A Note on the Southland New Moon Commentaries
by Johnny Mirehiel

Johnny Mirehiel is a 40-year student of spiritual, metaphysical and astrological ideas. A former secondary school teacher and one-time "Man of the Year in Education," he is internationally known as the discoverer of the astrological chart of the Harmonic Concordance moment. A member of the San Diego chapter of NCGR, he has been accredited by The International College of Astrology as both an astrological practitioner and teacher. He now plies his trade in the high desert of Southern California. He and his wife, Jan, continue to support the Harmonic Concordance message of Unity, Joy, Peace and Reconciliation.

In putting together these New Moon commentaries I have used no less than three approaches that are not standard in astrological practice. Nevertheless, each of these practices has been the subject of inquiry and discussion within the astrological community over the years.

California's Southland

As I'm sure you know, New Moon charts are often used to preview coming events for that lunar month. Most of the New Moon articles I have seen over the years are either cast for Greenwich, England or for some national capital, often Washington, DC. I, on the other hand, have chosen to triangulate a position between San Diego, Los Angeles and my home in the high desert hamlet of Morongo Valley - and call it a chart for California's "Southland" since this is where most of us live.

Parallax Moon

In the NCGR September-October 2009 Memberletter, well known astrologer Alphee Lavoie suggests that when calculating a New Moon chart for a specific location on the planet, one should use the calculation for the "parallax" moon. According to Alphee:

"Astrologers usually calculate the planets as if the person was born at the center of the Earth. We know that it is also possible to calculate planetary positions for a specific locality, which is referred to as calculating using parallax…I have personally found that the parallax calculation is much more accurate in forecasting mundane events."

In other words, the parallax calculation treats the position of the Moon as though the birth or event were to have occurred on the surface of the planet. For our purposes here, that locality is the aforementioned Southland.

Whole Sign Houses

Finally, I have chosen to use the "Whole Sign" houses to set up these charts. While this approach may be heretical to some, I have adopted it as my house system of choice - because it works for me, in my chart and for the charts of clients and family as well. In the first place, it can be argued that this system is the one that has been handed down to us from our deepest antiquity. It seems that it is the oldest and simplest house system in existence, and was used by the ancient Greeks and the Hindus (who still use it today) as the original means of dividing up the chart into a separate, twelve fold division in order to determine which area of life a planet had influence over.

The artificial divisions we now know as houses were attempts by those same early Greeks and the Hindus to determine the strongest positions in a chart. In this system, however, the Ascendant and the Midheaven do not act as the cusps of the houses, but rather both act as horoscopic points in the chart, like the Part of Fortune, or the Vertex, for example.

In short, in reading a chart, I have found that the Whole Sign house placements are more descriptive of the person whose chart I am looking at than those placements found in any other system. As such, I have brought this practice forward for use in these commentaries.

With these caveats in mind, I hope that you find meaning, direction and support in these astrological musings.