The Total Solar Eclipse
Astronomer Johannes Kepler did not have the benefit of sophisticated telescopes or computers yet, in the 17th century, he was able to establish a proven harmonic relationship between the planets. In his third law of planetary motion Kepler states: The orbital period of a planet is proportional to its distance to the Sun This was first revealed in his seminal work Harmonice Mundi or ‘Harmony of the World’ in 1619. It is also known as the Harmonic Law.
Kepler’s discoveries still hold firm today and corroborate the Pythagorean based theory, that the fabric of our existence is woven with number.
One of the ways that we can visibly observe the presence of this theory is in the relationship and planetary intervals between the Sun, Moon and Earth. More specifically in the observation of Eclipses that occur in regular, repeating numbered patterns known as The Saros Cycle. On Earth we can witness anything between two and five solar eclipses in a year. The periodicity of each cycle is 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours and there are some 70 eclipses (lunar and solar) in each Saros series, spanning 1,260 years.
The Sun is but one star amongst an infinite number of others, within an infinite number of galaxies. However, without this star and indeed the solar system, life would just not exist. Although, in the greater scheme of things, the Sun is a fairly insignificant star, its size may be better appreciated when I tell you that, hypothetically, it could accommodate one million planets the size of Earth. Being approximately 109 times the diameter of the Earth, the Sun is 400 times greater than the Moon’s diameter, whilst the Moon is approximately one-quarter the Earth’s diameter.
In one of the most beautiful displays of perfection and synchronicity known to Man, under certain conditions the disc of the Moon is able to completely blot out the light of the Sun, which throws a path of darkness over the surface of the Earth. It is an event known as a Total Solar Eclipse.
Due to its distance from the Sun and Earth, and the plane of its orbit when it comes between them, the Moon will periodically cover the face of the Sun in various degrees of obscuration. Thus we can have Total, Annular, Partial and Non Central eclipses.
The next one in the Saros cycle, is a Total Solar Eclipse, which will occur on Mar 29 2006 at 10.11:21 GMT for duration of 4 minutes and 7 seconds.
The area of darkness that the Moon’s shadow will cause is known as the path of totality. This eclipse has a path of totality that sweeps up from Brazil crossing the South Atlantic Ocean and making landfall through Togo, Benin. Nigeria, Niger, Chad,Libya and Egypt and then extending on up through Turkey and ending in Mongolia.
With the introduction of space probes such as SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), those in scientific community are beginning to understand the forces that the Sun can have upon the Earth. Particular attention has been paid in recent years to the impact of Solar Flares and sunspots on the Earth.
In brief, sunspots are the visible affects of the Sun’s magnetic forces. Sunspots have now been shown to have the greatest affect upon life on Earth when they are either most prevalent at times of Solar Maximum (around 100 sunspots), or most absent (zero sunspots) known as Solar Minimum. In yet another display of collaboration within the Universe, this sunspot cycle lasts for around 11 years - just short of the Eclipse cycle, enfolded within the longer-term solar activity cycle that lasts for 80-90 years. (Known as the Gleisberg cycle).
At times of maximum sunspots the Earth’s gravitational field is severely impacted causing migratory animals to lose their bearings, whales to beach themselves and lose directional ability. Power outages occur, electronic equipment, including mobile phones can go haywire and satellites in space can even be destroyed. Conversely, between 1645 and 1715 in a period known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’, the lack of solar activity led to the period known as the Little Ice Age.
It is therefore safe to extrapolate that if alterations to the surface of the Sun causes recognisable terrestrial events, that the entire light of the Sun being obscured from the Earth is going to have enormous consequences. Something that observers of rhythm and pattern (also known as astrologers!) have known since the beginning of civilisation.
This upcoming eclipse is one of three in the last century to occur in the sky at the 8th degree of the zodiac (8 Aries). The other two were in 1968 and 1987. This one however is expected to be the most potent. We judge this by the fact that the other two were not total eclipses and they did not last for even one minute of time. This eclipse is 4 minutes and 07 seconds in length.
The fact that we also have planets aligning with the Galactic Centre at the time of this eclipse and in angular relationships (or harmonic resonance) with other planetary bodies will also prove significant.
Empirical evidence shows that eclipses have most impact on those countries that lie under the path of totality and those for whom the degree of the eclipse resonates with their birth moment in someway. By this I mean that any person, country or manifest object whose inception involves 8 degrees of the cardinal signs (Aries, Libra, Capricorn or Cancer) is likely to experience events that mirror the celestial event.
Using our theory of number underpinning the Universe, the conjunction of two planets is thought to resonate to the number one, the number of Unity. Within ‘Unity’ all that is enfolded will unfold in the course of the cycle and indeed, continue to unfold further through subsequent cycles.
As the disc of the Moon is symbolically ‘putting out’ the light of the Sun, this correlates with events, which possess a quality of death and rebirth ‘the ending of one phase of being and the beginning of a new’. As the cycle unfolds the Sun, Moon and other planets will make aspects to the original eclipse degree of 8 Aries, triggering International events at those places where the eclipse is either visible, or is rising or setting at that location, or makes transits to chart positions.
People (or any other thing made manifest) who are born on or around 29 March +/- 3 days in any year, will find their lives and fortunes resonate strongly to the Solar/Lunar cycles and in particular to future eclipse cycles.
In fact, if the planets are analogous to the mechanism of an intricate celestial clock, the revolutions involved in eclipses may truly be described as the markers of time - the important cycles of destiny.
Kathryn Cassidy is a professional astrologer. She was first taught by traditional astrologer, Derek Appleby and later worked with Sun sign astrologer Jonathan Cainer for four years before securing her own astrology column in an internationally distributed magazine - Journal.
She now hosts a blog called Collaborating With Fate http://collaboratingwithfate.blogspot.com
where she discusses all aspects of astrology, with an emphasis on planetary cycles and the harmonic rhythms inherent in our Universe.
Is Zidane Insane An Astrological View On A Moment Of Lunacy
Over 1 billion people around the globe, and 69,000 people in a German stadium, looked on in disbelief as the French team Captain in the World Cup Football Final committed an act of sheer madness. Zinedine Zidane, was playing the final minutes, of the final match in his professional career, when he violently headbutted his Italian opponent, Materazzi, and got sent off in disgrace. What should have been, win or lose, his moment of professional glory has instead gone down in history as his moment of shame - one which will haunt him forever.
Many of the headlines gracing newspapers and media reports across the World on the subject include the words ‘an act of lunacy.’ And from an astrological perspective, indeed it was. The word lunacy comes from the Latin word for the Moon, Luna.
Zinedine or ‘Zizou’ as he is affectionately known was born on June 23, 1972 in Marseilles, France. Not only is he a lunar ruled, Cancerian but his Mercury and Mars also occupy the sign. His Moon is in the water sign of Scorpio in mutual reception with his Mars, therefore acting as final dispositer for his Sun. In other words this is one highly emotional man. My guess would be that the inflammatory comments of Materazzi must in some way have been directed either at Zidane’s family, or his nationality, for no other planetary placements are more hypersensitive, defensive and reactive to this type of personal insult than these.
With the Sun, Moon and Mars linked in this way his normally controlled, enigmatic, family-man persona belies an aggressive, impulsive streak which can appear to emerge suddenly but which, on closer examination, is invariably linked to the lunar cycles. A connection between weather patterns, tidal rhythms and menstrual cycles have long been recognised and accepted as part of the close relationship between the Sun, Earth and its satellite, the Moon. Less widely recognised however are the other stresses and effects on the human body that the lunar phases exert.
The word ‘lunatic’ is defined as such because it was once noticed that insanity was brought about by the changing phases of the Moon. Hospitals know that admissions rise significantly around the time of the Full Moon due to an increase in emotionally driven incidents. Surgeons appreciate that blood take longer to coagulate at the time of the Full Moon and some avoid operating. Law enforcement officers know that a significant rise in arrests for violent disputes occur in 29 day cycles.
So, can Zidane excuse his behaviour by blaming the decision of FIFA to stage the World Cup Final less than 36 hours before a Full Moon - I think not. And neither should people who possess close links between the Sun, Moon and Mars in their charts be fearful that they might suddenly headbutt someone one day! No, to explain, but not excuse, Zizou’s behaviour we have to see the Moon for what it is - a cyclical trigger for impulses which at other times might lie dormant or find positive, rather than negative expression in his life. Just as when he headbutted his opponent in Turin on 24 October 2000, transiting Venus was again in close aspect with transiting Pluto at the time of this match. These two planets link in with Zidane’s Moon and were themselves in a tense alignment at the time of his birth.
The position of the Cup Final’s transiting Moon (and that of 2000) in relationship to the planets in his horoscope alert us to a flashpoint. With the aid of astrological advice, Zidane could have been warned that he was more susceptible to acting on his propensity to ‘lose it.’ Forearmed with that information he might have been able to arrest his emotional reactions and perhaps have altered the course of World Cup history. In this way he would have been truly collaborating with his fate, rather than being a victim of his periodic ‘lunacy’.
Kathryn Cassidy is a professional astrologer. She writes on a variety of topics which fall under the umbrella of the word metaphysical at http://collaboratingwithfate.blogspot.com.
Tags: astrology, cycles, Football, headbutt, insanity, lunacy, Moon, Zidane, Zinedine