Night Vision: The Moon, Jupiter, Venus & Mars

Leaving Minnehaha Falls At Dusk, Droid Screenshot of the Night Sky, Star
Chart over Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 24, 2012,
photos © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

NIGHT VISION

Leaving Minnehaha Falls at dusk,
a woman brushes by in a black beret.
On her forearm, a Libra tattoo.
On her face, the rising crescent Moon.

“Look,” I say, “Venus & Jupiter.”
She pauses, points, “Back there, that’s Mars.”
Seven Sisters, one hundred and eighty degrees—
the astrological Underworld.

After a Pampered Chef party in South Minneapolis, Liz and I stopped to take photographs at Minnehaha Falls. When we climbed the limestone steps to leave the park, a sliver of Moon rose next to two of the brightest stars. When I pulled up the Droid Star Chart app, they proved to be planets. Venus and Jupiter hovered over the waxing crescent Moon with the Pleiades close by. Right behind me, a stranger pointed out Mars.

According to Shamanic Astrology, March, 2012 begins the Underworld Saga where Venus (the feminine) and Mars (the masculine) only meet when they are with the Sun. Mars is always retrograde when it is opposite the Sun. This year it will be retrograde in the sign of Virgo for 81 days, January 23 to April 13, 2012. In 2113, Mars dips below the horizon and into the Underworld, a time of chaos and surrender in service to people and the greater community. Read more about the future at Shamanic Astrology and the predicted night sky at Sky and Telescope.

Star Chart was introduced to my by my brother when he visited last Fall and pulled up the night sky right over our heads. I highly recommend it. My second favorite app of the month is The Photographer’s Ephemeris. With TPE, you can instantly access information on the exact rise and set of the Sun and Moon, your altitude in relationship to the landscape, and times when the Sun and Moon will be at an optimal location in the sky for your photograph. When Liz and I were at the 50-foot bottom of Minnehaha Falls, we saved our location in TPE giving us all the info we need to return at an optimum time to photograph the Moon over the falls. Venus and Mars are alright tonight.

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, March 31st, 2012

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ode to a crab (haiku & mandala)

Ode To A Crab, mandala created from a blank circle, June 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

 

ocean moondancers
sidewinding, hiding in shells
crabs are people, too

       

Hello, Cancer!, detail of Ode To A Crab mandala created from a blank circle, oil pastels, black Sharpie, Crayola markers, June 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, June 29th, 2008

-related to posts: haiku (one-a-day), Target — May Mandalas, inspired by post, Good-Bye Gemini

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Good-Bye Gemini

Los Amantes, pen and ink on tracing paper, doodle
© 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

I read horoscopes and obituaries
flip between the future and the past
they share the heavens in common.

I examine, too, Before and After photos
of a plain, some might say mousey, woman who
through something akin to magic
emerges transformed
a lesser Jolie or Paltrow
much lesser, some might say
I suggest we withhold judgment
until we consult the stars.

It is the 50th Anniversary snapshots I love the most
Before: earnest faces, handsome and pretty
every one, without exception, recalls a silent movie
After 50 years and who knows how many dreams
intercepted by crisis
a thousand and one threats
and hanging by a thread
I search for youth (check the brow)
happiness (corners of the mouth)
a singular sign of love (hands, eyes, even skin might give it away).

Gemini is romantic
and pragmatic
Mercury retrograde, it’s said, slows down this mercurial communicator
emphasizes earth
de-emphasizes shattering
illuminates. Claro.

The newspaper says, “Don’t make important decisions
before the 19th.”
Don’t write big checks.
It’s fine to start a new page.
Correction: Your whole life will open up to a new path in the year ahead
after the full moon.
Travel, slow down
tear down what is no longer needed
rebuild a new structure that will be more suitable.

I read my horoscope the way I read the obituaries
Do I know this person?
“Stick to your guns, Gemini,
dear Gemini.”
Did we go to high school together?
I draw down the yearbook from the shelf where it waits
for such an occasion
run middle-aged fingers over cool, smooth paper
feel for a time when I was eager to know
how Pluto and a gaggle of planets
conspired for and against me.

I close the pages on another year
remember fondly my fading Gemini traits
“sex appeal,” “wild child,” “fast not slow”
I hardly recognize myself in daily prognostications

I have to admit
I’d rather wallow with the bereaved and
wonder how the youngest among the deceased
came to meet his end.








As we roll into a new season and a new astrological sign — Goodbye, Gemini; Hello, Cancer — I wanted to visit the notion of horoscopes. I started out in the early days of Gemini wanting to write my own horoscope. A few weeks later, I thought I might create a poem from words and phrases lifted out of the daily and monthly readings found in different newspapers.

In the end I wrote this poem. It does contain phrases that stood out from one of the more interesting June readings for Gemini. ***UPDATE*** — Here is a link to a website called Newspaper Blackout Poems. And I want to give credit to jillypoet and Mariacristina, two poet bloggers who recently tried the blackout method and gave me the inspiration for doing something similar with my horoscope.

I also came across this portal — the best of the horoscopes. I especially enjoyed the first one listed: Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone.

What about you? Do you follow your horoscope? How much weight do you give it? Just curious. (Curiosity is, by the way, a Gemini trait.)

 

-related to posts, Reading The Obits and The Uses Of Sorrow – What Is It About Obituaries?

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