Epoch Eclipse Now - Page 3
by Emmett Chapman © July 1999

Interpretation
Ordinarily, astrologers give a solar eclipse a year to play out in world affairs. Given the horoscope of this eclipse, however, I'd say it's going to get off to a quick start, as well as having a lasting effect well into the new age. I'd like to offer the broadest, most generalized predictions.

I see the four fixed signs as exerting their influence primarily upon man made institutions, and not so much upon affairs of the mind as in the case of the four mutable signs, or upon earth's cataclysms as in the case of the four cardinal signs. Thus, Taurus governs the economy, Leo the political structure, Scorpio the military, and Aquarius the church and religious orders.

Further, I see the Sun/Moon polarity in Leo at the midheaven as signifying a living ruler who is thought to be capable of saving the world from institutional disruption. Opposing this is the Uranus/Neptune polarity in Aquarius at the nadir, which I see as the sponsorship of this ruler by a church or religious order, the nadir signifying the underpinnings, the spiritual fountain of strength arising from this transcendent planetary pair in a transcendent sign. Squaring all of the above is the Saturn/Jupiter polarity in Taurus at the descendant, signifying world wide economic disruption, as these planets are associated with fortune or lack of it, and occupy the sign of worldly goods. And squaring from the other side at the ascendant to form the complete grand cross is Mars (a singularity here) in Scorpio, signifying war.

This "Four Square" dilemma is completely man made, as I see it, a fourfold crisis of man's institutions world wide. It reveals our human inadequacies as we struggle to find some kind of intelligent control over our own collective behavior. Since history has shown that the enlightened self-interest of each individual (the rational mind) doesn't necessarily benefit society, and since we lack the clear-cut instinctual advantages of your average ant or bee, we must therefore discover or invent some other non rational means of forming a community and serving each other. It has always been the complex geometry of the solar system that has fed us our symbols and directives, religious in tone, replacing animal instinct.

A Lunar Eclipse
There is yet another power amplifier at work in this summer's developing grand cross, and that is the relatively slow movement of all planets involved. The four slower moving planets are all prominent members in the pattern, and the faster planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars, have all been slowed down by way of recent stationary and retrograde motion. The net effect is that the grand cross stays around longer, restructuring itself in various "takes". It is thus already well formed and sharply aspected two weeks earlier during the lunar eclipse of July 28th, with Sun in 4 Leo 57', two degrees from the midheaven of 7 Leo 01' (again at Rome, of all places). Of course the eclipsed Moon is in the same degree of Aquarius, conjunct the nadir. Mars at 9 Scorpio 37' is squaring this Sun/Moon opposition from the 1st house, as does the ascendant at 0 Scorpio 47'.

The charts for both the solar and lunar eclipses are strikingly similar because of the slow-motion quality of all planetary movement during this entire period. The main difference is that the smaller T-square of the solar eclipse (Jupiter squaring an opposed Mercury and Neptune) is part of the grand cross of the earlier lunar eclipse. Thus in the lunar eclipse, it is Jupiter in 3 Taurus 45' (instead of Saturn) that squares Sun, Moon and Mars (perhaps presenting an overly optimistic picture of things to come). Also, the eclipsed Moon is conjunct Neptune at the nadir, and the midheaven Sun is conjunct Mercury. Again, all bodies are angular by sign and in fixed signs, except again for stationary Venus in Virgo.

During the later solar eclipse the cross becomes more intense by locking in on the very slow and powerful Saturn/Uranus fixed square, Saturn replacing Jupiter on the cross, and Uranus replacing Neptune. The replaced planets remain on the adjoining T-square with Mercury, recalling their earlier prominence in the lunar eclipse's grand cross.

Horses and Riders
"Apocalypse" is the Greek word for "revelation" and has been passed down through sacred Latin and old French into present day English. "The Apocalypse" is also another name for the Book of Revelation by Saint John, the last book in the New Testament. In the sixth chapter of Revelations the four "beasts" announce four horsemen. My interpretation is, the beasts are the horses, but with heads symbolizing the fixed signs. The fixed signs are the powerhouse, the driving engine of astrology. The engines of those times were horses - horsepower! The four beasts with heads of the fixed signs were collectively represented as horses, the symbol of power.

Since they were not really horses, but rather "beasts" with individual heads of a bull, lion, eagle and a man, they had voices with which to announce their respective riders. The riders themselves are the planetary Gods which occupy each of the fixed signs in the grand cross this August 11th. The beasts reveal the riders by their planetary colors and by their proclivities. Thus, the first horseman of the apocalypse rides a white horse (white light is composed of the entire combined spectrum of colors visible to the eye, from magenta to indigo, and signifies the Sun). He wears a "crown" and holds a weapon of some kind ("a bow"), and goes forth conquering (this must be the Sun in regal Leo, and at the midheaven point of public authority in the horoscope for Rome).

The second horseman rides a red horse (Mars) and has a "great sword". He is described as having the power to create war (Mars in its Scorpio rulership, and at the ascendant for Rome). The third horseman rides a black horse (the absence of all light in the color spectrum, signifying Saturn, the Sun's Nemesis), and holds a scale with which he measures basic foodstuffs, bread, flour and barley, and warns of scarce supplies of the luxuries, olive oil and wine (Saturn in Taurus on the cross, indicating a "belt tightening" period of restricted world trade).

The fourth horseman rides a pale horse (there are no colors for the Gods Uranus and Neptune, who had not yet been embodied in planetary form, Saturn being the outermost planet known at that time). Some astrologers have assigned these two outer planets some very strange "colors", translucent, pearlescent, refractive, hinting perhaps at some form of shifting harmonics in the visible range that are generated by frequencies vibrating well outside of the light band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This fourth member of the Apocalypse is actually described as two horsemen, one named "Death" followed by another named "Hell". Such frightening designations might well be used to characterize unknown planets with unknown colors, not clearly seen in Saint John's revelation (and not seen at all in Nostradamus' predictions). Neptune and Uranus are together in Aquarius as the two "horsemen" occupying this fourth leg of the cross, and in our chart cast for the solar eclipse at Rome they are at the nadir, which I interpret as the ecclesiastical "seat of power".

What to make of this mysterious pair of horsemen under the fourth seal, who are supposed to control one fourth of the earth? (Uranus and Neptune control one fourth of the grand cross in this summer's configuration.) The first three horsemen have obvious connotations, a ruler, a world depression and a war. These are familiar albeit discomforting concepts, but what does the drastic fourth symbol have to offer? I would have to say, it represents the unknown, the unfathomable, the new epoch of Aquarian "religious" symbolism to be delivered to the world by way of the fixed cross - not a very pleasant birth, but the baby is strong.

A King
And finally we come to a living man (Leo). A ruler? A savior? Maybe not a king, but treated like one (Sun conjunct Moon in Leo at the head of the fixed cross). There is someone out there who fits the profile - a solar eclipse inside of a fixed stellium, opposed to a fixed Uranus at the vertical angles, and squaring a powerful planet on a Scorpio ascendant. Does any of this sound familiar?

In Europe this person would have been born February 5th, 1962, and would now be 37. In Rome the time of his birth would have been 1:00 AM CET, the moment of that eclipse. The angles were occupied by the middle degrees of the same fixed signs in the same positions as on this year's cross of 1999. All bodies (including Venus but not considering Pluto) occupied fixed signs. The Sun and Moon were conjunct in 15 Aquarius at Rome's nadir, one degree away from Uranus' position on this year's cross. Uranus, on the other hand, was in Leo conjunct Rome's midheaven, a position the eclipsed Sun will hold on this year's cross. In other words, Uranus and the eclipsed Sun have traded places, both by sign and by angular position.

Furthermore, both the 1962 and 1999 charts maintain the square from Scorpio. In 1962 the square was from Neptune and the ascendant in 13 and 14 Scorpio respectively (as opposed to this year's Mars and ascendant squaring the grand cross). On both charts, Scorpio exerts a dynamically discordant influence on the Leo/Aquarius opposition of Uranus and eclipsed Sun.

The stellium of 1962 is intriguing in that every planet from Mercury out to Saturn was in Aquarius, including Sun and Moon in their solar eclipse. Only the outer pair, Uranus and Neptune, were in other signs, respectively opposing and squaring this stellar grouping from fixed signs. Moreover, this stellium was stitched together very tightly by what I'd like to call "singular pairs" (as opposed to "the polarities" described earlier). Thus, the "malefics" Mars and Saturn were respectively at 2 and 3 degrees of Aquarius, the "benefics" Venus and Jupiter were respectively at 17 and 18 degrees of Aquarius, and of course the "luminaries" Sun and Moon were exactly at 15 Aquarius 42'. Only Mercury in this scheme of things doesn't pair up, neither with like kind nor with opposite kind, but at 17 Aquarius it does closely conjunct four other bodies!

Onward
When you superimpose the above three charts for Rome, simultaneously viewing the horoscopes of the lunar eclipse, the solar eclipse, and some sort of a ruler born in 1962, the picture jells - an overwhelming confluence of highly focused energy in the fixed signs at the angles, each chart having a "command presence", a head, an "eye contact" with the world through the Leo/Aquarius eclipses.

Of course, these three highly integrated planetary configurations need not be exclusively cast for Rome, as they also stand alone, independent of any location on the globe, to usher in the new epoch of Aquarius.

Public fantasies about the "end of the world" abound on film and TV, in churches and on the Internet. If Y2K doesn't get you, Armageddon will, or maybe it will be planet Earth itself having had enough of us all. I'd rather deal symbolically with the subject (as you might have guessed by now), as symbols give rise to ideas, giving rise to words, which affect human deeds world wide, transforming world culture. Symbolism is in fact the main form of group thought, of collective intelligence, and symbolic rituals are the group directives, putting muscle to the mind. This is why religions have always been around.

The frustrating paradox is this. Our individual brains are very smart, eminently rational, and we carry a good part of the universe around with us (in our heads). At the same time, our communities and societies are mute and incapable of rational thought. And here's the rub, man is an intensely cultural animal (as acknowledged in the legend of Tarzan). Therefore, we are inextricably bound to our collective groupings, and I would say that (at least) half of our instincts and emotions are for the group, not for ourselves. I'd also contend that the concept of private property should begin just beyond the boundaries of ones own skin (ownership starting from your wardrobe outward). My feeling is, we don't really "own" ourselves in the capitalistic sense, and no person should ever be for "sale" in any sense of the word. We are for others. Collective human culture is a life form in itself, though presently stunted in instinctual development.

There I've said it (obligatory message content). If there's to be any "end of the world" before we move on to some new territory, I hope it will merely be an end of world history, that is, mainstream history as we know it. That might be a good thing, as history has often been "produced" by the powerful to distort the facts in their favor.

For better or for worse, our agreed upon history has the effect of structuring our sense of time in a linear flow. In the epoch of Aquarius, history may well be "written" in a different mode, simultaneous, static state, like an electronic circuit, or a dream - the ''eternal" mode (John Lennon, "Imagine all the people...") Or we might just live it (so typical of Aquarius), and not explain it. I, on the other hand, with my Pisces/Virgo oppositions at the vertical angles (Saturn and Moon conjunct the midheaven in Pisces, opposed to Neptune in Virgo, and squared by Jupiter in Sagittarius, Sun in Libra), must explain things endlessly. Aquarius souls would only laugh.