Libra Solar Festival 2014
Full Blood Moon Eclipse in Aries, Libra Solar Festival 2014
Welcome to the October 8, 2014 Full Blood Moon Eclipse in Aries, Libra Solar Festival edition of the Satya Center newsletter.
Warm greetings from your co-Editors, Curtis Lang and Jane Sherry.
There is a very positive Grand Fire Trine this week to counterbalance the energies of the Cardinal T-Square occurring at this Full Moon. The Grand Fire Trine creates an atmosphere of self-confidence and optimism that is essential to taking the dramatic actions required to offset the difficulties manifested in synchronicity with the Cardinal T-Square, which tend to persist over long periods of time through intransigent conflicts, political gridlock and general indecision.
So wherever you feel stuck in your life, wherever you feel that you are hung up, hung out to dry and unable to move forward, move up or move out of seemingly inescapable contradictions and conflict, summon your inner fire and let Spirit’s unstoppable subtle flame utterly consume the roadblocks in your life!
US Climate Update for Winter 2014-2015
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the most severe drought in recorded history is officially entering its fourth year. Jane and I continue to be shocked by the unseasonable weather and by the ongoing difficulties reported to us by the farmers at our local farmer’s markets.
We are in the middle of a very unusual heat wave, with highs in the nineties last week and today’s high temperature in Antioch a bright and sunny 94° without a cloud in the sky.
Jane and I just flew back from New York, where we drove around upstate and saw the trees beginning to change color. The weather was mild and cool, and the scent of mold hung in the air all across Westchester, Putnam and Greene counties. The fall is traditionally mold season due to the leaf mold litter in the Hudson Valley and of course last winter was ridiculously wet so the moldy smell was no surprise.
On the other hand, it felt extremely peculiar to be putting pumpkins and gourds outside the front door here in Antioch in dry heat and brilliant bright sunlight more appropriate for a mid-summer’s day frolic than an autumnal harvest season.
This extreme California weather pattern concerned me enough that I did some research online and discovered that persistent vast weather systems affecting the Northern Pacific Ocean appear to be creating virtually unprecedented climatic conditions across the entire continental United States.
Meteorologist Daniel Swain, who writes the very insightful California Weather Blog, posted observations on September 29, 2014 that were based upon a peer-reviewed article he co-wrote on this topic, recently published in a special issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (Swain et al. 2014).
“In 2013 and 2014,” Daniel reports, “a vast region of persistently high atmospheric pressure over the northeastern Pacific Ocean–known as the ‘Ridiculously Resilient Ridge’–prevented typical winter storms from reaching California, bringing record-low precipitation and record-high temperatures. These extremely dry and warm conditions have culminated in California’s worst drought in living memory, and likely the worst in over 100 years. Human-caused climate change has increased the likelihood of extremely high atmospheric pressure over the North Pacific Ocean, which suggests an increased risk of atmospheric patterns conducive to drought in California.”
Snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas, which is the primary reservoir for California’s water needs, has been virtually non-existent in 2013 and 2014, as Jane and I observed first-hand while flying back from New York a few days ago. Seeing the brown denuded mountaintops where there had always been snow-capped peaks gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Since 2012, the Sierra Nevada mountain range is actually rising measurably because of the loss of some 63 trillion gallons of water, the wildfire season in California is extending for several months beyond the norm, and the Eel River, one of California’s largest rivers, is no longer reaching the Pacific Ocean.
“2013 was the driest calendar year in at least 119 years of record keeping—but even more impressively, the current drought now encompasses the driest consecutive 12-month period since at least 1895,” according to Daniel’s peer-reviewed article on this epic drought.
This Ridiculously Resilient Ridge of high atmospheric pressure in the Pacific Ocean has pushed the jet stream bearing moisture-laden Pacific Ocean weather systems far to the north of California, and even often to the north of Oregon, where the jet stream is chilled by conditions in the far North of Canada and then redirected through the Chicago area, across the Midwest and also through the Great Lakes and into the Northeast Atlantic Seaboard, helping to create the conditions that led to last year’s Arctic Chicago winter and an amazing 33 winter storms in New York in the winter of 2013.
“The atmospheric pattern over much of North America has been exhibiting a remarkable degree of persistence over the past 12-18 months,” Daniel explains. This very unusual atmospheric configuration—in which the large-scale atmospheric wave pattern appears to be largely ‘stuck’ in place—has been characterized by a seemingly ever-present West Coast ridge and a similarly stubborn trough over central and eastern United States (commonly referred to in media coverage as the ‘Polar Vortex,’ though this terminology is arguably problematic). This so-called ‘North American dipole’ (highlighted by Wang et al., 2014) has resulted in persistent warm/dry anomalies along the West Coast and persistent cool/wet anomalies over the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard.”
For those who are hoping for a wetter winter in California and more normal winter conditions in the Eastern half of America, it appears that extreme weather patterns may well continue to prevail.
Climate scientists are predicting a fourth year of unprecedented drought with below-average rainfall during the 2014 rainy season in California and the NOAA CFS model forecast for next winter’s Pacific sea surface temperatures indicates good odds of a colder, snowier winter forecast for the Eastern U.S. akin to the notorious 2003-04 and 2009-10 winters.
Naturally, scientists and all of the rest of us living in the United States are wondering whether these extreme weather conditions are in any way connected to human activity, or whether they are just part of the normal cyclical ups and downs of weather history in this country.
Climate scientists like Daniel Swain have been able to analyze these persistent climatic anomalies and have come to some conclusions about the probability that human activities have contributed to the creation of the extreme drought in California and extreme winter storm activity in the Midwest and along the East Coast.
“In our study on the California drought,” reports Daniel Swain, “we used data from an ensemble of different climate models developed by various international research institutions to assess differences between two hypothetical climates: one in which humans never emitted greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (and only natural variations, like those resulting from volcanic eruptions and changes in solar activity, took place), and another that closely parallels the real world, in which natural variations occurred in addition to the human emission of greenhouse gases.”
“Using these climate model simulations, we found that the human emission of greenhouse gases has very likely tripled the likelihood of experiencing large-scale atmospheric conditions similar to those observed in 2013,” Daniel and his co-authors concluded in their peer-reviewed climate science article.
So if you live in California, prepare yourself for life based upon water scarcity, and if you live in the Eastern half of this country, invest in flood insurance and be sure you have a generator handy this winter.
Perhaps it is time to consider curtailing the use of increasingly scarce water resources to graze cattle in California, and perhaps it is time for New Yorkers to consider retro-fitting their huge stock of aging houses, businesses and schools with up-to-date insulation, weather-proof windows and to stop eating beef from the cattle grown in arid Western states that consume so much increasingly scarce water while emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases.
Consider the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge the next time you crank up your SUV or take a bite of your bacon cheeseburger. And if you are concerned about leaving your children a legacy of increasingly extreme weather conditions, pass this newsletter along to your friends and family. This is not a political issue anymore. This is not about the potential for climate change in the distant future. This is about the slow but continuous erosion of the Goldilocks climate conditions that have made human civilization possible for the last few thousand years. It’s real and it’s happening right before your very eyes.
October 2014 Cosmic Weather Forecast
On Wednesday October 8th at 3:51 am Pacific Time, we celebrate the Aries Full Blood Moon Eclipse Festival.
This month’s full moon is traditionally known as the Hunter’s Moon. Because the shift in the plane of the ecliptic during autumn creates earlier than usual moonrises, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere will enjoy early evening till dawn moonlight for several consecutive nights. A great time to go hunting for sure!
This Hunter’s Moon is also a Blood Moon. Whenever a full moon eclipse occurs, the Earth passes between the Sun and the moon. At the time of the eclipse, the Earth’s shadow falls across the moon, and the moon then appears red to the naked eye because as sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, much of the blue and green frequencies of the spectrum are filtered out, leaving predominantly reddish hues to be cast upon the moon during an eclipse.
This full moon occurs at 15°05’ Aries. With the Sun opposed at 15°05’ Libra we celebrate the Libra Solar Festival.
The Aries Full Moon will be conjunct Uranus in Aries and square Pluto in Capricorn, while opposing the Sun in Libra, creating an extremely tense, potent T-square formation and reigniting the highly combustible energies of the lengthy series of infamous Uranus-Pluto squares that began around the time of the 2008 global finanical crisis, evolved into the various permutations of the Grand Cardinal Cross configurations which reached their peak this April, and which will again resurface around Christmas and next spring.
Issues in your life and on the global stage that were prominent in April are re-surfacing now for your attention and for healing. It is quite likely that these global (and personal) issues will again resurface this winter and next spring in more serious manner unless redressed immediately.
April brought us a number of headlines related to the Global War on Terror including multiple conflicts with many casualties in the Syrian Civil War, Al Qaeda actions in Yemen, attacks in Baghdad and across Iraq by Sunni militants angered at the Shiite government, Islamist car bombings in Nigeria, and Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 200 girls in Nigeria. Perhaps most significant of all, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi emerged as leader of the ISIS Islamist forces that have created a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and now threaten governments in both countries.
As of this week’s Full Blood Moon Eclipse, the United States has begun military operations in Iraq and Syria including a bombing campaign that President Obama expects to continue for several years. Both Republican and Democratic politicians in America are openly recommending that American troops be used against ISIS ground forces.
April 7, 2014 was World Health Day, and the topic of the year was vector borne diseases and how to better contain them. The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Mali appeared in the news, and claimed dozens of lives in April. Needless to say, the unprecedented Ebola outbreak in Africa continues the theme of vector borne diseases this Full Blood Moon Eclipse week, and we will have much more to say about the cosmic weather patterns providing insight into this humanitarian disaster in the paragraphs below.
This week’s Full Moon Festival also has some extremely potent positive aspects that could help individuals and global leaders to address the simmering issues that are creating personal and global conflicts and sorrow at this time.
There is a very positive Grand Fire Trine this week to counterbalance the energies of the Cardinal T-Square. The moon and Uranus, the planet of sudden, electrifying change, are both in the sign of the Ram, Aries, and trine Mars in aspirational Sagittarius and Jupiter in regal Leo, creating an atmosphere of self-confidence and optimism that is essential to taking the dramatic actions required to offset the difficulties manifested in synchronicity with the Cardinal T-Square, which tend to persist over long periods of time through intransigent conflicts, political gridlock and general indecision.
So wherever you feel stuck in your life, wherever you feel that you are hung up, hung out to dry and unable to move forward, move up or move out of seemingly inescapable contradictions and conflict, summon your inner fire and let Spirit’s unstoppable subtle flame utterly consume the roadblocks in your life!
Now is the time to move forward in life. Refuse to be satisfied with small, subtle, and incremental change. Think big, plan carefully and execute your grand designs with the courage characteristic of the king of beasts! The cosmic wind is at your back and your sails will soon fill with the energy you need to break through the obstacles that are preventing you from fulfilling your dearest hopes, achieving your loftiest spiritual goals and reaching your most cherished material ambitions.
Tune in to the energy of the Grand Fire Trine in your meditations and prayers and ask to be uplifted by the outpouring of the Triple Flame of the Enlightened Heart this Full Moon week and your sincere efforts will surely be rewarded.
Do not let the array of personal and global difficulties endemic to this decade derail you from your spiritual practices or the daily practice of kindness or deter you from making your best efforts to achieve your goals in harmony with your Higher Purpose.
A good example of how to handle these ambient negative energies can be found by taking a close look at the ongoing Ebola crisis, the public reaction to it, and by searching our hearts to find compassion and the voice of Spirit that will Guide us and prompt us to take the right action for the best and highest good of all involved.
The American news media are now in a state of 24/7 info-frenzy concerning the potential for this admittedly unprecedented outbreak of the Ebola virus to go global, escaping its epicenter in West Africa and traveling by plane to the United States, to Egypt, and to South Asia. However 99% of the media coverage centers on concerns about Ebola spreading to America, where only a single infected individual has entered the country unknown to the authorities, and had contact with a few dozen people in the Dallas, Texas area.
It is instructive to review the history of this outbreak, and this disease in light of the astrological factors that contribute to shaping the cosmic weather patterns that seem to favor the birth and the spread of this deadly disease vector, which was initially noted in the news media in April of this year, when the Grand Cardinal Cross was at its peak of potency.
From my point of view, although I am an amateur astrologer, it appears that the Ebola outbreak and our reaction to it has a lot to do with the placement of Neptune and Mercury at this time.
This week Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio, sign of physical dissolution and death, while Neptune, planet of mental dissolution and contagious disease, has been retrograde in Pisces since June 10. Both are water signs and the Ebola virus is spread through contaminated bodily fluids of all kinds, through both human and animal vectors, including monkeys and fruit bats.
Slow moving Neptune, which astronomers call the other blue planet, takes 165 years to go around the Sun. April 4, 2011 this enormous planet entered Pisces, where it will remain for approximately 14 years.
Neptune is all about dissolving our most deeply held mental maps of the world, and erasing the barriers between individuals, for good and for ill. It is the planet of transpersonal psychology, spiritual attainment, compassion, selfless service and also spiritual glamours and contagious diseases.
When Neptune is in Pisces, the qualities of Neptune as solvent are vastly magnified by the watery Piscean quality of egolessness, and by the emotional tidal flows characteristic of this sign, which seems always to be moving emotionally in two directions at the same time.
It should be no surprise that diseases spread by contamination of water and/or bodily fluids are a signature of Neptune in Pisces.
Neptune was discovered on September 23, 1846.
It was when Neptune entered Pisces in 1847 that the first African colony gained independence, when slaves freed in America returned to Africa and declared Liberia an independent country. Liberia of course is one of the epicenters of the current outbreak of Ebola Virus.
In the 1850s, with Neptune in Pisces a global cholera outbreak claimed millions of victims, especially in Russia, however in London an astute physician, Dr. John Snow, traced the origins of the cholera outbreak in that city to a street pump contaminated with human faeces, advancing medical knowledge immensely and providing us with the insight necessary to forestall further outbreaks.
Like Ebola, cholera is a disease transmitted by contaminated bodily fluids.
So does astrology indicate that we are now doomed to suffer a global pandemic? With Neptune retrograde in Pisces and with Mercury retrograde in Scorpio this week, amidst all the paranoia and fear-mongering in the news media, it is difficult to keep a level head and obtain a clear view of the situation.
Mental confusion is the nature of these watery retrograde planetary placements after all. And Ebola is a disease tailor-made to hook into our deepest fears and short-circuit our normal thought processes.
Ebola is one of the deadliest diseases known to humanity, with up to a 90% mortality rate. Mortality rates in the current outbreak are upwards of 50% to 75%.
Ebola causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding from the eyes, ears, mouth and rectum. Contact with a victims’ bodily fluids, including sweat, tears and even mucus from sneezing can be enough to spread the disease. The virus is described as weak, but can survive for hours on a doorknob or other contaminated object.
Sporadic outbreaks since 1976 in Africa have occurred at intervals, in isolated outlying areas, but in this outbreak the disease has spread across large distances and cases have appeared in large cities such as Lagos, Nigeria, home to 22 million people.
The American Center for Disease Control’s most recent summary of information regarding the current Ebola outbreak is instructive and can help to clarify the confusion in our collective consciousness.
The CDC estimates that by the end of September, there were approximately 8,000 Ebola cases reported in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but admits that the total cases including those so far unreported probably totals 21,000 cases.
“Without additional interventions or changes in community behavior, CDC estimates that by January 20, 2015, there will be a total of approximately 550,000 Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone or 1.4 million if corrections for underreporting are made,” according to the CDC website.
The Ebola epidemic is advancing in an exponential curve, as President Obama pointed out recently. Cases in Liberia are currently doubling every 15-20 days, and those in Sierra Leone and Guinea are doubling every 30-40 days, according to the CDC.
If this trend were to continue for several months imagine the outcome. Perhaps 1.4 million cases by end of January, then double that by end of February, then double that by end of March and you have 4.8 million Ebola cases in those small West African countries alone.
In Sierra Leone, over one million people have been quarantined within a “cordon sanitaire”, a euphemism for the containment of large populations within restricted borders by military personnel. This technique of disease control has not been used in over 100 years.
The spread of Ebola within Lagos, Nigeria, with its 22 million people, and multiple transportation hubs, would instantly transform the epidemic into a global pandemic.
At a recent Congressional hearing on the crisis, Dr. Frank Glover, a medical missionary who partners with SIM, a Christian missions organization, and the president of SHIELD, a U.S.-based NGO in Africa, warned that Liberia had fewer than 200 doctors struggling to meet the health needs of 4 million people before the epidemic. "After the outbreak that number went down to about 50 doctors involved in clinical care," said Glover, according to an article in Foreign Policy magazine by Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Halting the epidemic requires that approximately 70% of Ebola cases be cared for in Ebola Treatment Units or, if they are at capacity, at home or in a community setting in which there is a reduced risk of disease transmission and safe burials are provided,” warns the CDC.
Unfortunately negative Piscean, Scorpionic and Neptunian impulses of fear and paranoia are overpowering the compassionate instincts which are the more positive qualities associated with these powerful watery planetary energy signatures, especially in Western countries which are best positioned to provide relief for those suffering and dying in Western Africa, and best able to offer the counter-measures that would stop the spread of this dreadful contagious disease.
Doctors Without Borders, an internationally acclaimed global medical aid organization, has committed over 3,000 medical workers to the frontlines of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. In all, 240 health care workers in the Ebola stricken areas have contracted the disease despite best efforts at disease prevention and decontamination, and 50% of those infected medical workers have died fighting the Ebola outbreak!
Currently the United States is sending a few thousand soldiers to these areas while focusing primarily on airport screening, epidemiological containment efforts on the handful of cases in America, and hysterical hand-wringing about the state of our supposedly world-class medical system.
Meanwhile, the primary need from the point of view of medical experts is for nurses, medical technicians, doctors, epidemiologists, health care managers and similarly highly trained personnel to be sent directly into the areas where the Ebola epidemic is spreading.
These volunteers would have to put their life on the line, like the personnel from Doctors Without Borders who are risking their lives every day in these stricken regions.
Here is the list of supplies Emmet A. Dennis, president of the University of Liberia, emailed Laurie Garrett that he needs for his medical school personnel now fighting cases in Monrovia:
Gowns -- Isolation
Underpads -- Disposable
Gloves, Examination -- All Sizes
Body Bags -- Adult & Children
Infectious Waste Bag -- Red
Face Mask -- Duckbilled
Face Shield -- Disposable
Eye Shields -- Disposable
Shoe Covers
Aprons -- Disposable
Sanitizer Wipes
Plastic Boots
Surgical Caps -- Disposable
Disinfectant
Scrubs (L & XL)
Thermometer: Infrared -- Thermofocus
Disinfectant Soap
Chlorinated Disinfectant
Rehydration Fluids
R/L Solution
N/S Solution
Jane and I have already donated to Doctors Without Borders and Project Cure, and hope that you will also donate as you can to these two organizations who are in the forefront of the fight against Ebola.
We hope this Aries Full Blood Moon Eclipse and Libra Solar Festival will open your hearts, fill you with subtle flame of Spirit, and empower you to overcome the fears, negative emotions, material world obstacles, mental indecision and physical infirmities that may currently be obstructing you on your path of Spirit. May you each receive the Grace and Guidance you need to achieve your loftiest material and spiritual goals.
Love and Light,
Curtis and Jane
