FULL MOON IN CANCER, LUNAR ECLIPSE, Jan. 12, 2001, Sausalito, CA. (Refer to Calendar, Jan. 9.) "Cancer reminds us to take people into account." Indeed. My life has been filled with people around this Eclipse. I tried to create a workable schedule after the Capricorn New Moon, and now I know for sure that schedules do not work for me. People with whom I want to share do not always come into my life on schedule.

Family is especially important now. A highlight is the visit of my little granddaughter from Spain, Isabel, with her mother, Clara. It is always a delight to see the world afresh through the eyes of a child, and to experience the warmth of the heart tugs which children evoke. And I’m much enjoying visiting with her mother. The generations together emphasize the power of family.

The fate of the family of the United States also tops my list now. This nation is undergoing a coup which is trying to return us to the dark ages of oppression. Mr. Bush is appointing particular people, the junta, to carry it out, and at this time the nation’s focus is on those people, the individuals, and their qualifications—or lack thereof—to serve their nation’s people well.

Each of us in this national family must speak up now for good government, and support those people who do. The sign of Cancer is about individuals in the family helping one another.

Many of us in the U.S., and all of us in California, are now dealing with the eclipse of an easy flow of power and energy as we have known it. It’s a clear message to tune into a more direct source of energy—renewable, sustainable, and always available.

The eclipse occurred at noon here, with the Sun overhead and the Moon directly on the other side of the earth. I took the ferry into San Francisco and met my webmaster, and daughter, Susan Pomeroy, for lunch by the Bay to talk about future plans for our website. We combined the Moon’s emphasis on family with the structuring energy field of the Capricorn Sun, and had fun doing it.

Cancer is a water sign, and we enjoyed the water of the day—light rain in the air, a turbulent Bay, much activity on the waterfront, fishing boats ringed by expectant birds circling round—and us comfortable with our hot tea.

But other members of our far-flung DAYKEEPER family did see the total eclipse in all its glory. We have lively reports from Gudrun Bergmann in Iceland and from Yvonne Taylor in Capetown.

Gudrun writes:

Gulli and I were in Reykjavik that day and were driving home during the eclipse. The sky was completely clear so I could see when the first shadow came on the moon and then follow the shadow as it moved across it. In the car I could watch all the time, as I was not driving.

When the moon was almost completely covered (7:50 p.m. our time) we stopped the car and got out in the middle of nowhere and watched the completion of the eclipse. My sense during the time I watched was that a door was closing on the "old way of life" and that I could very much decide what the door opened to. So in the void I spent time meditating on how I wanted my life to be and what changes I wanted to envision. Very special.

When I came home I checked your web site Maya and read about the eclipse and then meditated once again. By then the moon was behind clouds here at Hellnar, but for a brief moment it did show itself, completely full, and then disappeared again.

I asked to be changed by the moon’s energy, but was asked in return whether I thought my body could handle the intense energy of the eclipsed moon. I was also told that the intense energy of all the masses of people on earth was being reflected to each and every individual and if we did not work on balancing ourselves, staying centered, we would not be able to "handle" the energy and it would get out of hand. Sounded pretty much like it is in the world today.

And Yvonne Taylor wrote from Capetown, South Africa:

The eclipse was quite amazing. The moon rose as a magnificent golden ball, then soon went behind a long strip of cloud. When it re-appeared it had a small "bite" out of it. That was about 9 p.m.

I stood outside in the front with my binoculars and watched things happening. I was amazed at how quickly the shadow moved across; it crept from right to left. The moon gradually changed color, not so much a real red, more of a peach-orange—quite spectacular.

Just before 10 p.m. it was completely in shadow and just hung like a strange alien space invader in the clear sky. Stars were studded everywhere, but this weird colored moon was outstanding. And it was so strange too that after many weeks of gale-force winds, especially at night, there wasn’t a movement of air during the eclipse. Everything was quiet—dead still—and it seemed to add to the spooky atmosphere.

I thought how lucky I was. In full view over my front garden was Saturn, Jupiter, the Pleiades, Orion and the eclipsed Moon—an incredible astronomical combination in my small piece of sky. Venus was visible just above the western horizon. And of course the Southern Cross marked the sky on the other side of the house. I’ve got it all!

By 11 p.m. the first glimmer of light appeared at the base of the moon, and I could almost see the shadow receding. I watched for a while longer, then went to bed. Eventually the full moon blazed into my bedroom for a few hours, but then a huge cloud bank came in and the moon disappeared. It was amazing luck for us to have a clear sky just when the eclipse happened.

FIRST QUARTER MOON IN ARIES, Jan. 6, 2001. Sausalito, CA. Aries Moon is a go-getter, ready to begin building new Capricornian structures. (See forecast for Jan. 2.) Energy picks up now and builds during this next week, until the Full Moon on Jan. 9. Aries is a pioneer and we are encouraged to begin to manifest new and enduring foundations, more solid than the status quo.

It’s a new year as well, time for new beginnings. 2001 is a "three" year, in a "two" millennium, and this signifies new opportunities for creative partnership. The U.S. Senate is setting the pace by revolutionizing the division of committee responsibilities, making them much more equal between the two parties. Pres. Clinton is trying again to help Palestine and Israel create a peace framework with which they can work. Mr. Arafat and Mr. Barak are both doing much behind-the-scenes meeting with others.

Pres. Clinton is completing his term with a great deal of activism, jump-starting many socially beneficial things with his authoritative signature. A prime example is an order putting one-third of national forest lands off limits to road-building and logging.

Alan Greenspan made corrections in the direction of the economy by raising Federal interest rates.

But perhaps the major new structural shift is in regard to a huge crack opening in corporate power through the so-called energy shortage in California (and other places) brought on by deregulation, with its accompanying skyrocketing prices. When problems with the free market show up on everybody’s utility bills, the protest is immediate, deep, and widespread.

The two big power companies in California want a bailout. However, consumers are insisting on calling them to account. The influence in Washington may be Neptunian, but in California it’s Saturn, the reality principle. The four California municipalities who run their own power systems are not having problems, and furthermore they have been able to develop green power. They have become a model, and there is an initiative planned for the ballot to encourage municipal power ownership.

This is a massive turnaround. It is a huge shift from giving away our power to corporations to beginning to take it back. It is a big earthquake in California.
Saturn, the ruler of the Capricorn New Moon marked by the Christmas Eclipse, was on the nadir—the foundation—of California at that Eclipse, laying new foundations here.

It was the Green Party who organized effective consumer protests.

This Quarter period has been exciting for me. I’ve been seeing old friends, making new ones, and starting interesting new projects.

CAPRICORN NEW MOON, EC, 12-28-00. Sausalito, CA. Eclipses eclipse. It seems like two things are definitely zapped, the gas-electric energy supply and people’s personal energy. Not only are people talking about low energy over this Holiday period, but they are reclusive. I live in a tourist town, and never have I seen so few people around during a holiday week. Storekeepers, even the food stores, say they are not busy. And yet the weather is unseasonably gorgeous—clear, warm, with the Bay dancing in brilliant sun—the kind of weather that ordinarily draws people to be out and about.

Usually we awaken to foggy mornings. But because of the clear skies now, I was able to view the eclipse from my back porch in all its glory early Christmas morning. Seeing the sharp black piece bitten out of the Sun was a very dramatic way to start the day. I then wandered down to the Bay through a silent town, and found a very high tide covering seashore life like a wet blanket. There were not even any birds, nor sounds of birds.

The Moon shadowed the Sun, and it felt like life stopped in awesome wonder.

Family groupings are significant this season, and perhaps spare, Capricorn strips down to essence.

This Christmas Eclipse was in my fourth house of home, and I was happy to start this Capricorn Moon season by sharing with three of my children, and hearing from a fourth. We skipped the heavy meal, and instead feasted on Clarke’s superb cheese fondue—heart-warming, simple, and a special treat.

My New Year's resolution is also simple: to continue shepherding the development of this web site, and making it financially viable.

National Eclipsing

Two issues dominate the news here in California: An apparent shortage of energy, combined with deregulation, has made energy prices shoot up, in many cases by a factor of 12. Already in the Bay Area, businesses such as greenhouses, dependent on heat, have had to close. Federal regulators have only worsened the crisis. So far no solution appears in sight. Other parts of the U.S. are also suffering from energy shortages.

Situations can change suddenly, and this happens when eclipses close old doors and open new ones. Now we see the beginning of an eclipsing of the old energy system, based primarily on fossil fuels, and at the same time this shortage is a catalyst to push the development of sustainable energy, vital for a viable future.

George W. Bush is choosing his Cabinet. The reputation of the U.S. as the beneficent leader of the free world has been sinking fast since the 1980’s. Pres. Clinton revived it a bit, but now Mr. Bush’s choices will put the final nails in the coffin of a good international reputation for this country.

True security depends on friendship and good will. As good will towards the United States diminishes around the world, our security as a nation decreases. Although we do not hear about it in the U.S. media, I and other Americans experience this deterioration personally through contacts with many parts of the world.

Mr. Bush’s choices are destructive to that elusive pax Americana: e.g., a military man, Colin Powell, as Sec. of State; an anti-civil rights and anti-abortionist activist, John Ashcroft, as Atty. General; the man who originally put together the proposal for a missile shield, Donald Rumsfeld, as head of the Dept. of Defense.

Yes, these are experienced people, but they support policies now perceived as threats by many, both here and abroad. "Blowback," as the CIA puts it, will grow against the U.S.

This eclipse period represents, for the nation, a watershed in U.S. governmental authority, a Capricorn issue. The U.S. Presidential Inauguration falls just after the Full Moon in Cancer, a total Lunar Eclipse. It will complete the processes catalyzed by the Christmas Eclipse.

Both the U.S. and Mr. Bush have Cancer Sun signs, and the insecurity generated by first, the election process and now, the Bush appointments, undermine the authority (Capricorn) and security (Cancer) of the nation.

Insecurity, however, motivates reform. Thus, the doors to needed change open now, and creativity in new and better directions can find footholds.

This series of Cancer-Capricorn eclipses, affecting the security of the United States, finishes in June 2002.