Pisces Full Moon 2023: Levitation
As the Pisces Full Moon takes place very close to Saturn and the light of the lunation is transmitted from procedural and operational Virgo, within which Mercury, Virgo’s ruler, is currently retrograde reviewing the recent activity in his home sign and making corrections, namely whatever rushed logistical maneuvers Mars recently carried out, I thought I would do a somewhat odd thing and rewind back to an interesting event which occurred on the previous Full Moon in Aquarius for the sake of contemplation and feeling out Saturn in Pisces shapes and metaphors, as that lunation was Saturn ruled and I do think Pisces has something to do with the effects of memory.
(Above image: Francisco de Zurbaran)
Leading up to August 1st 2023’s Aquarius Full Moon Twitter/X, Tumblr and Reddit began spinning out with viral threads about preprints submitted to the server arXiv [“a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 2,316,761 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics”] concerning the experimental, hypothetical or potentially now real substance LK-99, a “a gray–black, polycrystalline compound, identified as a copper-doped lead‒oxyapatite”
“Earlier this month, the science community was abuzz with news of a possible breakthrough: a substance called LK-99 that's alleged to be a room-temperature superconductor. Discovered by Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon from Korea university, the material would be a game changer for everything from power delivery to super computers, if it works as advertised. However, after a number of scientists tried and failed to reproduce Lee and Kim's' findings, the world seems to have moved on.
But the field of superconductors is a fast-changing one. Newly-published, pre-print theoretical research generally continues to support LK-99 as having the properties required to become a superconductor; and now, internet sleuths have discovered a Korean-language update on the original LK-99 patent. This document presents further details (and also new questions) regarding the synthesis process, even as the original Korean authors reaffirm the significance (and veracity) of their discovery.”
Jerry Uelsmann
Not only were scientists, technologists and general social media goers rapt in various states of grabbing popcorn, glued to their feeds or not sleeping over the ongoing dialogue, developments and rush of videos posting experiments by experts and amateurs alike, but a wave of at home scientific experiments ensued on and off topic unrelated to LK-99 such as in the realms of herbal distillations at various temperatures. In all cases people wanted recorded proof in the form of photos and ultimately videos of the processes carried out and the resulting success. The efforts being carried out across the collective concerning LK-99, and the quantum leap in all things technological, electronic, magnetic, energetic and computational was consolidated under the hashtag #floattherock, as if the room temperature superconductor was able to be produced video of a sample of the substance should be able to be displayed in a state of levitation. Almost immediately upon the LK-99 hype hitting the threads ensued Twitter user @iris_IGB or plant physiologist Iris Alexandra posted images of her purported successful recreation of the substance following the steps from the Korean paper in her own kitchen.
From a knowyourmeme.com explanation article (added by user Philipp and updated by Aidan Walker):
“The published findings were reported by various traditional media and on social media in the following days. For example, on July 25th, 2023, Twitter[5] account @AiBreakfast posted a video of LK-99 being experimented upon, reporting on the discovery. The tweet received over 510 retweets and 2,600 likes in two days
On July 25th, 2023, Twitter[6] user and Princeton graduate Alex Kaplan made a thread about the discovery, explaining the potential applications of the material. The first tweet in the thread (shown below, left) received over 22,100 retweets and 128,000 likes in one month.
On July 31st, 2023, physicist Sinéad Griffin published the results of a simulation made using a supercomputer at the Department of Energy. According to the findings, the material theoretically could superconduct if conduction pathways are in the right conditions and places. On that day, @sineartrix tweeted[8] a link to the paper published on arXiv,[9] adding a reaction Mic Drop GIF. The tweet (shown below) gained over 1,300 retweets and 8,100 likes in one day.
Later that day, engineer Andrew Cote then made a tweet[10] explaining the findings, which received over 5,800 retweets and 17,500 likes in one day
On August 1st, 2023, an unconfirmed video of the LK-99 experiment being replicated by Chinese researchers was widely circulated online
On July 29th, 2023, Twitter[14] user, soil scientist and purported "anime catgirl" @iris_IGB began a thread showing her attempt to recreate the LK-99 experiment in her own kitchen. Iris begins by providing a short history lesson on superconductor research and goes on to criticize the Korean scientists' methods for synthesizing various materials needed to conduct the experiment
Iris then proceeds to reconfigure the steps in the Korean LK-99 paper, and posts updates on her kitchen chemistry process over the last weekend in July 2023. On July 30th, @iris_IGB posted two photos[15] appearing to successfully replicate the LK-99 experiment and showing what they call a "speck of shit" being held up by “superdiamagnetism"
On August 1st, Iris[19] responded to her characterization as a "Russian Catgirl" by saying she is Russian by nationality and Ukranian by birth. She also adds that she isn't a catgirl but her girlfriend is”
Boris Margo
From the start of the publishing and publicity surrounding the convoluted substance LK-99 red flags rose, details were smudged, steps were skipped, parts of the process were blurred or intentionally rolled over, meanwhile potentials for new worlds were tasted and echoes or mimicries of this experiment as well as any other experiment reverberated across the infosphere. #floattherock represented that the key to unlocking the limits on all potentialities was present and only a little ingenuity and elbow grease was needed really to do the impossible. It was an odd episode with the Saturn in Pisces obviously oozing through in multiple ways, explicit in the hashtag invoking a floating rock or levitating substance. The Virgo activity was clearly visible in all the procedural content as well as the straight mercurial in the info threading sleight and subterfuge and semi truth. Looking deeper into last Full Moon in Aquarius and the LK-99 moment’s astrology we find:
-Aquarius Full Moon August 1st 2023: collective need for innovation and pioneering being fed by objective spotlight on special expression. Seasonally, need to take a break from the heat and brightness and have an intellectually stimulating experience with like minded people. Escape from the beach to the realm of ideas.
-Garland-Shegoat Lunar Zodiacal axis: clandestine collaboration brings resource flow and provides vault to lock up gems, post Horse-lightning axis: foreign influx and epiphanic energy
-Mercury applying to Saturn: procedural engineering having to balance with formlessness in systems, amorphous structures, formal limitlessness
-Mars trine Jupiter: operational action and detailed critical challenges in the process harmonized to the opportunity for new valuable materials to be crafted and expand into the baseline commodity plan
-Mars rules NN: autonomous actors and capable contenders on the increase
-Jupiter rules Saturn: normal limits against material expansion absent
-Venus RX Leo: re-evaluating the authentic, re-evaluating celebrated aesthetics, re-evaluating centralized desires
-square to Uranus in Taurus: the above in the context of being in tension with revolutionary materials: (Catgirl superconductor experiment)
-Uranus sextile Neptune: unclear if real
-Uranus trine Pluto: materials revolution harmonized with end of hierarchical societal power dominance
-Venus rules SN: re-evaluating authenticity and centralized desires related to reduction of cultural balance, refinement of equilibrium
-Venus rules Jupiter: re-evaluation of authenticity and centralized desires directing expanding coherence of materials methodologies and expansion of commodities opportunity
With Venus still retrograde for this Pisces Full Moon on August 30th, which rules Jupiter in Taurus, ruling Saturn in Pisces and Saturn responsible for Aquarius, Mercury retracing his steps in Virgo, copresent with the Sun in Virgo having only days ago opposed Saturn— a lot of the above astrology still stands now with a watery and technically Jupitarian lunation opposed to an airy one. There is much more Vaseline on the lens, but its reality itself which is blurring the picture, obscured by fog and humidity, blurred by the atmospheric conditions, but very real and based on tangible understanding, even if their is mystical elements flowing through. The landscape you see and experience as present and then the essences which exist within and emanate through the waters, trees, rocks and so forth that are verifiably there.
Allow me to weave some biographical sketches through to come to some points. As the LK-99 substance superconductor craze and #floattherock was playing out I was around the clock in logistical preparation for an upcoming voyage aboard my newly acquired 16,000 pound steel sailboat. Mars in Virgo had me jumping through an incredible amount of technical considerations, gear upgrades, document filings, navigational chart gatherings and so on to feel like taking to the sea solo was possible and legitimately safe. During the literal weeks it took me to get it all together I found the parallels of sailing a large steel hull vessel with the #floattherock debacle amusing and could see in the current episodes of clients lives which rock they were attempting to float and the logistical maneuverings which had them busy for the purpose of some near possible levitation. Between August 14th and 24th I carried out the voyage, although due to weather windows and other technicalities I chose not to do the overnight open ocean passage I had originally planned and modified my trip to weave my way back through the islands and peninsulas following a somewhat improvised course. As soon as I got home it was back to the drawing board: I made a list of all the additional equipment I felt like I needed and what operations I had to nail down before I could go out again and attempt an overnight oceanic passage all alone. My planned voyage became a shakedown cruise for my new boat in which I learned it and how to sail it in much greater detail, but as Mercury turned retrograde on the 23rd I started turning back to my mooring in my home port in Penobscot Bay to regroup and re-assess.
One thing I was taken by while away was the atmospheric profundity of anchoring off uninhabited Islands. Planning to compose a new series of paintings to use in a lecture upcoming this fall on operating magically within imaginal localities, I, after returning from the trip, thought that when I’m back out voyaging it would be a good practice to do landscape sketches with maybe watercolors and pen and ink, but in addition to rendering what I see include also what I sense; what spirits I pick up on, what impressions flow through, what energies are present or activating through the place and the space that hosts it, what memories linger there, what animals are emoting and so on, weaving into one picture or layered composition. I have been keeping a log book which catalogues and describes the technical happenings of each day actively aboard. This seemed a worthy companion to the dry facts of a procedural diary.
Piero di Cosimo
In a broader sense these recent scientific squabbles and personal anecdotes all emerge in unison as pastiche metaphors for the moment. Saturn is in Pisces for the next two-ish years and wherever he transits in the zodiac he obligates us to be responsible for a dimension of our lives in a particular modality. Here he shows us that we must find a workable flow state which sources from what the atmosphere around us offers and be at ready to let go of control so as to move with the nuances within our midst. There is certainly a dao-ness- moving with the energetics natural to reality’s expression and all its particular patterns of qualities is the way in which we find fluidity rather than friction and cultivating this subjective knowingness brings about lucid stability. Jupiter’s coherence of what is valuable, of substance, workable in a real way and has momentum building opportunity within its tangible form is playing into this. There are simply no limits in Pisces, but this is Pisces fed by grounded and methodological Taurus (for a moment amidst LK-99 hype I imagined syndicates of homespun cottage industry materials component makers minting stablecoins backed by their cashe of rare new miracle substances, maybe as Pluto in Aquarius feeds the Great Darkening on chain in opposition to the Sun's domicile decentralizing gold). Venus being retrograde and Mercury being retrograde lead to unexpected swerves in our attempts where reviews of what tripped us up or had us taking an alternate path catalyze revisions to how processes are carried out and what particularities make quite a degree of difference. This goes for the real nodules and instruments at hand as well as what we feel in our hearts energetically. The Moon feels at all this as it fills and objective and subjective awareness shares light across the Virgo-Pisces axis. We pass the bright night in a particular ambiance of what it was like to float the rock for a bit, to levitate an entirely new substance that will change our lives in a radical way, or many radical ways. For now it must be digested by the wholeness of our being in the fullness of our story. In that, it must fully saturate our experience, color it, dilute into our outer awareness, become an augmenting filter over the all which heightens the saturation, not as a deception, we have grown sick of the phony, but as an exalting essence lubricating the technicalities of the mundane chronology.
Boris Margo
Becoming disenchanted with the digital world as it currently is and how it has cheapened and commercialized music, art, astrology, magic and all else, probably much more than it has enhanced either field, has me arrive at a certain unease for the romantic elements in current astro-magical culture. I find a lot of ego driven self worshipping romanticism born of being hosted generationally by social media as societal medium. Similarly sailing has further flattened my appreciation for romanticism. To sail you essentially put yourself in a survival situation on purpose then figure out how to not succumb to any crisis that presents itself. There is something cut and dry about the skills which temper from that in repetition. Although, clearly seafaring is at the same time one of the most iconically romantic things you can do, and if you are dealing with the mystical dimensions of celestial and sorcery, there is no way you can tune out the mythic and keep perspectives strictly sober. But, I still think that with Saturn in Pisces we might be having our romanticisms tested. Does our romantic bullshit hold up in court? Is our romanticism up to snuff? Or does it fall flat as stale fluff? I might venture to suggest, via Jupiter in Taurus’ influence, a kind of non-romantic romanticism to emerge in the moment. I suppose it is a kind of naturalism. Nature exists within certain parameters despite its baffling complexity and diversity. We might consider the romanticism of what is, what is actually experienced, the romanticism if you will of the IRL, rather than the simulated or the projected. A kind of charlatan free zone of mystical flow through which humbly moves and works with what has actually been attempted, honest about what actually happened, but like LK-99, never limited by what is possible in the full expression of boundless potential. When faced with fantastic places, awe inspiring vistas, abundant wildlife and foreboding conditions there is no need for whimsy, no need for tall tales, the mythic merges with the mundane on its own. In reality rocks cannot float, but in another way they certainly do, and ultimately or eventually potentially will.
