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Dedicated to Nikos Papazoglou - Ithikon Akmeotaton

Cosmic Eclipse changes 18 year cycle

A new eclipse series
The other notable feature of Friday's partial solar eclipse is that it kicks off a completely new series of eclipses in what is known as the Saros cycle, astronomers said.
Astronomers have long used the Saros cycle to organize eclipse events because of their predictability. The cycle is 6,585.3 days long (that's 18 years, 11 days, 8 hours) and marks the time between two eclipses with similar geometry in the night sky.
While each Saros cycle lasts just over 18 years, one series of these cycles can last centuries. According to Espenak, each Saros series can last between 1,200 and 1,300 years.
So while Friday's partial solar eclipse will be a less than impressive sight to behold, on the cosmic scale, it is a major turn of the clock.
"This event is the first eclipse of Saros 156," Espenak explained. "The family will produce 8 partial eclipses, followed by 52 annular eclipses and ending with 9 more partials" between 2011 and the year 3237.
If you miss the partial eclipse of the sun on Friday (July 1), don't feel bad; everyone else on the planet will likely miss it, too. But a touch of skywatching trivia makes it a rare event.
Friday's solar eclipse will occur over an extremely remote part of the world — an uninhabited region in the southern Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Antarctica. You could even call it a "stealth" eclipse since it will probably only be seen by a few penguins and leopard seals.
"This Southern Hemisphere event is visible from a D-shaped region in the Antarctic Ocean south of Africa," said eclipse expert Fred Espenak, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, on the space agency's Eclipse Web Site. "Such a remote and isolated path means that it may very well turn out to be the solar eclipse that nobody sees."

http://www.zodiacarts.com/whatsup/SolarEclipse.shtml

Comments from Astrologists about the Solar Eclipse Friday

July 1, 2011 Solar Eclipse in Cancer

http://astrology-classes.com/eclipse/july-1-2011-solar-eclipse-in-cancer.html

“A large diamond in the first stages of the cutting process.”
Eclipse Sabian Symbol for 10 degrees Cancer

The early summer season promises to be quite eventful. It starts with the forward motion of Saturn on July 13, 2011 after its 4-1/1 month retrograde journey from 17 degrees Libra back to 10 degrees Libra. Saturn at 10 degrees Libra will make a square aspect (challenge) to the Sun/Moon eclipse conjunction at 9 degrees Cancer. In addition, the eclipse Sun and Moon are in square aspect to Uranus and in an opposition aspect to Pluto. These orbs (the difference in degree between two planets placement) are quite tight, which gives the eclipse added power.

Picture the Sun and Moon having a party. They have invited some very heavy hitting guests–Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. Actually looking closer, its probably not a party, but a business meeting held in the home (eclipse in Cancer)—a business meeting where each of the parties are challenging each other and each wants to be heard. The Sun and Moon seated at one end of the table are listening to everyone forcefully present their needs and trying to make sense of it all. Let’s take a look to determine what is really going on at this “business meeting.”

The Sun is the active, life giving light that represents a purposeful, directed and proud being. Let’s picture him setting at the head of the table. Next to him is the Moon, the light that contains our deepest personal needs, our intuitive, sentimental, introspective side. She doesn’t seem to be as strong as her partner, the sun, but her subconscious is very powerful. She gets things done through the emotions and uses her intuition to make sense of things.

Sun – stay purposeful, be yourself and appreciate yourself.

Moon – use your intuition and heart to guide you toward what you want.

Saturn – keep working hard, even when things are discouraging.

Pluto – use your will power to let go or transform what is no longer serving you.

Uranus – use your inventive mind and never be afraid of change or of being different.

The parable of the lost drachma

The Ten Drachmas:
The Lord in the Guise of a Woman

Can you believe that Christ the Saviour portrayed Himself in the guise of a woman in two of His parables? One is that of the woman who took three measures of flour and made dough. But first let us speak of the other one where the Lord tells us about the woman who had ten drachmas and lost one. These are the most mysterious of all the Saviour's parables. As the parable of the lost drachma is short, we quote it in full.
Or what woman, having ten drachmas, if she lose one, does not light a candle and sweep the house and look diligently till she finds it? And after she has found it, she calls in her friends and neighbors and says, Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma that I lost (Luke 15:8-9).
At first glance this parable seems so simple, or even naive, that it does not impress the reader of the Gospel. In fact, however, the mystery of the universe is revealed in this simple parable.
If we take it literally, it evokes bewilderment. The woman lost only one drachma. Even ten drachmas do not represent a great sum; in fact, a woman who has only ten drachmas must be very poor indeed. Let us assume, first of all, that the finding of the lost drachma meant a great gain for her. Yet it still presents a paradox, for how is it that if she is such a poor woman she lights lamps, sweeps the house and calls in all her friends and neighbors to share her joy. And all because of one drachma! Such a waste of time-lighting a candle and setting the house in order first of all! Furthermore, if she invites her neighbors she is obliged, according to Eastern custom, to offer them something to eat and drink, no small expense for a poor woman. To fail to do so would be to ignore an unalterable custom.
Another important point to note is that she did not invite only one woman to whom she might have offered sweets, which would not have involved great expense. But she invited many friends and neighbors, and even if she entertained them modestly the expense would far exceed the value of the drachma she had found. Why then should she seek the drachma so diligently and rejoice at finding it, only to lose it again in another way? If we try to understand this parable in its literal sense, it does not fit into the frame of everyday life, but leaves the impression of something exaggerated and incomprehensible. So let us try to discover its mystical or hidden meaning. Who is the woman? And why is it a woman and not a man, when a man is more likely to lose money in the ordinary routine of life? Whose house is it that she sweeps and fills with light? Who are her friends and neighbors? If we look for the spiritual instead of the literal meaning of the parable we shall find the answers to those questions. The Lord said, Seek and ye shall find.     http://www.roca.org/OA/107/107b.htm

Greece's ace card: help us or we'll take you all down

Like a slow-motion car crash, all eyes are fixed in horror on the political chaos into which Greece is descending.

So desperate has the nation’s plight become that even economic suicide seems preferable to the austerity European neighbours seem minded, brutally, to impose upon it.

For the birthplace of European civilisation and modern democracy to boot, there could hardly be a more ignominious descent.

If the tax rises, spending cuts and state sell-offs of the ruling government’s medium term financial strategy (MTFS) aren’t approved, then assuming international policymakers are as good as their word, all future IMF/eurozone loans will cease.

In such circumstances, sovereign debt default would follow within days, and government, unable to pay its bills, would grind to a halt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8581092/Greeces-ace-card-help-us-or-well-take-you-all-down.html

The only way for Greece to sort out its credit disasters is to exit the euro and return to a heavily devalued drachma. They can go back to images of national leaders of revolution and can pull their own weight.

Talking about weights...

The word drachma is connected to the dirhem weight system of the Ottoman era. In the late Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish درهم), the standard dirhem was 3.207g[1] 400 dirhem equal one okka. The Turkish system of weights and measures was metrified in 1931. The okka was redefined as exactly one kilogram, while the batman became ten okkas (10 kg).

The name drachma is derived from the verb δράσσομαι (drássomai, "to grasp"). It is believed that the same word with the meaning of "handful" or "handle" is found in Linear B tablets of the Mycenean Pylos. Initially a drachma was a fistful (a "grasp") of six oboloí or obeloí (metal sticks, literally "spits") used as a form of currency as early as 1100 BC and being literally a form of "bullion": bronze, copper, or iron ingots denominated by weight.

After Alexander the Great's conquests, the name drachma was used in many of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the Middle East, including the Ptolemaic kingdom in Alexandria. The Arabic unit of currency known as dirham (in the Arabic language, درهم), known from pre-Islamic times and afterwards, inherited its name from the drachma or didrachm (δίδραχμον, 2 drachmae). The Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire controlled the Levant and traded with Arabia, circulating the coin there in pre-Islamic times and afterward.Dinar is another currency circulated in the Muslim world but originating with the Romans. The Armenian dram also derives its name from the drachma.

http://maviboncuk.blogspot.com/2011/06/euro-blues-drachma-dreams.html

Pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

Elefsina

Eleusina (Greek: Ελευσίνα - Elefsina, Ancient/Katharevousa: Ἐλευσίς - Eleusis) is a town and municipality in West Attica, Greece. It is situated about 18 km northwest from the centre of Athens. It is located in the Thriasian Plain, at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf. It is the seat of administration ofWest Attica peripheral unit. It is best known for having been the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the most famous religious events of the ancient Greek religion^[2], and the birthplace of Aeschylus, one of the three great tragedians of antiquity. Today Eleusina is a major industrial center, with the largest oil refinery in Greece

From as early as 1700 BC up to the 4th century AD, Eleusina was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the Mysteries of Demeter and Kore. These Mysteries revolved around a belief that there was a hope for life after death for those who were initiated. Such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things including the seed of life in a stalk of grain. The central myth of the Mysteries was Demeter's quest for her lost daughter (Kore the Maiden, or Persephone) who had been abducted by Hades. It was here that Demeter, disguised as an old lady who was abducted by pirates in Crete, came to an old well where the four daughters of the local king Keleos and his queen Metaneira (Kallidike, Kleisidike, Demoand Kallithoe) found her and took her to their palace to nurse the son of Keleos and Metaneira, Demophoon. Demeter raised Demophoon, anointing him with nectar and ambrosia, until Metaneira found out and insulted her. Demeter arose insulted, and casting off her disguise, and, in all her glory, instructed Meteneira to build a temple to her. Keleos, informed the next morning by Metaneira, ordered the citizens to build a rich shrine to Demeter, where she sat in her temple until the lot of the world prayed to Zeus to make the world provide food again. *Wikipedia*

 photos - www.tripadvisor.co.uk

You can't

"You can't truly be happy if you've never known pain, you can't truly feel joy if you've never felt heartbreak. You can't really know what it's like to be filled unless you've been empty." - Kelly Cutrone