Moon, birth

Several hundred kilometres further east, in Finnish Karelia, the nineteenth century saw the birth of legends which were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. Elias Lonnrot, a doctor, collected these fables and used them to create the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala , which starts with a creation myth. In the first rune, the daughter of the air lets herself fall into the sea. She is made pregnant by the wind and the waves. The duck, as water mother, comes to her, builds a nest on her knee, and lays her eggs. These roll into the sea and break, giving rise to the Earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon and the stars ... 

A vital event in the further development of the Earth was its collision with a smaller planet, possibly as big as Mars. It is assumed that this gigantic collision took place between four and four and a half billion years ago (Sleep et al., 2001), and that it also resulted in the birth of our moon (Luna), which was formed from partially vaporized matter from the Earth. It is likely that not all of the proto-Earth was melted by the energy set free in the collision, but that sections of it remained in their original form. However, more exact information is not yet available. 

Such a measurement can tell us about the chemical evolution of oxygen, such as whether the isotopes differentiated via a thermal cycle in which lighter leO fractionates from the heavier lsO, much as Vostok ice-core oxygen ratios reveal the Earth s prehistoric climate. From this fixed point of the Sun s oxygen ratios, we can then trace the history of water in other planetary bodies since their birth in the solar nebulae through the subsequent cometary bombardment [13]. In NASA s search for water on the Moon, important for the establishment of a future Moon base, such isotopic ratios will determine whether the water is a vast mother lode or just a recent cometary impact residue. 

And planets. Mars is in Libra in opposition to Mercury,messer The moon in your own birth sign of Virgo makes you especially vulnerable. I beg you to wait at least until Tuesday before making any move that you might possibly regret later. Any decision you make before that will certainly be star-crossed. ... 

I am twenty-seven, and my baby daughter is almost three. Since her birth, I have worried about her discovery that her mother s eyes are different from other people s. Will she be embarrassed I think. What will she say Every day she watches a television program called Big Blue Marble. It begins with a picture of the earth as it appears from the moon. It is bluish, a little battered-looking, but full of light, with whitish... 

You ll also find the Appendix, which lists the positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets, including Chiron. This is the section of the book to turn to when doing a birth chart. It tells you where the planets were (and will be) between 1930 and 2012. 

The sign that the Sun occupied at the moment of your birth is the most basic astrological fact about you. It defines your ego, motivations, needs, and approach to life. But the Sun isn t the only planet that affects you. (For astrological purposes, both luminaries — the Sun and the Moon — are called planets. Do yourself a favor and don t use this terminology when talking to astronomers.) Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, not to mention the Moon, represent distinct types of energy that express themselves in the style of the sign they re in. 

If you know the phase of the Moon at your birth, you can locate it in a similar way. Were you born under a new moon Then your Moon and Sun are in roughly the same place. Born under a full moon Then the Sun and Moon are opposite each other — 180° apart. If one is rising, the other is setting. 

The point is this The horoscope is neither a metaphysical construct nor a mystical symbol nor a psychological portrait. It s a map. Your horoscope shows the position of the Sun, Moon, and planets at the moment of your birth. The astrologer s task is to look at that map and figure out its meaning. But first you have to get your hands on the map. In this chapter, I tell you how to do just that. 

Without an accurate birth time, you can never know what your Ascendant is (see Chapter 11 for more about Ascendants). You won t have trustworthy house placements for your planets. You may not even know your Moon sign because it changes signs every two or three days. Without an accurate birth time, interpreting your chart correctly will be challenging. And predicting the future will be close to impossible. 

Chaos Astrology (mm. chaosastrology. com) The free birth chart offered at this Web site is longer than most — plus, it includes the actual chart, if you know where to look. The trick is simple After you feed in your birth information and your astrological profile appears on the screen, click on the sun/moon icon at the top of the page. Lo and behold Your actual birth chart appears. 

The Moon Figuring out the placement of the Moon, which represents your emotions, can be challenging because the Moon swings into a new sign of the zodiac every two or three days. Here too, the exact time of your birth can make a difference. 

If the Sun and Moon occupied compatible signs at your birth, you re in luck. Your (solar) will and (lunar) emotions, your conscious awareness and unconscious, moony self, are in sync. That must be nice — I wouldn t know. If your luminaries inhabit clashing signs, you ll experience a storm of conflicting needs and desires. Well, that s life. Astrology just reflects it. 

The sign that the Moon occupied at your birth describes your emotional reactions. It defines an area of fluctuation and instability in your chart, and it also represents women in general and your mother in particular. In this list, 1 describe the effect of the Moon in the signs ... 

About one hundred years after the birth of Christ, the astronomer Ptolemy wrote a book confidently asserting what everyone already knew That the Earth was the center of the universe, and that everything else —the Moon, the Sun, the stars, and the planets — revolved around it. 

And when, over the course of its 84-year cycle, it stimulates the Sun, the Moon, and the other planets in a birth chart, it can beget turmoil, foolish accidents, hair-raising relationship upheaval, amazing job shifts, and — in short — whatever mayhem it takes to loosen you up and liberate you. 

Thinking about the houses of your birth chart Talking about the Sun and Moon in the houses Considering the planets in the houses Pondering the empty houses in your chart... 

The size of the stellium also makes a difference. Normally, a stellium consists of three or four planets. Seldom do you see more. But occasional planetary pileups produce monstrous stelliums, as in the case of the TV cook Rachael Ray (who has seven planets plus the Ascendant in Virgo) or the actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose extraordinary birth chart features seven planets, including the Sun and the Moon, in Aquarius. The scary intensity she portrays in her acting comes directly from the power of that stellium. 

A birth chart can easily have two dozen aspects in it. Fortunately, some are more important than others. The aspects that deserve the closest attention are those that are the tightest, those that involve the Sun or the Moon, and those that weave three or more planets into a single pattern, as in these configurations ... 

Notice that Saturn, the planet of restriction, is now in her fifth house of children, and Uranus, the planet of the unexpected, is in her eighth house of death and transformation. Those two transits, I should point out, aren t nearly enough to trigger such an exceedingly rare and terrible loss. After all, everyone who had an Ascendant in the neighborhood of 21° Virgo also experienced those transits. A birth chart must show the potential for an event in order for it to happen. And there it is The close opposition of her natal Uranus to her natal Sun, Moon, Mars, and Neptune clearly introduces the possibility of violence. The transits acted on the possibilities already there in her remarkable chart. 

Tracking the Moon through the houses of your birth chart is another way to tap into its power. However, you can only do this if you know the time of your birth and have identified your rising sign or Ascendant. (For instructions on how to figure that out, see Chapter 11.)... 

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