Full Moon in Pisces – Deciding what to keep and what to discard.

With the Full Moon on the 19th September 2013 we are coming to the end of the latest Astrological cycle. This full Moon in Pisces is the final release point for this lunar year, so we are at the end of a journey and quite appropriately this is a harvest new Moon, the time when we reap what we have sown. The crops have reached their peak and unless we cut them down or pick them for our consumption then they will start to get over-ripe or begin to lose their freshness and taste. From here on in the plants begin to wither and die as the the darker part of the year approaches. As I will explain, the metaphors within this particular full Moon all sit here in the Astrology and give us a stark warning if we fail to reap our harvest.

Gunmen on the loose at Washington DC navy yard.

News out of Washington DC is that there is a shooting incident going on at the US navy base there in the nation’s capital. There are reports of fatalities and a possibility of more than one gunman on the loose, quite possibly two. US defence spokespeople say that there have been several fatalities and people injured. This is an on-going incident and as I write one gunman is “contained” but has not yet been apprehended.

Billy Connolly – Health concerns for the prince of Scottish comedy.

At the start of this year I met comedian and actor Billy Connolly very briefly at Heathrow Airport. I remember it being a freezing day in London and I remarked that if it was cold in London, the it must have been like the arctic circle in Scotland where Billy had just flown from. He looked at me disdainfully and quick as a flash in his broad Glaswegian accent he growled “How dare you!!”. I had just insulted his beloved Scottish nation and he didn’t want me to get away with it. Everyone around us laughed hysterically. Had he known I was also an Astrologer too, he would probably ripped me to pieces even more, but I wouldn’t have minded. A brief moment of banter with one of the funniest men alive. I was very much saddened today to hear that Billy has had a very recent operation for prostrate cancer, and he also has the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.

Fixed stars aren't actually fixed!!

This is something that may confuse you and I just want to explain to clarify. I do look at fixed stars a lot on Solaris Astrology and I think they are just as vital and important as the planets, indeed the constellations we know get their reputations and meanings from the stars that are placed within and make them up.

As I mentioned fixed stars are not fixed, they do move about 1 degree in relation to the earth every 70 years or so. If you do your sums, then a fixed star will move the 30 degrees of a sign in around 2100 years. That's why the main star in Leo Regulus is now at 1 degree Virgo and Acubens in Cancer that I just wrote about earlier today now sits in the sign of Leo.

This ties quite nicely into the first known appearance of the zodiac as we now know it. The zodiac constellations representing the specific areas of the sky we look at as Astrologers were fixed in position in relation to the movements of the Sun, however the actual constellations on which these were initially based have shifted just over one sign since these positions were designated. Back around 500BC the Babylonians had 18 irregular zodiac signs and these seem to have been paired down to 12 equal sized signs of 30 degrees in or around 50BC when the Dendera zodiac was created. The first known actual depiction of 12 signs in use today can be seen in a bas-relief taken from an Egyptian temple in Dendera. If you are interested, it can be seen on show in the Louvre Museum in Paris.