Astrology Blog

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Astrology 2007: The Best, Biggest, and Most Anticipated

A totally subjective and random look at the wonderful world of astrology in 2007

Biggest astrology trend (a repeat from last year): Astrology blogs. They’ve been growing exponentially. Check out Jeffrey Kishner’s Astrology Blogger Directory, a “comprehensive guide to every Western astrology blog on the web.” By the time you scroll to the bottom of the list, you’ll be in a new time zone, your head spinning in a blissful astro-blogosphere tag cloud. Then check out the blog podcasts and vidcasts. Top Ten Astrology Sources will also keep you happily busy for most of your waking hours.

Second biggest astrology trend: Interest in Mayan cosmology and 2012. Although the apocalypse is what’s simmering in a part of the collective consciousness right now, respected experts in Mayan cosmology are not forecasting any sort of 2012 pre-Columbian rapture. John Major Jenkins’ Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (which doesn’t really predict an apocalypse and is probably the best of the 2012 books--a fascinating read) has steadily outsold most astrology books on the list of astrology bestsellers. Bruce Scofield’s How to Practice Mayan Astrology has been finding a much wider readership. And there’s been an endless parade of other 2012 books.

Planet of the Year (and probably next year, too): Saturn. When contacted, Saturn merely griped that he could not accept the Planet of the Year award because he was too busy “tightening my rings, sir.” Indeed, Saturn’s coming off the opposition to Neptune, went into Virgo, and recent discoveries indicate that Saturn’s rings are a lot older than previously believed—and thus, perhaps, in need of a little adjusting. Oh well, it’s been a SERIOUS year. Even the comedians have been hard-edged and Comedy Central’s Stewart and Colbert haven’t been doing new shows due to the writer’s strike (although they are scheduled to come back in early January). Pluto’s about to go into Saturn-ruled Capricorn and Saturn’s starting to face off against Uranus. No wonder Saturn’s tightening his rings. He needs to be ready. Damn ready.

Dwarf planet of the year: Ceres. Now that global warming has our full attention, the recently elevated planet Ceres—the goddess of agriculture and seasonal change—is getting a lot of overdue respect. And you gotta love the sub-plot involving a mythic underworld Amber Alert.

Astrology book of the year: Wish I had time to read more books, but there’s been precious little time this year. I’m still trying to catch up with books from several centuries ago. However, my favorite book this year (even though it was published last year) was Venus: Her Cycles, Symbols, and Myths, by Anne Massey. Venus seemed due for a major makeover and Anne Massey masterfully brings her into the 21st Century—yet Venus still maintains an ageless symmetry. A real eye-opener.

Cosmic event of the year: Pluto conjunct the Galactic Center certainly helped to explain a world in transition. For an excellent discussion of this alignment, see Lynn Hayes’ article on her AstroDynamics website.

Most anticipated astrology event that hasn’t happened yet: Tie between 2012—the Mayan calendar end date—and the U.S. election on November 4, 2008. At this point, it is not clear which will be more transformational. Technically, a national election is not an astrology event per se, but this one will coincide with the exact opposition of Saturn and Uranus. Runner-up: Pluto’s entry into Capricorn.

Astrology event most anticipated by me personally: the mid-2007 waning of the Saturn-Neptune opposition. It hit a few of my own planets and I’d just about had it up to here with that alignment, although Neptune kept fogging things up to the point where I could never quite figure out what “it” was.

Least noticed astrology event: The discoveries of other solar systems. The astrology reaction’s generally been like, “Yeah, if I was born on some planet orbiting 47 Ursa Majoris, I might care.” But according to Zane Stein and Debbi Kempton-Smith (authors respectively of A View from Chiron and the irreverent classic Secrets from a Stargazer’s Notebook), these exo-planets might be a lot more potent than we think.

Biggest astrology frustration: The lack of solid birth times for most of the presidential candidates. AKA Looking for Hillary…and Barack…and Mike…and John (at least the one from North Carolina)…and…I realize there are more important issues facing our world today, but hey, if they can answer questions from a snowman on YouTube, the least they can do is have some aide dig up a birth certificate and post it on the candidate’s MySpace page. Inquiring astrologers REALLY want to know.

Best planet, all things considered: Earth. The character of the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town commented that of all the worlds in the known universe, “Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself.” Hopefully, we can make something better of our own small planet in 2008.

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Pluto in Capricorn and the Asteroid

that Might Hit Mars

There is a chance that a large asteroid could hit Mars on January 30, 2008. That is just four days after Pluto makes its entrance into Capricorn—and the precise day when Mars goes stationary direct while it is less than 3° from the U.S. Mars. According to the Associated Press:

A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.

"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.

Whether or not the asteroid actually hits Mars, its status as front page news is a synchronous harbinger of Pluto's arrival in Capricorn.

Although Mars is presently in Gemini, Capricorn is the sign of Mars' exaltation (exaltation is one of the essential planetary “dignities"). Pluto brings things to the surface, and while Pluto travels through Capricorn, we are going to see a lot of Mars through this association—along with Saturnine efforts to control and temper Mars' fiery nature. Exaltation does not mean that Mars simply gets to run wild in Capricorn. It means rather that Mars’ tendency to rashness is stabilized and better controlled in Saturn-ruled Capricorn. This sounds positive—Mars is more restrained—but much depends on who or what is doing the restraining.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Mike Huckabee

The Iowa caucuses are only two weeks away, with the New Hampshire primary soon to follow—and then the big primary blow-out on February 5.

I predicted recently that Mike Huckabee would do well in the Feb. 5 super-primaries, based on the Feb. 6 eclipse hitting his Jupiter. That forecast was made before Mike Huckabee’s amazing surge. It is now looking more and more like he will do very well--and possibly win--in the early Iowa caucuses. He’s a Virgo Sun (like John McCain) and Scorpio Moon (like Mitt Romney). Here’s Noel Tyl’s uncannily accurate interpretation of the Virgo Sun-Scorpio Moon blend:

…mental energies and conventions take on emotional projection. The fastidious ego must be established as the authority, the controlling force. The “missionary spirit” can dominate the work style. The emotions can overexaggerate self-importance. (from Noel Tyl's Synthesis and Counseling in Astrology)

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Here are three late blog updates. Sorry, but I fell behind in posting these. I'm dating these three blogs with the same date--the date I posted them here--even though on my blogspot blog, they were posted earlier.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Pluto in Capricorn and Pushing Daisies

Popular TV shows that feature black humor and death: a "blooming" Pluto in Capricorn trend?

Pushing Daisies (a phrase meaning “dead”) is a new ABC TV series about a young man, Ned, whose touch has the power to briefly resurrect the dead. There are some complicating factors, such as the fact that there's a one minute time limit on each resurrection. If the person stays alive for more than a minute, one touch from Ned can kill that person. And after a minute, someone else has to die. Although its theme is death, Pushing Daisies has a light-hearted tone and has been on many critics’ top ten lists.

Poking fun at death is nothing new, but its mainstream appearance on a finely crafted network TV show just as Pluto is about to go into Capricorn seems significant.

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Monday, December 17, 2007

Bob Dylan in a Rear View Mirror

My Progressed Uranus Finally Goes Retrograde

I saw Bob Dylan on VH1 last night,
Gemini hands
fluttering about his mouth.

A long time ago,
in what seemed my last year of youth
I lingered at a party,
listening to “Like a Rolling Stone”
and then sailed for Southampton,
6000 miles from home,
seeking the shelter of Mars and Neptune:
the muffled clang
within a forge in the fog—
a misty nimbus around each spark.

(How did he see
what we could barely
glimpse, a future
with no prophet,
least of all himself,
merely a skilled
and borderless Mercury)?

Once, when Uranus floated like a beach ball
past my Neptune,
I painted a sun on my wall—
it was always rising, just above
the level of the window sill;

staring into its yellow acrylic corona,
listening through headphones to “Love Minus Zero,”
I was only 20 and thought the future
would never get here.

It seemed to be always receding,
a highway 61 shimmering
in my rear view mirror,

and out of the far backwards gaze:
heat waves from a poet
who once wrote songs
with Gemini fingers
trembling above the keys.

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Monday, December 17, 2007

Mitt Romney's Horoscope--With a New Birth Time

Mitt Romney’s birth data has been posted on AstroDataBank.com. According to astrologer Frances McEvoy, quoting Romney, he was born at 9:51 AM. It’s rated A, meaning it is fairly reliable. I’ll post the horoscope soon on my website, but in the meantime, I've posted it with this blog (or you can click here to see it on AstroDataBank). If you’d asked me before I got into astrology (after which I obtained my birth certificate), I’d have told you a birth time I got from my mother which turned out to be wrong by 40 minutes—a big difference in a horoscope. But Mormons are very particular about birth records, so presumably Romney knows very well his own birth time. Up until now, we did not know Romney's Ascendant, Moon sign, Midheaven, or which houses his planets were in.

His rising sign is Gemini, which means that a retrograde Mercury in the 11th house is his chart ruler. The 11th house is about the larger world, society, and politics. With Mars and the Sun also in the 11th house (and Mercury at their midpoint), 11th house matters have figured prominently in Romney’s life, and he is the sun (oops, I mean the son) of a politician--former Michigan Governor George Romney, who also briefly ran for president in 1968.

Romney’s Scorpio Moon exactly conjoins his Jupiter, the closest aspect in his horoscope, near the cusp of the 7th house. That’s how he sees the waiting world as he looks out from his Ascendant: It’s a lucky world, expansive, his oyster. At least that’s how he sees it, and he’s got about 250 million dollars to make it come true.

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Sunday, November 18, 2007

More on the Election and the Feb. 6 Eclipse

I mentioned in a recent blog that the Feb. 6 eclipse at 17 degrees Aquarius could cause “party splits and defections” (thanks to Celeste Teal’s Eclipses for that quote about eclipses in air signs). So we might see the beginning of serious party splits and defections after super-primary day on February 5.

Two candidates who have been underdogs—GOP candidate Ron Paul and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich—are getting lots of notice, thanks to grass roots support and strong debate performances. Will either candidate manage to influence the November election? Paul or Kucinich--or both--could be a strong force as a third party candidate. The Feb. 6, 2008 eclipse will be hitting within half a degree of the midpoint of Kucinich’s Sun-Uranus trine (i.e. the eclipse will be sextiling both his Sun and Uranus at the same time), possibly energizing his iconoclastic (Sun-Uranus) candidacy.

Hillary Clinton will be strongly affected by the Feb. 6 solar eclipse. It will be hitting opposite the midpoint of her Mars-Pluto-Saturn conjunction. Will this help power her to the nomination? For a dead-on analysis of Hillary, see Maureen Dowd’s recent piece in the NY Times. It should have been titled, “What Can Happen when Someone with a Mercury-Saturn Square and a Mars-Pluto-Saturn Conjunction Seriously—Very Seriously—Runs for President?” Read the op-ed piece, then look at Hillary's horoscope. Then smile knowingly.

Rudy Giuliani’s Jupiter will be magnified by the Feb. 6 eclipse. His Saturn, by the way, sits right on his Midheaven, a perfect symbol of Giuliani’s global law and order political appeal—“America’s Mayor,” indeed.

As we are about to head into Pluto in Capricorn, I think it's interesting that the two leading candidates--Clinton and Giuliani--both have powerful Saturns.

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican candidate who has been raising his profile while positioning himself as the real GOP conservative, will also have his Jupiter activated by the Feb. 6 solar eclipse.

The immigration issue, a proxy for cross-border terrorism and a myriad of other collective fears, has become powerful. Borders and boundaries (as well as fears) are ruled by Saturn, so the issue is very Pluto in Capricorn. It'll loom big in the general election--and beyond.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Tolstoy and the Saturn-Uranus Opposition

Leo Tolstoy’s Saturn-Uranus opposition (an out-of-sign, or dissociate, aspect) was one of the closest major aspects in his horoscope. I thought this was interesting because we are about to experience a Saturn-Uranus opposition starting next year.

In Tolstoy's War and Peace, the old regime (Saturn in Leo) was breaking apart (Uranus moving from Capricorn into Aquarius): The Russian aristocracy was dancing on its own grave. Although the main historical event of the novel--Napoleon's invasion of Russia--took place well before the Saturn-Uranus opposition, Tolstoy was reflecting his own Saturn-Uranus opposition in the mirror of history.

The shattering (Uranus) of the old social order (Saturn) was a major theme in Tolstoy’s writing, echoing his own life and personal beliefs. Throughout his life, he broke society’s rules. In his youth, he flaunted social conventions, and— although he was born into the Russian aristocracy—Tolstoy sided with the Russian peasants, eventually opening several schools for them on his own land. As he grew older, he adopted the dress and simple living conditions of poor peasants, rebelling against the social order into which he was born.

In the U.S. in 1828, Andrew Jackson, a reform president—the “People’s President”—was elected during the same Saturn-Uranus opposition that was ongoing during Tolstoy’s birth. “Jacksonian democracy” is a phrase which has come to mean government of the common man (an Aquarian ideal).

Saturn also opposed Uranus in 1919-1920, when the old (pre-WWI) world was shattered, and the “new” 1920’s came into being. The mid-1960’s Saturn-Uranus opposition (which also included a Uranus-Pluto conjunction) was marked by the breaking apart of old cultural structures.

We are already experiencing another major change that will gather momentum with next year’s Saturn-Uranus opposition. It's palpable: I step outside my front door and the old world is breaking apart, the ground shifting beneath my feet. In 2010, the Saturn-Uranus opposition will move from mutable signs to 0 degrees of cardinal signs. When the dust settles (and I hope it's only figurative dust), our world will not be the same.

Notes on birth data: Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Tula, Russia, at 10:52 PM, a time and date considered DD—dirty data—in Lois Rodden’s book Astro-Data II. Astro-Data II also notes an August 28, 1828 birth date. The disparity in birth dates is probably due to different calendars being used. With either date, however, the Saturn-Uranus opposition was very tight. Of course, he had a number of other strong planetary influences in his horoscope, too.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Amazing Astrology Movie--in HD!

Astrologer Kelly Lee Phipps (who writes the Cosmic Weather blog) has made an astrology movie, Return of the Magi: A Documentary of Astrology, which will premiere at the UAC conference in Denver next year. The trailer is amazing. You can see it here.

Kelly Phipps has written that he had "a vision to create a documentary about authentic astrology on the order of What the Bleep and The Secret." After seeing the movie trailer, I can't wait to see the entire film!

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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Neil Young: A Scorpio Reborn

1974: I sat on a bean bag pillow in my small studio apartment in Redwood City, near San Francisco, listening to Neil Young’s album, On The Beach, a coda for the late 60’s, Vietnam, and Nixon. It foretold our own collective craziness. I played it again and again, over and over.

2006: A few months after our daughter left home for a college dorm, my wife and I rented the Neil Young concert documentary Heart of Gold. On the DVD, he introduced one of his new songs (from his Prairie Wind CD) by saying he’d written it for his daughter who’d just left for college, adding that maybe there should be a radio station for empty nesters. The song is called “Here for You”:

Just close your eyes and I'll be there
Listen to the sound
Of this old heart beating for you
Yes I'd miss you
But I never want to hold you down

You might say I'm here for you.

My wife and I sat there on the couch with tears streaming down our cheeks.

November 2, 2007: We attended Neil Young’s concert at the new Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles. He’s a 62-year old Scorpio who recently survived a life-threatening brain aneurysm, and several songs off his new CD (“Spirit Road,” “The Way”) reflect a new-found spirituality. He played several songs from this new CD, Chrome Dreams II, which is being hailed as one of his finest recordings in decades. The first half of his show was a solo acoustic set, followed by a second half with his band.

Early in his opening acoustic set, he played “Ambulance Blues,” one of my favorite songs from 1974's On the Beach:

An ambulance can only go so fast
It's easy to get buried in the past
When you try to make a good thing last.

Neil Young may have resurrected some old songs for this concert, but he is anything but buried in the past, trying to make a good thing last. With an exact trine of Pluto and an out-of-bounds Mercury, he has constantly transformed his musical expression.

His out-of-bounds Mercury has been apparent throughout his entire career, as he has constantly sought ways to communicate through different, highly original, and sometimes perversely non-conformist songs. He has played outside of the normal musical box. Uranus also opposes his Mercury, giving him added originality.

This concert of compositions by an out-of-bounds Mercury musician featured an amazing set of songs, only a handful of which were the Neil Young classics ("Heart of Gold," "Tonight's the Night") recognizable to most in the audience. In an indication of the deep respect this musical artist has inspired, the audience was quiet and raptly attentive during his acoustic set as he played a number of little-known, obscure musical gems. People were actually shushing each other (the acoustics in the Nokia Theater were so sensitive that a soft "Shhh" could be heard throughout the theater).

Neil Young has no planets in Earth signs, and his singing has always had an untethered, spacy quality.

His show was perversely old school. Maybe that has something to do with his lack of the Earth element as he pointedly reaches to ground himself in low-tech. I've seen so many music acts which, although excellent, are also a bit soulless due to their heavy reliance on computerized lighting and wireless technology. During Neil Young's concert, I actually saw a human being up in the lights above the stage, changing gels in a spotlight. A cord stretched from Young’s guitar back to a speaker—no cordless instruments on his stage. His opening act was his wife, Pegi (who did a very nice job in her own right). The stage set, intended to reflect a workshop or artist’s studio--a space where creativity happens--had a very funky, down-home quality. It was another original touch from a rock original.

The show highlight was a new song, “No Hidden Path,” which Neil Young spun out for a good 20 minutes of guitar thrusts, parries, jams, and blistering strokes. As the song concluded, the crowd rose to its feet and cheered.

He played for close to three hours. My wife commented, after the concert, on how much passion and energy he displayed. His Mars in Leo and Venus in Scorpio are exactly square and this emotional tension contributes to a release of high energy on stage through his music. He's also got a great deal of stamina: Neil Young has four planets in fixed signs, and his Scorpio Sun trines Saturn.

The photo is from Wikimedia Commons. It is in the public domain and was taken last year at a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concert in Canada.

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Sunday, November 4, 2007

Pluto in Capricorn at a Concert Theater

I attended a Neil Young concert at the brand new, gleaming, post-modern, purple neon-accented Nokia Theater, which opened last month in downtown Los Angeles. I’ll post an astrological concert review very soon, but was struck with a couple of Pluto in Capricorn observations about the venue:

It’s named after a cell phone company. One huge wall inside the theater lobby displayed different models of Nokia phones. It was like walking into a very large mobile phone store. Corporations are taking over the world. I know this is not exactly breaking news, but I was struck with how in-your-face it’s become.

The security was very tight. I’ve been to plenty of concerts, but nothing ever approached the security we experienced at this theater. To enter, everyone had to walk through brand new airport-style metal detectors, then submit to a pat-down, purse search (and did they ever search, emptying out all the contents), jacket search, backpack search…It was like the theater was being run by the government TSA. The employees working at the security entrances even had on TSA-style uniforms (although I am sure they must have been Nokia Theater uniforms). Mind you, we were all going inside to see the fanatical zealot who wrote “Harvest Moon” and “Sugar Mountain” (and, incidentally, recorded a recent song titled “Let’s Impeach the President”…hmmmm). You can call it security PR, political manipulation that still has everyone freaked out, or a necessary reality of our 21st Century world, but one thing’s for sure:

The times they have changed. The world of Pluto in Capricorn is going to be different.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

James Watson

James Watson, along with Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, revolutionized modern biology with the discovery of the DNA strand in 1953. Unfortunately, Watson has just added a black mark to an otherwise illustrious scientific career. In a published interview, he made several shockingly racist statements.

According to Wikipedia, Watson

…was quoted in an article for the Sunday Times Magazine published on October 14, 2007, that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really." He stated that he hopes that everyone is equal, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

Sadly, these views were not new. He had expressed similar ideas in the past, but they were overlooked. Although he apologized, these recent statements led to Watson’s resignation from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he had spent most of his career.

A look at Watson's Vedic horoscope is helpful in understanding the timing of this abrupt career about-face. A little over two years ago, Watson began his Venus mahadasha, signifying a new major life period. These mahadashas—planetary periods—take up major chunks of life and one can usually find life themes particular to each mahadasha and its planet (or lunar node). In Watson's Vedic horoscope, benefic Venus is exalted in Pisces, meaning that it takes on extra power. It conjoins both Jupiter and the Sun (in Vedic astrology, planets occupying the same house/sign are said to be conjunct, no matter how many degrees apart they might be, although the closer they are the more powerful their influence becomes). Venus is strong in other ways, too, in Watson’s Vedic horoscope. A Venus mahadasha would thus seem to portend an auspicious astrological period for James Watson.

So where’s the astrology behind a career-ending humiliation and the revelation of views—Watson’s private face— antithetical to social progress from a man who with his public face contributed greatly to scientific progress and the mapping of the human genome? Although there are several astrological influences at work in Watson's Vedic chart to answer this question, one seems particularly relevant: Watson’s Venus is in the nakshatra (one of the 27 lunar mansions) called Purva Bhadrapada. When a new mahadasha begins, it is associated with a planet (or node of the Moon), and the nakshatra or lunar mansion where that planet resides assumes much greater importance in life. Normally, a benefic planet like Venus would bring out the best in a nakshatra. However, that is often not the case with Purva Bhadrapada. It is associated with a funeral cot (where bodies are placed to be burned).

Another commonly used symbol for Watson’s Venus nakshatra? A man with two faces.

James Watson was born April 6, 1928; 1:23 a.m.; Chicago, Illinois; source: NCGR Memberletter article on DNA’s Golden Anniversary, by Anne Ortelee, April/May issue, 2003; not sure what the Rodden rating is.
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Monday, October 15, 2007

Eclipse and Super-Primary Day on Feb. 5, 2008

On February 5, 2008, a super-primary election will select Democratic and Republican presidential nominating delegates in 20 states, including California, New York, and Illinois. One day later, on February 6, there will be a very powerful total solar eclipse on the Aquarius-Leo axis, at 17° Aquarius.

Celeste Teal, in her comprehensive and already-classic book Eclipses, writes that eclipses in air signs can signify “party splits and defections” in politics. Perhaps super-primary day—a day before the eclipse—will prove to be the formative event for third party (or even fourth party) candidacies in this national election. The GOP, especially, seems primed for this because no Republican candidate has yet been able to lock up the conservative vote. In addition, candidates like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich have passionate supporters who may feel disenfranchised if the deal seems sealed in early February and who could then push for their candidates to mount separate third party campaigns.

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