The Celestial Wheel   Vedic Commentary   July 1 -- 31, 2010     Back To The Celestial Wheel

July 8, 2010

The Just-passed Lunar Eclipse

     The June 25 Celestial Wheel discussed the partial lunar eclipse June 26 at 10 3/4 degrees Sagittarius, stating,

    The Astrocartography for this eclipse indicated harm to Gulf, notably the New Orleans area.  Hurricane Alexis did cause some problems, Waves From Storm Hinder Spill Effort.  Perhaps even more important is Alex is first June hurricane since 1955.  Such an early hurricane season beginning suggests storms this month and next will further impede oil collection, could interfere with the relief wells and will push oil onshore. 

Upcoming Total Solar Eclipse

     Sunday, July 11 will bring a total solar eclipse at 25:23 degrees Gemini.  The second eclipse season also hits the U.S. chart, this time the Sun at 22:38 degrees Gemini.  Fortunately, the nearly 3 degree distance is beyond the critical 2 degrees. 

     So, instead of being a knockout punch to the chin, it is more like an undercut to the chest.  Too, the U.S. chart's Planetary Cycles (Dasas), which are the primary karma, do not include the Sun, Moon or Ketu -- this last being the tail-of-the-dragon eclipse point, which also signifies gas and oil. 

     On the other hand, solar eclipses are potent, this is a total eclipse and it follows the U.S. chart receiving an earlier glancing blow in the June 26 lunar eclipse.

     So we should expect some of the eclipse's blocking effects in the U.S.

     The Sun in this chart signifies government, leadership, authority, courage, wealth, gold, philosophy and very intense political, personal and business relationships.  Add in Ketu being gas and oil.  Look, then, for blocking wealth. especially gold, gas and oil that stimulates challenges to leaders and political diatribes.

     While this eclipse energy is already building fast and peaks on July 11, its effects will continue with an eclipse event likely in the next few months.  (Recall the August 1, 2008 total solar eclipse at 15:32 Cancer on the U.S. chart's Rahu at 16:51 Cancer -- a little over 1 degree apart -- that brought the stock collapse six weeks later in mid September, launching the Millennium Contraction.)  I'll be keeping this in mind in predictions for the next several months.  Certainly the challenging Mars/Saturn conjunction in late July merits examination here.  This was discussed with regard to likely impacts in the just-published, Through the Millennium Contraction, the section, Timing The Millennium Contraction, #2.

     The above-listed significations for the Sun naturally influence personal charts as well, again if a planet in the chart is hit within 2 degrees.  Additional physical solar attributes relating to your own Vedic chart are the skeleton, heart, circulation, right eye and head.  The Sun also signifies the father. 

July 10, 2010

Heads-up Solar Eclipse

     The below was e-mailed directly to Subscriber Participants this monring.

Here's a Heads-up on tomorrow's total solar eclipse.  Below is a this morning e-mail to an unnerved Subscriber. Everyone is on edge with this total solar eclipse tomorrow, for eclipse effects begin building a week before the eclipse day. I've noticed this with clients, friends, even myself.  Had to do some hand holding with ***** yesterday.  And ******* has flipped out in a paroxysm of fear.  Only Yoda continues to Overlook The Abyss and not be drawn into it. Again, the Sun is the self, courage, identity, power.... and when Surya is eclipsed, his light is blocked, the sky darkens, and fear enters.   If you think this is just another Hindu myth without meaning in the modern world, think about what happens during an electric blackout, or when you take a stroll under a full Moon, and it slips behind clouds to suddenly turn the night pitch black.  Too, here's an article about the impact of artificial light, how it truly changed our lives by ridding us of the dark, Shining a light on the way artificial light has changed our lives. In truth, we are all afraid of the dark, and a total Solar Eclipse, even though this one is only visible in the South Pacific, unnerves us on a visceral level. I have four clients whose charts are directly hit by this eclipse and have advised them all.  There are likely more, but I can't check everyone's charts.  One has acknowledged the importance and discussed it with me with regard to an ill father.  This is very helpful in making sure to closely monitor him in the hospital and also apply some Vedic remedies in advance.  Two more have said thanks but don't wish to pursue the issue.  A fourth has not responded.  Time, of course, will tell for all of these, but basically denying the karma will not reduce or eliminate it.  Knowledge is power.  Ignorance is not bliss -- it's merely ignorance.  Jupiter, the planet of wisdom is said to dispel the darkness, giving further meaning to the dark hiding all and the light revealing all.  That is why Vedic Astrology is called the science of light. Remember again what I wrote about the 8/1/08 total solar eclipse on the U.S. chart's Rahu -- that brought the beginning of the Millennium contraction six weeks later in mid September.  Total eclipses of the Sun are the bombs, and compared to the firecracker quality of most other planetary dispositions. I also cautioned you earlier that the oil spill has spooked everyone, making it much harder, for example, to land a job in an already tight labor market.  The economic recovery is literally dead in the water.  This, I admit, I had underestimated.  We all have to be flexible during the Millennium Contraction -- I'm doing the website here and other resort stuff to replace lost Vedic income. Here's the link to the updated home page.  It turned out pretty well, though there's a lot more to be done, especially the photographs. Call me as you need to. Doug Riemer

July 13, 2010

The Upcoming Millennium Contraction's Mars/Saturn Conjunctions

     The July 4 In-depth Forecast, Through The Millennium Contraction offered long term predictions through 2015.  It explained these by first revealing how Planetary Cycles (Dasas) are the underlying karmas symbolizing fundamental trends -- and that powerful transits are secondary, bringing events that both advance those trends and define how they actualize. 

     The issue at hand is that the U.S. chart's seven year Mars Cycle, starting in late 2008, symbolizes the Millennium Contraction.  Past transits have already brought significant events.  The upcoming Mars/Saturn conjunctions (plural) in late July through August signals another step in that long term societal-wide transformation.

     The August 1, 2008 solar eclipse (a transit) signaled an early beginning of the Millennium Contraction six weeks later in mid September.  Then, the stock market busted.  The April 2010 Mars transit over birth chart Rahu brought the BP oil spill.  See the second section, Mapping The Millennium Contraction Via Planetary Cycles & Transits.

     We can see how, since the Mars Cycle began in late 2008, the match-up's between this planet's Cycle and his difficult transits bring major events defining the Millennium Contraction.  Again, the Big Blizzard Of  2009 was Mars/Rahu and the April 2010 BP oil spill was also Mars/Rahu.  (Recall that Rahu is the head-of-the-dragon-eclipse point.)

     As stated above, upcoming this summer are Mars/Saturn conjunctions.  The last time this duo clashed was in June and July 2008.  See, The Challenging Summer Of 2008.  If you've forgotten everything else about this stormy summer, you must still remember gasoline went to over $4.00 per gallon.  There were also other challenging transits that summer which exacerbated.  I called this The Gauntlet.  But truly it was the Mars/Saturn conjunction which brought the damaging storms that summer -- and the U.S. chart Dasa was the benign Moon, not destructive Mars.  So, we can see that the combinations of both Mars/Rahu and Mars/Saturn are damaging, and under the U.S. Mars cycle, even more so.

     Here are the preliminary predictions for the Mars/Saturn conjunctions for July/August this year as listed in Through The Millennium Contraction,

Mars & Saturn

     Mars is the planet of war.  He is Pitta -- fiery.  He is desire, caring only about the ends, never the means.  Mars will mow over everything in his path to get what he wants.  Mars is called the widow-maker, for he kills quickly and violently.  His color is bright red, like blood.

     Saturn is also a malefic planet, in fact, the Great Malefic for causing suffering and losses of all kinds in his requirement for duty, responsibility, humility and detachment.  As the servant, he take care of the masses and is thereby authority.  But misuse his authority, and Saturn will destroy you --as he did Richard Nixon.  As such, Saturn can be a great spiritual influence, but because he is wisdom from experience, his benefits come at great cost.  Energetically, Saturn is the opposite of Mars. He is Vata -- air -- cold.  He is slow and insists upon all the details be attended to.  Saturn is chronic illness, killing slowly.  Saturn's color is black, like death, one of his meanings.

     When these two malefics come together, it is like the opposing weather systems of warm moist air from the Gulf (Mars) meeting cold dry air above the American Great Plains (Saturn), the globe's greatest tornado breeding ground.  Tsunamis over-wash, hurricanes flood and blow, but tornados hold the most concentrated and powerful energy.  Nothing survives their tightly packed rotating winds of up to 300 mph.

     These are diametrically opposing energies.  Mars is fast and hot.  Saturn is slow and cold.  Mars pushes Saturn to move faster.  Saturn holds Mars back.  Great tension results, which inevitably bursts forth, like a funnel cloud dropping from the sky to touch ground and rape the landscape.

Other Planetary Factors

     Like the The Challenging Summer Of 2008, there are contributing planetary dispositions in this summer's Mars/Saturn conjunctions in Virgo which will aggravate their harms.

     First, in early August transit Mars will go to transit Saturn.  Then, in late August, transit Mars will cross the U.S. charts' birth chart Saturn.  So, this is really a double Mars/Saturn conjunction.

     Second, Venus will enter Virgo August one.  Virgo is Venus' fallen sign, making her too weak to resist Saturn/Mars harms.  Venus will enter the first Mar/Saturn combination August 8 and then march in tandem with Mars through the end of August.  Then Venus will lend up in the the midst of the second Mars/Saturn conjunction.  Venus will thereby be continuously afflicted and weakly vulnerable for its entire transit through Virgo for all of August.

     Third, Jupiter is opposite in Pisces, from which he shines a protective aspect upon planets in Virgo.  However, this aspect won't do much for Jupiter goes retrograde July 23 for a four month stint in this inward and backward orientation.  Jupiter retrograde here is like a fire truck hosing down the Mars/Saturn tornado -- doesn't slow it down a bit.

     The U.S. chart Planetary Cycles are Mars/Jupiter/Saturn from July 1 to August 24.  With both Mars and Saturn active in the Cycles, the Mars/Saturn conjunctions will be more impactive.  Jupiter being also in the Cycles won't do any good because of his retrograde weakness. 

     Here are charts showing the beginnings of the first and second Mars/Saturn conjunctions

Summary

     This July entry examines the Mars/Saturn conjunctions, giving specific on all the significant planetary dispositions from the end of July through August.  There is sufficient complexity and resulting gravity of these influences to warrant this explanation.

    Following entries will discuss in more detail the preliminary predictions and their timing.

July 18, 2010

Digression -- A Millennium Contraction Result

     The Celestial Wheel interpretive focus has been on the upcoming late July through August Mars/Saturn conjunction.  Remaining is the painstaking process of offering specific predictions for how that will unfold over the coming weeks.  The below analysis on migrations during the Millennium Contraction has been in the works for some weeks.  It's time to take a Mars/Saturn break and publish it.

     The Millennium  Contraction is a comprehensive economic, social and cultural transformation.  Predictions and results so far have been primarily about the economic losses caused by the real estate bubble bursting and the auto industry's fall -- within the environment the Second Gilded Age's greed and thirst for power.  The financial sector's twenty-first century robber barons brought this collapse, just as their late nineteenth predecessors did the same -- then in excessive and risky real estate and railroad lending.

    The July 4 In-depth Forecast, Through The Millennium Contraction, is the current exposition on this transformation, adding detail by applying both the U.S. Planetary Cycles and impactive transits -- where the planets are in today's skies.  Suggestions for real estate, transportation and investing were also made, but these are naturally very general.  How this process actually transforms the American economic and social landscape has not been addressed.

     It appears that other long term influences will sculpt this new landscape.  These could not be anticipated, at least by this Vedic astrologer.  But as mundane (world) astrology cannot be done without knowledge of conditions and trends, those must be included to paint a more accurate and specific predictive picture.  These two long term influences are the (gradual) ending of the age of oil and global warming.  We've all known about global warming for years and years.  The generational shift from fossil fuels to alternative energy production did not become clear until the BP oil spill.  Of course, these two influences relate to each other.  Alternative energy is needed to ween us off of fossil fuels for their high cost of course, but also for their pollutants adding to global warming.

    Yet, it's also true that Vedic Astrology can offer some insight on long term trends, even as specific results may not be seen for some time.  As discussed in the May 2004 The Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction -- A New Twenty Year Era, labor globalization comes from 2000 to 2020.  It ended with, I've been daydreaming about Vermont in the summer, Sedona in the fall and a Caribbean island in the winter.  Migrations are part of this trend.  I included that forecast in my decision to relocate.  Technological advances are integral to the migration process, which is why I was able to travel across country continuing my business with a Mac laptop and a cell phone.  I'm now in North Carolina, and it doesn't matter a whit to readers that I'm not composing this in Arizona.  Anyone anywhere can read The Celestial Wheel or e-mail or call for a Vedic consultation.  Soon we'll be able to teleconference with similar ease and economy.  Note the really important feature in the Iphone 4 is video-phone, a long sought but heretofore unachievable goal. 

     Major economic and societal shifts are to be expected, for they are in the historical record.  The Little Ice Age, from the sixteenth through mid nineteenth centuries, had enormous impacts -- even to such oddities like Stradivarius violins sounds better, cooler temperatures throughout Europe are believed to have caused stunted and slowed tree growth, resulting in unusually dense wood.  As to fuel impacts, recall that London, England was blanketed with coal soot for hundreds of years, resulting in fog, injuring health and even changing the color of moths from tan to dark gray.  See, London's Historic "Pea-Soupers."

     Below is a predictive analysis for major migrations in the U.S. resulting from the combined influences of the Millennium Contraction's economic consequences and those of oil use and global warming.  These are naturally speculative, but they are not fanciful.  The influences are real, of consequence, and if you are paying attention, the results are already underway.  The ship has raised anchor and the harbor.  A new voyage has begun. There's no turning back, only advancing now to a new destination. 

     Today's Celestial Wheel entry describes part of the new journey and its destination -- even as it is incomplete and may not address other, even more fundamental changes.  Consider it was the BP oil spill just a few months that stimulated the now wide-spread understanding that there's another energy transformation -- from oil to alternative fuels -- as as humanity has gradually transitioned in a continuing process from wood to coal and then to oil.

Migration Predictions

     The U.S. has had many migrations as the nation spread west and responded to changes in technology, demographics and other factors.  The most significant recent migration has been from the north to the Sunbelt state Gulf Coast states and the Southwest, ongoing now for forty years or more.  Another has been the shift to massive farms in the grain belt.

    There is a new migration coming, this one reversing those since the second world war.  These migrations will result from the Millennium Contraction's economic factors, ending the age of oil and global warming. 

      Oil, with its diesel heavy equipment, asphalt highways, tractor trailer trucks and the automobile, opened up the desert Southwest, just as air conditioning made the Gulf Coast livable. 

Southwest

     The 1936 Hoover dam electrified and irrigated its bordering states -- Utah, Arizona and Southern California.  The interstate highway system was part of this, connecting markets and enabling first suburbs and then exurbs. 

     Thus, the infrastructure was in place for the migration to the Sunbelt states.  However, building cities in the desert is not sustainable now -- just as it wasn't for the Native Americans centuries ago.  Their abandoned cities dot the region.  First, the U.S. did not understand the Colorado River was extremely variable.  Second, global warming worsens drought.  The Colorado snow pack that feeds the river has been in decline since 1999.  Third explosive population growth required more water.  Fourth, the drought has increased forest fires.  Fifth and sixth, the end of cheap gasoline in 2003, coupled with the Millennium Contractions real estate bust and business decline, has made the modern Southwest city urban sprawl model uneconomical.  Worst hit, of course, is Las Vegas, for it grew the fastest, has no secondary water supply and gambling is now viewed as both unaffordable and wasteful.

The Hoover Dam's Lake Meade is pictured here in 2007.  The water intake towers are clearly exposed  The Glenn Canyon Dam created Lake Powell later in 1963.  Today, Lake Meade has dropped to 40% capacity and upriver lake Lake Powell is 57% full.     This six-fold combination spells doom for the Southwest.       People are already leaving for regions with water, which also naturally have stronger economies -- the Northern Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes states and the Mid Atlantic to northeast corridor. Agriculture will follow.

Gulf Coast States

    The Gulf Coast Sunbelt states have also been hit hard.  First, as mentioned above, air conditioning made the South habitable after the Second World War.  Oil brought the interstates and cheap gasoline to enable travel and commerce, just like the Southwest.  First, textiles left the Northeast for non-union cheaper labor and lower taxes in the South.  Other manufacturing followed, creating the rust region in the Midwest, which expanded to the Northeast.  Retirees and tourism also fueled growth, especially to Florida.

     Global warming brings more intense weather, and the Gulf Coast states have been hammered by hurricanes since Andrew hit Miami in 1992.  Freezes have also become more common.  Too, like the knowledge failure about the Colorado River's flow variability, no one examined the hurricane cycle, which is similar.  During Florida's great growth period beginning in the early seventies, there was also a hurricane cycle lull.  Retiree and worker in-migration switched to a net out-migration  in 2009.  Tourism has fallen off.  Flood insurance has skyrocketed in price.  Citrus and vegetable farming has been damaged by hurricanes and freezes.  The real estate bust hit Florida just as hard as the Southwest.  More expensive gasoline has hampered all activities.  Now the BP oil spill is both ruining the economies of all the Gulf Coat states and making the densely populated beach areas less habitable.

     Like the Southwest, a massive migration is coming.  Due to geographical proximity, folks will go north to the Mid Atlantic states.  Social and cultural ties will stimulate others to return to the Northeast and Midwest.

Midwest

     A final out-migration region is the Midwest.

Again courtesy of the age of oil, mechanized irrigation and farming in the Midwest could soon deplete the Ogallala Aquifer, in which virtually all recharge comes from rainwater and snowmelt.       During the last few decades, huge corporate-owned farms have squeezed out family farmers in the Midwest, and their lower prices put family farms in other parts of the country out of business.      This image shows that vast 8 state water supply.  See also, The Great Plains Could Soon Turn Into The Great American Desert.

     Expect global warming to continue to increasing tornado destructions, severe periodic flooding storms and also drought.

    People will leave these Midwest states for the the north and east -- again where there is adequate rainfall.

   History repeats itself.  During the 1929 to 1948 Saturn Planetary Cycle in the U.S. chart, the Great Depression's lowered crop prices and drought brought the dust bowl, forcing farmers westward.  Ironically, it was the 1936 Hoover Dam that brought water to that irrigated desert, and now that scheme is failing.  The dust bowl also stimulated agricultural reforms, including replanting forests decimated across the country.  One of Saturn's significations is purification.  Agricultural reform will come again, this time in reducing planted acreage, water conservation and other measures.  Certainly agriculture will move back to the Great Lakes states and the Eastern Seaboard.

Summary

     Migrations can be gradual over decades, or they can empty out an area in a few years if conditions are especially rough due to multiple causes.  After all, the greater the number of problems, the few the number of solutions.  IT doesn't look good for the Southwest with its plethora of challenges. No one knows yet how badly the oil spill will harm the Gulf Coast.   The Midwest could continue for years and years -- but the aquifer there will begin to run dry soon.

     I don't know how quickly and dramatically these migration influences will actualize, but it makes sense the forces behind them will have been determinative by the end of the Millennium Contraction in 2015.*  Your planning for your own personal transformation, fitting your square pegs into the new round holes, benefits from your awareness of  upcoming population shifts.

(*Of course, global warming can continue, for even if greenhouse gases are cut back, the warming effect will continue.  Plus, the sunspot cycle impact as well.  Still, one hopes humanity will have come to grips with this issue over the next several years.  There's always hope!)

     Certainly, of course, not everyone will leave Las Vegas, not all the vegetable farmers in the Southwest will fold... But if you're in one of the three affected regions, your plan should be first-based upon whether you will stay and tough it out, or leave.  Similarly, if you live in a region that will gain population, your strategy should reflect that coming reality as well.

     The March 2004, The Times They Are A Changin, seems like ancient history, but like the May 2004 The Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction -- A New Twenty Year Era, sometimes it takes a while for predictions to be born out.

July 31, 2010

The Mars/Saturn Conjunction Is Underway

     By now, everyone should have a pretty solid understanding of the late July through August Mars/Saturn conjunction.

     Yet, nothing much has happened -- certainly not the predictions for loss and misfortunes, finalized in the July 24 In-depth Forecast, Mars/Saturn Conjunction Summer 2010.  The statement there leading off the section, Timing, is key to understanding this situation,  There is no single date, or even set of sensitive dates, during the Mars/Saturn conjunction that point to a major event or events.  There is always the issue of how and when the planetary karmas actualize.  And even in this age of global electronic media, news reports inevitably lag because information is released when the private and public sources believe it appropriate, in their own interests. or simply await compilation of data.  Recall that May was predicted to be bad for the economy, but reports only later confirmed this.  See, June 12, Consumer confidence is up, but spending is slow to follow and June 22, Existing Home Sales Tumble Unexpectedly in May.

     One subscriber read that July 24 Forecast and commented the next day that the predictions were already coming true.  This is correct in the sense that the Mars/Saturn conjunction identifies a significant period, within the long term Millennium Contraction, during which the identified losses inevitably continue.  Mars/Saturn is a continuation, more of the same, albeit a major signpost on the road.  There is inevitably, then, the appearance of prediction results before the interval begins.  So, for example, the prediction, Economic growth to stop, has truly only begun to actualize.  But today's Washington Post article, Economic growth slows with 2.4 percent rate in second quarter reveals the slowdown began months ago.  On the flip side, there is the appearance that the BP oil leak is resolved, but it's predicted that, The BP relief oil wells will fail and the leak could become worse.

     The very nature of the Mars/Saturn conjunction amplifies these reactions, for their opposing malefic energies magnifies the energy, bringing frustration, impatience, disappointment and anger.

     So, let's all hold tight.  As the old saying goes, It ain't over til' the fat lady sings.  Our individual long term and sustainable personal transformation requires objective evaluation of the Millennium Contraction.  We are currently being challenged by Mars/Saturn to see that truth, setting aside subjective interpretations and reactions for their being harmful.  Remember, Mars/Saturn challenges everyone.  We do have the choice of not allowing it's uncomfortable and disconcerting energies to to disturb our equilibrium. 

     Similarly, a Yogi (self realized or enlightened person) has achieved equilibrium in his total detachment from the world -- and thereby union with God.  Yet, Yogis and Yoginis (female) do get colds. Like us, they experience the fever, runny nose, congested chest... symptoms.  Unlike us, their consciousness stands aside witnessing the effects but is not influenced by them.  Thus, Yoda Overlooks the Chaos but is outside it.

    The suggestion here is that the Millennim Contraction's requirement for personal transformation includes the most basic spiritual value -- detachment.