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The August Perspective 2008
by Leigh Oswald
OVERVIEW
This month opens with a total solar eclipse on the 1st at 10.22 GMT in the 10th degree of Leo. A solar eclipse always happens at a new Moon. The Moon will then pass between the Earth and the Sun casting a shadow across the Earth. To see the eclipse you have to be within that shadow. Outside it you will only see a partial eclipse. The Moon’s shadow will first touch down at dawn across north Canada and move across the north polar region into Siberia and then across Western Mongolia, leaving the Earth at sunset in central China, so most of us will not get the full picture. It is called a midnight solar eclipse, meaning that it falls in the region of the midnight Sun. All eclipses can cause natural disasters as the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon are in alignment. Astrologically it equates with radical new beginnings and new chapters which need to be initiated within the first 48 hours of the exact time of the eclipse.
There is also this month a partial lunar eclipse on the 16th at 21.11 GMT in the 25th degree of Aquarius. This is when the Moon is darkened by the Earth passing between the Sun and the Moon, but will be only visible across most of Europe and Africa who will see the entire of this eclipse and South America will see a part of it. A lunar eclipse is a heavier influence than a solar eclipse as it involves the opposition energy between the Sun and the Moon. This creates tension between the conscious and the unconscious, the male and the female, or if you will, the left and right hemispheres of the brain, hence the eruptions of primeval feelings from the unconscious on full Moons and particularly during lunar eclipses. The word lunatic originated in medieval times, and was a name for someone born under a full moon. Don’t panic if that is you, as it is absolutely not true in the sense that we understand that word now, it actually makes people very interesting and broad minded and a bit endearingly complex. Again, natural disasters such as tidal waves and earthquakes are all part of triggered energy under a lunar eclipse; and there can also be metaphorical earthquakes and tidal waves in our own personal lives, particularly if we have a planet or important point very close to the degree of the eclipse.
This is however Leo’s month, the sign of royalty. Its totem is the lion, the king of the beasts, hence the Leonine desire for authority, respect and homage. It rules creativity and hence it rules children (the most creative physical manifestation we produce) and the theatre and ballet. The desire to shine and be centre stage somehow in life, and receive some sort of applause is a strong drive .Leo’s excels in proving its worthiness, if any authority is vested in them. This sign has an endearing sense of almost naïve optimism, innocence and spontaneity and is often quite self-centred like the child. Without being loved, or giving love, it gets depressed. Leo needs to learn to be effective, but not affective. It can be child-like but not childish. Generosity and warmth exude, but so does pride and fixity. Leo rules France and Italy and also parts of the Middle East region. Mercury is in that sign until the 10th and Venus is there until the 6th, hence early month especially, all is extrovert and dramatic in the arts. Leo regions may also well be highlighted creatively and politically this month.
Leo rules children and creative fecundity; and currently at Glasgow Science Centre, Scotland, till September 1st, there is an exhibition, dedicated to the birth experience. It was originally inspired by two women, artist Helen Knowles and art history graduate Phoebe Mortimer. They decided that childbirth (a major experience in life) was sadly under explored as a subject for artistic response. All other human powerful experience and emotion such as love, pain, passion, suffering, war, sex, death, and angst are all plentifully explored in the arts, but there was a crucial gap in the market. Hence the exhibition Birth Rites was born. Five artists shadowed obstetric and antenatal staff and then recorded their responses to their observations on canvas and via the medium of photography and video-art. This exhibition is both sensitive and graphic. This is not just an all female affair, two male video-artists reveal through their work the mixture of alienation, confusion and overwhelming involvement of the father in a birth environment. The juxtaposition of the impersonal technology and gadgets with the emotions of childbirth and especially the essential emotional isolation of the mother, despite being surrounded by people, is poignantly documented.
It is interesting that this show which moves to Manchester museum, England, in September, is confined to science venues. Knowles has found a reluctance of galleries to want to get involved. She says "what we are finding is that there is still a lot of fear around the subject matter" For such a ubiquitous, fundamental and undeniably profound phenomenon as child birth, this surely is odd.
Sexuality and childbirth are curiously separated in our culture; the former is explored and exploited ad nauseum, the latter strangely disengaged and demoted. It is sometimes easy to forget that they are so intimately linked. The means have been hugely elevated (no pun intended) above the ends: the definition of Anomie.
The period of time from Scorpio (sex) to Cancer (birth) approximates to the gestation period.
After the 10th when Mercury joins Venus in Virgo; the power of detail and technical skill will be demanded and will be of the zeitgeist. Form and structure and its marriage with aesthetics will dominate and architectural interests will also dominate
Until the 19th Mars also still in Virgo will emphasise architectural and installation work and importantly will continue to underline the urgency of the plight of global environmental and food issues.
A new book "A World without Bees" has been recently published by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum. This is an alarming warning of the fact that honey bees are dying out rapidly globally. Over use of insecticide are thought to be the main culprit and there have also been mass deaths through a lethal bee virus. Pollination is big business, especially in the States, and bees have been treated as a commodity, being shipped around in lorries to do men’s bidding. Living such unnatural lives, it is thought, further weakens them.
The book explains how in the province of southern Sichuan in China, because the over use of pesticides, their bee population became extinct 20 years ago. This has lead to the need for thousands of families there, to gather in their fields at the appointed time, and by using bamboo sticks with attached chicken feathers, they perform mass human DIY pollination from the male to the female parts of the flowers on their fruit trees. The implications of the lack of bees are enormous in the food chain. Forage crops for cattle would die off, as would many food staples, without the work of the bee. The authors believe this issue is going to soon cause an environmental crisis "bigger than climate change".
The humble bee pollinates $15 bn. worth of crops a year, in the States alone, and Benjamin and McCallum report that 800,000 hives were wiped out there in 2007 alone and a further million have disappeared so far this year. This trend is being reflected world wide
We over exploit a natural resource, always at our peril. Bees are sensitive and collectively highly intelligent; and as with so many other assets of nature, we have underestimated their importance, or are ignorant of it, and have taken them for granted. Despite the doom and gloom scenario, possibly overplayed by this book, we cannot fail to be reminded of Albert Einstein’s warning that "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left"
The queen bee has obviously a Leo connotation, but the worker bee has been equated to the sign of hard working, dutiful Capricorn. It should not go without comment that Pluto, planet of death and endings will be back, for a long 16 year haul, in Capricorn (every 248 years) from the end of this year.
This is Leos month and there is no other Leo ruled country quite so Leonine as Italy. Its people are extrovert, dramatic, uninhibited, larger than life, expressive, colourful, loyal, proud, and dignified and generally unashamedly life and love affirming. They are very child centred too.
It is fitting that currently at the National Gallery, London, till September 7th, an exhibition of a little known Italian school known as the" Divisionismo" is currently running, called Radical Light: Divisionist Painters 1891-1910. After the unification of Italy there was a desire to create a new Italy, with a new artistic trend emphasising the then new European artistic experimentation with light and colour. Heavily influenced by The French school of Post Impressionists and Pointillists, there was a desire to get away from traditional Italian high art and to create a more populist focus. The emancipation of Rome from the Catholic Church, not accepted by the Pope, symbolised a new secular mood, with a hint of socialistic fervour. Vittore Grubicy seems to have been the main mover and shaker of Divisionism and his time in France and Belgium in the 1880’s heavily influenced him; and he thereafter inspired fellow Revisionists e.g. Segantini, Gaetano, Morbelli, Grubicy and Longoni. Morbelli and Longoni and also Giuseppe Pellizza used their work to express radical social discontent in a rather sentimentalised style, using the new painting techniques, oddly alien for the subject matter. Reflecting a growing division nationally in value systems between the past and the evolving present, an odd mixture emerged in the divisionist school, creating a juxtaposition of the sentiments of the old school of religious high art, combined with a new modernism in style, technique and subject matter. With Italy at a cross roads the evolving struggle for a new national identity is clearly expressed in this exhibition. Umberto Boccioni, a later revisionist, symbolises a completed revolution with his work unselfconsciously more committed to a secular urban commentary.
Leo is ruled by the Sun, the centre of the solar system, just as the heart, the power house of the body is the associated organ with this sign. A new, huge push for capturing the intense solar energy from the Sahara dessert, in order to provide power for much of Europe is now on. Vast farms of solar power panels are planned that will produce energy through photo voltaic cells, or by using the concentrated heat of the sun to boil water and drive turbines. Europe is investing millions in this, to answer some of its future energy demands and to reduce its carbon emissions. This centralised energy would be transmitted along high voltage direct current cables. Spain and Portugal have smaller such concentrating solar power (CSP) plants up and running in their own countries. The Saharan project would cost initially around £35bn. Investment in this visionary scheme is being heavily supported by French premier Sarkozy and our own dear P.M. Brown.
Such a project demands huge international cooperation and a bringing together of a variety of technologies. Necessity however is the mother of remarkable feats. This month the planet Uranus is very active on the 6th and 23rd. Uranus is about cutting edge technology and the future. These may be days when leaps are made in such directions. Eureka moments may abound.
However times of danger when there are real potential global flashpoints, either geophysically or geopolitically are also possible under Uranus disruptive unpredictable influence, so those dates may also correlate with such events. These dates are moments when Mars and Mercury oppose Uranus respectively.
Since there is also such a strong Neptune influence this month (ruling Pisces the fish and Neptune being god of the seas), the plight of our seas and the over fishing question is now increasingly high profile. (Notable Neptune dates this month are 1st, 16th and 23rd). Decades of global industrial scale fishing that has hoovered the seas, has hopelessly skewed the balance between man’s desire for fish and supply of fish. To misquote George Bush Jnr, man and fish are not co-existing. We have known about the global tragedy of increasingly empty seas, with all its mammoth implications for the health of the ocean’s ecosystem and the spin off for the planet, for years, but government inaction has been stunning. A new book "The Last fish Tale: the Fate of the Atlantic and our Disappearing Fisheries" by Mark Kurlansky is not cheerful reading. Mars in Virgo (opposing Pisces) will ensure that this subject is aired aggressively this month.
When Mars moves into Libra on the 19th, this will underline the need and drive for harmony, balance and diplomacy on the planet and emphasises pure aesthetic, classical beauty in the arts.
Mars in Libra from the 19th can be quite warlike, even though Mars is in a harmonious sign. Mars in Libra creates a sort of steamroller effect; forceful politics, forceful diplomacy. Mars moving into Libra on the 19th is interesting as China is a Libra country activating a tension in that part of the world, hopefully without some of the more aggressive side of Mars being manifested, particularly at the very end of August when Mars triggers China’s natal Sun.
Pluto is now established back in Sagittarius until late November and he is revisiting much that was happening in our personal lives or globally in 2007 and early 2008 to finally show us what that period was really all about, so we can finally move on.
A day that is brilliant for the arts, particularly the writer, is the 20th when Mercury combines with Venus. On the 1st when Venus opposes Neptune and on the 6th when Mercury opposes Neptune and again on the 15th when the Sun opposes Neptune, there are real upbeat energies for music and especially film and photography. On the 23rd when Venus opposes Uranus, there is also a great inspiration for cutting edge ingenious stuff and for the creative use of technology.
Neptune having such a strong input, by opposition from Aquarius to Leo energy this month very much underlines (apart from the sea) fantasy, glamour, escapism, idealism, illusion and delusion. These are all part of Neptune’s domain. Photography/film is a past master of perpetrating such qualities.
At the Photographer’s gallery, London, till September 14th the exhibition Fashion in the Mirror: Self Reflection in Fashion Photography; encapsulates Neptunian sentiments. Fashion and glamour is fantasy, make-believe and theatre. Photography has always exploited this; making it into an art form in itself increasingly since the 60’s with the rise of the power and influence of the ubiquitous glossy fashion magazine. This exhibition shows the emergence of the photographer himself as keen to be in the picture. Nick Knight, David Bailey, Helmut Newton, are all photographers who ensured they co-starred with their models. Glamour is very infectious. Of course it is not historically unusual for the artist to ensure he appears on his own canvas. This exhibition is replete, self evidently, with the power of the mirror (Neptune). The camera can reconstruct reality, elevating subject matter through artifice and slight of hand to fairytale, fantasy proportions. By definition, a fantasy cannot ever be real. Therein lies the rub; as it contributes to much dissatisfaction, disillusionment, depression, low self esteem and associated pathology (eating disorders, self harm, retail addiction etc) that blights so many. The desire to actualise fantasies also of course largely drives the economy.
The gap between the images portrayed of perceived success, desirability etc; and the realities of life, creates a bitter undertone for many. One newspaper columnist interestingly described the seeming rising epidemic of knife crime currently hitting the UK, mainly amongst underprivileged youth, (the underclass, as it is now termed), as "collective self harm"
Very regenerative, life affirming and empowering days are the 5th and 21st when Venus and the Sun trine Pluto respectively, and on the 17th when Venus trines Jupiter there is a feeling of upbeat harmony, creative fertility and self indulgence in the air...
N.B. If you know your ascendant (rising sign), you should read the general trends for that sign, in conjunction with your Sun sign, for a more accurate forecast. In astrology, the nature of the planet symbolises the type of energy that is happening, the sign it is in - how it is happening and the house it is in - where it is happening.
LEIGH OSWALD is a London-based astrologer and teacher. She welcomes your comments to leigh@astroanalysis.co.uk, or visit her website at www.astroanalysis.co.uk.
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