Daily Archives: May 10, 2012

A Question about Galactic Alignments

Milky Way-Galactic Center
The Mystery…Looking towards the Cen­ter of our Galaxy

A read­er posed this ques­tion today and I thought that I should share the answer with you all:

Dear Bill,

Would real­ly like to hear what you think of this and your insight to these par­tic­u­lar dates and plan­e­tary align­ments ♥ On May 20th of this year, which is only 10 days away, the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and the Pleiades star sys­tem all simul­ta­ne­ous­ly line up with the Cen­ter of the Milky Way galaxy. The Mayans had this very clear in their cal­en­dar, and many crop cir­cles depict this event. To add a side note, the Pleiades star sys­tem is referred as the Anti-Cen­ter of the galaxy to the Mayans. They saw that these 2 points in the sky nev­er move to the per­cep­tion of Earth.

Dear Tere­sa,

There is actu­al­ly no Astro­log­i­cal (or Astro­nom­i­cal) con­fir­ma­tion that this align­ment will or can hap­pen on May 20, 2012. There can­not be an exact align­ment with the Pleiades and there could nev­er be an align­ment with the Galac­tic Cen­ter on that date at all.

There is a New Moon (Solar Eclipse) on May 20. This Solar/Lunar align­ment is locat­ed near to an align­ment with the posi­tion in space for the Pleiades (which are about 430 Light Years from Earth). How­ev­er, the Pleiades clus­ter is about 5 Degrees above the Eclip­tic so there is no direct align­ment of the Sun, Moon or Earth with them what­so­ev­er. Yes, there is a seem­ing order­ing or arrange­ment between this star clus­ter and the Sun and Moon, (and this can hap­pen quite reg­u­lar­ly from year to year), but there can be no exact alignment.

The Cen­ter of the Milky Way Galaxy is approx­i­mate­ly 27,000 Light Years from our Sun (and Earth) and is locat­ed in the Equa­to­r­i­al Coor­di­nate Sys­tem as: Right Ascen­sion: 17h45m40.04s, Dec­li­na­tion: ‑29° 00′ 28.1″. This puts it zodi­a­cal­ly near to the very end of Sagit­tar­ius, which the Sun will seem­ing­ly pass in front of (in our era) around Decem­ber 18 or so every year. The “align­ment” of the Sun, Earth or Moon with the Cen­ter of the Milky Way Galaxy can only hap­pen 2 times per year, around Decem­ber 18 and June 18, give or take a day (giv­en our irreg­u­lar cal­en­dar sys­tem, leap year and all).

Rel­a­tive to the Galac­tic Plane, the Solar Sys­tem is not in per­fect align­ment with the Cen­ter of the Galaxy and we are present­ly about 5 degrees off from being in the Cen­tral plane, which means per­haps as much as 80 Light Years away. As we revolve around the Galac­tic Cen­ter, (we are in the “Ori­on Arm” and it takes per­haps as much as 235 mil­lion years to make one turn), the Sun and Earth weave up and down with­in the Galac­tic Plane. We are now most def­i­nite­ly above (or you could argue below) the plane and so there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty of an exact align­ment with what is at the cen­ter of our galaxy whatsoever.

On May 20, there can­not be any align­ment with the Galac­tic Cen­ter since that will occur on or about June 18. That is a spe­cial date and I will write about it then…but con­sid­er this. Where­as we can look at the Sun’s posi­tion on Decem­ber 18, (not­ed in my post­ing for that date) and know that we are look­ing towards the Galac­tic Cen­ter, and we can and should give thanks for the spe­cial ener­gies that flow from and to this point of ori­gin, it is on June 18 that we can look up at the Night Sky and actu­al­ly SEE IT! (Of course, we can­not “see” it, because it so very far away and there are far too many Stars, Clus­ters, Neb­u­las, etc between us and the Center).

How­ev­er, when we look up around June 18 and gaze at this beau­ti­ful Arc of Light, at the won­der that is the Milky Way, we can also know that we are look­ing into the very Heart of our Galaxy, towards the Divin­i­ty who watch­es over us all.

Yet, we should more tru­ly acknowl­edge and take com­fort from that fact that with­in each of us is a spark of that Divine Flame, which is always with us, known to us as our High­er Self. We do not need to look up to the “heav­ens” to expe­ri­ence or touch the Divine, because we are embraced by and for­ev­er one with this Divine…we are the ever-unfold­ing ves­sels or embod­i­ments of this great Spirit.

We need to look with­in and lis­ten to our own Teacher and Guide who waits patient­ly for our awak­en­ing, and then we can turn our gaze out­wards upon those whom accom­pa­ny us and see that the Cen­ter of our “Galaxy” is all around us as it is also with­in us.

The Cen­ter we need to focus upon is not “out there” but right here…for we are the Cre­ators and there is much work and joy in our Cre­ation that is yet to be…