An Eclipse - Holy Cow! ~ April 20, 2005

Perhaps you’ve heard that there will be an eclipse on Sunday at 4 Scorpio 20. This is a lunar eclipse, which occur on the full moon, every six months or so. If you want to see a great animation of the eclipse, visit www.spaceweather.com. This eclipse, as SpaceWeather.com points out, is not that much of an eclipse really. The Moon never touches the primary shadow, the umbra, of the Earth; the lunar body is graced only by the secondary shadow of Earth, the penumbra. In terms of magnitude, this should minimize the effects of the eclipse. You might not even notice it.

But, there seems to be a building momentum around this eclipse. Why is that? Well, for one thing it coincides with the Wesak festival, the Buddha’s blessing. That sounds fortuitous. Why all the angst out there? Two centaurs changed signs this last week. Since these bodies have orbits between 24.38 yrs (Okyrhoe) and 194.27 yrs (yet unnamed), such changes stand out as noteworthy. As mentioned in the Weekly Wonders Horoscope this week (yep, on the website), Asbolus entered Aries. On Sunday, Pholus dipped back into Scorpio, joining Hylonome in that zodiacal sector. That definitely adds some intensity. Pholus requires ceremony to stay intact. All acts of life are ceremony he learned. Given Scorpio, the intention behind the ceremony increases in importance adding to Hylonome’s agenda of shedding regret.

These centaurs, while in the sign of the eclipse do not really align with the eclipse. Early in Scorpio, and questionable as to whether or not in orb of the eclipse, are Huya and Deucalion, two Trans-Neptunian bodies in the Kuiper Belt. These work to create images of recreation, and in Deucalion’s case, restoring the world after the great flood. More in orb are Chiron and Nessus, squaring the eclipse from Aquarius. Now we’re getting there. These two, from their vantage, convene and challenge issues of need and want. People can argue the semantics of need and want until the cows come home, where upon, Buddha will surely bless and protect them.

The emerging image for the eclipse asks that a ceremony of invocation be propitiated that sanctions all those things required by one’s soul. Filling the requirements of the soul satisfies cravings and appeases the squeezes of the centaurs who demand that people get back in touch with life and the fact that it does exist on a physical plane. That’s not pressure. That’s a fact.

Inner sustenance of the spirit is important. Consider that next Wednesday, the 27^th, Mars crosses the longitude of the powerful black hole Cygnus X-3. This is one of the stranger ones out there in terms of what places it goes and things it ponders. There is prep work to invoking its richness. There is an amazing short x-ray eclipse period of 4.8 hours. This interval represents a clearing process. Got a bad mood going on? Fine, stick with it for nearly five hours. If you don’t, it doesn’t clear. Need to cry and be sad? Again, stick with it. Make it a ceremony of purging and clearing. That is, after all, what the eclipse, Pholus and Hylonome seek to affirm. Get it done. Get it out. Get clear. Get on with it.

Great! With that done, ride the wave of this black hole way out into the ethers. It will take you to advanced ideas, images of societies that get along, spiritual breakthroughs and nifty inventions. A word to the wise here. Should you come back from your journey all excited and proclaim what you now know, others will look at you as if you just blurted out, “Milk makes good cheese.” Some of the ideas received in this space may take as long as five years to fully implement. Rome was not built in a day, God needed a week for Creation - if you’re into that story, and we don’t know how long the Big Bang actually banged. What we do know, is that before you beat the drum of your greatest insight, be ready. Clear all personal decks first. Establish an impeccable agenda and why not ceremonialize every step of the way?

That’s what I heard a Buddha looking guy suggest at Starbucks yesterday as poured cream in his coffee. As you would expect, his cream rose to the top. Holy cow!