The Astrology of Earth Day

The famous picture of Earth Rise from the surface of the Moon. Courtesy of NASA and Wikimedia Commons.

Greetings from this corner of our beautiful blue planet to your place on earth. Let’s, for a moment, consider that in this vast universe of possibility we may have landed in paradise.

It’s our nurturing, nourishing or cherishing of that paradise that seems to be a bit of an issue.

Earth Day, celebrated annually on 22 April, began as a big teach-in event in the United States in 1970.  At this time of year, the Sun is in the early degrees of Taurus, the sign most associated with Gaia herself — a sign of fixed earth.

On that day, back in 1970, there was plenty of power in Taurus. Saturn, the planet of longevity, building and responsibility was also in the sign of the Bull, and the Sun was approaching a conjunction;  Mercury, the planet of youth and learning, and Venus, the planet of love and beauty, were also making a conjunction in later degrees of Taurus.

Opposing that quartet of planets from the sign of death and regeneration, Scorpio, were Jupiter, the teacher, and the Moon. Earth Day itself had been inspired by the vision of our planet from the Apollo 11 in its journey to the Moon and back, in particular the picture from NASA used here, known as Earth Rise.

At 0° Scorpio, Jupiter was almost exactly opposite the Sun, extending and expanding the idea of “Earth”, highlighted by the bright star in Taurus.  The lessons one might take from Scorpio are: recycle, reuse, compost and then regenerate. Taurus is a sign of consumption, a sign of appetite and it needs to be balanced by Scorpio’s ability to create life from death. If Taurus is the soil itself, then Scorpio is the sign of the decaying matter we need to renew the soil.

Also at 0° was mystic Neptune, just on the edge of Sagittarius, the sign of knowledge, where he would be spending more than a decade. The passage of these two great planets of illusion and idealism — Jupiter and Neptune — into new signs truly marked the end of the 60s. But they had not quite finished yet, since a few weeks later, both would slide backwards into the previous signs.

The environmental message of Earth Day, had the fire and thrust of Mars, which opposes that idealistic Neptune.

This year’s Earth Day is, of course, a special one. The great conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus  falls on the natal Mercury, the messenger — and the message of Earth Day is not only urgent but literally manifest in the world around us, as we experience yet another season of unseasonable weather, floods, earthquakes and, soon, fires.

On the upside, we are actually learning — maybe too slowly but still… — to cherish the Earth. The theme of Earth Day 2024 is Planet vs Plastics.

Many blessings on you, and on the place where you find yourself right now. Cherish that mightily.