Lunar Standstill: Returning to the Cradle of Civilization

Full Moon Perigee—Eclipse @ Moment of Moonrise—California PDTime—Four Nights of Light

Earth and Moon in Eclipse–rarer than 18.6-year wobble at Standstill—courtesy SOHO

When the Ancients calculated ahead in time to the most spectacular tracking through the Heavens visible to the ‘greatest number of peoples of Earth’, it was foretold, we should all become visionaries. 2012 received much kudos and focus, but what if the Maya Long Count Calendar were three years out? What if the Egyptian and Assyrian and Indo-Arctic peoples were right, after all?

Tonight’s the Night, Josephine
Tonight it all comes into coalescence:
In North America at least, because of wide television and media publicity, a huge surge of population will raise their eyes to view the ‘closest blood moon’ to come our way. Actually, media moguls are only partially right: it is the closest to Earth—perigee—in the moon’s orbit round us for this year, but it is also the closest—cosmically—in breaking time-space barriers that will come our way once in a long time.* Tonight’s full moon—appearing most spectacularly in California at her stage entrance in the east, as she enters total eclipse AND as the sun is setting due west–is the crux of the 2015 Minor Lunar Standstill.

Now and over four nights the Harvest Moon will appear to rise and set at roughly the same place—and within moments of the same hour—on our east horizon, setting due west at dawn—in concert with sunrise— under identical conditions. Tonight’s total eclipse is a bonus of the Standstill.**

Closeness to Earth may appear to add vibration to her brightness.

Full equinoctial Standstill Moon Eclipse at moment totality breached, Sept. 27/28, 2015, courtesy Gail Slaughter

As for the tides, wow. Similar extremes: as high as seven feet; then ultra lows less than the ‘normal ‘six hours apart. Even the fishermen are confused. But abalone love moonlight.
*PDT Moon enters eclipse at Moonrise 7:11p.m. exits totality after approx. one hour, 8:11p.m. or: enters totality beginning at 10:11 p.m. EDT, ends at 11:24 p.m. EDT.

Ancient Man thought the Moon had come to a nineteen-year cyclical Standstill. Its so-called wobble created an enormous spread of cultural carvings in stone throughout the Neolithic world.

Are we any wiser for our anthropocine leap through time?

Twenty thousand years ago—18,000 B.C.—myth and legend were one. Man looked to the heavens for guidance and to check the weather, and then went out and found another flesh-eating animal to kill and cook on the sacred fire embers.

We may believe civilization has evolved way beyond that amygdalian impetus, but in the opinion of Maya calendrical scholar and astronomy buff, John Major Jenkins, we have barely scratched the surface of ‘civilization’.

SEPTEMBER REMEMBER, OCTOBER ALL OBER

Shifing aurora borealis erupt over Anchorage AK 9/19/15 at height of CME storm

Current notions about cultural evolution refers to a type of social Darwinism in which human society today is supposed to be hierarchically more refined and advanced in every essential way than our grunting? dirty, cave dwelling, ‘primitive’ Neolithic ancestors. This view is naïve; compare life in a typical Third World urban slum of today with the cosmopolitan city dwellers of Alexandria 2,000 years ago. Technology and science is not the barometer of cultural sophistication. Social Darwinism has entered the realm of cliché, although still to a surprising degree it holds currency in the underlying assumptions of many people, including scholars—John Major Jenkins on preface to Hamlet’s Mill de Santillana & von Dechend 1969

Heavenly intervention—in the form of repeat eclipses—is an aspect of Metonic cycle that has always intrigued.

As the sun, moon and earth return to the same relative positions, the pattern of eclipses of moon and earth repeats every nineteen years. A six-hour difference in the lunar draconic cycle, however, is enough to throw the eclipse repeatability out of kilter, but up to four eclipses may repeat around the same dates nineteen years apart, before this happens.

Lunar standstill calendar, NatiMuseum of American Indian, Washington DC

June—too soon
July—stand by
August—come it must
September—remember
October—all over
Hurricane ‘creation’ rhyme, Bahamas 1940s, now outdated, outclassed by year-round storms

ANCIENT OF DAYS—AUTUMN EQUINOX 2015—Repeating the Cosmic Loop—Eclipse, Standstill Harvest Lunar Wobble

Four dominant periods* are 18.6 years—the precession period of the lunar orbit— and 182.6 days or half a year; 13.7 days or half a month, and 9.3 years—the rotation period of the moon’s return to perigee.

The primary nutation of 18.6 years drives two other observational cycles:
the Saros cycle (18 years, 11 days) and
the Metonic Cycle (19 years)

2015 Eclipse Solar Lunar Cycles replicate Ancient Egyptian Astronomy
The great Zodiac of Dendera at Luxor, established during Roman rule 50B.C. and superimposed on the archaic Egyptian temple to Hathor, celebrated the wobbling moon.

The cause of this weird wobble cycle is the precession of the lunar orbit around us, on Earth.

Photographed from ISS: our galaxy, our planet, our moon in eclipse—surrounded by AIRGLOW

The Sun’s gravitational pull also brings about a precession of the Moon’s orbital axis, within a period of 18.6 years. Precession advances locations at points where the moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic—at the nodes.

Maximum moonrise and moonset invariably repeat every nineteen years.

Literally, after exactly nineteen solar years the sun will return to the same position relative to the stars—our view of the heavens—and the moon will have nearly the same phase—with a two-hour difference in its cycle.

Significantly, repeat eclipses will occur on the new or full moon nearest to the sun’s passing through one of the nodes.

Sun + Moon conjunct astral nodes. Ancient eclipse prediction practice returns equinox 2015 to surprise skywatchers

This sacred numeric calculation was much appreciated by the Egyptians, followed by the Greeks, Carthaginians and all early northern peoples, including pre-Celtic Arctic nations. As the dates of the new moon, full moon, would repeat every nineteen years, it naturally fell within cultural knowledge of the privileged. It became ‘mystery schools‘ fodder.

For any given solar calendar date, full Moon events will replicate every nineteen years.

This creates a cyclic loop back to pre-Celtic mythic nineteen Priestesses of Bridget/Brigantia. Each of these individual priestesses represented a character or experience associated with nineteen components of the Great Lunar Year. This relationship creates an excellent basis for cyclic pattern divinations.

*Lunar Standstills
Because of the 5.1 degree tilt of the moon’s orbit with respect to the ecliptic, the moon may be anywhere within 5.1 degrees above or below the ecliptic. During major standstills the moon reaches a declination of 23.5 plus 5.1 degrees or 28.6 degrees; major standstills occur every 18.6 years. At minor standstill the greatest declination that the moon reaches is 23.5 minus 5.1 degrees or 18.4 degrees.

Antikythera—Ancient Astronomical Prediction Device

Antikythera 2000-year old Greek analog computer geared to predict astronomical positions of sun, moon, major planets and constellations. Eclipses were used for calendrical and astrological divination for the Olympiads, 86B.C.

This means that every 18.6 years, the rising or setting Moon reaches a northern extreme in rising and setting azimuth at summer solstice, and a southern extreme at winter solstice. These are called major standstills. While such standstills can in principle be determined using horizon observations, as with the summer solstice Sun the Moon’s year-to-year angular displacement along the horizon at summer solstice is very small near standstill. It should be noted that 18.6 years is measured from the point of view of the lunar orbit. Observationally, from the Earth’s surface, the length of time between two major standstills is not 18.6 years: it switches back and forth between 18.5 and nineteen years, with 18.6 years a modern observational average.

Post Scriptum In Death We are in Life The Hajj Stampede
It is with regret that we observe the panic-related crush of death which came this week in Thursday’s New Moon pilgrimage—Hajj—to the Saudi shrine of Shrines. Ancient texts note death and life are one. Yet our condolences nonetheless.

Hilal [waxing lunar crescent]—First ‘New Moon’ Sighting sends Seven Hundred to their Death

Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia—annually calculated to fall on waxing lunar cycle

2015’s Hajj—Pilgrimage of self-denial after month of fasting during Ramadan. Many believers were delirious with joy, even at the concept of being within sight of the shrine, staggering to follow fellow devotees in the sacred circumambulation of their faith’s most hallowed Mosque. Yesterday’s unfortunate panic—two fully locomotive swirling streams of humanity colliding at an intersection in the holy city—crushed and killed 736, leaving for dead thousands of adherents and lost family members in an Arab/Persian/Islamic nightmare.

With life so precious, may we all enjoy the miraculous Antikythera provided by the Heavens tonight and for the next few…
…millennia.
With gratitude
©2015Siderealview ©Marian Youngblood
Equinox 2015

Group Consciousness: Instinct Shows the Way

A murmuration of starlings, thousands celebrating strangely warm weather, late November, NE Scotland

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. 
Lou Holtz

Starlings are some of the most ubiquitous birds on the planet: seen in Asia and Europe as all-black, in north Africa and western USA, bespeckled with silver. They are also the most adaptable. They are equally at home in open Scandinavian farmland, the mountains of Scotland and over the ocean bays of the Northwest Pacific coast. They flock in ‘murmurations’, dancing at dusk before they swoop to their pre-roost. Then, just as suddenly, as if on a signal by a starling commander, they flip upwards to the sky once more, perform a reprise and –communally, as one — head for bed. Sometimes there is a twitter, a single juvenile not quite in tune with the rest, but mostly their flight is silent, except for its enormous “swoosh” as a thousand birds murmurate overhead. For a mere human, rooted to the ground, it is a seminal experience; a writer-friend says “gotta put this on my bucket list: see a murmuration before I kick it”. For the starling, it is an exercise in group consciousness. A pre-nap flex of those compact little bodies, as if to celebrate the last of the light.

As with many animals — the cetaceans, the wolves — the starling’s group consciousness shows how far we humans have strayed from our own instincts, our intuitive ability to sense the emotions, the loves and fears of our fellows.

Do starlings have a deeper connection to ocean life? or are they just teasing us? Murmuration over Gretna, Borders in Scotland's warmest Autumn 2011

A wolf knows the difference between an inconvenience and a catastrophe Clarissa Pinkola-Estes Women Who Run with the Wolves

It is our instinct, says Dr Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, American poet, author of ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’, 1995, and Jungian psychotherapist, which women are reasserting, re-educating their families to recognize, allowing the long-hidden feminine ‘knowing’ to come back into its own. She likens parental instinct (often in both parents — not just restricted to the female source) to radar.

“A mama’s, papa’s heart tracks the presence, speed, direction, and distance of the swift-flying hearts of kidlettes… where those beloved flying objects are positioned, at what altitude, in what condition they are traveling. This is a normal state in nature, for the older to keep track of the young.” She believes that the mother-father-radar can track other objects of like kind. That this same radar can “map the surfaces of other ‘objects’ in the same sky… including their density and intents, whether near or far away, so as to sense ‘what else’ is ‘out there’ in the universe their lovelings travel day and night.” She is convinced human instinct just needs to be fostered for it to return alive and well to the human heart; that fear — exaggerated by Culture, bombarded by Media — dents and dulls instinct, damages its natural flow. But intuition can be repaired. She tells a sweet story to illustrate how.

THE WOLF OF GUBBIO

“There is a little story in our family told about the wolf of the village named Gubbio. In our highly unconventional Schwäbisher version of the Gubbio Wolf, St Francis of Assisi who could speak to the animals, spoke to a Wolf the villagers madly feared for all its growling and staightlegged and ears-forward postures in the roads and behind the homes.

“Gentle Francis praised Wolf for her many attributes, but also whispered to Wolf, ‘Dont act quite so scary with the villagers, you know, keep some of the things you know and see to yourself… instead of always growling or barking them out over every little thing. That way the villagers will not fear you. And you can still see what you see, know what you know, and if need be, react accordingly.’

Women and wolves: tuned into their instincts; Pinkola-Estes' wolf archetype

“And Wolf agreed to do thusly, and loved St. Francis because Francis was gentle with her, and did not chastise her… but instead, taught her to remember her best self again.

“And thus, in our family the old people told the story that the Wolf from that day forward to whomever asked, would share her thoughts and ideas with whichever human being thought to ask Her about her far sight, her keen sense of smell and hearing, and her ‘tasting the air’.”
Women who run with the Wolves, 1992, 1995 C. Pinkola-Estes, American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychotherapist.

….Like an alert and healthy wolf, many a mother’s heart, a father’s heart carries a radar system in order to herd, teach, protect the vulnerable and the young…**

So, it happens that we, the human race have been gearing up to 2012, sensing with greater or lesser instinctual knowing, that something is afoot. It’s not just that solar radar is shooting flares at us in gay abandon — the current ‘radiation storm‘ causing anomalous weather, high-latitude aurora borealis and electrical blackouts — but deep in our cultural memory, our Oversoul anticipates and prophecies foretell something earth-shifting to take place as one World Age grinds to a halt and a New World Age starts up its engines.

Return to Source: realignment with the Center of the Milky Way December solstice 2012

What this new world will be, we still do not know — and unknowing has traditionally been the death of the logical mind. But there have been and continue to be many signs: from the Occupy movement statement of zero tolerance by our Youth, now two months down the line; to the much-vaunted-and-analyzed Long Count Calendar of the Maya, spiraling to a close in just over one year from now, December solstice, 2012, when coincidentally the Earth, Sun and Solar System will come into close alignment with Galactic Center. It is the moment the Maya foretold that we come into alignment with the Sacred World Tree, that deep chasm in space at the center of the Milky Way where we shall re-enter our Cosmic birth canal.

Windmill Hill July 26th, 2011 Ouroboros, mythical serpent consuming its own tail: return to our own birth canal

Looking back over the crop circle season of 2011 in England – and not forgetting a number of surprise Southern hemisphere appearances in Brazil end-October/early November, it seems we have been prompted many times to trigger our cultural folk memory, our Group consciousness, into desire to return to our ancestral roots: not just in terms of retuning into our Earth Mother — to care for and nurture her — but to our celestial roots where we rendezvous in December 2012 with the birth canal from which the solar system sprang: symbolized by the classic Ouroboros, serpent of wisdom and all knowledge, consuming his own tail.

New Man reborn from the mouth of the Serpent, Kukulkan

In Central American legend, when the serpent swallows his beginnings, New Man emerges from the serpent’s throat, reborn, rejuvenated, re-instructed in the wisdom of the spheres.

Unlike the internet system of ‘artificial intelligence’ of just one decade ago, the network most of us call our alternate home is burgeoning with spiritual advice, distance healing, consciousness-raising exercises and support groups. It is as if, in a few years we are being groomed to elevate our consciousness, ourselves, our Group Mind and hone our new knowledge and our Instinct in any way we can, in order to prepare ourselves for a meeting with our Greater Selves: it is as if the Attractor at the End of Time is calling us to become one with All that Is. And, unlike a few years ago, the concept is now less daunting. We are becoming accustomed to the idea that we ARE, as Carl Sagan once said, Children of the Stars, and that we are returning Home.

Feels good, doesn’t it?
©2011 Siderealview

** Dr Pinkola-Estes is a miracle woman/wolf in Jungian clothing. When she authored the first edition of WWRWTW in 1995, certain pages were edited out (who could edit out such wonders?). Be that as it may, she is now offering access to these missing gems and posting them on her Facebook page. Do visit and *like. You will be glad you did. MCY