Aries to Cancer: a full Moon in her exaltation
Three ingresses, four voids, and Venus back in her own sign.
| ||||||||||||||
| The week opens with the Moon in Aries, a guest in the sign of Mars, and closes in Cancer, her own. Between the two she passes through Taurus, the sign of her exaltation, where the tradition held her at the height of her dignity, and she turns full there. | ||||||||||||||
| She leaves Aries late Sunday. A void of thirty-five minutes opens at 22:59 UTC, and at 23:34 UTC she enters Taurus. The full Moon follows at 04:11 UTC on Monday, with the Sun in Scorpio, the sign of her fall. At the full, the two lights hold the signs of her greatest and her least dignity at once. | ||||||||||||||
| Void of course is the stretch after the Moon makes her last aspect in a sign and before she enters the next. Three more fall this week. | ||||||||||||||
| The first opens Tuesday at 14:51 UTC in Taurus and runs a little over ten hours, until Gemini at 01:01 UTC on Wednesday. The second opens Thursday at 21:43 UTC in Gemini, until Cancer at 02:05 UTC on Friday. The third opens Saturday at 21:59 UTC in Cancer and carries past the end of the week. | ||||||||||||||
| Two of those three fall in signs William Lilly set apart. Writing in London in 1647, he held that matters go on with difficulty under a void Moon, yet allowed that she still performs somewhat in four signs: Taurus, Cancer, Sagittarius and Pisces. Her exaltation and her own sign are both among them, and this week holds both. | ||||||||||||||
| Two planets move backward through the week. Retrograde is the old term for a planet that appears to run back through the signs. Mercury turned retrograde on Saturday at twenty degrees of Scorpio, and Venus, retrograde since early October, slips back into Libra, her own sign, on Sunday morning UTC. | ||||||||||||||
| The week’s ingresses | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| The twelve signs | ||||||||||||||
| Aries Sunday is the last day of her stay. She holds no dignity in the sign of Mars, and she leaves it at 23:34 UTC after a void of thirty-five minutes. Saturn stays behind at nine degrees, in the sign of his fall. She joined him there on Saturday at 13:06 UTC, the one meeting by body of her passage. | ||||||||||||||
| Taurus Exaltation is the sign where a planet is raised to its highest dignity, a place of honor rather than ownership. She enters Sunday at 23:34 UTC, turns full Monday at 04:11 UTC, and goes void Tuesday at 14:51 UTC for a little over ten hours. Venus rules the sign, and this week Venus is back in Libra, her other house. | ||||||||||||||
| Gemini Mercury rules Gemini and spends the whole week retrograde in Scorpio, away from both of his houses. The Moon arrives Wednesday at 01:01 UTC and leaves Friday at 02:05 UTC. Bonatti, in thirteenth century Italy, counted Gemini among the places where she is ill-affected, as the sign just before her own. Her void here, from 21:43 UTC Thursday, lasts four hours and twenty-two minutes. | ||||||||||||||
| Cancer Her domicile, the sign she rules. Ptolemy, in second century Alexandria, gave Cancer to the Moon and Leo to the Sun as the most northern signs, the ones most productive of heat. She enters Friday at 02:05 UTC and holds it to the end of the week, going void Saturday at 21:59 UTC, in one of the four signs Lilly excepted. | ||||||||||||||
| Leo Leo waits on the far edge of the week. She crosses into it at 04:18 UTC on Sunday, 1 November, after the void that opens in Cancer. The sign belongs to the Sun, her partner among the two lights, and Mars and Jupiter both stand in it all week, Mars in its middle degrees and Jupiter in its twenty-third. | ||||||||||||||
| Virgo Virgo is the one sign that is both domicile and exaltation to the same planet, Mercury. This week its lord is far from it, in Scorpio and moving backward, having turned retrograde on Saturday at twenty degrees. The Moon never reaches Virgo this week. Her course runs from Aries to the threshold of Leo, one sign short of it. | ||||||||||||||
| Libra Venus comes home on Sunday. Retrograde since early October, she slips from Scorpio, the sign of her detriment, back into Libra, her domicile. Detriment is the sign opposite a planet’s own house. She stays in Libra the rest of the week, and since the Moon does not pass through, the only planet entering Libra is its own ruler. | ||||||||||||||
| Scorpio The sign of her fall is Scorpio, where the tradition held her at her weakest. At Monday’s full Moon the Sun stands in Scorpio while she stands exalted in Taurus. Lilly’s table of dignities lists Scorpio as her fall. Mercury is there as well, retrograde all week, and Venus leaves it on Sunday. | ||||||||||||||
| Sagittarius Lilly’s four excepted signs include Sagittarius, though the Moon comes nowhere near it this week. The four pair her own sign and her exaltation with the two houses of Jupiter, the greater benefic, Sagittarius and Pisces. Jupiter himself spends the week in Leo, in the Sun’s sign, at twenty-three degrees. She last left Sagittarius on the 16th, at 12:57 UTC. | ||||||||||||||
| Capricorn In Capricorn, her detriment, the ruler is Saturn, and he spends the week in Aries, the sign of his fall, where she passed him on Saturday, the day before the week began. She left Capricorn itself on the 19th, at 01:39 UTC. On Friday she reaches Cancer, her own sign, the house from which her detriment is reckoned. | ||||||||||||||
| Aquarius Ptolemy gave Saturn both of his signs, Capricorn and Aquarius, because Saturn is cold and the farthest of the planets from the two lights, whose houses are Cancer and Leo. This week the Moon reaches Cancer and ends at the edge of Leo. She last crossed Aquarius from the 19th to the 21st, peregrine throughout. | ||||||||||||||
| Pisces Pisces held her last, from Wednesday the 21st to Friday the 23rd, and closed with a void of sixteen hours and twenty-two minutes. Jupiter rules it, and Venus is exalted there. Of Lilly’s four signs it is the one she has just left; Taurus, which she enters Sunday night, is the next. |