Rain-chanting at Full Thunder Moon

We're hoping that tomorrow's Full Moon, at 22.28 degrees of Capricorn, known by Native Americans as Full Thunder Moon, will bring with it some rain accompanying any thunder, to break our extreme drought conditions. Moon will be at less than a degree from my natal Mercury - perhaps I should do a rain dance or, perhaps a more truly Mercurial, rain chant?








Full Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full Moon.

The FullThunder/Full Buck Moon/Full Hay Moon – July : normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.
Farmers' Almanac

Staying with the "thunder" motif, across many North America indigenous cultures, the Thunderbird is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as many-colored, with two curling horns, and, often, teeth within its beak. The Native Americans believed that the giant Thunderbird could shoot lightning from its eyes. (Wikipedia)

So...instead of me rain-chanting tunelessly how about Nina Simone with Randy Newman's I Think It's Gonna Rain Today, and Jane Morgan with a song from the 1950s: The Day the Rains Came Down.

Might do the trick. Can't hurt to try!

Sunday Supplement ~~ MOON

Astrologers will consider it highly significant that the 8.8 earthquake in Chile occurred close to the time of Full Moon. Richard Nolle at Astropro did warn of a clear potential for earthquake around 28 February, with the weekend's "Super Moon" (Moon at nearest point to Earth). It wasn't possible, though, to predict the actual location. There's a lot of detail to plough through on his website; there are parts relevant to the earthquake in the 2010 annual prediction section, and in the February 2010, both in "Futures" section.

Sincere sympathies to all affected by this most recent catastrophe.


FULL COLD MOON
By: ari' anna arena

This night
All light
Full still moon

Lamp lit
Silhouette
Full still moon

Many faces
Secret places
Full still moon

Supernal eye
In the sky
Full still moon

Big stone
Cold Alone
Full still moon

In reverie
A memory
Full still moon

Only one
You are
gone

Only night
to dream
upon

Full

Cold

Moon.

Cause and Effect

I realise that most astrologers nowadays reject the idea that the planets exert direct "energy" upon humans on Earth. Cause-and-effect astrology is terribly unfashionable. In books written around a century ago though, it was common to see descriptions of "planetary rays" affecting life on Earth. I suppose that vitriolic criticism from the skeptical brigade put paid to all that. Modern astrologers use other ways, less open to ridicule, to try to explain why astrology works. Resonance with, or reflection of planetary movement and cycles, sychronicity, or plain "don't know" are now the responses astrologers seem to favour.

I don't mind being ridiculed, so will declare that I have suspicions that the movement of certain celestial bodies might have some direct physical effect on humans - well, on this human anyway.

When Mars is traversing in Aquarius within around 5 or 6 degrees of my natal Sun, it seems to affect my sleeping pattern. I'll go to bed tired, fall asleep quickly but wake again after about 90 minutes or 2 hours, only to toss and turn, wide awake for most of the early hours. It has happened during the current transit, and has seemed very noticeable. I'm just starting to come out of a week to ten days of the effect. It's one for which I can find no other explanation.

Hand on heart - I hadn't been waiting for this pattern to recur. I'd forgotten all about it. It hadn't crossed my mind until several nights' lack of sleep started irritating me. Was I being disturbed by noise? Then, after a while, the penny dropped. I checked the current position of Mars - it was close to my natal Sun in early Aquarius. This same "syndrome" has happened before. In 2003 when I was still in the UK, I recall contributing to a conversation about it on a message board. There has been just one earlier incidence of the problem since I've been in the USA, and though I can't be absolutely certain, I suspect it was in 2005, when Mars was in Aquarius again. Mars takes approximately 2 years to complete its orbit around the Sun and return to the same place in the zodiac where it lay in a natal chart.

What happens in my case is not just a random bad night or two, the effect continues with peculiar regularity for at least a week, in the same pattern for several days, then gradually wearing off until, as in the the last couple of nights, I wake briefly around 3 am and go back to sleep. Very odd!

I've also noticed that when the Moon is full.....yes.... I can already hear Himself chuckling, I get over-emotional. He has noticed, so it's not just me! My natal ascendant is in Cancer, ruled by the Moon, which might be significant. I don't actually keep tabs on where the Moon is day by day, so this effect is not not one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. It has happened lots of times, not at every single Full Moon, but enough times for me to have noted it.

So, if these two instances mean anything, it's that there might be some physical effect somehow exerted upon us, or some of us, by the movement/position of some celestial bodies, some of the time. I did say "might" and "some"!

Moon in Scorpio - again

When the Moon is full or almost full, as it is now, around midnight it shines into one of the north-facing windows in our bedroom, the one close to my side of the bed. Lying there looking upward through the gauzy drapes and venetian blind I watch it. When the sky is clear, as it often is in this part of the world, the Moon's light illuminates the room with a silvery glow. I can't get my head around exactly why the full Moon lies in this position each month around midnight, but it does. Because my ascendant sign is Cancer, I'm said to be ruled by the Moon, so it's a little bit magical to regularly see my ruler when she's at her brightest and best. She's in Scorpio just now, for a second visit this month.

FULL MOON
One night as Dick lay fast asleep,
Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light began to creep
From out the silent skies.
It was the lovely moon's, for when
He raised his dreamy head,
Her surge of silver filled the pane
And streamed across his bed.
So, for a while, each gazed at each-
Dick and the solemn moon-
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
She vanished, and was gone. By Walter de la Mare


Speaking of Scorpio - yesterday we visited a picturesque little town called Medicine Park with my husband's second son, who's visiting from Ohio. We spotted this scorpion sculpture. It'd make an unusual garden ornament, but as it wouldn't fit in the car, I had to make do with a photograph.