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Read
Roy Gillett's full comments about the eclipse conference at the Astrology
Association Web Site.
Read
some other comments or add your own at the British Astrology Association
Web Site.
Rick's
Eclipse Conference Photos
Eclipse Links
Astronomy
NASA/Goddard
Space Flight Center
Solar
Eclipse Paths
1997-2005
Exploratorium:
Stories from the Path of Totality
Eclipse Links
Astrology
The
Saros Cycle - Eclipses come in Families,
by Bernadette Brady
The
Eclipse and the New Millennium
by Roy Gillett
|
Conference
hailed as “great success...”
“With approximately 550
attendees from seventeen countries and over 100 sessions, this six-day event was
the largest gathering ever of astrologers in Britain.”
--Roy Gillett,
President of the Astrological Association of Great Britain--
Eclipses have been the cause
of wonder since the dawn of time. When astrologers from all over the
world gathered to celebrate the last total eclipse of the millennium,
there was bound to be learning, excitement, and camaraderie.
 After
five days of lectures at Plymouth College on academic, technical, and
experiential astrology, hundreds of astrologers sat in a green meadow
midst a roundabout in the town of Plymouth, England to experience the
total eclipse. The sky was gray, but the astrologers, who had journeyed
from every part of the UK and from all over the world, did not mind the
clouds. The event they had gathered for was not limited to the visible
total eclipse that was distracting the rest of England and Europe this
summer day. No doubt these astrologers would have liked to see the sun's
corona for a brief magical moment, but they had gathered for something
more.
For centuries, eclipses have
been the harbingers of political, social and economic change. This day,
with astrology resurging in popularity, hundreds of astrologers watched
as the sky went dark in the middle of the day.
To me, the most surprising
thing about the total darkness was the speed with which it came and
went. Not that it only lasted a couple of minutes, but the speed at
which the Moon moved over the Sun and the speed at which the darkness,
and then the light, came rushing across the earth.
When we look at the Moon, or
any of the planets in our vast skies, the distances hide the speeds at
which the planets move and at which the earth rotates. Normally the
spinning earth creates day and night and day again. When day comes and
goes, there is a period of twilight. The transition between day and
night can last a half hour or so, or even longer on a midsummer night in
the northern latitudes. We grow accustomed to the speed of this
transition.
During the total eclipse of
the Sun, the transition to darkness and back to light lasts only
minutes. The senses absorb it, but the mind become quite uneasy with the
change of light. It's like you can actually feel the crashing of the
darkness. The actual shadow of totality races over the surface of the
earth at nearly 2,000 miles per hour! And when it hit, the intensity was
quite unnerving!
Several people have asked me,
“Did you enjoy the eclipse?” Joy is not among the words that I would
use. I did not feel joy. I felt awe—awe in the presence of
something truly cosmic. The word "cosmic" is derived from
a Greek word, meaning both "order" and "beauty." Experiencing the
order and the beauty of the cosmic spheres brought forth the kind of awe
that would be reserved for only events of cosmic proportion.
During the minutes before and
after totality, the words do not do justice to the feelings involved. It
wasn't just the muted colors in the clouds showing rapidly changing hues
of purples and grays. Try to imagine a sunset speeded up by a factor of
ten or twenty times. Now add to this impossibility the sensation of
midday night. My brain screamed! But all was perfectly still.
Except
for the birds. More than 50 large gulls circled above us
astrologers. They screamed wildly for the sun to return. I had the distinct
feeling that each of those birds temporarily was a manifestation of
one great astrologer, now passed on to the other side, but momentarily
joining this most auspicious astrological moment with their incarnated
disciples. In the sky, in those birds, I saw Pythagoras, Ptolemy and
Plotinus. I saw Abu M'ashar. Up there was Marsilio Ficino, Tycho Brahe
and Johannes Kepler. Flying around us, in the sky were Culpeper, Lily,
Leo, and Lewi and Lewis. It was a bird party, but it was not as it appeared
to be. Eclipses never are.
Then, as suddenly as the
darkness came, the light returned. The birds vanished and the crowd of
astrologers dispersed.
But the feeling that I had experienced something
magical, something from another dimension, remains.
Rick Levine
StarIQ.com Cofounder
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