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Cosmic News: Gaea Moon

"I shall sing of Gaea, universal mother,
Firmly founded, the oldest of divinities." – Homer

Under the underworld, in the deepest, darkest, secret-most caves of Tartarus, Chaos silently stormed. Gaea stirred slightly. The deep-breasted one felt a ripple in her state of profound inner contemplation, and slowly became aware of a pulse radiating from her heart. Amidst the churning of non-being, Eros quickened in her bosom, pricking her with a most subtle touch, stirring her desire — to be, to birth.
The divine spark pierces like a gold-tipped arrow, compelling action. Eros is the primal archer in mythology, letting loose sharp stabs of love and desire. The arrows of Eros come from the dark heart of chaos, the vast unknown. Eros taps into the power of awesome realms, throwing hot light into shadows. Desire is created or re-created, something is born or reborn out of the darkness into the light, out of the undercurrents into the bright fires of vision. We create the future.
"In the beginning desire descended on it —
That was the primal seed, born of the mind." – Rg Veda

Eros is the primal force, the intense passion that focuses chaos into matter. Eros and Gaea create the universe through the power of attraction and desire. Eros is most commonly known as Cupid, the naughty cherubic son of Aphrodite whose arrows cause wounds of love. This Valentine-card image hardly does justice to the creative power inherent in the erotic function — understood mainly in connection with physical sexuality, its pleasurable intensification and release. With its fusion of spiritual and emotional, Eros seeks not simply release, but heightened stimulation (see "Eros and Pathos: Shades of Love and Suffering"). True Eros is essentially concerned with the life-generating dance of the cosmic masculine and feminine and the juicy, creative and re-creative tango of lovers. Erotic desire is tantric and profoundly transformational.
The NEW MOON on September 14 is in Virgo, the sign of the great Earth goddess, Gaea. An earth sign, Virgo is responsive to Anima Mundi, the soul of the Earth that reverberates through all living beings on this planet. Anima Mundi contains the radical notion that the world is not just in our minds, that we are in the mind of the world. James Lovelock's famous Gaia hypothesis took on the name of this original Earth goddess to call attention to the vibrant aliveness and spirituality of our planet. The tendency to personify nature in human terms seems to make it more accessible to us.
Her ample body gave birth to ancestral Titans, to Cyclopes and other assorted monsters in the evolution of our planet — and to humans. Mother Gaea has distinct features: a round face with large all-seeing eyes, a broad-lipped sensual mouth, long hair that flows down her neck in streams and rivers onto her large bosom. Her mouth, nose and eyes taste, sniff and peer at us through all creatures of her world. We see her large-hipped, fertile body laid out in undulating hills and valleys, buried in the ground and painted in the dark womb of prehistoric caves.
A cosmically informed intelligence, Gaea speaks to us in her own language. She instructs us through the mirror of nature: the cycle of seasons, weather, flora and fauna; through touch and sensation; through the nightly rounds of the heavens. We evolve in the matrix of Mother Earth along with "all our relations," as the Native Americans remind us. Virgo is about the mind-body, the interaction of mind and nature's substance. Seen through Einstein's equation of matter with energy, we can experience the universe as a vibrant expression of divinity. Hopefully we live up to her intelligence.
Virgo is the worker-bee sign, so this New Moon opens a month of getting down to the nitty-gritty, sizzling with high energy. The New Moon is exactly conjunct Mars, the Red Planet — the yang, courageous, motivating, stimulates-those-red-blood-cells kind of stuff. Go for it. Eros at work. Jupiter is along for the ride, increasing energy. This can be an immensely productive time.
(Special note: Those born in the Sixties, with Uranus/Pluto both in Virgo, are especially feeling this New Moon and the themes I discuss here — particularly the years 1965-68.)
This cluster of Moon, Sun, Mars and Jupiter are all challenged by Pluto in Sagittarius. Sag sees the forest, Virgo each tree. With its arrow of intention, Sagittarius targets a goal; step-by-step Virgo arranges all the details to get there. Pragmatic Virgo applies the litmus test of mundane practicality to Sag ideals and intuitions. A belief system is no use if it doesn't work on a day-to-day basis. Virgo reminds Sag to walk the talk; Sag inspires Virgo¹s work with meaning. This has significant implications for the way we live life, from daily routines and wellness to business and politics. Now our imagination reaches out to find meaningful activity that has relevance for the soul.
What do you want? What are you doing and does it resonate with a positive vision of the future? What does your body want to be doing? That erotic charge is exciting every cell in our bodies in response to our Earth vibrating under the influence of high-charged solar flares and galactic impulses. This Moon strongly suggests listening to the instinctive wisdom of your body. If you don't, your body will talk to you in no uncertain terms.
As indicated by intense weather and world events, Earth is in an extraordinary process of transformation‹and so are we. In face of an uncertain future, large unknowns and the ensuing chaos of meaning and frayed belief systems, many people are feeling fear and despair in face of the emerging void. This is an immensely powerful moment. We have a choice, one of the most basic choices in life‹to live in fear or in love. There is a wonderful Hindu word, bhey. It conveys a mixture of fear and awe, the kind of feelings we experience in front of the immensity of the divine. This is not a shrinking fear, more a fear of offending the true beloved, the god of your heart, whatever you call the Great Spirit.
Can we remain in front of this deep immensity, like the black hole of the Galactic Center, long enough to let its heart touch our hearts? How is our collective imagination synthesizing this cosmic data and making sense out of it? Images have great power in our conscious and unconscious minds, shaping our beliefs about life and impacting how we live our lives. Is a black hole a hungry monster waiting to chomp our star down its throat? Or is it the cosmic dancing ground of shiva-shakti, the male-female creative union?

Gaea was goddess of oracles, prayed to for prophecies. In 2001, geologist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer published his findings of fault lines intersecting beneath the great temple of divination at Delphi. Gaseous fumes emitted from this deep cleft in the Earth, confirming traditions of oracular priestesses in altered states, inspired by intoxicating smoke. Perhaps that mystical smoke wafted up from the very depths of Tartarus itself (See this Web site.)
Many people are going for intoxicating smoke, drink, or sensation-numbing drugs, which muddy the vibrational waters and create static in the reception of cosmic signals.
VENUS OPPOSED NEPTUNE warns about addictive indulgences — that can mean substances, shopping or romantic illusions. The arts (Venus) and spirituality (Neptune) are lovely expressions of our increasing sensitivity to cosmic vibration.
MERCURY, also in Virgo, OPPOSITE URANUS, still newly in Pisces, has us plugged in to new electrical frequencies and vibrations We're all getting heightened perceptions from the impact of solar flares and cosmic electricity. This can easily put us in altered states. Our body chemistry is changing, as we respond to the new rhythms.
Some say Gaea is the mother of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. Memory gives rise to "spontaneou
s impulses toward speech, song, art, dance, poetry and other manifestations rendering the numinous and experiential — not just spoken of and about, but enacted."(HG Baines) Let us Re-member, as we dance and sing our way into this new millennium.
SPECIAL OFFER this Moon cycle:
Readings for those born with Pluto in Virgo, 1957-1972. One hour, $85.

Editor's note: Astrologer for more than 35 years, Kelley Hunter lives on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, where she leads stargazing nights. She is astrologer-in-residence for the Self Centre at Caneel Bay Resort and for the Omega Institute winter programs in the Caribbean. Hunter recently earned her doctoral degree in an interdisciplinary combination of philosophy, cosmology and myth. To be on her e-mail list for monthly articles or for an astrology consultation, write kellhunter@earthlink.net. Explore her Web site here

Copyright 2004 by M. Kelley Hunter

Travel Schedule 2004
"The earth upon her celestial spindle winds
Her ecstasy-producing dance." — Kathleen Raine
E-mail or call Kelley at 1-888-7ALTAIR or 340-643-2179 unless other contact is given.
Texas:
HOUSTON:
Sept. 14-19: personal consultations. Contact Kelley
Sept. 14 or 15, 7-9 p.m. – Venus and the Cosmic Flow: Gateway to 2012. Contact Kimberly McSherry at 713-932-9889 or e-mail HIAKAM@earthlink.net
Sept. 17, 7-9 p.m., NCGR, Born in the Sixties: Mission on Earth. Contact Lilly Roddy at 713-529-5842 or e-mail Lillycath@aol.com.
Saturday, Sept. 18, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Planetary Generations and States of Consciousness. Contact Kimberly McSherry at 713-932-9889 or e-mail HIAKAM@earthlink.net
Colorado:
BOULDER area: Sept. 21-Oct. 11, available for personal consultations
England, October 12-26
October 13: Wessex Astrology Circle, Black Moon Lilith and the Cosmic Feminine. Contact EileenMcAdam@aol.com
October 18: Bath Spa College presentation to students of Sultural Astronomy Program
October 25: Astrological Lodge of London, Black Moon Lilith and the Cosmic Feminine. Contact carole_west@ntlworld.com
New York:
Albany, Oct. 30
Capital Region Wellness Center – personal consultations. Contact Ann at 518-446-0200 or by e-mail.

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