* Summer’s First Full Moon

As the high constellations of summer mount up into the night, they’re swallowed up by the Full Moon, as though bursting with the light of all the starry worlds when she comes to Full Phase at 12:53 am edt on June 28 near the planet Saturn. Saturn is wandering retrograde among the stars of Sagittarius, where there appears to be a dark rift in the otherwise dense star field that leads on to the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, also known as the “galactic center” (it was here that the Sun came to its Winter Solstice moment in 2012, marking the fulfillment of the 12th baktun of the Mayan calendar) .

As a Titan god in retrograde, wandering through this dark region of sky in the Milky Way, Saturn’s current position brings to mind the terrific introduction to John Keats’ unfinished epic “Hyperion”, about the fall of the Titan gods to the Olympians, for contemplating as you take in the light of Moon, the ringed planet, and the stars. Was the fulfillment of the 12th baktun like the fulfillment of the old world order, just as the fall of the Titans to the Olympians was? And is Saturn, regarded as Father Time in many cultures because he is the slowest moving celestial object visible to the naked eye, inscribing this historic transition into the star fields of the night (especially since Saturn just stood opposite the Sun June 27 at 9:28 am edt)?