The Centaurs visited in an unexpected way this week.
Waiting for an astrology lecture to begin, my eyes made contact with a client whose chart I had read last year, with prominent Pholus aspects and transits. We’d spoken of the ambrosia on his quest.
Minutes later my friend stopped by, unaware of the lecture. He has a strong personal affinity with Pholus and often chooses to anchor that energy in our group Centaur meditations.
During the excellent lecture on Mundane Astrology, I managed to keep my mouth shut about Centaurs though I did see that tomorrow’s Super Moon Eclipse will conjoin the discovery degree of Pholus, at 1° Leo. Transits to a discovery degree (the place on the Zodiac where we first noticed a new planet) kind of feel like transits of the planet itself. That degree symbol, for the place of discovery and of the Moon at eclipse, is “Not knowing what to say, a woman blushes,” which at first sounds like a funny way to start the dramatic sign of Leo the performer. Stage-fright, or drunken shyness? Drinking too much ambrosia in Pholus’ visionary cave, perhaps?

Pholus was also prominent on our recent “year chart”, the Capricorn Ingress 12/21/18, by virtue of its being at that first degree of Capricorn. Likewise, the Solar Eclipse in Capricorn earlier this month featured Mercury conjunct Pholus.
The heart of the talk was about the alignments between the USA’s natal chart (Sibley) and September 11, 2001. One thing I had never noticed about the astrology of this tragedy was due to the lecturer bringing up Solar Arc Directions in Mundane charts: the SA South Node approached the nation’s Neptune that year. This brings to mind karmic fruits of deception and illusions. That fact is coupled with a reciprocal transit: Neptune transiting the national South Node on that date. This pair of signifiers is quite extraordinary, as the one does not follow from the other.

But now I see: the USA’s own South Node is conjunct Pholus in the Sibley chart! The chain of significance is complete, as 9/11 was a completely Pholus-level event. “The lid comes off” and never-ending war is unleashed from a single event. A nation being conceived when Pholus was at the South Node in Aquarius can mean that the country itself grows quickly from a small seed (Manifest Destiny) and also that there are deep social, ancestral wounds (South Node in Aquarius). The silver lining of these times may be that our collective wounds are coming to the surface.

I’m grateful that Pholus made his presence known, though in that example we see its worst-case-scenario signification. We can choose to work with Pholus and use his powers of catharsis and divinatory power for healing and clarity, too.
On the eve of the Leo Eclipse in the early hours of 1/21/19, I invite you to welcome Pholus into any Full Moon rituals you may be doing, in whatever way you’d like. He’ll be waiting, flask of ambrosia in hand!🔮🧿💙