Balboa Park, sometimes called the “Jewel of San Diego,” has been a public delight since its official debut at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. When visiting crowds arrived, expecting a dusty border town, they were greeted instead by a lush, tropical oasis. With its elaborate Spanish-style pavilions, towering trees and brightly-colored, exotic flowers, the park was stunning.
But it hadn’t started out that way. In 1892, the tract’s 1400 acres were nothing but baked adobe dirt covered in sagebrush, mustard weeds and rattlesnakes. Botanist Kate Sessions changed all that. The owner of a small working nursery in San Diego, Kate’s business required space to grow larger species. So, she wrote a proposal asking the city to lease her 32 acres of the worst land on the mesa. In exchange, she would plant 100 trees each year. Although the tract had already been designated as a park, the city had provided zero dollars for its development. So, they figured they had nothing to lose.
Sessions hired local laborers with heavy iron picks to shatter the topsoil. When the men quit due to the exhausting work in the brutal sun, spunky 35-year-old Sessions dug the holes herself. She dragged heavy rubber hoses from a single distant spigot to water the drought-resistant trees she’d planted – including Moreton Bay figs with their snaky, above-ground roots and shade-producing eucalyptus from Australia, as well as Brazilian jacarandas with their bright purple blossoms that dazzled all the visitors.
Kate Sessions (Nov. 8, 1857) had a passionate Scorpio Sun ruled by determined, productive Mars in Virgo. With Mars conjunct her South Node, she’d probably been cultivating soil and planting trees for lifetimes. Notoriously brusque with her customers, she never married and had no children. But at her death in 1940, Sessions left behind a different kind of legacy – one rooted in her unwavering love for nature.
At the upcoming Virgo New Moon (Sept. 10, 8:27 p.m. PT), we’re all being given the opportunity to plant something meaningful in our lives. After a challenging eclipse season, the atmosphere is changing as this earthy energy helps us get grounded and get started on our own new projects. This lunation at 18 Virgo sextiles Mars in Cancer, which favors active nurturing. Virgo’s ruler, Mercury, pops into sociable Libra at the New Moon through month’s end. Others are apt to be amenable to our requests, since Mercury trines Pluto in civic-minded Aquarius. The winged messenger is direct all month before turning retrograde toward the end of October, so set up those meetings now.
We’re not entirely retrograde-free this month, however. Venus enters Scorpio on the day of the New Moon, echoing Kate Sessions’ intense Sun sign. Some astrologers feel that Venus is not well-placed in Scorpio, a sign which doesn’t fit with standard ideals of beauty and decorum. In Scorpio, Venus is opposite her natural domain of Taurus. And she’ll be retrograde in Scorpio/Libra from Oct. thru mid-Nov. Personally, I like Venus in Scorpio – retrograde or not. It fits beautifully with the dark, mysterious time of Samhain and Dia de los Muertos. Relationships may be hard to fathom during this period, and financial dealings might go more smoothly toward late November, once she’s direct. But if you are willing to go deep and have patience during this dark time of year, a bounty of riches could be your reward.
Another x-factor at this lunation is Uranus stationing retrograde in Gemini. Expect the unexpected, as sudden insights and changes abound. You’ll have until next February, when Uranus turns direct, to fact-check, gather more data and wade through past records to sort things out that may be unclear.
In July, Chiron entered earthy Taurus – sign of the body and the physical world – where it will stay for about seven years. And at this lunation, the “wounded healer” is exactly opposite Venus in Scorpio. This is a call to accept our own bodies as well as those parts of us that may not fit with societal standards of beauty and proper behavior. Like the woman who birthed Balboa Park, many of us don’t fit that mold. But when I walk through its shady arches, visit its museums and art galleries and admire its beauty, I think of Kate Sessions and all she endured to manifest our beloved park. She was on my mind recently when residents rose up to protest the imposition of paid parking at the park – and prevailed! Kate would have been proud. At this lunation, let’s use her example to get grounded and express exactly who we are.
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