A Sense of Home: Total Solar Eclipse at 29° Cancer July 2009 by Deirdre Tanton

The second eclipse this summer is a total solar eclipse which will occur on July 21 at 9:35 am Eastern time. This eclipse path will cast a shadow over most of eastern Asia. The path of totality will pass over Gujarat, the western-most state in India, move on to Chengdu, site of 2008's Great Earthquake, later pass over Shanghai and then out over the East China Sea, and over Japan's Ryukyu Islands — a path which spans half of the Earth. This eclipse could last for up to 6 minutes all together which is very long for an eclipse. The next eclipse which will last longer than this one will be in the year 2132. What these specifications tell us is this is a solid eclipse, the kind which in the past has corresponded to major change and events in our lives.

The degree of this eclipse is 29°26 Cancer which corresponds to the 30° Sabian Symbol: "A Daughter of the American Revolution". I find it ironic that Supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican American is at this moment getting grilled by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee at her confirmation hearing. Maureen Dowd, op-ed columnist at the New York Times says it well: "A gaggle of Republican men afraid of extinction couldn't root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law." Novelist Alexander Chee noted: "Nothing reminds me more of what it means to be an American quite like watching a bunch of lesser qualified, old white men try to insist a woman of color is under qualified when she had to be perfect to get even half as far as they did, inside the same institutions."

The Daughters of the American Revolution, an organization based in Washington D.C., originated in 1890, and was founded for women who, as it states on the Daughters of the American Revolution web site "felt the desire to express their patriotic feelings and were frustrated by their exclusion from men's organizations." Admittance into the DAR society is lineage-based for women who can prove they are related to patriots of the American Revolution. This organization was founded after the civil war, when millions of formerly enslaved African Americans were hoping to join mainstream society as full and equal citizens. But Washington still practiced its "southern" segregated society habits condemning some Americans of color to second-class citizenship. Certainly the Daughters of the American Revolution was no place for a black woman, even if she was related to the thousands of black men who served in the revolution as soldiers, guides, messengers and spies.

Although The Daughters of the American Revolution do much good promoting literacy and awarding scholarships, the historic disregard for equality lingers. This is not uncommon to organizations and societies all over the world who still don't come clean around issues of race or creed. I am focussing on The Daughters of the American Revolution, because of the eclipse and its corresponding image in Sabian Symbology.

The degree, 29°26, is the last degree of the sign indicating issues which are or nearly are overdue. Cancer is the sign of patriotism, a sense of home, be it a small apartment or a large country, home is where we feel safe. This Sabian Symbol for 30 Cancer, A Daughter of the American Revolution, provokes us to notice where we belong. Who accepts us whole heartedly and unconditionally? Who offers us our rights stated in the Constitution or Bill of Rights where we live? Where in our lives is it absolutely overdue to maintain a daily sense of safety and for that do we need a revolution?

Photo above: Marian Anderson, world famous contralto and celebrated singer. Photo taken when she was 43 years old in 1940. Photographer: Carl Van Vechten. In 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D. C., first lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her D.A.R. membership. Next Photo: Marian Anderson receives the Spingarn Medal from Eleanor Roosevelt. Silver gelatin print. NAACP Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, photographer un-named.