Report

I have just finished coding some Fortran subroutines for work and suddenly recalled that a few hours ago my lunar ended – the one of April, from which I expected quite a lot.

I then started thinking over the last month trying to summarise and estimate whether it was that fruitful at all, and meanwhile I was scrolling news on the web. I do monitor world news these days, because since Monday, April 28, Saturn is turning direct, starting to separate from Ketu – the dramatic and long transit which has caused so many problems is finishing, at last. This week, as I already warned my friends, is uneasy, with lots of man-caused incidents (helicopter crash in Ukraine with 20 dead, train crash in China with 70 dead, and even a weird accident in Moscow, where a pedestrian was hit by dumbbells falling from a window), and natural catastrophes. I expected an intense earthquake, but the reality was even more surprising: in the last three days five (!) of them occurred, all above magnitude 5 (Pacific area, Mexico, Japan, Kamchatka, and just now, Northern California; update - the devastating earthquake in China happened next week).

So, an important fruit of this lunar is the confirmation of [well-known in Jyotish] observation of the importance of the Ketu influence. Yes, Ketu is just fictitious point where Moon’s orbit intersects the ecliptics, and where Moon/Sun produce eclipses, but as one can see, even Saturn in that point causes quite an impact. Predictable one.

What are the other results of the month to report? The lunar started when I returned from Easter cycling, quite an event in my life. Then I came to Vienna for a course in Bayesian analysis and the annual General Assembly of European Geophysical Union, fruitful as ever (for those who are interested, the first draft of the “Complete Seven Segments of Girolamo Cardano” is almost finished, and I did it at nights after the days full of lectures). Yet, I visited country number 25 in my travel list, Slovak Republic. Fortunately, this month two long-reviewed papers were accepted for publication (and it was quite a trial to convince the reviewers, me poor girl against those smart scientists). What else? Well, I have learnt some Fortran this week, and finally my new NERC project is starting…

Yes, it was an important lunar, indeed. Difficult to say what was the major achievement. Probably, Fortran subroutines? They were the hardest…