Full Moon Hawks Return

I have been feeding songbirds in one place for decades. They know me, trust me, entertain me with music all day and glorious colorful diversity and they probably depend on me to some extent. I grow what they like to feed on in summer and fall, tons of berries and fruits of native and immigrant plants. And I grow a lot of trees and plants, native and immigrant, that nurture the lives of myriad insects, who also feed the birds. In November, as stocks start to decline and cold sets in, I subsidize with feeder seed to get them through the winter and early spring. It is a bountiful place to hang out if you are a bird and open to all. 

Last winter everything changed with a new addition at the feeders, a young Cooper’s hawk took up residence as well. Birds of prey used to be rarely seen on our property with only a few occasional visitors during migration periods. Great horned owls are often in evidence at night with their welcome goodnight hoots before our bedtime and kingfishers patrol the lakeside for their meals. But hawks made only occasional stop-overs, whether because food was ample elsewhere or because they did not thrive in as great numbers as they seem to do now.

What are usually in abundance, aside from the songbirds, are crows. Crows keep together in family groups and can be annoying to all nearby, especially single predators. They are relentless protectors of their territory and can get quite furious with the presence of supposed marauders like owls, hawks and local cats on the prowl. The songbirds rely on their warnings caws, as do I, to alert us to danger. In some Native American stories, the crow represents the Law, and it is easy here to see why. They rule the areas in which they live for the protection of their tribe. Until now.

This fall a full grown red-tailed hawk seems to have set up residence nearby. His daily presence in the trees around the house is a disturbing addition to our usual calm, but he seems little disturbed by the crows or any of us humans or dogs who also reside here. He knows he is not hunted. He sometimes sits in a tree waiting for hours, perhaps just digesting, but in no hurry to leave. He thinks he has his own feeder, I suppose, and the pickings are easy when supplied by others. He has a lot in common with the rat in my compost.

Today I decided to give him some more of my attention after filling the feeders. I took my camera out and watched him as he watched me photograph. I watched him and watched and watched and he finally got annoyed enough by my accounting of his actions as he moved from branch to branch that he got bored, or hungry, and flew off. It may be my only defense of my defenseless small birds. Watch hawks like a hawk and they will get tired of it. They may even go catch a rat. Let’s hope.

Sitting at the Crossroads

It has been a weekend of uncommon quiet here in the garden. Exquisite blooms everywhere were challenged lately by cycles of incessant winds, then rain, then cool mist followed by hot, humid sun and more rain, into short spurts of open flowering and then curling back under cover just as quickly to protect those reproductive parts for a calmer, sunnier day. What weather each day might bring is a mystery.

Our planets and asteroids are splayed across the sky at the moment in a grand spread all around the Earth. Some of the major players are forming a grand questioning cross with each other while others are forming a grand agreeable trine, and others are opposing each other in direct confrontation, Earth always at center of it all. The result of all this interaction is that we are are at a crossroads of activity, of feelings, of energy, of thinking. Which direction do we take next? Expand, contract, get serious, celebrate or chill out?

This weekend we have been at the new moon phase, which is a quiet time of the month, a time to reflect, finish up the last month’s projects and prepare for the coming month. But we are also quickly approaching the high point of the year as summer solstice is right around the corner here in the northern hemisphere. It is almost the BIG time of the year for us, when we are most active and feeling our strengths. But we are at a small pause.

As I worked outside in the evening dusk a few nights ago, I found myself surrounded by ghosts, ghosts of nearly fifty years of life at this place. Ghosts of trees and plants long gone, neighbors, friends and family now dead who loved this land, beloved pets of many generations who are buried here who knew every smell and inch of the garden. It wasn’t spooky, it was comforting. Every being that has dwelled here, however long, has left a trace of consciousness that lingers. It isn’t October 31st. It is JUNE and I feel their life presence, not their death absence.

We are at a time of recognizing and appreciating accomplishment, looking at what has been and at where we are now, getting perspective. There are no clear answers at the moment for what comes next. We are being faced with a complex present that we all must confront and think about, responding as best we can with common endeavor and awareness of how what came before informs us still.  

Restless

New Moon in Aries with Uranus 

This is a very strange time, unusual in that the Sun, Moon and Uranus are all together at the beginning of the zodiac. It is another marker of the start of spring, being in Aries, the sign of beginnings and at the beginning of the first complete moon cycle of the spring. Uranus, ruler of freedom and independence, has added an element of the unknown and a restlessness to move on quickly. We are ready, eager even, for something new and liberating. Spring, yes, but more.

This year’s winter was the polar opposite of last year’s, warm and with little snow or ice, there were many pleasant days and nights, and it actually felt like winter never really arrived as such. 

One of the early spring blooming plants in my garden, Arabis ferdinandi-cobergi, has been in bloom non-stop since December. It usually blooms in April-May. Many late winter/early spring blooming bulbs bloomed a full month or more ahead of their usual time and are already gone. 

Nothing seems quite as it should be in the garden with sharp swings in temperatures. Now in April, freeze threatens regularly the plants that usually don’t face that challenge. Tough, low-growing spreading types, like the Arabis and Violets took advantage of the lacking severity of the colder months, increasing their hold, while other plants, lured too early, are producing fewer or weaker flowers this year. All the spring plants are facing a different kind of spring, but face it they must. 

The message that Uranus carries is expect the unexpected and be prepared to adjust to anything that comes our way. For we are living in experimental times and new experiences are around every corner that once was familiar. 

Waning Moon in Libra

When the moon is waning, that is, when we are winding down after the building up of a project that pushed forward with steady momentum from new moon to full moon, we aren't completely done with that project. We are putting on the finishing touches as we move through the slower period of the waning moon. This month's moon cycle started with the new moon in the sign of Aquarius, the sign associated with humanity in the collective sense, as well as getting the message out to the collective.
It built to a full moon in Virgo last Monday with myriad details to work out, and now with the moon in Libra today and tomorrow, we share the final stages of the work with our partners and team mates.
This is when we gather together to get to the point of moving the message out to the greater world.

It is a time to savor, this sharing of a project coming to completion in some way, for it won't last very long before the next one presents itself to start thinking about. In fact, it may be in the sharing right now with co-workers that the next cycle's project gels in the minds of those concerned. Yes, there is another week to finish up with the old stuff of this cycle, but we are already clearing space in our minds for the next cycle that begins on March 8 with a solar eclipse.

Share dreams of what might be with others. It's time to dream and connect.

Timing

Astrology is all about timing, observation of cycles here on Earth and in the sky and applying that observation to practical use. Each year, I publish a calendar of best days for doing various gardening jobs according to the cycles of the moon, along with a simple explanation of them.

Since the waxing moon was in Cancer this past week, I got an early start on my own spring planting by seeding flats for growing indoors under lights. Lettuce, spinach and escarole are on their way!

Here's the calendar link:

https://hahgarden.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/2016-moon2.pdf

Midwinter Changes

If you have been up to your neck recently in changing your house around, cleaning and decluttering, and seeing your space differently, then you are right in sync with the earth's changing position. Yesterday we reached Imbolc, or midwinter, one of the eight major seasonal shifts each year. The ancients depended on their observation of the sky to know what next to expect and their measurements of the changes there helped them organize their activities. The Solstices and Equinoxes are the main four indicators of change but the midpoints are also important. Though most of us don't recognize these mid seasonal moments, we often still celebrate them in some way such as Groundhog Day (Imbolc), May Day (Beltane), early August was traditionally known as First Harvest (Lughnasadh) and Halloween (Samhain). As midpoints of the current season they indicate a shift toward the next one, hence at this time of year comes our motivation to start the spring cleaning and renovation of our indoor space, while we have time for it. Come late March we'll be in full swing implementing the outdoor work of the real springtime. At least that is how a gardener sees and knows things to be.

Add to that the fact that we are in the last days of the moon cycle and this past week has been busy finishing up those changes in the household, so that next week we can move them along into the next phase - after the clean-up/spruce-up comes the new order. Yesterday, while taking a break from reorganizing a freshly painted room, I stepped outside into uncommonly warm, damp air for what felt like a very real breath of spring. Immediately I noticed change as I noted there were two male red-winged blackbirds at the feeders. Rarely are they here so early in the year, though it has happened before. What really nailed me to the spot was the the sound of birds singing everywhere. After several months of mostly silence this is always a magical moment. The raptors, owls and hawks, are heard frequently here in winter, but the song birds keep to the business of finding food and keeping out of reach of the raptors. It is highly unusual for the songbirds to be belting it out at the beginning of February! A female cardinal sat in the big maple above me singing every note she's ever sung in her life, loudly and incessantly for five minutes, with a full blown passion usually reserved for mating season, still weeks away.

Which brings me to the big event of the weekend - Venus conjunct Pluto with the moon passing by as well, in Capricorn. Pluto (transformation) has been in Capricorn (institutions, governments, buildings, structures of all kinds...) for awhile now and is about halfway through its journey there - another noteworthy midpoint. With Venus (love, beauty, partnership, peace, cooperation) and the moon (feelings, family, the past) joining it, this could be an extraordinary time for team play, as in let's change our world and make it a more peaceful, loving place.

Yes, I know that there is a big game happening in the US this weekend, and that is part of the conjunction. But there is something else going on that people are passionate about now - change for the better, we've had enough of hearing the worst about ourselves and our governing, or wannabe governing, bodies. In the news today, the Pope and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch are going to meet and start to iron out a thousand year old argument - that is Venus meeting Pluto in Capricorn big time. If more events like this one, aiming toward peace and goodwill, are about to emerge then we'll all have something to sing about... meanwhile, enjoy your own transformations with love this weekend, it could be powerful! And you may learn something more about sharing.

Planet Partners

I love end of year festivities. Despite the huge effort it takes on everyone’s part to make them happen, they do happen, again and again. And we all need them to happen so we can catch our collective breath and move on to a new horizon, together at least in heart, mind or friendship, if not always in actual locational proximity. 

Sunday marks the end of the holiday break for most of us. With it comes a sigh of relief  that our end of year obligations are over and a welcome expanse of open space lies before us, but also with it comes a feeling of warm fullness left by reconnections with others and a good few days of rest.

Oddly, the dry cold of winter finally arrived this weekend with a glorious sun, after weeks of warm, wet and threatening skies. Suddenly the weather seems right again for the season and not weirdly climate incorrect. It appears that we are back in sync and ready for the next round. The waning Moon in conjuncting youthful, energetic Mars has found a boost toward completion or resolution of old matters, while the Sun conjuncting Pluto, planet of transformation, is shining light on coming changes.  

Meanwhile peaceful Venus approaches conjunction with cold, wintery Saturn bringing beauty to  soften rigidity. NPR chose to rebroadcast a brilliant Ted Radio Hour on the topic “What is Beauty” this weekend. It was originally broadcast on April 19, 2013, when Venus was opposite Saturn. Evidently it is time to learn once more about the important value of beauty in our lives, indeed to recognize our very essential need of it for our well being.

Peace.