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NEW
MOON
LEO THE LION
FIXED STARS-
SUBRA
CHART OF THE
FULL MOON
DREAM
JOURNEY
NEW MOON
Well, this month the Full Moon occurs at 24 degrees of Leo and 20 minutes, and is exact at 11:44 PM EST, 10:44 PM CST, 9:44 PM MST, and 8:44 PM PST. The Full Moon in Leo, while the Sun is in Aquarius, depicts the heart and circulation systems within the body. One pumps light and life, while the other disseminates that power everywhere it is needed. This central essence can be learning love, and lifting it to its greatest height.
The alignment, generically speaking, can
also represent the dissemination of information to children; teaching
our young ones the appropriate social values. Children are the future of
the world, and the values which blossom in them will be the lessons of
tomorrow. Here are the essential seeds of hope for a brighter future.
From Anne Wright's sight, The Fixed Stars, we learn the following about
Leo: http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/
LEO THE LION
There seems to be no controversy about this constellation. It is there because Zeus considered the lion to be the king of beasts. At one time, lions roamed Greece, but by the Roman Empire it had been hunted to extinction. Scholars have recently maintained that there is no genuine evidence lions were ever present in Greece.
Needless to say, this constellation is also associated with the Nemean lion Heracles killed on his first labor. Heracles strangled the beast, and then skinned and wore it around him as a trophy. Apollodorus reported that the lion was the progeny of Typhon. At first, Heracles attempted to shoot at it with its arrows, but they simply bounced off. So Heracles picked up his club and tracked it down. The lion hid in his cave, and it took Heracles two months to find it and finally choke it to death. He used its own claws to skin it.
Yet this feat by Heracles is also performed
in a similar fashion by Gilgamesh or the Sun god. Some say that the
association of the lion with the Sun is owing to the coincidence of the
lion in the Babylonian zodiac with the summer solstice.
But in conjunction with the story of Virgo, it is important to note that at the tail of Leo, there is a group of seven stars in the shape of a triangle. They are called the lock of Berenice by Callimachus and the mathematician Conon of Samos. When Ptolemy married his sister Berenice, in the customary Egyptian way, he went off to war. Berenice vowed that if Ptolemy would return victorious, she would make a votive offering of a lock of her hair.
After he returned, Berenice did just that at the Temple of Aphrodite Arsinoe Zephyritis. The next day, a fretting Ptolemy searched for the lock, for it had disappeared. However, Conon pointed out that the lock had been placed among the stars, the seven stars representing the lock.
Notes and
history: Leo,
the Lion, lies between Cancer and Virgo. In Greek and Roman myth Leo
represents the Nemean Lion which lived on the Moon and one day descended
to the Earth as a shooting star. A terrible Lion which kept the people
of Nemes in constant alarm, Hercules (1st labor) was sent to kill the
beast by Hera, could no impression on the beast with his club, so he
caught it in his arms, wrestled with it, and squeezed it to death, and
made a cloak and helmet from the creature's hide. Some 4,000 years ago
the Sun reached the Summer Solstice against the background stars of the
Lion. This time of the year is currently the hottest as the regal Sun
and the King of Animals unite their strengths. [SLM p. 252, BML p.195,
LEM p.170, NPS p.114].
The Egyptian king Necepsos, and his philosopher Petosiris, taught that at the Creation the Sun rose here near Denebola in the Lion's tail (the star beta Leonis); and hence Leo was Domicilium Solis, the emblem of fire and heat, and, in astrology, the House of the Sun, governing the human heart. The adoption of this animal's form, for a zodiac sign has been attributed to the fact that when the Sun was among its stars in midsummer, the lions of the desert left their accustomed haunts for the banks of the Nile, where they could find relief from the heat in the waters of the inundation; and the Egyptians worshiped the stars of Leo because the rise of their great river, the Nile, was coincident with the Sun's entrance among them. Their reverence for its sacred, fertilizing waters, and for the Lion which was associated with them, is the origin of the many lion-headed fountains, where the water flows from the lion's mouth. The great Sphinx is said to have been sculptured with Leo's body and the head of the adjacent Virgo who, in Egypt, was seen as the goddess Isis; although Egyptologists maintain that this head represented one of the early kings, or the god Harmachis. Distinct reference is made to Leo in an inscription on the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, which, like the Nile temples generally, was adorned with the animal's bristles; while on the planisphere of Denderah its figure is shown standing on an outstretched serpent. A lion guarded the tunnel through which the Sun god Ra passed at night. The Egyptian stellar Lion, however, comprised only a part of ours, and in the earliest records some of its stars were shown as a Knife, as they now are as a Sickle. [SLM].
In Euphratean astronomy it was additionally known as Gisbar-natnru-sa-pan, variously translated as 'the Shining Disc' which precedes Bel; the latter being our Ursa Major, or in some way intimately connected therewith. It was the Akkadian Pa-pil-sak, 'the Scepter', or 'the Great Fire'; and identified with the Assyrian month Abu, our July-August, the Fiery Hot; and believed to be the reason for this universal fiery character of the constellation, "because the Sun being in that sign is most raging and hot like a lion". Babylonians saw a great dog in the stars of Leo. To them, a ferocious guard dog to protect precious goods as well as men and beasts was of utmost importance. Every Babylonian caravan had its quota of huge guard dogs. [SLM].
In Mithraic temples, one of the most famous artifacts, is a Mithraic stone carving showing the so-called "lion-headed god," whose image is often found in Mithraic temples, standing on a globe that is marked with the cross representing the two circles of the zodiac and the celestial equator. The hieroglyph of Leo was among the symbols of Mithraic worship. In Mithriaism the lion was the fourth grade of initiation. [SLM].
A symbol of the Sun and a lion appears on the flag of Persia, whose people have always been Sun worshipers. Kings and emperors have frequently associated their terrestrial power with the celestial power of the solar orb, and have accepted the Sun, or one of its symbolic beasts or birds, as their emblem, as with the lion of the Great Mogul and the eagles of Caesar and Napoleon. Thus throughout antiquity the animal and the constellation always have been identified with the Sun, - indeed in all historic ages till it finally appears on the royal arms of England, as well as on those of many of the early noble families of that country. During the 12th century it was the only animal shown on Anglo-Norman shields. [SLM].
It was the tribal sign of Judah, allotted to him by his father Jacob as recorded in Genesis xlix, 9, and confirmed by Saint John in The Revelation v, 5; and believed to be the natal sign of Judah and so borne on his signet-ring given to Tamar. Christians of the Middle Ages and subsequently, who figured biblical characters throughout the heavens in place of the old mythology, called it one of Daniel's lions; and the apostolic school, doubting Thomas. [SLM].
Leo has not always
been viewed as the small figure that we know now. At the time of
Claudius Ptolemaeus, some 150 years after the birth of Christ, Leo was
seen as an enormous animal which extended far to the west, incorporating
stars of the constellation we now call Cancer, the Crab. A star cluster
in the Crab, called the Beehive (Praesaepe), formed the whiskers of the
Lion and its nose. The question mark became the mane and hairy neck, the
body remained the same as our present Lion, but Denbola formed the rear
quarters and a wonderful curly tail stretched upwards to the stars of
the constellation which we now know as Coma Berenices. In those far off
days Coma Berenices formed the tuft of Leo's tail. In ancient Arabia,
that somewhat mythical Lion extending from Gemini over our Cancer, Leo,
Virgo, Libra, and parts of other constellations, both north and south of
the zodiac; but the later Arabians also adopted Ptolemy's Leo (the Leo
constellation we know now) and transferred to it the Asad of the early
constellation. [SLM].
Bacchi Sidus was another of its titles, that god always being identified with this animal, and its shape the one usually adopted by him in his numerous transformations; while a lion's skin was his frequent dress. But Manilius had it Jovis et Junonis Sidus, as being under the guardianship of these deities; and appropriately so, considering its regal character and especially that of its Lucida, Regulus. [SLM].
The glyph for Leo is generally thought to represent the tail of the lion. In ancient Dionysian mysteries it was considered to be a phallus. It can also symbolize the heat or creative energy of the Sun. Ancient physicians thought that when the Sun was in this sign medicine was a poison, and even a bath equally harmful (!); while the weather-wise said that thunder foretold sedition and deaths of great men. [SLM]
The Chinese Immortal Chiu-shou was a lion which took human shape and fought in wars, when ordered to resume his lion form he became the mount of Buddha Wen Shu. Stone lions guarded the court of justice. In Buddhism, the lion is the defender of the Law; and the Buddha who was called the Lion of the Shakya clan is sometimes seated on a lion throne. The Lion's roar is his fearless teaching of the Dharma (Buddhist teachings). Similarly it was a belief in the West, that from the mouth of the Lion came the Gifts of the Logos (to those who were able to conceive them). Hinduism has the lion as the fourth avatar of Vishnu and it represents Durga as destroyer of demons and is an attribute of Devi. The lion and lioness together depict the shakta-shakti. Hercules' battle with the Nemean Lion depicts the struggle to achieve it by overcoming the fiery passions of the heart. Having killed the lion, and triumphed over uncontrolled emotion, he can then wear the lion's skin which makes him king. The Lion is symbolic of devouring power and by extension the devourers of time. [DSC].
In Roman funerary art
the lion depicts the devouring power of death and also the conquest of
death. Leo expresses lust for life, ambition, pride and exaltation.
Denoted by the royal majesty of the King of Beasts, an emblem of
sovereign power, of strength and nobility, and it is coupled to the Sun.
Both the Lion and the Sun symbolize life governed by heat, light, glamor,
power and the glitter of the elite. Thus Leo-types are like triumphant
odes sung to the accompaniment of sounding brass, aflame with the life
force. The Leo-type corresponds to the high-powered character of the
strong willed fanatic driven by the obsession to do. The love of action,
that emotionally active strength, is controlled and directed towards a
goal and subservient to long-term designs. A strong nature, inherently
endowed with a full-blooded enjoyment of life, finds justification for
existence by making the heavens ring with its achievements. This power
can be expressed as horizontal deployment, as a Herculean type of
efficiency, as physical presence, physical activity, the here and now.
However, it may also be deployed in vertical tension and provide an
Apollonian type of idealism, in which the powers of enlightenment tend
to rule unrivalled. [PDS p.595].
FIXED STARS- SUBRA
1950 2000
SUBRA- omicron 22LEO51 24LEO15 144 37 15 +10 07 15 -03 45
34 3.76 F5
History of the star: A star in the left knee of the Lion Leo.
References
The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson 1923, Ascella Publications, UK, ISBN: 1 898503 50 8.
Starnames, Their Lore
and Meaning, Richard Hinchley Allen, 1889, Dover Publications 1963.
ISBN 0-486-21079-0.
CHART OF THE FULL MOON
The Full Moon of this month shows two principle aspects, the tighter an inconjunct to Ceres in Capricorn, and the other a trine to Pluto in Sagittarius. Our focus on being loved this month may run into obstacles when crossing age lines, or we may be so on the go that we are not giving proper time and attention to our nutritional needs, but consistent effort and the commitment of resources can help us to see our way to breaking through some of the resistance if we are willing to simply keep at it over time. The east coast Full Moon will have some of the most dramatic effect across the country, as it aligns with the earth's axis with the Full Moon getting ready to reach its highest nightly position as it becomes Full at 11:44 PM EST. Certainly the coastal snow storm which has just fallen on New England will represent a part of what many folks are having to deal with during this time.
DREAM JOURNEY
Well, what a long, strange trip it's
been. So much has happened since the last New Moon email starting this
cycle, and this is only the beginning of the journey! I am writing this
from Austin, TX, and this coming Thursday and Saturday (February 16th
and 18th) I will be doing talks in Atlanta, and then on to Florida for
the month of March, doing stops in Orlando, Gainesville, and Fort
Lauderdale.
The clouds began to gather shortly before leaving Santa Cruz on this voyage. I had a dream sometime in the middle of the night about sleeping in the van while on the road. Somebody took a big sledge hammer and began pounding on the side of the van with it. In my dream, I tried to cry out in a loud roar to let whoever it was know that there was somebody in there! Of course, because I was sleeping, I couldn't shout, but as the voice began to find itself, I exploded from out of the dream with a yell which sent poor Tommy, our cat sleeping on the bed with us, flying about five feet through the air. Poor guy! He had no idea was was going on. Still, neither did I! Needless to say, I was quite shaken, and also a little concerned about the sheer power of the dream.
The second dream I don't remember. Lisa simply told me that on another evening (these all occurred in the few days before leaving), I was whimpering in my sleep. She held me, and I never woke up; so I don't know what that one was about.
The final dream I do remember. I was
with a fellow who was blind, and he was at the back of a tent. I was
sitting closer to the entrance, off to one side. It was a pup tent, and
without warning someone zipped the opening down from the top about 9
inches or a foot. Then this hand, holding a gun, inserted itself, aimed,
and shot the guy in the back of the tent. I sat there, frozen. After
waking up and thinking about it, I wondered why I hadn't grabbed the
hand and gun, and wrestled it away, but one never thinks about these
things while they happen, as though locked in disbelief like a deer in
the headlights. The hand and gun then withdrew, and two eyes looked into
the same slit to make sure of his work. Looking to the left, he saw me,
and the same hand and gun were re-inserted, pointed at me this time. At
that point I woke up.
That was three dreams in the course of four or five days.
The last time that I had gone through a
series like this was when Gail and I had switched our office and bedroom
settings, moving the office into the bedroom, and the bedroom into what
had been the office. For a period of about six weeks (as I recall), one
or the other of us would nightly have bad dreams. If I didn't have one
she would, and vice versa. Finally we had someone come over and do a
Native American ritual, blessings the four directions with sage, etc,
and the dreams did at last go away. It was only later that they made
sense. Although it was two or three years after this (again, as I
recall; it may have been more or less), this was the room Gail came to
be in until just before she passed, when she at last moved downstairs to
the couch in the living room, and finally departed the earth from that
spot. My sense now is that we both felt that the final pieces were being
dropped into place, and were being warned without knowing what they were
until we consciously asked that the warnings stop; which they did. The
symptoms were dealt with, but not the underlying illness.
So naturally, I was filled with trepidation as I set out on this journey.
Leaving Santa Cruz, my first stop was
for the planetarium show in Boulder (the best turn out we have had to
date thanks to the article in the Daily Camera, over 119 people turned
out for the show), and I travelled to Boulder by way of Phoenix, in part
to avoid the 15 degree temperatures along I-70 through the Rockies of
Colorado. I discovered after leaving Santa Cruz in shorts that January
in the rest of the country means that it's still winter, a revelation
which caught me by surprise! It sure is easy to fall into this
California dreamin' thing. You start to think that the rest of the world
is the way it is here! So anyway, while visiting with my friend Sylvia
in Phoenix, I mentioned the dreams to her, and she felt as though both
the van and the tent were symbols for my body (me), and that something
was about to happen.
This is not what I wanted to hear.
Nevertheless, I filed the information
(what else can you do?), and pushed on to Boulder. After arriving, I
stopped at the library and did some research there, studying the Norse
myths from the Eddas, and noted that people all around me seemed to be
sick; blowing their noses, coughing, whatever. While taking a good deal
of Echinacea as a preventative, I also prayed on three separate
occasions that I NOT get sick (if that's what had to happen) until AFTER
the show. Well, the show went really well, and that evening I went out
to Applebee's for a celebratory meal, including shrimp.
The next morning I arose, and set up in the planetarium the phone equipment needed to do a reading with Meredith in Nantucket, and was taking my first few bites of oatmeal, when... WHAM! My gut started singing like there's no tomorrow. I had come down with food poisoning. After writhing in pain on the floor for about an hour, I finally got up, called Lisa, and drove over to my friend Tony's, who had offered a bed and room before the show, and proceeded to be sick for the next two full days at his place.
THANK YOU, TONY!!
He certainly earned his wings as far as
I'm concerned. With the winter temperatures being what they were in
Boulder, staying in the van was an option, but not one I considered for
very long after trying it for about an hour, especially in that
condition.
So, anyway, hopefully this is what the
dreams were referring to. While discussing the dreams again later with
Lisa over the phone, I said, OK, my body really got hammered; but what
was the part about the blind guy? She said, you never saw it coming!
This felt really right, and I laughed out loud when she said it!
Of course!!
But that's not where the story ends. The
final part of the dream sequence didn't resurface until I reached
Austin, TX and stayed with my friend Georgia. Having been hit Sunday
morning, I was sick all of Sunday and Monday, right through until
Tuesday morning. Late that morning, I ran around Boulder doing errands,
and then left for Austin that same afternoon. After arriving after
midnight on Thursday, I was able to take a shower at Georgia's the next
morning. All the activity had continued to leave me feeling drained.
While in the shower I tried to focus on relaxing and thinking of one of
the most pleasant memories I could; when I suddenly tuned into something
which had happened to me while sick, but which I totally forgotten.
It was the first day of the food
poisoning, while the pain was the most powerful. There was no position
which I could get into, no angle I could find which would help make the
pain subside. Having not slept well for the two previous evenings, and
dealing with the temperature extremes (hot in the planetarium, cold out
in the Boulder winter), I felt as though my body was indeed being
'hammered' (as in the dream. Sylvia was right, the van did indeed turn
out to be my body). The lack of sleep, the hot, the cold, the pain...
there was simply no where to go. You try to get up and walk to the
bathroom bent over every now and then; not because you have to go, but
just because it is something different to do for a little while. Anyway,
while lying in bed and tossing and turning from one side, to your back,
to the other, I tried focusing on something other than the pain, and
finally directing my attention to my third eye. The entire time,
throughout all of the positions, the lying, setting or walking,
everything had been focused solely on the pain.
Immediately, I felt some of the tension begin to slip a little, and slowly I was able to let go. For the first time since I had come down with the food poisoning, I slipped off into sleep.
In all honesty, I am not sure what
happened next. I don't know if it happened just before I slipped off to
sleep, was part of the dream itself, or was a place to which I journeyed
while sleeping. In fact, I am not even sure if it really happened, as I
didn't recollect it until several days later; but it was a very vivid
dream, or vision, or whatever it was.
I went to a place which stood at the base of a long sand bar projecting out into the sea. On the left side, the water was calm and placid, while on the right side there was a wave which was arched and curled, as though it were getting ready to drop; but it didn't. The wave was simply suspended there, and yet was vibrant and very full of life. Lights were inter-playing through it. Between these two bodies of water, the sandbar extended out for a distance of twenty, thirty or forty yards, and then simply slipped beneath the water.
I don't know if I journeyed out along
this sandbar, but my sense was that I did. It was an experience like
having my entire body and soul dipped into serenity, and I felt as
though I came back feeling totally healed and at complete peace. It was
a place from which I did not want to leave, but felt very happy about
having visited.
I have no idea what this was all about,
but to say that it was beautiful misses its full power. I have heard
many stories about people who have journeyed to such places, but had
never knowingly experienced anything like this. Pete Townsend said that
sickness will take the mind where minds don't usually go, and I guess I
would have to agree. Re-directing the intensity of the physical extremes
seems to have opened up a gate which was readily accessed when the
concentration was turned to the focus of the third eye; at least in my
experience.
I feel like I should send everybody
greeting cards from Hawaii or something.
Blessings to all,
~Don
.................................................................................................................
Athena's Web http://www.AthenasWeb.com
NCGR certified Astrologer
http://geocosmic.org/certastr/astro.php?CertAstroIdx=17&submitName=Go+%3E%3E
Star*Myths and Fiske Planetarium
Production Assistant for
Deep Impact and Solar Storm
Planetarium Shows
University of Colorado- Boulder
260 McGivern Way
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 458-1359 hm
(413) 219-4214 cell
Athena's Web http://www.AthenasWeb.com
http://geocosmic.org/certastr/astro.php?CertAstroIdx=17&submitName=Go+%3E%3E
Star*Myths and Fiske Planetarium
Production Assistant for
Deep Impact and Solar Storm
Planetarium Shows
University of Colorado- Boulder
260 McGivern Way
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 458-1359 hm
(413) 219-4214 cell
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