Solar Eclipse September 11 2007 Sabian Symbol

Virgo New Moon Eclipse September 11 2007

'Swimming over the rocks was dangerous but it was exciting.' 'How can a guy climb trees, say me Tarzan, you Jane, and make a million?' Throughout my career I swam for form. Speed came as a result of it.’ Johnny Weissmuller - the actor who played Tarzan

September's solar eclipse is set to be a very interesting one, particularly in the light of the fact that it occurs on September 11, a date that is inextricably inked into our subconscious as a moment that many facets of our world changed forever.

Casting the chart of the September 11 solar eclipse for New York, we find that the ascendant degree is almost the same = the angles of the chart of the eclipse line up with the angles of the chart of 9/11, something that certainly is worth mentioning.

The attack on the World Trade Center in New York on that fateful day in 2001 unleashed something in us that is rather hard to define... certainly the world changed for us from that moment forward... and everybody has their own individual take on just how their world changed from that day.

The Sabian Symbol for the Sun in the chart of 9/11 and in this solar eclipse is Virgo 19: A Swimming Race. For some, life feels more and more like a race, perhaps a 'rat race''; that we're all thrown into the same lane and expected to swim like crazy for the finish line - whatever the 'finish line' happens to be.

Drawing the bow of Tarzan for the theme for this blog may seem like a bit of a weird stretch, but it seems to me that many feel like we're in some kind of weird Hollywood movie where we have to be fit, beautiful, strong, confident, compelled to win, on the side of right and ready to holler our willingness to be in the game, racing towards the goal and striding for the big reward.

Winning and losing are what the Swimming Race is largely about, although those who have less hair on their chests amongst us may be content with merely being allowed or able to 'compete'. There's often more glory in doing one's best than beating everyone else and coming up with the golden cup of proof of one's prowess or willingness to push and push. Sometimes, just having your feet on the starter's blocks can be a signal that you're ready and willing and able to get going with your own contribution towards what makes society a living, breathing, working thing.

The eclipse on the Swimming Race degree brings up all kinds of images - the thought of having to go for it OR whether one needs for the moment to be 'treading water'. Sometimes we need to take a moment out to sense where we are, where we're going, what we want to achieve and how we're going to achieve it. We may have been 'winded' and run out of steam from previous or recent expenditures of energy and we may need to fill or lungs with oxygen, to stretch our muscles and get back into some training before we launch into any serious competing. With the solar eclipse on this degree, it could be that continually just running at things may not be the best answer; making a strategy, enlisting the help of compatriots who are eager to share in the toils as well as the glories, and being fully aware of what's going on around you whilst not taking too much notice of what others are doing (i.e. run your own race) is probably a wiser option than just going hell for leather at it.

The following is a small excerpt of my text for Virgo 19: A Swimming Race from my book 360 Degrees of Wisdom: Charting Your Destiny With the Sabian Oracle (published by Penguin NY):

Keywords: Looking sideways to see how others are coping with the strain of competition. Competing with one’s emotions. Capitalism. The striving for first place or greatness. Swimming, sports, competition. Wanting to be first at everything. Learning how fit one is. Concentrating on the goal. Medals and awards. Training and practice. Showing your abilities in front of others.

The Caution: Allowing the competitive spirit to dominate emotional sensitivity. Always going for “the win”. Trying to outdo each other. Being on the go all the time. Bad sportsmanship. Not knowing how to lose. Wanting always to conquer others. Always seeing others as competitors.

wagon train One of my favourite things is to look at the degree following as it will describe the 'unfolding', the thing that needs to be embraced as we move forward. The following degree is Virgo 20: A Caravan of Cars Headed For Promised Lands. For those who understand astrology, I see the degree following as being something rather like the moon's north node, something we're learning, need to move toward, something to aspire to or reach for.

The Caravan of Cars is a very evocative image. I suspect that for a great many people, the solar eclipse on the swimming race is telling us that instead of just diving in head-first and going full steam ahead and damn the torpedos, we would perhaps do better by figuring out where it is we're off to, who we're going with or what type of person or people would be good companions for the journey - to make a plan, draw up a map, and to allow for and to realise that there may be quite a distance between where you are now and where you'd like to be. It is often with the help, encouragement, companionship, skills and resources of others that we find our own 'Promised Lands'.

Johnny Weismuller, the guy who played Tarzan, may have thought 'Swimming over the rocks was dangerous but it was exciting', but many people are likely to be rather tired of having to shoot the rapids, to be constantly watching where they're going and a bit over the other guy getting the parking space, overtaking you on a single lane highway or being rude and pushing ahead of you in the line. Many would much rather find some smooth waters. It seems that Mercury could be bringing us a little of the calmness we seek, especially if we believe that the difficult times are behind us instead of still before us. The Sabian Symbol for Mercury in this eclipse is Libra 10: A Canoe is Approaching Safety Through Dangerous Waters. I really like this pic of a 'transparent canoe' that I found on the web... it shows how we can 'make land', to find our feet, to feel like we've come through some dangerous straits and that we're now heading towards a more wonderful and assured future. By employing your thoughts to conjure up the image of the canoe approaching safety, one can get the feeling that there's refuge, peace and calm and perhaps it's better to be treading water or just practicing our strokes in our own swimming lane as we know that there is a vehicle, whether it's the Caravan or the Canoe, that will take us to safety and a warm, dry place to be.

Venus, meanwhile, is telling us that giving, sharing, encouraging and help others is the way to go with Venus on Leo 17: A Volunteer Church Choir Makes a Social Event of a Rehearsal. I'm throwing in the Keywords and the Cautions for this degree from my book as I think that Venus is showing us how to prevail in this competitive solar eclipse time. Doing for others without particular thought of reward for one's self, joining with others of like mind, finding a common cause, charity or thing to aim for with others seems to be the way to go:

Keywords: Making the most of any situation. Feelings of togetherness. Rehearsing without worrying about what might happen. Doing things without thought of reward. Sharing community. Catching up on what others are doing. Busking and street singing. Learning to open up the throat. Charity work. Volunteers. Sharing food and drink. Small gifts for others. Dedication to ideals. Extending yourself by mixing in. Gatherings. Church or school hall.

The Caution: Trivializing the purpose of gatherings. Being afraid or reticent to lift up one’s voice. Standing in the background because of the belief that one is not “good” enough to join in. Criticizing others for not contributing enough. Feeling ripped off. Issues of being "in the club".

As I write this on September 3rd, I'm constantly reminded that today is Elsie Wheeler's birthday. Elsie is the spiritualist medium that gave birth to the Sabian Symbols in Californina in 1925. She was born on September 3 1887 - 120 years ago. Elsie lived an amazing life, she was confined to a wheelchair from a very young age and lived in The Home for the Incurable in St. Louis, Missouri from the mid 1890's to 1923... some 30 years in a place that must have been an enormous challenge. When she 'channeled' the Sabian Symbols in 1925, she no doubt couldn't move very much and was very confined to that wheelchair.

As a little personal aside: As many readers of this column would know, I have made the Sabian Symbols my life's work and feel that Elsie's contribution through the Sabian Symbols is akin to a miracle. I have for many years conducted a search to find out more about Elsie - I've called it Searching for Elsie. In my search on the internet and driving through Illinois and Missouri, I found out some rather astounding personal resonances between Elsie and myself. For a start, her mother's maiden name was Louisa Hill (my name being Lynda Hill), her maternal grandmother's name was Helen Hill (my daughter's name is Jessica Helen Hill - she was given this name some years before I started working with the Sabian Symbols), Elsie's companion and housemate in California for many years was Frank Baxter (I seriously considered changing my name to Lynda Baxter when I was young as my mother married a man called Baxter and I wanted to have the same surname).

With the eclipse on this degree perhaps we also have to look at or acknowledge that our way of looking at things is not the only way, not gospel, not the way others may be seeing things.

Seeing things clearly can be a challenge at the moment as the solar system is definitely charging up the particles in the atmosphere with Mars and Mercury and Uranus forming a grand cross with Jupiter.

Jupiter’s message seems to be one of remembering to be in our bodies. The Sabian Symbol for Jupiter at the moment is Sagittarius 11: In the Left Section of an Archaic Temple, a Lamp Burns in a Container Shaped Like a Human Body. Some Keywords and Cautions from my book:

Keywords: Connecting the left and right sides. Working out, physical fitness and exercise. Yoga. Grounding reality. Sexuality. Realizing that body is the same as spirit. Remembering to be in the body. Light workers. The acceptance of the body and its functions. Sport and its physical rewards. Metabolic rates. Oil burners. Gas lamps. Aladdin's lamp.

The Caution: Worshiping the body at the expense of the intellect, psyche or spirit. Concentrating exclusively on physical desires and needs. Needing actual physical evidence to accept anything. Being caught up in the illusion of the body, the “physical self”.

Thinking about Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole brings up some interesting correspondences with the issue of being in our bodies… the ‘lamp of physical enlightenment’…

It feels like the major challenge is to put aside any unnecessarily self-centered views of our world in order to embrace the views, feelings, objectives and direction of the greater community. This can be difficult, though, if we're not clearly seeing what's going on in the real world; out there where things are solid, concrete, tangible and, sometimes, rather predictable, especially with the Sun in this eclipse on Virgo 5: A Man Becoming Aware of Nature Spirits and Normally Unseen Spiritual Energies.

Keywords: Creative fantasies. Attuned minds perceiving subtle phenomena. Fairy tales. Seeing things or imagining them. Fantasizing. Seeing entities. Mental institutions. Halloween. Fairies, nature spirits. Seeing the normally unseen.

The Caution: Confusion. Lack of true perspective. Time wasted in escapes from reality. Imagining things. Losing the plot. Dreaming to the point of insanity. Making up things in order to be noticed or feel somehow special. Delusions. Dreaming of possibilities that disappear upon waking. Schizophrenia.

So, as in the story of Alice in Wonderland, are we falling down the rabbit hole where things are blown out of proportion, are unreal, intangible, hard to navigate and make sense of, or, are we using our more highly attuned energies to perceive the subtle energies going on in the environment and acknowledging what's driving people to do the things they do?

Perhaps we need to allow ourselves a little time down that rabbit hole - to adjust our eyes to the light that's down there, to perceive things rather differently or laterally than we might normally do. The trick is to maintain a sense of equilibrium, to see the goodness in all people, to know that the universe is on target, that life is unfolding exactly as it should - even if we're sometimes caught off guard by the energies surrounding us.