UFO over Dingle

Double click on picture for a clearer image

This evening, I took a walk along Dingle Bay just as the Sun was setting. My attention was naturally directed towards the west. However when I turned east, I was astonished to see a pink form that looked like a flying saucer. The object was quite large, looked to be circular and had three levels or stories with the largest one on top.

It was just a cloud formation but it was so well formed that it took my breath away.

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Sky phenomenon UFO Dingle

Saturn Return

Recently a friend dropped in and said she needed to talk. She said that she felt that she has not been expressing who she really is and wants now to make some changes to her life. She described how she had led a gypsy-like existence when she was young and lived mostly in a caravan or other transitory domicile. When she got married and had children, she conformed more to usual conventions, living in a regular house etc. With these considerations in mind, we took a look at what the stars had to say.

Her birth chart shows the sign of Aquarius on the cusp of the fourth house and this would certainly fit with the unconventional home life that she preferred and had when she was younger.

Click on picture for a clearer image.

Current transit shows a Saturn return, which is when the planet Saturn returns to the place it occupied at her birth. Rudolf Steiner pointed out that during the life between birth and re-birth, a person goes through the various planetary spheres. It is when one is in the Saturn sphere, that one makes the decision to return to Earth. Then one condenses down through the spheres of Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and finally Moon before being born. Saturn has to do with our karma and with our intentions for this life and this is indicated by its position at birth. The sign or constellation is important as well as the house position.

Click on picture for a clearer image.

A Saturn return is a time for a person to realign themselves with their pre-birth intentions. It is not surprising that our friend would, at this time, experience that she was not really being herself and want to make changes.

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Saturn Return

Winter Solstice and Standing Stones

Three Stones Approach

There are numerous ancient monuments in the vicinity of Dingle that are well visited by tourists and locals alike. Not so well known is Log na nGallán (place of the standing stones) on a hilltop called Arda Mór about 10 kilometers from our house.




Three Stones with Peader for perspective

Three standing stones close together in a straight line are aligned to the setting sun at Winter Solstice. There is a fourth stone that was a puzzle to me when I first visited the place several years ago. None of the locals that I spoke to knew its purpose.





Fourth Stone

After pacing over and back several times I discovered that the fourth stone indicates where to stand in order to see the setting Sun aligned with the three stones. If you put your back to the three stones and walk in their alignment, away from the setting Sun, until the fourth stone is at right angles to your path, this is the spot to view the setting Sun over the three stones.


Cup and Saucer pattern on 4th

Fourth stone has a cup and saucer pattern often found on these stones.







Moon nearly full opposite Sunset 1


Today I arrived there with my friend Peader about a half hour before sunset and we were joined by just five other people. The place is however fairly remote and there are no sign posts to get there. The Moon was up on the far side of the sky.



Sunset over standing stones

Peader read a poem in Irish that he had written describing this place and this event. One of the other people called John Ahern read a piece he had written that lead over into Christianity and to the Trinity.





Ireland is not known for its clear skies and such events can
sometimes meet with disappointment. Today we had some cloud that added suspense and drama to the event but we had a clear view of the sun for most of the time. There was no wind which is unusual for here and there was a very delicate peaceful atmosphere.




As soon as the Sun disappeared, Peader pulled out a penny whistle and played a soulful slow air. The event was simple and at the same time sublime.

Back at our cars, John provided us all with hot tea and raisin bread. Sin é(that’s it)




Winter Solstice
Standing Stones

Zodiac Signs for Anthroposophists

Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy with its daughter movements of biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, Eurythmy and Waldorf education, was born with the Sun in the sign of Pisces. His wife Marie was also born with Sun in Pisces and so was his close collaborator in anthroposophical medicine, Ita Wegman, so was Ehrenfried Pfieffer, a leading figure in biodynamics and so was Emil Leinhas, a prominent figure in Steiner’s Threefold Social Order. I wondered if Pisces birth sign was dominant in these Steiner-connected movements.

Anthroposophists, followers of Steiner’s philosophy are often said to be walking around with their feet not quite on the ground and this may well fit with the image of the Pisces person. However an analysis of the birth charts of 306 anthroposophists shows that the most frequently occurring birth sign for both Sun and Moon was Taurus, the most earth-bound sign. I am building up a database of birth charts of people who were historically involved with anthroposophy and will continue to monitor this as the database grows.

Sun Signs-click on bar graph for a larger clearer image




















Moon Signs-click on bar graph for larger clear image


















The data was processed and bar graphs produced with the astrology research program JigSaw.

Anthroposophy Zodiac Signs

Sun and Moon

Recently, a local sailor and fisherman came to see me to ask about the Moon. He said he really couldn’t understand the movement of the Moon in the sky.

We are given to understand that the earth moves around the Sun and the Moon moves around the earth. Interestingly, when you observe them carefully you notice that they seem to follow the same pattern in the sky. Let us take a look at the four seasons.

Spring: At the spring equinox the Sun rises due east at 0 degrees Aries sign and in the constellation of Pisces (see chart—Inner circle shows Zodiac Signs, outer circle Zodiac Constellations) The Sun goes medium high in the sky and then sets exactly in the west. Equinox means that the day and the night are the same length of twelve hours.

Summer: At high summer, when the sun is just going into constellation of Gemini, it rises in the northeast, goes high up in the sky and sets in the northwest. At that time we have a very long day and a short night.

Autumn: At the autumnal equinox when the Sun is in constellation of Virgo it behaves the same as in spring, rising due east and setting in the west. Once again, we have equal day and night.

Winter: In the middle of winter, when the Sun is in the constellations of Sagittarius it rises in the southeast, stays relatively low in the sky even at noon and then sets in the southwest. At that time of year we get a very short period of daylight and a long period of darkness.

Moon Pattern: The Moon follows a similar pattern but what the Sun does in a year the Moon does in a month. Once every month, when the Moon is in the constellation of Pisces it too rises in the east and sets in the west just like the Sun at Spring-time. When the Moon is in the constellation of Gemini it behaves like the Sun in the summer; when it is in Virgo it behaves like the Sun in autumn and when it is in Sagittarius it follows the winter pattern. The Moon goes through all of the constellations each month, whereas the Sun takes a whole year to go through them all.

Moon Phases: At new Moon, the Sun and the Moon are together in the sky so that if the Sun is in Sagittarius, then so is the Moon and they will follow the same pattern in the sky. Of course you won’t then be able to see the Moon because it is overwhelmed by the light of the Sun.

The Moon and the Sun are opposite each other at full Moon. If it is winter and the Sun is in Sagittarius then the moon will be opposite in Gemini. So you can see that if there is a full Moon in the winter then the Sun will stay low all day whereas the Moon will follow the pattern of the summer Sun rising high in the sky and spend a long time in the night sky.

This year we should be able to see a beautiful full Moon at Christmas time. It is exact on Christmas Eve morning at 1:15 AM--see chart.

Moon Phase at Birth

In an earlier post A Vision - The Phases of the Moon I promised that I would present some data to see how the system works in relation to the birth chart. Yeats has 28 phases of the Moon, one for each day of the lunar cycle, He points out in his book A Vision that people with an early Moon phase are learning about the world and that people born at full-Moon know how to function in the public domain. For people born in the last quarter, there is a wish to leave worldly matters behind and to turn inward.
Here is a small study using the birth charts of 300 people involved in Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy.


The study showed:
62 people born during 1st quarter Moon,
89 during 2nd quarter,
70 during 3rd quarter and
79 during 4th quarter.




I wondered if there would be a tendency for people involved in a lifestyle encompassing a spiritual perspective to be born during a late moon phase. The results however show that the largest segment is the second quarter which would indicate a striving outward into the world. It is of course true that most of these people were actively involved in the world, caring for sick and the needy, active in business, teaching or the arts.



This bar graph shows the number of people born at each of the 28 phases of the Moon.
Click on the graph for a larger, clearer image.

Below is a list showing how many people were born at each phase together with the Yeats' descriptions for each phase of what he called the Will.

10 people at Phase 1-Complete Objectivity
12 people at Phase 2-Beginning of Energy
2 person at Phase 3-Beginning of Ambition
10 people at Phase 4-Desire for Exterior World
7 people at Phase 5-Separation from Innocence
11 people at Phase 6-Artificial Individuality
10 people at Phase 7-Assertion of Individuality
14 people at Phase 8-War Between Individual and Race
7 people at Phase 9-Belief Instead of Individual
14 people at Phase 10-The Image-Breaker
14 people at phase 11-The Consumer, Pyre Builder
11 people at Phase 12-The Forerunner
15 people at phase 13-The Sensuous Man
14 people at Phase 14-The Obsessed Man
10 people at Phase 15-Complete Beauty
11 people at Phase 16-The Positive Man
10 people at Phase 17-The Daimonic Man
6 people at Phase 18-The Emotional Man
11 people at Phase 19-The Assertive Man
11 people at Phase 20-The Concrete Man
11 people at Phase 21-The Acquisitive Man
8 people at Phase 22-Balance of Ambition/Contemplation
12 people at Phase 23-The Receptive Man
16 people at Phase 24-The End of Ambition
11 people at Phase 25-The Conditional Man
9 people at Phase 26-The Hunchback
11 people at Phase 27-The Saint
12 people at Phase 28-The Fool

Only two people showed up in Phase 3 and this Yeats calls a phase of self sacrifice.

He who bends to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy,
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

The sample is relatively small, taken from the birth charts of 300 people. The time-of-birth was available for about 50% of the people which means that the phase could be off by ‘one’ in some instances. However, since my objective was to look for larger trends, I felt that this would not unduly distort the results.

W.B.Yeats A Vision Moon Phases