rainbows, a symbol of the link between heaven and Earth. She is particularly revered for teaching the people of southern Africa the art of making beer.” Beer is one of the oldest and most popular drinks in the world, and certainly one of the most social ones. Currently we have had to reduce our social contacts to minimum. Perhaps Mbabamwanawaresa’s symbolism is in connection to this situation.

A few days ago Alaska officials airlifted a wrecked bus from a remote trail outside Denali National Park into another location. Perhaps you have seen the film Into the Wild (2007), which tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a young man who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. He spent the last months of his life in that bus and died in it in starvation. He distanced himself socially of his own will. Christopher McCandless had Jupiter in conjunction with Mbabamwanawaresa in early Virgo, opposite retrograde Mercury – the ruler of Virgo – in late Aquarius. Jupiter is one of the so called social planets. Its principle is expansion. It can represent exploration, love of freedom and independence, for instance. The negative side of Jupiter is excess, and in this case perhaps the extreme withdrawal from society.

Jon Krakauer, a writer and mountaineer, the author of the book Into the Wild, which was later filmed, has his Moon conjunct Mbabamwanawaresa in Leo. Sean Penn, the director of the film has the Sun-Mbabamwanawaresa conjunction in Leo. Emile Hirsch who portrayed McCandless has his Pisces Sun opposite Mbabamwanawaresa in Virgo. Eddie Vedder, who performed the songs on the soundtrack of the film, has his Capricorn Sun in trine to Mbabamwanawaresa in Virgo.