… something I wrote 20 years ago that compared the USA’s official date of Earth Day to the Paschal computus …

Tuesday, April 22, 2003, was the 34th “official” Earth Day, the result of efforts by environmental activists and the late US Senator Gaylord Nelson.

Why the Earth gets only one day instead of all of them is unfortunate, but not so if we see it in the milieu of Masonic astrological tradition, and the exaltations of the luminaries. To see how this evolved, we must look at the controversy surrounding the different people who claimed to have founded “Earth Day” in the late 1960’s.

The Earth Day Controversy — Dates, Designs, Deceptions.

Activists in California who had floated the idea for an “earth day” in the late 1960’s had unofficially elected the date of the Vernal Equinox for the holiday. Yet, Gaylord Nelson moved to codify the obscure date of “April 22” as an official act of the Federal Government. This has, over the years, been a huge bone of contention between the environmental purists and the Nelsonites, as the purists feel that Nelson hijacked their cause and stole the spotlight (and thus the issue soapbox) from the grass-roots (from the now defunct earthsite.org):

EARTH DAY DECEPTION

April 22 is not the authentic Earth Day but a power play to supplant the original Earth Day and use the event for political purposes.

It is well documented that John McConnell originated the name, idea and date of Earth Day. His purpose was to use the powerful imagery and history of the March Equinox as an annual event that would increase global commitment to the stewardship of earth. The first Earth Day was March 21, 1970 – celebrated with citywide participation in the City of San Francisco.

Later in 1970, he obtained the strong support of UN Secretary General U Thant. Sen. Gaylord Nelson’s office then tried to have U Thant change the date to April 22. U Thant rejected the idea, saying John McConnell’s Earth Day on the first day of Spring was a much better idea.

While promoting environmental action, the April 22 organizers were politically motivated and devious in their methods. When they heard plans for Earth Day at the 1969 UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, they changed their initial name –“Environmental Teach-In” to Earth Day and with their money and political clout got national attention for their competing April 22 Earth Day.

In their efforts they never mention the original Earth Day was on March 21, 1970 (the First Day of Spring) and is the Earth Day celebrated every year at the United Nations.

According to George Gallup and other world information authorities, the March Earth Day has made a major contribution to peace, justice and the care of Earth.

If people want to celebrate April 22 in promotion of environmental action — that’s fine. But let them use a name that doesn’t infringe on the authentic, original Earth Day. There are many good names they could use. How about Eco Day, Environment Day or their original name, Environmental Teach-In. It damages Earth Day when they call April 22 by that name; just as it would damage Christmas to call April 22 “Christmas” and give it a different meaning than the real Christmas.

In today’s society too many people ignore the importance of telling the truth. (Satan in the garden of Eden told Eve she could benefit by using deception) The April 22 Earth Day organizations never mention the true Earth Day — but pretend it doesn’t exist. They have stated that Margaret Mead was a strong supporter of the April 22 Earth Day (which is not true). Let them post what she said in the March 1978 EPA Journal:

EARTH DAY
by Margaret Mead
EPA Journal March 1978

Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology – the measurement of time and instantaneous communication through space.

Earth Day draws on astronomical phenomena in a new way; using the vernal equinox, the time when the Sun crosses the equator making night an day of equal length in all parts of the Earth. To this point in the annual calendar, EARTH DAY attaches no local or divisive set of symbols, no statement of the truth or superiority of one way of life over another.

But the selection of the March equinox makes planetary observance of a shared event possible, and a flag which shows the Earth as seen from space appropriate. The choice has been made of one of two equinoxes, the springtime of one hemisphere, the autumn of the other, making the rhythmic relationship between the two capable of being shared by all the peoples of the Earth, translated into any language, marked on any calendar, destroying no historical calendar, yet transcending them all. Where men have fought over calendrical differences in the past and invested particular days like May Day or Christmas with desperate partisanship, invoking their God with enthusiasms which excluded others, the prayers for EARTH DAY are silence – where there is no confusion of tongues – and the peal of the peace bell ringing around the Earth, as now satellites transform distance into communication.

EARTH DAY celebrates the interdependence within the natural world of all living things, humanity’s utter dependence upon Earth – man’s only home – and in turn the vulnerability of this Earth of ours to the ravages of irresponsible technological exploitation. It celebrates our long past in which we have learned so much of the ways of the universe, and our long future, if only we apply what we know responsibly and wisely. It celebrates the importance of the air and the oceans to life and to peace. On the blue and white wastes of the picture of Earth from space, there are no boundary lines except those made by water and mountains. Yet in this picture of the Earth, the harsh impersonal structures of world politick disappear; there are no zones of influences, political satellites, international blocs, only people who live in lands, on land, that they cherish.

EARTH DAY is a great idea, well founded in our present scientific knowledge, tied specifically to our solar universe. But the protection of the Earth is also a matter of day-to-day decisions, of how a field is to be fertilized, a dam built, a crop planted, how some technical process is to be used to enrich or deplete the soil. It is a matter of whether the conveniences of the moment are to override provision for our children’s future. All this involves decisions, some taken by individuals, some by national governments, some by multinational corporations, and some by the United Nations. Planetary housekeeping is not – as men’s work has been said to be – just from sun to sun, but, as has been said, like women’s work that is never done. Earth Day lends itself to ceremony, to purple passages of glowing rhetoric, to a catch in the throat and a tear in the eye, easily evoked, but also too easily wiped away.

EARTH DAY uses one of humanity’s great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century another aeon. But the noblest anniversary, devoted to the vastest enterprise now in our power, the preservation of this planet could easily become an empty observance if our hearts are not in it. EARTH DAY reminds the people of the world of the continuing care which is vital to Earth’s safety.

And, indeed, some of the original Earth Day organizers have complained that the “arbitrary” date of April 22nd was foisted upon the public by some folks with political connections, and no really good reasoning behind the date, other than simple political hubris. Here is the founder of the original concept, John McConnel:

This [the UN adhering to the March 21st date] happened in spite of repeated efforts by April 22 organizers to replace the original Earth Day with their arbitrary date. Their first Earth Day was also in 1970 — one month after the first Earth Day. They neglect to mention that the name “Earth Day” was never used by them until after the March 21 announcement at the UNESCO National Conference on the Environment in San Francisco in November, 1969. Before that, it was called, “Environmental Teach-In.” The April 22 organizers had political and business connections — and massive funding. The public’s eager endorsement of the ideals suggested by a day called “Earth Day” attracted the vested interests of politicians and big business — who saw it as a way to capitalize on public empathy. Their backing and the numerous advertisements and editorials in newspapers, including the New York Times, repeatedly ignored the authentic Earth Day and promoted the April 22 imposter. The New York Times then acted as if Earth Day were April 22 — even though their biggest front page story and photo of Earth Day celebration was on March 21, 1971!

Original source no longer online.

So, what gives?

Easter Island

First, location. What point on the globe would be most akin to the pureness of “earth,” or the Earth’s state of innocence, to which the environmentalists would like to preserve? This must be Easter Island, the “navel” of Gaia:

27°04’47” South, 109°19’47” West

And, indeed if we do up a Sun-on-the-MC chart for this locale, we find that as the Sun culminates over this locale, we have a string of celestial bodies at +33° altitude and rising:

• Orion’s belt;
• Aldebaran;
• the Pleiades;
• Mars;
• Alpha Triangulum;
• Regulus;
• iota Aquarii (setting)

Second, Lunation. If we look to the sunset on April 21st, which would have heralded the new day in the older traditions, we find that an exact full moon (conjunct Jupiter) rises over Giza @ 1*09′ Taurus/Scorpio:

Relocate the original Sun=MC chart for Easter Island to Giza, and we find Sol at -33° altitude.

Third, location and lunation. The 33rd Earth Day, on April 22, 2002, saw an exact Sun/Moon trine (120/360 = .3333….) over the locus of Easter island:

• Sun: 2°29′ Taurus
• Moon: 2°13′ Virgo

I recall a discussion some months ago about an “Astrology Day” to be celebrated on the equinox as well, and that this notion was met with much hand-wringing by some of our esteemed colleagues. After all, EVERY day should be Earth Day, and every day should be Astrology Day, right? Still, the fact is that the “official” Earth Day that has been shoved down our throat by the elitists is not part of the original movement in San Francisco or the United Nations. Given the case that Richard Hoagland and myself have made for the obsession of 33s by certain realms connected to certain secret societies, it seems but a small step to find the impetus for the “Earth Day Deception.”

Nevertheless, the Easter in Easter Island brought me to thinking about exaltations, and how Easter and exaltations are tied closely together astrologically.

Brief Explanation of Exaltations Derived from Babylonia

Planetary exaltations, called hypsomata (literally meaning “hiding places”) have been a notable part of astrology for over two millennia. Their roots of origin were unclear to the modern Western astrologer until research by Cyril Fagan in the 1940’s, and then subsequent reinforcement by Rupert Gleadow’s The Origin of the Zodiac in 1968, affirmed that exaltations could indeed be traced back to 786 BC and the Babylonian “Temple of Nabu” (Nabu being connected to Mercury, the god of astrology and time). “New Year’s Day” in the Babylonian calendar of that era was determined by a soli-lunar calendar, and basically the first new moon nearest the spring equinox (when the Sun and crescent Moon could be seen setting as close to due west as possible) was considered the “new year.” The exaltations we use today bear a striking similarity to the heliacal settings of the planets during the calendar year of 786-785 BC.

As Gleadow explains it, the genesis of Nabu and a special foundational year by the Babylonians came about to mimic the essence of the Egyptian Sothic calendar, which was one of the base reasons for Egyptian society’s long-term success and cohesiveness. If the Babylonians had their own “zero” year calendrical basis, then they too might achieve cultural preeminence. When the Chaldeans increased in numbers and power in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Nabu became more and more of an icon for that society’s roots, and thus the astrology of that year became very important as well. It follows that 786 was indeed an “exalted” year for them, and that special planetary phenomena would be “exalted” as well.

From the spigot of Chaldea (in what is now the south of Iraq) and their golden age of astrology (7th through 1st Century BC) flowed virtually the whole of what became known as “astrology” in the West (Greece), Asia, Arabia, and in India. In all traditions, the concept of exaltations survived, but as the Chaldean realm diminished, so did the relevance and memory of Nabu, and therefore the historical underpinning of these special zodiacal degrees.

Exaltations Defined

While exaltations were designed around a sidereal zodiacal framework, modern astrologers have adapted them to the tropical zodiac, and finally to the signs in general. The original intent was to highlight the zodiacal position of a planet when it disappeared behind the Sun — meaning the position of a planet when it would last be seen at sunset before disappearing into the Sun’s aura for the next month or so — and Fagan showed that such was the case with four of the five planets, at or near their exaltation degrees that have been passed down through history. From Gleadow:

[Exaltation] translated means in fact ‘hiding-places’, and the hiding-places of a planet are obviously those parts of the zodiac in which it is invisible, and especially the degree in which it disappears from view into the sun’s rays at heliacal setting and the degree of its reappearance at heliacal rising. The same is true of the moon, and is proved by the distance of the moon’s ‘hiding place’ from the sun’s, 14°, which is a typical elongation for a new crescent. Since these phenomena change their positions every time they occur, we are evidently faced by an historical date, and there can be no doubt whatever that this date is 786-785 BC. As for the sun having a hiding-place, it emerges from darkness at dawn on New Year’s Day.

Until the zodiac drew attention to the position of planets in constellations, the chief focus of interest in them was their heliacal disappearances and reappearances, and in 786 all the planets had heliacal phenomena in or very near the degrees of their exaltations — an event so improbable that it cannot plausibly be ascribed to chance. The list of these phenomena and the exaltations which they fit is as follows:

Event Date	Planet	Type of Heliacal Event	° / Sign	Exaltation
May 10	Venus	Heliacally set in the east in	9° CA	~
June 22	Jupiter	Heliacally set in the east in	15° CA	15° CA
July 24	Venus	Heliacally rose in the west in	18° VI	~
July 30	Jupiter	Heliacally rose in the west in	21° CA	~
August 25	Mars	Heliacally set in the west in	11° PI	~
September 14	Mercury	Heliacally set in the east in	16° VI	15° VI
September 23	Saturn	Heliacally set in the west in	21° LI	21° LI
October 27	Saturn	Heliacally rose in the east in	26° LI	~
February 4	Mars	Heliacally rose in the east in	1° AQ	28° CP

The positions of the Sun, Moon, and Venus are for New Year’s Day:

Planet	° / Sign	Exaltation
Sun	19° AR	19° AR
Moon	29° AR	3° TA
Venus	26° PI	27° PI

(Mercury’s 13 other phenomena omitted)

The year 786 BC saw the opening in Calah of the new temple of Nabu (Nebo), the god of writing associated with the planet Mercury. This is the origin of Mercury’s connection with writing, wisdom, commerce, and all similar subjects….

There are two slight weaknesses in this argument. The heliacal risings and settings are not as close together as they might have been; and also some are risings and others settings. This apparently haphazard selection may leave us unconvinced that the coincidence is not an accident.

But, the exaltations are not and cannot be the horoscope for the foundation or opening of the temple of Nabu, for Mercury cannot be in Virgo while the Sun is in Aries. They are simply heliacal phenomena recorded in that year….²

Gleadow, pp. 210 – 211.

And so goes a great expert on the subject, though we will next be refuting some of his assumptions and drawing new conclusions about exactly what “3° Taurus” meant to our forefathers of antiquity.

Exaltations of the Luminaries

Yet, how could such a parameter apply to the luminaries? For instance, how can the Sun emerge from behind the Sun?

The answer, of course, is that it cannot, and so special parameters for the Sun and Moon were rendered. Gleadow suggests above that the Sun’s passage over the vernal equinox is a kind of “hiding-place.” In fact, it is on the sunset of this special new year’s day in 786 BC that the fiducial for the Fagan Sidereal Zodiac is reckoned. This was done by taking the sunset position [4°57′ Aries in the Tropical Zodiac] and adding 18.973666°, or 18°58’25”, which is the square root of 360°¹:

In any event, the Sun’s exaltation in Aries likely came about from the observation that the days then became longer than nights, but for the specific degree of 19° Aries, we see the numerological observance that 19° is nearly the square root of 360°, which was the Sun’s position on New Year’s Day for the temple of Nabu. Simple.

What of the Moon, which can only “emerge” from the Sun’s aura every month at sunset and hide at sunrise? The inner planets, Mercury and Venus, can indeed disappear into the Sun’s aura at both sunrise and sunset — sunrise when they are retrograde, and sunset when they are direct in motion. Since the Moon is never retrograde yet always faster than the Sun, it can only emerge from the Sun’s aura at sunset. The three outer planets, which all reside further away than the Sun and are thus always slower in motion than the Sun, can never emerge from the Sun at sunset, but only at sunrise, and then only for a brief moment before the light of day overpowers that planet’s relatively faint light. Here we see that the Moon’s exaltation is based upon something more than heliacal phenomenon alone; it is also based upon its own light cycle.

Luna’s exaltation is 3° Taurus, which is precisely 14 degrees beyond the Sun’s exaltation of 19° Aries. The reason for this is somewhat baffling, as Luna was not near this position as it set on New Year’s Day of 786 BC, and at least not with the precision of the Sun or other planets. We would think that the Moon would be the best-noted heavenly body of all in this scheme, but instead we find it at 29° of Aries, and closely conjunct Mercury, the planetary deity of Nabu. Even if we allow for the possible error of our computer calculations of Luna’s position for that epoch, we still would be at best three degrees off. There must be some other rationale for 3° Taurus.

Gleadow hints above that the Moon generally emerges from the Sun’s aura when it is 14 degrees ahead of the Sun. Yet, this is also false, as observations by the US Naval Observatory have shown that only 10° of separation are needed to view a new crescent at the equinox, such as the one for Nabu, in which the Moon and Sun are nearly vertical on the western horizon and atmospherics (pollution, humidity) are optimum. This argument is incongruent with the rest of his conclusions that all revert back to real phenomena of the year 786-785 BC in Babylonia, and should be rejected.

Another general and un-attributable theory, and one that I like very much, is that the Moon was to be exalted in conjunction with the Pleiades star cluster, but even this has some problems, as the Pleiades are located in a span of about 4°15′ – 5°45′ Taurus — a bit off the mark:

The conclusion I have come to, and one that I feel fits nicely and makes sense, is centered on the “14,” but not for any specific heliacal phenomenon: this was chosen because this is the average number of days from a new moon’s first visible crescent to the full moon, where we might consider the Moon to be “exalted,” during the brightest night of its phase, but not at all “hiding.” Given that a degree of the zodiac is about equal to a day’s travel of the Sun, and thus the Sun will transit through 14 degrees in as many days, we can see that the Sun reaches the Moon’s exaltation degree when this New Year’s Moon of 786 BC is full, ideally at 3° Scorpio. This ideal was not reality in 786 BC, but we do see that the Sun was at about 2°20′ Taurus 14 days after New Year’s Day:

Interestingly, this rising full Moon is posited in the constellation of Scorpio:

As this full moon culminated near midnight, it nearly occulted Scorpio’s alpha star Antares:

A closeup of the above figure:

This next graphic shows the path of the Moon through Scorpio:

Antares was one of the four “royal stars” of Persia, the others being Aldebaran, Regulus, and Fomalhaut. These four stars marked the four “corners” of heaven, and shown most brilliantly, being alpha stars of their respective constellations: Taurus, Leo and Pisces Australis (south of Aquarius). Aldebaran and Antares marked precisely the mid-quarter points of the Babylonian “zodiac,” at 15° Taurus and Scorpio. It is likely that this transit of the Moon added weight to the later importance of this year as it “fit” with the fiducial point of the zodiac circle. The Moon’s exaltation degree therefore became the Sun’s position as the Sun is the giver of the Moon’s light, and the Moon was reflecting back onto the earth the most light possible.

This concept of maximum lunar glow and reflectivity onto the Earth plays a major part in the calculus of Easter, as early scholars felt that Easter should be when the Earth is basked in the most light possible from both of the luminaries, and this ideal is met during the full moons nearest the equinoxes.² The vernal equinox outweighs the autumnal equinox for Christian religious purposes as this is when the Sun is moving northward (the son rising from the grave) and days become longer than nights.

Egyptian Lore and the “14”

The number 14 occurs in one prominent place in Egyptian lore, namely the 14 pieces of Osiris in the Osiris Myth. Murry Hope devotes a section in her book, The Sirius Connection, to how the numbers 14 and 50 are related in Egyptian thought. (Interestingly, the number 14 appears in the Bible exactly 50 times, again suggesting half of a cycle.)

Perhaps related to this is the recent archaeological discovery at Abydos of 14 ships resting amid funerary enclosures that date to the first Dynasty (2950 – 2775 B.C.), all moored neatly together in a row. These ships are, in fact, the oldest known planked vessels to survive anywhere in the world. The May/June issue of Archaeology featured a brief article on this most intriguing find:

“Investigating a series of mud-brick enclosures near Khentyamentiu’s temple a mile north of the cemetery at Umm el Qa’ab in 1991, we fully expected to find more enclosures dedicated to Egypt’s earliest kings. Instead, we found the remains of 14 ancient ships “moored” in the desert, miles from the Nile… The ships, which date back to early Dynasty I, appeared to be associated with the enclosures of an early king, perhaps even Aha, the first of the Dynasty I rulers…

“…The function of the Abydos boats remains a mystery. Did they serve as “solar boats,” which, in later belief, were used by deceased kings to travel through the cosmos like the sun-god? Or were the vessels, like food, clothing, and servants, simply buried to serve the king in the afterlife?”

O’Connor, David, and Adams, Matthew, “Moored in the Desert,” Archaeology, May/June, 2001. pp. 44 – 5.

Admittedly, there is no direct evidence that the number of boats had anything to do with mythology, but such an assumption would fly in the face of the very symbolic nature of Abydos. “Solar boats” would surely fit the description of the number of ‘voyages’ the Sun has to make around the earth (meaning number of days) before the moon became full.

Easter Computus and “14”

The Christian computus of Easter, although appearing much later than the Exaltations of Nabu, may provide us with some clues to why the “14” is important, and we will see that the determination of Easter is in some ways similar to the exaltations of the luminaries.

Easter was tied into the Jewish festival of Passover from the start, and Passover was always on 14 Nisan, meaning the 14th day of the first month of the year. The early Christian realm was disjointed and scattered in the Roman Empire, and it was not until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD that Easter was to be decided in Rome; the more concrete and official code for computing Easter would be specifically defined by Dionysius Exxigus, who wrote in the 6th Century:

Easter is the Sunday following the first Luna XIV (the 14th day of the moon) that occurs on or after XII Kalendas Aprilis (21 March).

And this formula remained unchanged for a thousand years in the Medieval Church. In fact, the term “full moon” is rarely if ever mentioned by computists like Dionysius, but always is mentioned “the 14th day of the moon…”

One such treatise is Byrhtferth’s Enchiridon, an 11th Century English manuscript devoted to such matters. In it, we find much emphasis placed on counting 14 days from the first sighting of a new crescent moon that occurs on or after March 8, that the 21st of March is the equinox, and other such repetitions of what Dionysius outlined 600 years earlier.

This was based on the known fact that lunations were about 29.5 days in length, and that the moon was only visible for 28 of those days, with the remainder being invisible. For example, if a new crescent did indeed become visible on March 8, then the exact new moon would have taken place one day earlier, on the 7th. 8 + 14 = 22, and the first possible date for Easter was March 22, given that this date was a Sunday.

Byrhtferth was adamant about this rule of 14, and repeats it over and over with the verve of a Russian schoolmaster. In another section, he claims that “the day” is divided up into 14 segments:

“There are fourteen divisions in the day, which are called thus: The atom is the smallest quantity… The second division is called a moment, the third a minute, the fourth a point, the fifth an hour, the sixth a quadrant, the seventh a day, the eighth a week, the ninth a month, the tenth a threefold alternation, the eleventh a year, the twelfth an age, the thirteenth all time, and the fourteenth the world.”

Baker, Peter S., and Lapidge, Michael (editors), Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 111-113. (This is the latest translation of the Latin and Old English available.)

Oh, Yeah, This is About Earth Day…

So far we have seen that:

• Earth Day was originally meant to be celebrated on the Equinox;
• Gaylord Nelson had a different date codified, that of April 22;
• April 22 is 14 days after the Sun’s transit of its own exaltation degree of 19° Aries (April 8);
• The Moon’s exaltation is 14 degrees beyond the Sun’s exaltation, and the Sun transits the Moon’s exaltation degree on April 22;
• the number “14” was sacred to the earliest Egyptians, as well as Jewish and Christian festivals;
• Easter computus dictates that the Sunday after the 14th day of the new moon shall be the holy day;
• Special astronomical circumstances with a Masonic flavor occur over Easter Island on the first Earth Day in 1970.

Is it really possible that Earth Day was designed to clandestinely celebrate the ancient astrological principles of the soli-lunar cycles? As much as this author hates to shout “Conspiracy!”, the evidence is highly suspect — what other conclusions could we draw?

April 22 is indeed the 33rd day of “spring,” meaning the 33rd day past the Sun’s ingress into Aries if we take the Christian canonical date of the Aries ingress as March 21.

This is also the date the Sun passes into the Moon’s exaltation of “3 Taurus,” which is the 33rd degree of the zodiac. We know for sure that Freemasonry was not around in ancient Babylonia, and thus could not have chosen the “33” for their own reasons, but it is certainly reasonable that where the Freemasons find a 33, they would be quite curious and interested in incorporating it into their larger mission of cultural stamping.

The CAVE [my old word for the basement I used to use for writing and collaborating] has gone through great lengths to outline valid and noteworthy astrological designs implemented by the Freemasons, and so far we have only scratched the surface. We have hoped to elucidate patterns of behavior that repeat over and over again in hopes of showing that if the Freemasons have any great “secrets,” they are of the occult and astrological realms; this should come as no surprise to those who know that astrology and geomancy are the basis of all occult thought. Masonry’s obsession with the relics of Egypt, for example, is well known, but what are the pyramids other than gigantic monuments to the celestial realms?

Earth Day is no exception. Looking closer at the astrological charts for the first Earth Day, we see even more synchronicity with the ritual Masonic astrology outlined in the CAVE and on Richard Hoagland’s extensive website. Our first chart is for sunrise on Earth Day of 1970 at Washington DC:

This full moon setting over Washington DC at sunrise is obviously a direct representation of the full Moon ideal discussed throughout this essay, from the “Exalted Moon” to the “Easter Moon.” If we relocate this chart to the pyramids at Giza, we see that the Moon is exactly on the Nadir, or the lower meridian, highlighting yet another cardinal point:

And, if that’s not enough, the declination of this Moon at that moment is

19° 31′ 47″, or 19.5 degrees!!

In the end, though, what does any of this have to do with a day devoted to focusing our attention on the Earth’s environmental issues? The answer lies in what this particular vernal new Moon symbolizes to religion: reflection of the Sun’s increasing light back onto us, and thus illuminating the whole world, much as Christianity wanted Christ’s Word to do. Astrology sees the Moon as our reflection, or how we are “seen”; the full Moon shows us ourselves most clearly, then, and man can only find truth in the light. Even the folks at Google.com had the right idea with this graphic that they used on Earth Day 2003:

Sure, I would love to make commentary on our current crop of political misfits that are running the White House, and how much disdain they have for the environment. Yet, those of us who choose to bask in the light of truth do not need to be told of their contemptuous foolishness regarding our planet. Those who look the other way from their conscious are the ones who need to see the value of Earth Day, yet as the old proverb goes: The hardest person to wake up the one pretending to be asleep.

If anything can be shown here, it is that Earth Day was created in the finest of American Masonic tradition, implemented by our society’s finest planners and thinkers, and deserves to be honored like any other observance. For those who feel that Gaylord Nelson “stole” their idea, you can at least take solace that your creation was placed in the cocoon of Masonic Astrology that has nurtured all that has made America great.

Maybe we could just make the 33 days from March 21 through April 22 Earth Month?

-Ed in April of 2003

¹ These values were later adjusted by Bradley to give Aldebaran an ecliptic value of precisely 15°00’00” Taurus, yet there is little if no evidence that such a calculation was possible at that time in history when the exact plane of the ecliptic was unknown to astronomers.

² It was this concept that drove the issue of calendar reform in the centuries leading up to 1582, as the priesthood were reliant on calendric tables of solar and lunar cycles to determine Easter; the equinox was by decree on March 21, but due to the calendar’s inaccuracies, this date was off by one day for every 125 years. As the calendar drifted out of sync with the solstice and equinox points by more than 7 days, Easter was more and more likely to be celebrated too late, thus bypassing the lunation cycle closest to the actual vernal equinox, and denying the Christian the proper time of the year to celebrate this most important event in the life of Christ.

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