Wednesday 18 February 2015: ~Interesting Transition!~

Wednesday 18 February 2015

~Interesting Transition!~

(astrological data given at the end of this report)

The word "I" is being used too much in these reports, it appears, because i don't want to make them my personal journal but something which speaks to everyone, based on the current astrological set-up. 

However, i don't know what to do except to rely on my personal experiences in writing it. i have called astrology "a science of personal phenomenological research" and i believe that to be an exactly correct description of a major part of what it is. It uses the positions of the planets of our Solar System as the underlying structural phenomenon of varying human phenomena. And it arrives by that means at personal yet universally meaningful conclusions or realizations. That is what i am trying to do here. 

So, we continue in the only way I know how to continue . . . For me at least (let me know about you) the phenomenon of slow, painful, difficult transitions continues, which is part of what goes on in a Dark Hermetic Epoch (until the next Bright one begins March 3). 

If someone were to say, "But that is always going on!" I would reply, "True, but make that 'in spades' or 'double or triple' during a Dark Hermetic Epoch." 

For me (I can't eliminate the personal) there has been a major issue of remodeling, reconstructing, in my apartment building. It has been horrific since the DHE began January 5. That very week, my kitchen was denied to me, the cabinets and sink and stove taken out, and they have still not been returned. That began well before the Mercury Retrograde period (always enclosed within the DHE) and has continued well past it. Exactly in accord with the formulation of the DHE which I arrived at in 1978-79. 

I am not pretending that all of you are going through something like that in your personal living situation, whether your own home or rental home. Of course not. But I would assume, based on observation over several decades, that something like it is going on in your life, whether in your job, other work, a personal project, a relationship, a group you belong to, or anything else important to you. You know all the "re"-words we have used: Reconstruction, review, re-estimation, sometimes recrimination, reform, reformation, maybe even remorse, remembering, reminiscing, re-inventing. 

A critic would say that we are just "humanizing" the planets' motions, and attributing to Mercury's apparent geocentric motion human notions. I totally and absolutely disagree, because it was not from any such attribution or presupposition that I arrived at my conclusions about the Dark Hermetic Epoch. It was from genuine puzzlement as to why certain portions of my life had been so upsetting, and other portions so relatively calm. When I studied my past carefully, the only astrological factor I found as a constant was these Mercury cycles. The most difficult, painful and confusing parts of my life were within the Dark Hermetic (Mercurial) Epochs. "Dark," by the way, is a disguised word for "slow or retrograde," that is, when Mercury is either moving slow (from geocentric perspective) or backward. "Dark" seems to fit what happens at those times. (But remember, we can have wonderful dreams and other blissful experiences during the night, as well as confusing problems or worries.)

Need I mention a number of the horrible ISIS or ISIL or Islamic State atrocities which occurred during this period? Need I mention a number of airline accidents? I am not about to become a statistician. I see things directly. I am a phenomenological observer, after the manner of Husserl, and an "astrological clinician" after the manner of Freud. If Freud had waited for statistics to validate his hypotheses, there would have been no nascent science of psychoanalysis which led to later forms of psychotherapy. If I were to wait for statisticians to decide whether or not there are more or less accidents during DHEs I would never have developed the theory or the exact timing which was empirically and experimentally determined. 

Human beings have a way of being better at some things than computers.

And, actually, it would not matter to me if it were found that there are not more accidents during DHEs than during BHEs. The meaning of these cycles goes much deeper than that. The personal experiences of individuals are paramount, not blips on a statistical screen. One has only to observe. As E. M. Forster said in the epigraph at the beginning of his novel Howards End, " . . . only connect . . . "

Astrology is the Science of Forsterian Connection!  

But I do believe that it has a solid statistical foundation. So far no statistician has bothered to ask the right questions to work out a research methodology within astrology, nor would that be possible to anyone except a thoroughly experienced astrologer who also was savvy about the philosophy of science. Maybe some day it will happen. Meanwhile the glory of astrology is that it is a personal phenomenological science which welcomes individual insight and adventure!  To me, that is far more interesting than it would be in a statistical straitjacket.

Wednesday 18 February 2015

First Day of Lent

Sun enters Pisces at 3:51p PT | 6:51p ET | 11:51p UT (until March 20)

Second day of the ShivaRathri festival in India

The Year of the Goat begins with the second New Moon of Aquarius at 3:48p PT | 6:48p ET | 11:48p UT (This is rather unusual: the New Moon when both moon and sun are in Aquarius happens just minutes before the sun enters Pisces. The New Moon of Aquarius is always the beginning of Chinese New Year, but when there are two New Moons in the same sign--rather rare--the first was January 20--apparently the ancient Chinese sages decided upon the second as the beginning of the New Year. This time the transition is from Horse to Goat.)

/moon goes void-of-course at the New Moon, time above

until it enters Pisces one minute later! I would suggest it might be safe to ignore this one!

|Difficult or challenging third| of this week begins very early and continues through Thursday, two days exactly this time (because the moon is traveling fast)

It is very late and I have a cold and the hassle described above in my apartment and don't see how I could get twelve lines of pentamenter out of myself . . . or maybe I am weak. Cosmic Piper ought to be strong. 

I hope the transitions of Wednesday indicated above will go along with the coming Bright Hermetic Epoch to brighten your path and lighten your burdens, at least a little--even though we are in the dreaded |difficult or challenging third| of this week. We can sense the light around the corner. If you can, it might be good to meditate and pray before and after the New Moon time.

{Wednesday} ~Interesting Transition!~

Cosmic Piper