The Storyteller's Night Sky

On Sept 7 there’s a Total Eclipse of the Moon, only visible on one side of the Earth, in Asia, not in the US. The Moon will rise Saturday evening, the night before eclipse, 20 minutes before the Sun sets, the two great lights straddling the horizon, “dividing the day from the night, a sign for seasons, and days, and years.”

In August, there’s a formula for finding the most romantic night of the season: Once the Moon comes New, count seven nights while watching for the summer’s brightest star to reach the zenith. Then the conditions are right for the love story that unfolds overhead, bridging the vast expanse of the Milky Way river of stars, and gathering us all in its wake.

This week's waning crescent Moon is a boat of spirit knowledge, bearing earthward all it has gathered in the celestial light throughout the month and bringing it ashore during the few days before New Phase when we don’t see it.

Tuesday morning, the planets Venus and Jupiter will be spectacularly close, while overnight Tuesday, the Perseids come to their peak. It is the stuff of the world's greatest love stories, and you don't want to miss it, any of it.

The convergence of things that takes place every year in the first week of August includes the seasonal cross quarter; the Christian Feast of the Transfiguration; and the anniversary of the birth of Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson, whose love of astronomy is a celebration of this starry season.

The drama of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' occurs in this season, and asks us to take care, for when we do not heed the abundance of love and harmony pouring forth from the heaven’s brink, the stars guiding our humanity may cross.

There's a pile up of planets in Pisces this week, calling us to wake!

There’s a culmination in the stars this week, with Uranus changing signs on Monday, and Saturn beginning its four-month retrograde after midnight Saturday. In between, the summer’s first Full Moon occurs, a remarkably fertile time when all available light is reflected to us from the thickest region of Milky Way stars.

The stars that guide the soul to the most noble bonds of friendship this week.

The classical Greek myth of Leto and her twins, Apollo and Artemis ~ Sun and Moon ~ is unfolding overhead in the sky this week.