Archive for August, 2021

Full Moon in Aquarius — August 22, 2021, 12:02 UT

Sunday, August 22nd, 2021

The first Full Moon in Aquarius happened a month ago, when the Sun and the Moon lined up opposite each other in the early degrees of Leo and Aquarius. This is the second Full Moon in Aquarius. Just before opposing the Sun in the last degree of Leo, the Moon made contact to the Jupiter-Damocles conjunction in late Aquarius.

Full Moon in Aquarius
There is a kite configuration in the chart. The Leo Sun and the triple conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Damocles in Aquarius form the spine. Chaos in the last degree of Gemini and Hidalgo, which has just changed signs from Libra to Scorpio, are the wing tips of the kite. These minor planets are apt symbols for the present situation in Afghanistan. The situation of women and children is most alarming.

According to the official naming citation of 5335 Damocles, “Legend has it that Damocles, a courtier of the tyrant Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, was invited to a feast, where he was seated below a sword suspended by a thread. Intended to demonstrate the impermanence of power, the ‘sword of Damocles’ has become a symbol of impending disaster. This minor planet, in an unusual orbit of very high eccentricity and inclination and crossing the orbits of Mars to Uranus, could itself be seen as such a sword during periods of its orbital evolution when it becomes an earth crosser.”

Both 5335 Damocles and 944 Hidalgo can be classified as centaurs according to the definition of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JLP). However, different institutions have different criteria for classifying the centaurs. Therefore the Minor Planet Center does not consider them such. Damocles was discovered in 1991. It is the namesake of the damocloids group. Its orbital period is nearly 41 years. In the astrological chart it spends most of it, around 30 years, in Aquarius, and then hurries through the eleven other signs in about ten.

Hidalgo was discovered already in 1920 and named after Mexican revolutionary Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753 – 1811). He was a Catholic priest and leader of the Mexican War of Independence. The orbital period of Hidalgo is 13 years and 9 months. It has traditionally been considered an asteroid, but its elliptic orbit takes it from the inner edge of the asteroid belt as far as to the orbit of Saturn. Hidalgo was possibly once a comet.

According to astrologer Martha Lang-Wescott (Mechanics of the Future: Asteroids, revised edition,1996), in its most specific and mundane manifestation, Hidalgo shows as an affinity for or contact with Spanish, Mexican, South or Latin American cultures, languages or influences. But she continues: “Hidalgo also deals with Church vs. State conflicts (ie., the abortion issue) and ‘revolutionary’ governments, or governments based on strong religious or political ideologies.”

August 19 is celebrated as Independence Day in Afghanistan. When Afghanistan gained independence from Britain in 1919, the Sun at 25+ degrees of Leo was opposite Chaos and Hidalgo at 24+ Aquarius and Uranus at 29+ Aquarius. The Taliban declared the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” a few days ago, on Aug. 19, 2021, when the transiting Sun was strictly opposite the current Jupiter-Damocles opposition. The aforementioned oppositions align tightly together, as does today’s Full Moon.


President Biden decided to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan, but Trump had already started the process. This Full Moon puts pressure on both of them. The Sun-Moon opposition falls right on Joe Biden’s lunar nodes in the last degrees of Leo and Aquarius and square to his natal Sun in late Scorpio. In addition, his Chiron is conjunct his North node in late Leo. Trump’s descendant is in the last degree of Aquarius, and his Mars is rising in Leo, a few degrees away from the ascendant.

New Moon in Leo — August 08, 2021, 13:50 UT

Sunday, August 8th, 2021

The New Moon in Leo is in conjunction with Mercury and Praamzius, a trans-Neptunian minor planet discovered by a Lithuanian astronomer Kazimieras Černis in January 2012. Praamzius is now opposite the midpoint of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius. When Praamzius was discovered, there was a New Moon in Aquarius, and the luminaries formed a t-square with Jupiter in early Taurus and Saturn in late Libra.

New Moon in Leo
Cubewano Praamzius was named in 2016 from Lithuanian mythology after the chief god Praamžius, an epithet of Dievas, the primordial supreme god in the Baltic mythology. According to the official naming citation, “Praamzius is the oldest and highest Lithuanian god related to the creation of the world. He is the god of the sky, peace and friendship in Lithuanian mythology.”

Quoting Jonas Trinkūnas, the founder of Lithuania’s neo-pagan movement Romuva: ”The world is eternal. It is continuously created by the eternal godly powers. According to Lithuanian mythology, the world is created and re-created by at least two gods – light and darkness, creation and destruction (Dievas and Velnias). Their relationship created harmony and vitality. – – – In the ancient Baltic faith, the mysterious origins of the world and its constant rebirth are mentioned with other names as well: Praamzis, Andojas, Pradziapatis, Sutvaras, Kurejas.”

Praamzius

In the picture above, Praamzius has the symbol of the crescent Moon on his head. The Crescent Moon phase begins approximately three and a half days after the conjunction of the New Moon. The word crescent literally means “increasing” or “growing”. In the seed metaphor, this lunation phase corresponds to the seed breaking out of its casing and pushing the first sprout above the ground.

Praamzius is said to be the ruler of time. The name Praamzius means “before time”. He has thus some resemblance with the Greek Cronus (Kronos) and the Roman Saturn.

In Greek mythology, Cronus was the god of time and the leader of Titans, the pre-Olympian gods. Cronus was said to be the father of the wise centaur Chiron. Cronus ruled during the mythological Golden Age of plenty and peace. The Golden Age was a period of peace, harmony, stability, and prosperity. Cronus was identified with the Roman god Saturn.

Saturn was described as a god of generation, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. He also became known as the god of time. In late antiquity, Saturn was syncretized with a number of deities, and began to be depicted as winged, as was Caerus (Kairos), the personification of opportunity, luck and favorable moments. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. The former refers to chronological or sequential time, while the latter signifies a proper or opportune time for action.

Saturn was especially celebrated during the festival of Saturnalia each December. Also Praamzius is celebrated in December at the Winter solstice, followed by the gradual return of the Sun.

Praamzius as the god of peace corresponds well with the astronomical eccentricity of this minor planet. The orbital eccentricity of an object determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. With an eccentricity of 0.003 in 2016, cubewano Praamzius had one of the lowest eccentricities of any trans-Neptunian object, and a more circular orbit than any major planet, including Venus, the least eccentric planet. Praamzius’s eccentricity varies a bit over time due to the position of the planets.

Some resemblance can be found also between Praamzius and the Green Man, the symbol of rebirth and seasonal renewal, although the Green Man is celebrated in spring or summer.

Sally Nicholls (born June 22, 1983), the prize-winning British children’s book author, has her Sun conjunct Praamzius in the beginning of the Cancer sign. Her first novel Ways to Live Forever: Every Minute Counts (2008), is a story of Sam, a child who is dying of leukemia. The book raises the question, what matters most when one hasn’t got time forever and every minute counts. Nicholls’s second novel Season of Secrets (2009) is based on the Green Man.

Chart of Sally Nicholls