March 8/9, 2016
by Daniel Giamario
The Sundaland Eclipse
There will be a rather remarkable Total Solar Eclipse of the Sun coming up this March 8/9, 2016. As I am currently living in South Asia, and it’s happening in Indonesia, Lynne and I are planning to experience it in Sulawesi. Here I am sharing important information and speculations connected to this eclipse.
The Data
- This eclipse is part of Saros 130 that began in 1096 and runs until 2394. This is the time frame of an entire family of eclipses that begins and ends with small, nearly insignificant partial
eclipses, and with the total ones in the middle of the time frame. During this Saros 130, there were total solar eclipses that lasted over 6 minutes in 1601, 1619, and 1637. The maximum duration of totality on March 8/9 is 4 minutes and 10 seconds.
The length is now decreasing. The first Total Solar Eclipse is Saros 130 occurred on April, 5,1475 and last total will occur on July 18,2232.
- A Saros lasts just over 18 years and 11 days, or approximately 6585 days.(223 synodic months) The most recent total eclipse before this one in Saros 130 was February 26, 1998.The dates move forward from eclipse to eclipse, as do the signs, whilst the nodes precess. The word Saros comes from a Babylonian word that meant a time span of 3600 years, however when the term was adopted there was a mistaken belief that it was an 18.3 year time period.
Note: Here is the raw data of the eclipses in Saros 130 from January 3, 1908, until May 14, 2124 for your interest and research purposes.
- The eclipse magnitude is 1.045, that is, the Moon will be .045 times bigger than the Sun. By the way, the absolute longest possible Solar Eclipse length is 7 minutes and 32 seconds, only very rarely does one last as long as 7 minutes.
- The path for this total eclipse is only 156 kilometers wide, with only a very specific area of the Earth can see a Solar Eclipse (unlike a lunar eclipse, where half the globe can see parts of it). A somewhat wider area will experience a partial eclipse.
- Every 4th solar eclipse in a Saros will generally cover the approximate same area of the globe, with this Saros 130, moving slowly south to north and east to west (about 120degrees) across the Earth. This eclipse originates almost precisely at the equator, establishing its centrality in this specific Saros family.
See table of data. The eclipse of 1962 actually covered the city of Palu in Sulawesi, which is where Lynne and I are going for this eclipse, which amazingly enough is again directly in the path of totality.
- This is a South Node Eclipse, that is, the eclipse happens with the Sun and Moon near the South Lunar Node. There is a regular alternation of the Solar Eclipse in any given Saros between North and South Node. This eclipse will occur at 18 Pisces56 with the south node at 21Pisces47.
- Interesting fact: the Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, and the Sun is 400 times further from the Earth than the Moon. This produces the really strange reality that the Earth is the only known place in the universe, with one Sun and one Moon, where there can be the exact covering of the Sun by the Moon, creating the perfect eclipse! Of course, this is from the perspective of the visual experience of the person on Earth.
Shamanic Astrology’s view of a Solar Eclipse
A Total Solar Eclipse can be likened to a Super New Moon. (A Total Lunar Eclipse is like a Super Full Moon). The New Moon every month is a ceremonial time for beginnings, for a reframing, with a clear intention for the next month. This is a pretty universal shamanic and tradional view all over the world.
A Total Solar Eclipse (always at a New Moon) greatly amplifies these possibilities. But this all depends on whether it occurs at a North Node or a South Node. A North Node Total Solar Eclipse is like a total blast of intentionality and creativity into the future. Alternatively, a South Node Eclipse (like this one) is strongly referencing the past, recognizing and integrating global humanity’s past history before blasting into a possible future. Therefore, there can be more “shadow” in a South Node Eclipse.
Traditionally and historically, eclipses were feared and almost always seen as negative or shadow-oriented events. Shamanic Astrology strongly discounts and revises this fundamentalist black and white view. With sufficient consciousness and preparation, we view these spectacular and rare celestial events as great possibilities for extremely rapid evolution, even quantum leaps. But that does not mean we view them with pie-in-the sky idealism, or some kind of light-polarization either. A South Node Eclipse is not to be taken lightly. There must be the courage to face the personal and collective shadow that has led global humanity up to this point.
The Sundaland Connection: the Path of the Eclipse
This eclipse begins just off Sumatra, near the Sunda Straits that separate Java from Sumatra, then passing quickly over Sumatra, then Borneo, then Sulawesi (formally the Celebes), then over the northern Moluccas (Spice Islands), and then passing over the North Central Pacific nearly crossing Midway and Wake Islands, and then ending just northwest of the Hawaiian Islands.
The recent publication of Graham Hancock’s book, the Magician of the Gods, has brought the awareness of Sundaland into the general consciousness. I have been trying to raise awareness of this subject for many years now. You can reference my articles and videos.
Sundaland is an area of South Asia (see map) that was all above water before the events of 10,000-12,000 years ago, known as the lower dryas, when ocean levels rose 300 meters, leaving Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and other areas as separate islands. Before that, it was all connected as one land mass with Asia, as an extension of the Malayan Peninsula.
As recounted in several neglected books: Atlantis, the lost continent finally found by Professor Arysio Santos, and Eden in the East by Stephen Oppenheimer, it becomes clear that “Atlantis” was never in the Atlantic, but was in the East, in fact, the area now known as Sundaland. New research, as recounted by Hancock in the bestselling Magicians of the Gods, now takes all this much further. My next two shows with Gemini Brett on the video series The Further Adventures of Shamanic Astrology, will explore, among other things, the ancient Java Pyramids at Gunung Padang, the megaliths of Sulawesi, and the 40,000-year old cave paintings, also of Sulawesi.
So what I find to be so very fascinating is that this coming eclipse is like a paintbrush passing through the area of the world known as Sundaland, that was all above water during the time that miles of ice encased the northern hemisphere in a long, long ice age. It was here that civilization, megalithic technology, a globe spanning seafaring capacity, and domesticated animal husbandry and agriculture arose, relatively untouched, at the equator, by the last ice age.
Speculations
How can we interpret the Total Eclipses? There are so many different views of this in the astrological community with not a lot of consensus. Should we use the Sabian symbol of the eclipse degree? If so, which Sabian system? Rudhyar? Lonsdale? Hill? Should we use the degree of the eclipse before or closest to our birth? And most importantly, how long would the effect of an eclipse last? 6 months? 3 years? 18.3 years? 54 years (3 cycles)?
And what is the essential difference between being in the direct pathway, or just having a similar degree but not being in the path? I am not sure, and welcome feedback on these issues, as additional research to add to our understanding within the Shamanic Astrology Paradigm.
However, I do feel intuitively that the region of the Earth spotlighted by the actual path of totality is extremely important. And this upcoming eclipse screams out the word Sundaland. Consider, that in more recent history, the eclipse in the same Saros 130, in 1962, crossed over nearly the same area. And even over the same city, Palu.
Could it remind us of events that took place in South Asia at that time? For example, the attempt of Sukarno to create a greater Indonesia covering the entire area of ancient Sundaland? This was then quickly followed by the attempt of the US and the CIA to overthrow him.
This was also the time frame of the rise of Marcos of the Philippines, the Cuban missile crisis, and JFK as president with the rise of the Vietnam War. And now, Marcos’s son may win Vice President in the Philippines. Malaysia is now at the center of the world financial crisis. And in the US, one presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, in his Nodal Return, has his nodes nearly exactly on the eclipse degrees (22 degrees Virgo/Pisces 43′). And what about the fact that the United States Neptune is 22 degrees Virgo 25′?
Amazing additional information:
According to professor Santos, the original prime meridian of the Earth lay between Mount Agung on Bali and Mount Ranjani on Lombok, guarding the Lombok Strait also known as the Wallace Line, separating regions of plant and animal diversity. This was the original Pillars of Hercules, leading directly into the heartland of Atlantis. After the sinking of Sundaland (Atlantis), the prime meridian shifted to the Giza Meridian, only being replaced by Greenwich due to the political shenanigans taking place between the French and the British in 1888.
During the eclipse of February 5, 1962 (our same Saros 130), an extremely rare grand conjunction of the 5 classical visible planets occurred with all 5 plus the Sun and Moon within 16 degrees of each other in the sign of Aquarius, this configuration being one of the most unusual and striking configurations of the last 100 years. Many writers at the time considered this to be the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Strangely, that same month was the very beginning of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, the great symbol of the great changes that occurred in the 1960’s.
Date | Sign | Length | Latitude | Longitude | Node | Location |
Jan 3, 1908 | 12 Cap 08 | 4’14” | 11.8 S | 145.1 W | South | Center of Pacific Ocean |
Jan 14, 1926 | 23 Cap 21 | 4’11” | 10.1S | 82.3 E | North | Africa, Indian Ocean |
Jan 25, 1944 | 4 Aqua 33 | 4’9” | 7.6S | 50.2 W | South | S America, Atlantic Ocean, Africa |
Feb 5, 1962 | 15 Aqua 43 | 4’08” | 4.25 S | 178.1 E | North | Indonesia, New Guinea, Pacific Ocean |
Feb 16, 1980 | 26 Aqua 50 | 4’08” | 0.1 S | 47.1 E | South | Africa, India, South China |
Feb 26, 1998 | 7 Pisces 55 | 4’09” | 4.7 N | 82.7 W | North | Pacific Ocean, Central America |
Mar 9, 2016 | 18 Pisces 56 | 4’10” | 10.1 N | 148.8 E | South | Indonesia, Pacific Ocean |
Mar 20, 2034 | 29 Pisces 52 | 4’09” | 16.1 N | 22.2 E | North | Africa, Northern India |
Mar 30, 2052 | 10 Aries 45 | 4’08” | 22.4 N | 102.5 W | South | Pacific Ocean, Central America, USA |
Apr 11, 2070 | 21 Aries 34 | 4’04” | 29.1 N | 135.1 E | North | Indian Ocean, Malaysia, Pacific Ocean |
Apr 21, 2088 | 2 Taurus 18 | 3’58” | 36 N | 15.1 E | South | Africa, Central Asia |
May 3, 2106 | 3’47” | 43.1 N | 102.3W | North | ||
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