What’s happening to me? I’m becoming a sports fan. This is clearly the influence of my lover’s nephew, the Teenager, who has been living with us the past two years.

It’s been a slow process, but I seem to have deviated from my natural evolution. I started out as a true-romance doll-playing little girl, became an all-natural anti-war hippie chick, and then ended up as a lesbian feminist. You know the trajectory. I’m only slightly more butch than the average straight girl. Where do sports come into this?

The Teenager is the one who works every conversation around to football. No, not soccer. Okay, soccer is what they call it in the States. But here in Germany, it’s Fussball, and in Venezuela, where the Teenager comes from, it’s futbol. So I’ve learned not to say “soccer”.

And yes, it probably was American Football that turned me off sports fandom in the first place. They all look like they’re wearing body armor, which I guess they have to, in order to not to break any more bones than necessary. You get these huge guys jumping into these big piles of other huge guys, at breakneck speed. It seems like a hyperactive parody of intimacy.

In the rest of the world, football is a bit more graceful, more human in scale. You can see the players’ faces. They are trying to get the ball, rather than to squash each other.

So there I was, in front of the TV, eating chicken wings, watching football with my partner and the Teenager. It was the final game in the FIFA Confederations Cup, and the teams were Brazil and the US. Now I am still a novice in the art of watching sports, but one thing I’ve learned. You have to root for someone. You just can’t sit there and watch the game. There’s a certain magical thinking that takes hold of you, and you start to believe that when you’re yelling, “Go! Go!” at your TV screen, that your energy actually contributes to the athlete making the goal.

And hey, can I say absolutely that it doesn’t? You’re involved in a globe-spanning mass ritual. The athletes are poised on that edge where skill and luck dance. Perhaps the combined energies of all us sports fans is enough to tip the balance at times.

Ball games have a strong place in myth, with the ball symbolizing the sun. For the Mayans and other indigenous American peoples, the game was a way of affirming the human place in the cosmos, our relationship with the source of life. The ball is a three-dimensional mandala, just as the natal chart is a two-dimensional mandala.

At each new moon, a new game starts. The ball is in play. It begins with the moon and sun coming together, briefly joining the outer and the inner worlds. The moon, subsumed in the sun’s brightness, also becomes infused with the sun’s force. Then, as it moves around the circle (the field), the moon disseminates that energy.

The full moon is the moment when the moon dares the most, leaps highest, shoots furthest, lunges for the goal. Then as the moon wanes, the score becomes clear. We add up points, learn what we need to learn, make substitutions, evolve another game plan. As the next new moon approaches, we are ready for the next game.

An eclipse denotes a game in which more is at stake. When the new or full moon brings an eclipse, something is ending and something beginning. Within the sacred geometry of the game, new forms are constantly created.

The July 2009 game started with the new moon of June 22, and it was an intense beginning. The sun and moon closely opposed Pluto, and Pluto is all about power and transformation. The challenge of the sun/Pluto opposition is to maintain one’s integrity as an individual in the face of old archetypal monsters and demons. It’s about fighting the dragon. So as soon as the game began, the cosmic player, the mythical Hero, was thrown into a stressful situation.

Pluto often has a sexual tinge, because it’s about the things we reject or deny. So it makes sense that Michael Jackson, as the symbol of our ambivalent sexual attitudes, would die during this lunar cycle. Pluto is also the planet of extremes, and Jackson suffered all his life from the violent means of control used by his father during his childhood. Jackson, who was born with a sun/Pluto conjunction, took on Plutonian roles for the public, becoming “bad”, “dangerous”, and “thrilling”. A song like “Beat It” is poignant coming from a beaten child who then tries to beat the odds through his creative voice.

The power play in Honduras also has a Plutonian flavor. Zelaya was moving with a strong regional current in calling for a new constitution, echoing Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. But many people in Latin America are nervous about power-grabs by all these presidents, and Zelaya’s recent actions give a sense that he believes himself above the law. And now, coming up to support Zelaya (to help him regain control of the ball) are leaders all over the world, including my favorite president, Barack Obama.

The full moon is on July 7, and there’s a partial lunar eclipse, showing us that a great deal is at stake here. Mars, the Hothead planet, makes close hard aspects in fixed signs, indicating immense and sudden effort. With a square between conservative Taurus and avant-garde Aquarius, there’s a definitive battle between entrenched interests and futuristic visions.

At this full moon, it does help that Saturn makes a harmonious aspect to both the sun and the moon. In easy aspect, Saturn symbolizes the Wise Old Bird who gives useful advice based on her years of living. So even while Mars’ reactive impulses are at their strongest, Saturn reminds us that change can wear a gentler face. Sometimes it’s just about understanding, forgiving, and healing. This helps us with the waning part of the lunar cycle, as we all return to our places on the field.

The next lunar cycle begins on July 21, with the sun and moon in the last degree of Cancer, and with a total solar eclipse. This looks like the last game in a particular cycle, a turning point. There aren’t a lot of violent aspects, however, and even Mars is making harmonious ones. So though a major transformation is indicated, it could be a peaceful one, and it could usher in a lunar cycle that’s gentler and more graceful than the current one.

While I’ve been writing, the Teenager has been cleaning his room. Every once in a while, I’ve told him that I’m using sports metaphors in my column, and he tells me he’s proud of me. Clearly, I’ve entered his world. And strangely, its contours are a lot like that of my own.

My phone sings its little song, I pick it up, and it’s my partner reminding me about next weekend’s plans.

“We have to pick up some strawberries and champagne,” she says, “We’ll be watching Wimbledon.”

Hmm, I think. Another game. Two women, opposite each other, responding with strength and grace to each other’s moves. It definitely sounds interesting. Hey, when did I become a sports fan?

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