Aquarius New Moon Meditation for 2004:

Orbiting the Home Planet

By Jean Hinson Lall

Winter’s progress now lifts us from Capricorn’s dense, complicated Earth into the clear, cool Air of Aquarius. The third and last of the Air signs, Aquarius is Fixed, concentrated, objective and analytical. Thought here can be highly abstract, theoretical or esoteric, yet somehow substantial. Imagine Aquarius as the glistening, translucent surface of a frozen lake and the taut, rhythmical strokes of the figure skater pushing off against it, gathering controlled momentum until she takes flight in powerful, lyrical jumps. Picture it also as the multi-hued glass of cathedral windows and the light pouring through them from above to impress the truth of Heaven on the human heart.

Having experienced, in Capricorn, the full weight of incarnation in the world, we now are granted the freedom of flight and the perspective of height and distance. We rise above the material plane in thought and contemplation. From this vantage point, broad intellectual, scientific and ethical principles can be grasped. Both distinctions and interconnections can be seen, and the unity of things perceived at a glance.

Some of the astronauts who took part in pioneering space missions a generation ago have written about the life-changing impact of seeing Earth from above. Apollo 9 pilot Russell Schweickart, who orbited Earth in March 1969 in the first manned lunar module flight, told of the effects of circling the planet every hour and a half, day after day. In the beginning, he would watch for the landmarks and cities he knew and identify with those. But as he kept on orbiting, more and more cities, countries and landforms became familiar; he began to treasure their particular features and their historical significance and to look forward to seeing them again, until one day he realized that he no longer identified just with his home town and his own country, but with the whole beloved and beautiful planet.

And it struck him that for all that he could see, there was something that did not show up from space: borders and boundaries. He knew that down below there were great numbers of people killing each other for the sake of those lines. "And from where you see it," he wrote, "the thing is a whole, the earth is a whole, and it’s so beautiful. You wish you could take a person in each hand, one from each side in the various conflicts, and say, ‘Look. Look at it from this perspective. Look at that. What’s important?’"

During the Sun’s journey through Aquarius in 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell became the sixth man to walk on the Moon. Here is how he described the vision of Earth from above: "Suddenly from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery – It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth – home." This sight was to him "a glimpse of divinity."

On the return journey, he experienced a mystical realization of his own oneness with a universe that was "intelligent, loving, harmonious." After retiring from NASA, Mitchell set out to help create a "wisdom society" through projects that would combine spiritual and ethical study with scientific research. He founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences to further this work. Schweickart too found his relationship to the planet and all its life forms altered and has devoted himself to the protection of the planet at various levels. Astronauts and cosmonauts from many other countries have reported similar profound shifts in their emotional, intellectual and ethical connection to the home world. Pham Tuan of Vietnam, a 1980 Soyuz cosmonaut, is quoted as saying, "During the eight days I spent in space, I realized that man needs height primarily to better know our longsuffering Earth, to see what cannot be seen close up. Not just to love her beauty, but also to ensure that we do not bring even the slightest harm to the natural world."

What better use could be made of wings and rocket propulsion systems than to gain such a vision of Earth? For those of us not equipped for actual space journeys, though, a home-based, low-tech New Moon meditation could do the job. To help us along, Neptune, ruler of Pisces, continues its sojourn in Aquarius, while Aquarius’s ruler Uranus is now back in Pisces – a "mutual reception" between the two visionary planets that should foster a fusion of intellect and feeling, insight and compassion. Strap on your wings and launch your Aquarian meditation. Once you’ve reached your visionary altitude, maintain orbit as the Sun moves into conjunction with Neptune on February 2, prior to our Full Moon rendezvous on February 6.

Additional Links and Sources:

Quotations by Russell Schweickart from "No Frames, No Boundaries," in Michael Katz, William P. Marsh and Gail Gordon Thompson, eds., Earth’s Answer: Explorations of Planetary Culture at the Lindisfarne Conferences, Lindisfarne Books/Harper and Row, 1977; book is out of print but excerpts are quoted at http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC03/Schweick.htm

Quotations from many astronauts are found in Kevin W. Kelley, ed., & Jacques-Yves Cousteau, The Home Planet (Addison-Wesley/Perseus, 1988). This book is out of print, but several quotations can be found at: www.eastpreston.freeserve.co.uk/theartofenvironmentalism.htm

© 2004 Jean Lall
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