Chris LaFond's Medieval Astrology Blog

That's Not Astrology

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of my complaints about many modern astrologers is that what they are doing simply isn't astrology. They employ astrology to give what they are saying a veneer of respectability. One might question whether astrology can really lend anything a sense of respectability, given how it is perceived by the mainstream media. But the public is generally more accepting of it than we might at first think. But the public is also misinformed about astrology. Folks generally don't know much more about it than their Sun sign, and maybe a bit of what that supposedly means.

But my complaint isn't with the general public. After all, I don't expect non-experts to know expert-level information in any field. My complaint is with those who are passing themselves off as astrologers, while doing something completely other than astrology. For example, I see on Facebook a weekly video that some of my friends post (some of them being modern style astrologers). This is a very popular video series by someone purporting to be giving an astrological "forecast" for the week. Aside from my issues with the modern astrological perspective in these updates, what this person is doing is simply laying out a "metaphysical" set of desires or goals, and then using current astrological placements to justify them.

While goals such as being at peace, seizing the moment, becoming one's best self, etc., may be admirable, that's not what current astrological transits are always telling us to do, necessarily. The presenter gives it away in saying: "These are the astrological underpinnings of what I want to say to you today." So admittedly, the goal isn't really an astrological forecast, rather the goal is to preach about something and then use current astrology to back it up. This is quite similar to what preachers do in churches; they will cherry-pick biblical passages or lines within a prescribed passage to make whatever point they want to make, rather than letting the text (or the planets and stars) actually speak for themselves.

I have often said that if I were a client, I wouldn't really care where or how my astrologer or psychic was getting their information, as long as it was correct and they were able to accurately predict most things. But as a student of astrology, I do care where the information comes from. As an astrologer, the predictions made should be reproducible by another astrologer using similar techniques (or close to the same prediction). And as a teacher of astrology, these techniques, when passed on, should also result in similar delineations and predictions.

So when you hear astrologers going on about all sorts of fluffy, pie-in-the-sky goals, without really being able to say very directly: "this is what the aspect is, and this is precisely what it means," you should beware.

Comments and Comments...

2012-01-05T14:58:00.000-05:00

I received a comment a few weeks ago about my post on how the traditional meanings of the planets have been corrupted by modern astrological free association (Venus Rules What???!!!). As so often happens when someone criticizes a post, the critic posted the comment anonymously, and the critique is full of inaccuracies, both historical and astrological (vis-a-vis Traditional Western or Medieval Astrology, as indicated by the title of my blog).

First of all, the person is coming from a Vedic (Indian/Hindu/Jyotish) astrological perspective, not a Western one. Now while the East and the West use the same basic set of symbols, there are some differences. I am not an expert on Eastern Astrology, so I will not presume to speak definitively for what these symbols mean in Jyotish. My critic is clearly not an expert on Traditional Western Astrology, but for some reason that did not stop him/her from taking me to task over my post.

The example in the previous post that I gave was the erroneous association of Venus with "finances" and "money." This error stems from a false equation of the second house of the chart (movable wealth) with the second sign of the zodiac (Taurus) and its ruler (Venus), using a technique known as the 12-letter alphabet. I gave a short list of other false associations based on the same technique, but my critic focused on the title example. (In summary, no one sign equals any one house of the chart; they are different components that are overlaid in each chart, thereby engendering the infinite variety of events and characteristics of things here on Earth.)

Here are a few quotes from the comment (in brown) and my response to them.

"I don't understand what traditionalsm actually you are talking about. Perhaps you sincerely lack a global idea of astrological principles and practices around the world basically in the east."

Let me say first of all that I was not commenting upon "eastern" astrology. I was commenting on Traditional Western (pre-1700) Astrology. The rest of the critique is based upon an assumption that we are discussing (or should be discussing) Eastern Astrology. But I'm not.

"The Indian Traditional Astrology which is far elder than the erroneous western tropical astrology..."

I understand that many who practice Indian Astrology belief, as a matter of faith, that it is older than Tropical (Western) Astrology. However, all documented evidence points to the contrary. For example:

"Thedocumented history of Hindu astrology begins with the interaction ofIndian and Hellenistic culturesin the Indo-Greek period. The oldest surviving treatises,such as the Yavanajataka or the Brihat-Samhita, dateto the early centuries CE. The Yavanajataka ("Sayingsof the Greeks") was translated from Greek to Sanskritby Yavanesvara during the 2nd century CE, under thepatronage of the Western Satrap Saka king RudradamanI, and is considered the first Indian astrological treatise in the Sanskrit language." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_astrology#History,
seealso on the English name:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_astrology#English_name)

Both Sidereal (Eastern) and Tropical (Western) Astrology came from the same roots, and diverged at a later time. Many devout Hindus believe that the Vedas themselves go back much farther than they have been historically proven to; this may be akin to Christian fundamentalists believing that the Bible is treating the chronology of the world in literal terms.

Continuing:

"...always considered the equal house division to be exact in which the sign is synonymous with the house or vice versa."

Hellenistic Astrology also considered that one full sign occupied one full house. That is, if one's rising degree is 15 Sagittarius, the first house would still be 0-30 Sagittarius, and the Asc would be in the middle of the first house. It is only later that the Ascendant (Rising Sign and degree) starts to be considered the beginning of the first house. Throughout the Tradition (and amongst Traditional astrologers of all stripes today), there is ample evidence that this Whole Sign House system was and is used alongside the quadrant house system (Placidus, Alchabitius, Koch, Regiomontanus, etc.). But there is not (in the West, at least) the idea that the first house in anyone's chart is always equivalent to the first sign of the zodiac (Aries). The only place that this shows up is in medical astrology, where one needs multiple ways to identify parts of the body. So the first house represents the head, and the sign Aries also represents the head. But that does not mean that the first house equals Aries.

"Besides, it seems your bankrupcy in astrological interpretation as a mytho-symbological art is unprecedented."

Wow. I'll merely point out here that there is no one-to-one correspondence between astrology and mythology. While certain planets and constellations have a vague similarity with their mythological equivalents, it is dangerous to assume that they are the same thing. For example, the mythological figure of Jupiter was often disguising himself in order to deceive the nymphs and take advantage of them sexually. This has no bearing at all upon the astrological meanings of Jupiter.

"You do not know that Jupiter rules spiritual wealth where as Venus rules material wealth."

And where is the documentation of this? There are a few references in the Tradition to Venus and wealth. They are all part of the idea that Venus rules leisure and luxury. It is not until the modern era that Western Astrology associates Venus and material wealth. In my scan through some of the Indian Astrology books that I own. (http://goo.gl/snhgm, http://goo.gl/iXVgS, http://goo.gl/jcF1b, http://goo.gl/Hjan4) the Venus and wealth association seems to be the same as in the Traditional West. That is, while she can indicate a wealth of luxury and a certain amount of abundance, it's from the perspective of pleasure, which she rules. Jupiter is more clearly the ruler of material wealth, as well as spiritual wealth. But in the West, the clear place to look for "finances" or "money" is the 2nd house. There are a couple of other houses that may also indicate money (11th, e.g.), but let me return to my point: Venus does not rule "finances" based upon a false "natural" connection to the second house.

"Inheritance is a matter of 8th house, in that case the 8th from 9th which is the house of father in Indian Astrology"

My understanding (Braha. Art & Practice p185) is that this is true in Southern India, but in Northern India, the 10th house governs the father.

"Jupiter rules "ethics" not "modern law" - and perhaps you don't know "law" is not about "opponence" but "justice", the "balance" which principle is approriately symbolized by the scale of Libra. Please go deeper in your understanding that in true awareness there is no compulsory division in between 'tradition' and 'modernity'."

So is there a difference between "modern law" and "ancient law"? The principle here is "law." That does not necessarily mean "lawsuit." But in Lee Lehman's The Book of Rulerships, her research reveals nothing amongst nine giants of Western Traditional Astrology indicating a connection between Libra and Law. Mythologically, the Scales were, in fact, associated with ideas of law, fairness, and civility; but astrologically, no one (traditionally) seems to have used Libra to represent Law.
This actually reveals another flaw in modern Western Astrology: the assumption that all of the mythological associations of a planet or sign are also astrological associations. This is simply not true. And this one of the reasons why modern style astrologers have such an impossible time trying to predict (when they even do so).

To conclude, I propose that my critic study the Western Astrological Tradition before criticizing it (or its proponents). My suspicion is that he/she is not quite fully grounded in the Eastern Tradition either, but of course, I have not proof.

So let's make a deal: You don't criticize what you don't understand in the West, and I won't criticize what I don't understand about the East.

One final comment. I have changed the settings on this blog not to allow anonymous comments. The comments are already moderated, since I don't need ill-considered, insulting comments appearing here (I have received a number of such comments). As always, one need not agree with me for me to allow the comment to post. However, one must 1-be respectful and 2-address the information in the original post.
In addition to that, you may no longer comment anonymously. The ability to comment anonymously encourages people neither to be respectful, nor to address the post directly, and allows for rants and ad hominem arguments that are unwelcome.

Everything = Nothing

2011-08-11T13:54:00.000-04:00

One of the complaints I have with modern astrology is the idea that if something is out there, then it MUST be astrologically significant. In the last two centuries, the discovery of the unseen planets Uranus, Neptune and (now "dwarf planet") Pluto haphazardly into the system of astrology has given modern astrologers tacit permission to include anything floating around the Sun in their astrology charts.

In the early part of the twentieth century, especially between the two world wars, systems of astrology were developed that even included hypothetical planets. These were added to the asteroids -- which began with the four first discovered, but now includes thousands -- as well as to the comet Chiron (discovered in 1977), the anticipated planet Vulcan (proven not to exist, but still included by some), other, newer hypothetical bodies (Lilith, aka the Black Moon), more mathematical points (East Point, Vertex, etc.), and so forth.

Now let me say that I don't believe that any of these real points (I'm not counting they hypotheticals here) have nothing to say at all about astrology. On some level, everything is connected. But much of it is coincidental, and the rest of it is less-than-significant. For example, whether the asteroid Eros is crossing my midheaven on the day I get married is not really all that useful in terms of predicting when I might get married, to whom, what kind of relationship the marriage will be, etc.

Traditional astrology grew out of hundreds and even thousands of years of observations. It may have included some hypotheticals at certain historical points, but those hypotheticals have since had a long opportunity to be proven true or false by observation and experience. This vast experience with the traditional 5 planets and the Sun and Moon (7 in all) allowed astrology to be built into a comprehensive system with an underlying philosophy which has been abandoned (mostly through ignorance) in modern times. This lack of cohesion and depth of understanding, not only of the philosophical underpinnings of astrology, but also of the richness in the 7 visible celestial bodies, has led modern astrologers to look elsewhere to find meaning in their charts. My contention has been, for many years, that if astrologers truly understood the ancient system, and had a deep knowledge and experience of the 7 traditional planets, they would not need to look elsewhere for more meaning.

Sue Ward has written a well-researched paper on Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, the modern planets. A free sample of it is available on her website, and the 80-page paper is available for a mere £5. In the paper she deals with many good issues, including the discoveries of these planets, the lack of astrological involvement in their naming, the political designs of the Theosophical Society in using these in astrology, and others. One of the conclusions she draws, which to me is the most significant, is that only planets, stars, etc., that cast light upon us physically, also cast light upon us spiritually. In other words (my words here), if you need a telescope to see it, it really doesn't have much (if any) effect on our daily lives. I recommend the paper to anyone who is serious about astrology. Even if one doesn't agree with all of her conclusions (I do), one should be aware of the historical development of these issues, and Ms Ward lays them out quite clearly.

The chart shown above is one that an astrologer posted online for a recent New Moon. This person posts a similar chart almost monthly. While a Traditional Astrology chart will typically include the seven classical planets, the North and South Lunar Nodes, and a few Parts or Lots, for a total of about 10 points, this chart (not counting Ascendant and Midheaven) includes 31 planets, hypothetical planets, or mathematical points. I have absolutely no idea how any astrologer makes any sort of sense of this glut of symbols. When everything in the sky is significant, then nothing is significant. If everything mean something, then nothing means anything. This is what allows astrologers to say things like "energy is getting frantic, watch for it to hit the fan this weekend." And then they see some accident or disaster in the news and say "I told you so." However, I'll point out that #1 - these kinds of things happen all the time without specific predictions being made by these astrologers (how about a specific What, When and Where?) and #2 - they really didn't predict anything, since "it" can mean whatever one wants in retrospect.

If astrology is going to regain any semblance of respect among the general population, beyond their passing interest in their daily, newspaper horoscope, then it needs to be serious, precise, and accurate, not frivolous, ambiguous, and opportunist. Traditional astrological methods are one way of moving toward that goal.

Venus Rules What???!!!

2011-07-24T21:00:00.001-04:00

It's been too long since my last rant about the utter lack of philosophical underpinnings of modern astrology. So here goes.

I was reading an astrology blog today that points out that Venus is moving into the sign of Leo on Thursday of this coming week. It mentions parenthetically that Venus is the "ruler of love, art, beauty & finances." This is, of course, only partially accurate. Venus is the ruler of love, art, and beauty (along with music, dance, and many other things), but finance? Not so. So then why the reference?

First of all, let's talk for a moment about what astrological "rulership" is all about.

There is what we call "natural rulership"; that is, Mars rules pointy things, the Moon rules liquids, etc. What we are saying here is that of all of the energies that inhabit pointy things, for example, the Mars energy is the strongest. Therefore, as Mars goes, so goes this pointy thing. We are working here from a world view where the spiritual world influences the material, and as such, its influence on Mars is reflected on things that are "ruled by" Mars.

Next we have "house rulership." In an astrology chart, each house represents an area of life, and planets in that house as well as the sign on the cusp of that house give the delineation of how that area of life will work out. The planet that rules that sign will ultimately also have a say in the matter. For example, traditionally, the first house of the chart (also known as the Ascendant or Rising Sign) represents the physical body, health, and happiness. If one is born with Leo rising, that means that the sign of Leo was straddling the eastern horizon at that moment and is therefore on the cusp of the first house. (By definition, the first house begins at the eastern horizon.) Now the Sun rules Leo, so the astrologer looks to see if there are any other planets on the horizon (in the first house) that may influence the body, health and happiness of the native, and then also interprets the influence of Leo on those issues; finally we evaluate the placement of the Sun in the chart in order to give a fuller picture of how these issues will ultimately work out for the person.

Between the 18th and early 20th centuries, astrologers had ignored houses for so long that they nearly forgot what to do with them. In the mid-20th century, they began to attempt to reincorporate them into astrology charts, but in doing so, generated a lot of incorrect connections about rulership in the chart. A technique developed in the mid-to-late 20th century called the 12-letter alphabet, about which I have blogged, asserts that each of the houses is nearly equivalent to each of the astrological signs, and in order. In other words, the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, is equivalent to the first house of a chart. This is a modern invention that has no basis in tradition, and in fact confuses beyond measure the ability to gain any clarity from a chart. However, I bring it up again to point out what some of the consequences are from this bogus approach.

In the 12-letter alphabet (or "alphabet soup") approach, the second house, which corresponds to a person's money and movable wealth, also equals Taurus, the second sign, and therefore Venus, the planet that rules Taurus. Now all of a sudden, for the first time in two thousand years (indeed, the first time in history), Venus rules money. So what happened to the rulership of Jupiter over wealth and abundance (aka "money" to us) and the Sun over gold? These associations are completely ignored by, and mostly unknown to, modern astrologers. Yet it makes far more sense given the nature of these planets.

In Rex Bills' The Rulership Book, he begins the forward, the very first sentence in the volume, with the following sentence: "The keystone of astrological interpretation is a thorough knowledge of rulerships, or correspondences." Yet Bills then goes on to list modern correspondences that are undocumented, and unsubstantiated by much of the astrological tradition. Lee Lehman's The Book of Rulerships, on the other hand, documents the rulerships and correspondences as given in nine of the most important astrological writers throughout history. Her introduction to the
volume is a very good entré into understanding what rulership is all about.

Other common, incorrect (and unintended?) consequences of the alphabet soup approach are:

Since the third house represents short journeys, and the third sign of the zodiac is Gemini, ruled by Mercury, therefore Mercury rules travel. Now today, whenever Mercury goes retrograde, people freak out about travel. However, traditionally, there are very few references to Mercury in terms of travel. Travel is more about the Moon (which "travels" the entire zodiac in a month). What is of import today are the plans, arrangements, and negotiations around travel, as well as some of the mechanical pieces of the vehicle itself; these things are Mercurial. But the journey itself is not.
Since the fourth house is like the fourth sign, Cancer, which is the sign of the great Mother, and is ruled by the Moon, then the fourth house is about the mother. The 10th house (the 7th from the 4th), which is equivalent to the 10th sign of Capricorn (a cold, unyielding energy) is therefore about the father. Traditionally, the 4th house is the father (and land and things inherited through patrilineal lines) and the 10th is the mother. So modern astrology has completely reversed these.
The sixth house traditionally is about potential illness (among other things) and the first house is about the native's health. But in modern astrology, the 6th house is said to be health, and the 6th sign, Virgo, is equated with it. I have heard modern astrologers and astrology buffs tell every sun-sign Virgo that they encounter that they are "natural healers." Don't even get me started on how ridiculous this is. But this is how Virgo got to be (falsely) associated with healing.
I recently saw a post that mentioned that Libra is the sign of Law. This is because the 7th house in a chart is the opponent in the law suit, and so the 7th house often represents issues of suing an opponent (or being sued). Guess what the 7th sign of the zodiac is... that's right, it's Libra. Law has always been correlated primarily to Jupiter.

One of the major problems that I have with all of this is that when I notice in a post that there is something like this glaringly wrong, I tend to dismiss most of what the astrologer says from that point on; if their connections are all wrong, then how can their conclusions be correct, except by accident or serendipity? This is also one of the reasons that modern style astrologers no longer do predictions - because they can't. There are many reasons that modern astrology has gone almost completely psychological, but this is one of them. One need not "prove" astrological statements that are more about psychology and the way that someone experiences something internally, whereas putting oneself on the line and actually predicting what will happen in the external world is a lot more risky and demanding. But it only works if one is able to draw the right connections and establish the right relationships.

Science and Scientism

2011-04-07T12:10:00.001-04:00

Can Scientists Overreach? Yes, says theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser in an article of the same name on NPR.org. He summarizes (in an extremely brief manner) the work of Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead, in her book-length essay Absence of Mind.

I bring this up because in a blog post I wrote in January titled When Modern Scientists Get Hold of Astrology, I concluded by asking Why would modern astrologers care much about what scientists say about astrology? My point was that most modern scientists are hostile to astrology, and any comments they make on the subject are uninformed (meaning that they haven't taken the time to study the subject) and are aimed at debunking it (which completely contradicts even their own methodology, but they won't admit that).

I received a lot of very hostile comments (which I did not allow to post on the blog) insisting that everything should be subject to science and the scientific method if it one claimed that it were "true." Now, I have always been clear on this: I am grateful for modern science and medicine. I am grateful to live in a society where diseases like polio and smallpox are virtually non-existent. I am grateful to be writing this post on a computer, rather than on a typewriter and then having to publish it in print version. I am also glad for simple scientific knowledge like the fact that my garden might need more or less nitrogen, etc., (and we can now measure this) for growing the types of vegetables that I want to grow. My very pointed complaint was about the hostile of interference of scientists in astrology. The argument, which I thought I made pretty clear, was that not everything in life can or should be subject to the scientific method. Well it seems as if at least one Pulitzer Prize winner agrees with me.

To reduce everything to science and its methods impoverishes humanity. We need cultural diversity and that includes the culture of religion.
What makes some scientists so sure of their science? The practice of science, after all, relies precisely on uncertainties; a theory only works until its limits are exposed. In fact, this is a good thing, since new theories sprout from the cracks of old ones.
For science to advance it needs to fail. The truths of today will not be the truths of tomorrow.
(Marilynne Robinson as summarized by Marcelo Gleiser)

Gleiser quotes directly Robinson's criticism of renowned atheist and scientism cheerleader Richard Dawkins from an article she wrote for Harper's Magazine:

So bad science is still science in more or less the same sense that bad religion is still religion. That both of them can do damage on a huge scale is clear. The prestige of both is a great part of the problem, and in the modern period the credibility of anything called science is enormous. As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.

The philosophical pinnings of Traditional astrology are Neo-platonic. It posits that first comes Soul, which gives rise to Consciousness, which in turn gives rise to Matter. This allows for the belief that non-physical causes can ultimately have an effect upon the physical world. The modern world view is that if enough matter is brought together, it may give rise to consciousness. And it pretty much stops there. Notice that these are diametrically opposing points of view, which is why it makes evaluating one of these world views in terms of the other very difficult.

Note that the Traditional (pre-Enlightenment) world view does not deny any of modern science's evaluation of material things on their own terms. That is, allowing science and the scientific method to measure the physical effects upon physical objects is not incompatible with a more Traditional/Magical/Spiritual world view. However, it also allows for the interaction of the physical world with the non-physical world, and for the idea that we don't really know everything that there is to know about how even the physical world works.

To re-quote Robinson "For science to advance it needs to fail. The truths of today will not be the truths of tomorrow."

Woops! I Had An Accident(al Benefic)

2011-04-02T11:22:00.001-04:00

As Chris Warnock pointed out in a comment on my previous blog post, modern astrology tends to deny the existence of malefics and even of evil itself. (Note: which is interesting, since most of the keywords that they use for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto tend to be negative, yet the refuse to refer to these as malefic energies.) So when things like Mercury retrograde or Void of Course Moon happen, the modern habit is to round up everything evil, bad, or inconvenient that is happening and scapegoat that one factor. (Remember, the idea with scapegoating was to take one symbolic [innocent] goat and cast upon it ALL the sins of the nation.) Just do a web search for Uranus in Aries, and you will see all sorts of non-specific, dire predictions about what this means. (Most of these are actually what I call post-dictions, that is, looking backwards and casting blame on one factor which is convenient, though usually inconsequential in reality. Reference the multitude of astrologers who point to Uranus in Aries and connect it to the earthquake in Japan. This is despite the fact that Uranus was still in Pisces, and the fact that this entrance into Aries was not something peculiar to Japan - it happened for everyone).

This brings me to something that traditional astrology dealt with all the time, which is wholly ignored in modern astrology. What makes a Benefic or Malefic? First, let's look at the words. Bene-fic is from the Latin bene (good) and facere (to do/make). So Benefics are do-gooders. Likewise, Malefics (male + facere) are evil-doers. Traditionally, the Benefic planets are Jupiter, Venus, Moon (when waxing) and in certain situations, the Sun; the Malefics are Saturn, Mars, Moon (when waning) and in certain situations, the Sun. However, one of the things that traditional astrologers universally agreed on is that Benefics can become Malefics accidentally, and that Malefics can become Benefics accidentally. What does "accidentally" mean in this context? Classical astrology distinguishes between Essential dignity, which has to do with the relationship between a planet and the sign that it's in, and Accidental dignity (also known as Accidental Fortitudes), which is a broad category that covers a number of areas, such as: what house a planet is in, what aspects a planet makes to other planets, etc.

A planet like Jupiter, for example, is essentially dignified in signs like Sagittarius and Pisces (he is the sign ruler of these two signs) and Cancer (where he is exalted). He's also somewhat dignified in all of the Fire signs, especially if the chart is a nocturnal one (i.e., the Sun is below the horizon) and in certain degrees of certain signs. What this means is that Jupiter can freely be himself in these signs and work without interference in the way that he prefers to work. One of the meanings of Jupiter that has come down to modern astrology is "expansion" (in fact, it may be the only meaning for Jupiter that many modern astrologers are even familiar with). This is due to Jupiter's qualities of being warm and moist, which conditions are perfect for growth (think of what conditions you want for your garden to grow). What happens when this expansion goes unchecked? The growth never stops. If a fat, happy Jupiter is sitting on one's Ascendant (physical body), that might not be such a good thing for the person (over-weight issues, water retention, etc). Or what happens when that super-growth Jupiter is in Cancer, and in the sixth house or twelfth house, which are connected to illnesses? This is often (not always) the signature of someone who may have a predisposition to the disease cancer (which is basically an overgrowth of dangerous cells).* In this case Jupiter is clearly an Accidental Malefic.

Another example from current events is that of my girlfriend. Her natal chart has Mercury retrograde exactly conjunct the Midheaven/MC (career/fame/boss area of the chart, which also increases the strength of any planet near it) in Virgo. Professionally, Mercury conjunct the MC would indicate someone who is a teacher, writer, accountant, etc. Mercury is very highly dignified in Virgo. But here it's retrograde. This would be an accidental malefic. Professionally, she is a language teacher, but also somewhat of a social-phobe. The Mercury retrograde here also represents a slew of bosses and superiors who are lousy at communication, which causes problems. My girlfriend also is a writer of fiction, and has founded a small press within the last year (all Mercury activities). She detests dealing with the public aspects of owning a press, but there is nothing that makes her happier than writing in the basement, all alone where no one but the cats visit.

However, we have recently identified a pattern in her writing practice. She said to me the other day that all of a sudden, the writing blocks that she has been experiencing since early January have fallen away, and she is pumping out the pages non-stop. That prompted me to look back over the course of the last year, and it is clear that whenever Mercury goes retrograde, her creative juices start flowing, and she retreats to the basement and produces volumes of fiction. Note that this does not mean that the outward activities become any easier; for example, the bosses' communication gets worse, the job of publicizing the press get more difficult, etc. But the activity that she enjoys most in life, writing alone, is most enjoyable and most productive during this time when modern astrologers are crying that the sky is falling, and would counsel specifically against this sort of activity.

In this case, Mercury is an accidental malefic and benefic, depending on which of the Mercury-ruled activities we examine. Once again, where the modern take on this is very monolithic and completely without nuance, the perspective of Traditional Astrology allows for subtleties and levels of interpretation unheard of in any of the modern texts.

____________________

* Please note that this is only one possible example of what might happen with this placement. No one astrological placement will indicate any particular kind of disease; there are many complex factors involved, not least among them genetics (which is connected to fate), diet and personal health choices (free will), and upbringing (a combination of fate/free will). All health issues -- physically, mentally, emotionally and astrologically -- are complex ones that require in-depth analysis before any determinations can be made.

Here We Go Again

2011-03-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

Here we are, at the beginning of another Mercury retrograde cycle. As everyone starts to blame poor Mercury for everything that could possibly go wrong for the next 3.5 weeks, I thought I'd take a closer look to see what traditional sources say about Mercury retrograde periods. I looked specifically at Guido Bonatti (Liber Astronomiae, 12th century, Dykes transl.) and William Ramesey (Astrologia Restaurata, 17th century), since each of these works is about - Ramesey in whole, Bonatti in part - Mundane Astrology, i.e. astrology about events happening in the world (rather than Natal Astrology, which is based on birth charts). Bonatti also has a complete section on Natal Astrology, as does William Lilly, a contemporary of Ramesey, so I looked in those sections as well. While these authors clearly are not exhaustive, their texts are (esp. Bonatti and Lilly) encyclopedic, and stand as summaries of the Art at two distinct points in history, 500 years apart.

After spending most of the afternoon scouring these texts, and working through indices, where available, I can report that these classical authors had absolutely nothing to say about what happens for the 24 days that Mercury goes retrograde each of three times per year. That's right. Nothing. Certainly, they have a lot to say about interpreting how a retrograde Mercury in a chart will affect the outcome of whatever that chart is about. But they don't seem to make any attempt at classifying or qualifying a moving period of time under this influence. It seems that until very recently in the history of astrology, no one was really interested in interpreting the meanings of astrological phenomena outside the context of an actual chart. The chart in question often covered a period of time (e.g. the Aries ingress chart was often used to predict world/mundane events for the coming year); but that chart was then moved through time on a symbolic level as well as watching how the planets continued to move. But these planetary movements were always related back to that chart for the purposes of the interpretation at hand. Nowhere do they seem to have said anything like "when Mercury goes retrograde, the world tends to go wonky."
(If anyone knows of any classical sources that address this issue I would appreciate the reference in order to do more research.)

Does this mean that Mercury retrograde has no effects? I don't think so; I have witnessed some of them myself. But I think that far too many negative events are attributed to Mercury than he deserves. As a matter of fact, far too many things are attributed to Mercury than should be.

Some speculation, based on classical tradition
First, let's consider that even some classical authors thought that a retrograde Mercury could be improved by being connected to the benefic planets in a chart (Jupiter, Venus, sometimes Moon). And if we look at this particular Mercury retro, we see that Mercury is in Aries, where he is middling in terms of dignity (that is, he's neither well dignified nor ill-dignified). Until April 13 (EDT) Mercury is heading right at a well-dignified Jupiter in Aries. The Moon makes a few contacts along the way as well. But Jupiter is a benefic, and does well in the fire signs. This would seem to indicate that the negative affects of Mercury will be much lessened until at least the 13th. However, one must also consider that during much of this period, Mercury is combust - conjunct the Sun. Classically this is a great debility, not because it makes Mercury do "bad" things, but rather because the Sun burns up any power that Mercury may have. So while Mercury itself may be fairly ineffective during this time, it may be helped a bit by Jupiter.
For the next (and final) 10 days of the retrograde, Mercury is in opposition to Saturn (a malefic) in Libra. Again, this will be interrupted off-and-on by aspects from the Moon. But these last 10 days look as if they will be the worst part of the retrograde due to the Saturn influence.
Of course, as the title of this section implies, this is speculation on my part, but based on what is written in the classical authors on this subject, rather than a mere exercise in free-association of ideas.

Mercury Rulership
I have seen recently some pretty fantastic (as in "fantasy-based") lists of what Mercury rules, with no citations. Lee Lehman, in her Book of Rulerships, scoured nine major classical astrological authors, from Ptolemy through the 17th century, and compiled lists of what rules what based upon their texts. Using her book, here is a partial list of what Mercury rules or is associated with:

Accountants, Affairs, Arithmeticians, Astrology, Attorneys, Bankers, Bargains, Birds, Business(men), Buyers, Cheating, Clerks, Coins, Commerce, Contracts, Counterfeits, Curiosity, Dexterity, Divination, Educated People, Fairs (flea markets, bazaars), Hurricanes, Imagination, Intellect, Journeys, Logic, Mathematics, Memory, Negotiations, Poetry, Printers (the people), Rationality, Reason, Schools, Scribes, Secretaries, Servants (non-contractor employees today), Speech, Teachers, Tradesmen, Writing.

We could extend this list logically to modern areas that are developments and newer versions of older things. For example, Printers refers to the people but by extension to modern printing machines (since Mercury also rules inventions and writing). Given Mercury's rulership of Writing, Logic, Inventions (etc.), computers are clearly a Mercury-ruled area.

(Note that "Communications" is not an area that is listed among the nine classical authors that Lehman surveys, yet somehow this is the first thing that we often think of when we think of Mercury retrograde. A few authors gave rulership of Messengers to Mercury, but not universally; others gave it to the Moon, and "Messages" was given to the Moon, or to the 3rd or 5th houses in a chart [depending on what kind of message it is]. This points out the modern astrological tendency to invent rulerships without grounding them in the Tradition.)

Now while the classical authors don't delineate Mercury retrograde specifically (other than to delineate Mercury debilitated by any means), Bonatti (and others) refer to retrogrades in terms of complications, distresses, defects, destruction, disagreement, loss, lack, reversals, etc. So a logical conclusion might be that there would be setbacks of these types in these Mercury-ruled areas. But not automatically; the "right" (wrong?) connections must be made.

So I'll repeat what has at times almost seemed a mantra: calm down, people. You will survive this retrograde as you have survived all the ones before it. Leave yourself some extra time and be a little extra careful, and you'll be fine. And when this retrograde is over, and life still isn't perfect, I hope that we all realize that we've been making Mercury our scapegoat/whipping-boy for far too long; there are other things going on in the sky, and they're worth some attention too.

Alphabet Soup

2011-03-21T13:48:00.001-04:00

One of my ongoing complaints is the lack of clarity in Modern Astrology. Nowhere is this more manifest in the technique that is referred to as the 12-letter alphabet. This is a thoroughly modern concept which was first introduced in 1973 in Finding the Person in the Horoscope by Zipporah Dobyns, who is widely credited with having invented it. (Note that Dobyns held a Ph.D. in psychology, and like most modern astrologers, focused on astrology as psychology, not as a predictive art.) This seems to have been an attempt to simplify astrological associations so that it would be easier for beginning students to learn (which is a problem in and of itself; after all, it's not an "easy" subject, it shouldn't be "easy" to learn).

The idea is that the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, is like the first house in the chart, and they are both like the planet that rules Aries, Mars. So Aries=1st House=Mars. I'm not sure where to begin with how wrong this is historically, and how this confuses and conflates based upon near-complete misunderstandings of a number of concepts. First of all, the planet are not the signs of the zodiac. Planets were/are considered divine energies that resonate/associate with all things sub-lunary (on Earth); the physical planets themselves are "merely" a physical resonation/representation of the divine energy of that particular planetary deity/angel/etc. So it's not the rock that we call "Mars" that "causes" martial things on Earth; it's the energy behind it that resonates to the planet and all things on Earth that we associate with Mars (aggression, war, drought, assertiveness, red, iron, etc.). The Signs have relationships with the planets. Each planet is essentially in charge of the affairs of one or more signs, or portions of signs. This relationship is complex, and we determine the details of it in the essential dignities' scheme. Aside from each planet ruling one or two signs, each of the the planets is considered to be exalted in one of the signs; each one has a special relationship with the triplicites (e.g., the fiery triplicity is all of the fire signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). And so forth. Dobyns cavalierly discarded Exaltations based not upon an understanding of the principle of Exaltation, but rather based upon her own inadequate interpretations of how each planet acts in its sign of exaltation.

While it's true that each sign of the zodiac moderates or filters the energy of the planet, the sign rulerships and exaltations were not originally assigned based upon any particular planet being like any particular sign. There are similar energies between some of them, but a planet is the ruler of a sign because it is the most appropriate planet to dispose of the affairs of that sign. So Mars rules Aries, not specifically because Mars is like Aries (though it is, in fact, somewhat similar); but rather because Mars is the planet that takes care of the affairs of Aries in a chart, regardless of whether Mars happens to be in Aries at the moment.

Houses are indicators of different areas of life. For example, if a chart has Mars in the first house, then Mars will directly influence the physical body, the health and happiness of the native. If Mars is in the second house, he will directly influence the native's money and movable wealth, but will not influence health and happiness, unless he is otherwise linked to the first house. This ability to discern and distinguish that one thing is not another is critical in delineating a chart, and especially in attempting prediction based upon it. And getting the connections and relationships correct is paramount.

Yet somehow, the idea quickly developed that there is a "natural" chart. That is, that the first house has an "underlying" Aries energy always, regardless of what sign actually appears on the first house cusp in any particular chart. Let's see how this would work.
Imagine that Gemini is rising (and therefore on the cusp of the first house), and that Mercury, its ruler, is in the third house in Leo. The Sun, which rules Leo, is in the eighth house in Capricorn.
So in this chart the:

1st house = Gemini = Aries (as the underlying, "natural" energy of that house) = Mars (as the ruler of Aries) = Mercury (ruler of Gemini) = 3rd house (where Mercury happens to be in this chart) = Leo (on the cusp of 3rd) = Sun (ruler of Leo) = Capricorn (where the Sun is in this chart) = 8th house (Capricorn is on the cusp) = Saturn (ruler of Capricorn) etc...

Without even starting to delineate the meanings of these planets, signs, and houses, one can see how bloody confusing it all is. When one gets to the point where anything in the chart is equal to nearly everything else in the chart, it's impossible to extract any real meaning from it. This has also led to the fallacious re-assigning of certain house meanings. For example, traditionally, the fourth house is associated with the Father of the native. However, since Cancer is the fourth sign of the zodiac, and is feminine and associated with mothering or nurturing, modern astrologers have simply switched the meaning. After 1900 years of tradition, with no empirical or observational bases upon which to do so. Other changes that are a result of this in the last few decades are the negative associations of the 8th and 12th houses, being associated with Scorpio and Pisces, respectively. Virgo, the 6th sign, is now somehow about "healing" and "service," since the 6th house is associated with potential illness and servants. Venus is now supposedly connected to money, since she rules Taurus, which is the second sign, and the second house is about money (the traditional ruler of money is Jupiter and the 2nd house). There are other mis-associations, but the reader should have the idea by now that the current state of modern interpretation is at best confused. This is one of the reasons (but only one) why we find that modern astrologers don't even attempt to predict; the bottom line is that if one's associations and relationships are all wrong, it will be impossible to achieve clarity and any sort of real-world accuracy.

Dr. Dobyns uses the term "alphabet soup" in her own book, however, detractors of this method have turned it back onto the technique in the attempt to show that when everything equals everything, then the result is really nothing.

You Say You Want a Revolution...

2011-02-26T15:20:00.003-05:00

... and Many Happy Returns
We've all heard the expression: "Happy Birthday, and Many Happy Returns!" But did you know that this is an astrological expression?
"Happy Returns" refers to Solar Returns. The Solar Return was formerly known as a "Revolution." Not the violent, government-overthrowing type, but in the original sense of "revolve," which means "to return". A revolution is a return to beginnings.
The yearly revolution, or Solar Return, is a chart cast for the moment that a person (or country's) Sun returns to the the exact place in the Zodiac as when that person or country was born. This happens either on one's birthday, or within a day on either side of it. (Remember that there are 365 days in the year, and only 360 degrees in the Zodiac, and a day is actually slightly longer than 24 hours. This is connected to the same reasons for having to insert a leap day every four years into the calendar. So the Solar Return can vary slightly too.)

Casting the Chart
With the development of computer software, Solar Return charts have become much easier to cast. It's important to be as exact as possible, so that the Sun is at the same degree, minute, and second of arc as in the birth chart. Because this return of the Sun can happen at any time of the day, the Solar Return chart can look very different than the birth chart. The only thing that is guaranteed to be the same is the zodiacal placement of the Sun. All of the other planets will likely be in different places; and the houses of the chart will be quite different if the time of day is different than the birth chart. The houses in any chart indicate the areas of life that the planetary energies will be active in. So this can provide quite a variety of different meanings over the years, since the house placements will change in the Solar Return from year to year. Of course, the information in the Solar Return chart can never override or negate what is in the birth chart; however, it can push different areas of life farther away or closer toward the meanings shown in the birth chart. Think of it as a spectrum, with a bit of elasticity: year to year, certain areas of life can pull away from what the natal chart says, but the "elastic" will never allow that area to get too far away from the meanings in the natal chart. So the Solar Return chart, like any subsidiary chart, must be read within the context of the natal chart.

Location
For many years, there has been a debate about where to cast the location of the Solar Return chart. There are three possibilities: the location of the original birth chart, the location where the person is on the day of the Return, and the location where the person spends most of their time that year. Personally, I think that the third option is probably the best. There are some who will actually travel quite a distance so that at the moment of the Solar Return that year, a different sign will be rising in that location than at their home location, and therefore, all of the subsequent houses of the chart will be different, and in theory, affect different areas of life. And there are some who cast the chart for the location where the person was born, on the theory that all charts have to be read in the context of the natal chart, and therefore at that location. However, it makes the most sense to me to cast the chart for the person's current home, that is, where they are spending most of their time. It doesn't seem logical to me that if a person travels a great distance and is there for only a few days, that this chart should have such a powerful affect on their lives. And it is, after all, a temporary chart. So I cast the Solar Return chart for where the person currently lives (assuming that they will spend most of the year close to that location) and have had good success predicting details for my clients based on it.

So the next time that someone wishes you "Many Happy Returns," you'll know exactly what they're wishing for you, even if they don't!

Responses to the Science/Astrology dialogue

2011-01-17T17:35:00.002-05:00

After my last blog post, I received a number of comments, most of which I published. Some were simple attacks on astrology, quite full of invective, and not really worth passing on. The purpose of this blog is not to defend astrology, but to present and elucidate elements of astrology that were developed before the Enlightenment. In doing so, I hope to show how they are superior in most ways to what passes for modern, psychological astrology. When commenters address specific items that actually appear in the blog posts, I'm happy to engage, at least in a limited way, in a conversation about those facts, even if we disagree (as long as everyone is respectful).

One particular commenter made a few extended comments, so rather than try to jam them all into a comments box, I've decided to publish them, along with my responses, as a new post. The following comments are from Eric.

[Eric] It looks like there is a word limit, and I'm a little too long - so I am breaking this into two parts:

Part I:

Thanks for not moderating me out of existence (on another -completely unrelated- board, I was moderated out of existence for a question that didn't even deny their basic ideas, but those were right-wing politics people...)

Again, when commenters, even those who disagree, are 1. respectful, and 2. discuss the actual content of the posts and other comments, I'm happy to engage in the conversation.

[Eric] So - you say that, "scientists who are making the claim to which I refer in the blog post have made no investigation of astrology at all, yet are seeking to influence it", but I think you are mistaken - scientists in general have no interest in 'influencing' the practice of astrology.

I believe that scientists DO have an interest in influencing astrology - that is, to influence it right out of existence.

[Eric] The article seemed more interested in pointing out the inconsistency of current astrological practice with astronomical facts about the actual locations of the sun, planets, etc. in the sky. Thus pointing out that (modern, at least) astrology has no basis in any kind of fact.

I disagree that this "finding" points out that astrology (modern or otherwise) has no basis in fact. Astrology has always been a symbolic system, though based on a few specific astronomical realities. The fact that tropical astrology is based on is the alignment of the Earth and the Sun at the Spring Equinox. From there, much of it is symbolic, and always has been.

[Eric] I respond to some more of your comments below (yours are prefixed with your initials and in quotes).

[CL] "In order to predict well, one must approach astrology from a world view that allows for it."

[Eric] So - if I do not accept astrology in advance, you cannot make any predictions for me? Why should my belief in astrology affect *your* predictions? Or am I misunderstanding you.

I think that you are misunderstanding. I am not referring to the potential client's belief. I'm referring to the practice of the astrologer. Astrology is based on a neo-platonic principle that Spirit gives rise to Consciousness, which gives rise to Matter. The modern scientific world view is nearly the opposite: that Matter gives rise to Consciousness. The neo-platonic philosophy allows for the reality that material occurrences may be caused by non-material (spiritual or consciousness) causes. The modern scientific view rejects that possibility. If an astrologer also rejects that possibility, then he or she may do fine as a psychological astrologer (modern type), but will ultimately fail at any type of prediction.

[Eric] It seems that belief shouldn't play a role - it either works or it doesn't. I don't need to believe in the scientific method to use the physics equations derived via the scientific method to predict physical behavior. It works whether I believe in it or not.

Right. And I have seen astrology work well, when done correctly, according to the traditional rules that predate its modern marriage with psychology.

[CL]"The deeper issue is that not everything in life is or should be subject to the "scientific method". True, if one is going to predict, one should have a certain level of accuracy and consistency (though it seems that we allow well-paid meteorologists to be consistently wrong with no major consequences)."

[Eric] Why not? Why should some knowledge be accepted 'because you say so', and other knowledge be susceptible to testing? How do you tell the difference between one type of knowledge and the other? Again - the process of the scientific method is used to separate out what is true from what isn't. Why should any truths not be subject to that level of scrutiny?

Well, there are all sorts of things that are not subject to scientific scrutiny that many people accept as true. The existence of some deity, values such as loyalty and love, emotions, and so forth. There is the sociological maxim that What is perceived as real has real consequences. So something that may not even be "real" in a material sense may in fact affect material reality. This is not something that is testable in terms of the scientific method.
My point here is that just because we can't always point to the mechanism by which something physical occurs and say "aha! there it is!", that doesn't mean that it isn't real or true.

Let us also separate 'weathermen' from 'meteorologists'. In general, I find the NOAA weather website to be very accurate, especially over short periods of time. Modern mathematical theory explains the impossibility of predicting the weather with any accuracy more than a few days into the future (although large-scale trends may be fairly accurately predicted up to about 18 months in advance). Within the limits of measurement and predictive models, weather prediction falls well within the error it should have from the mathematical models used.

And I know astrologers who specialize in weather prediction who can get pretty accurate years in advance, since we can cast the charts well in advance.

But each of these is a specific kind of astrology too: natal, weather, mundane, horary questions, and so forth, and not all astrologers do all these kinds of astrology. Modern psychological astrologers who try to do predictive astrology without having studied it as such are sort of like modern psychotherapists trying to do calculus without any special preparation.

(Note: to date, I have not received Part II that was indicated; so it's lack of appearance is not due to my not posting it.)

When Modern Scientists Get Hold of Astrology

2011-01-13T10:30:00.003-05:00

I just read a short article on how your zodiac sign may have changed because scientists at a planetarium in Minnesota have "recalculate[d] the dates that correspond to each sign to accommodate millennia of subtle shifts in the Earth's axis." What they are referring to here is the Precession of the Equinoxes. Let me explain.

Where does the Zodiac Begin?
Since the beginning of horoscopic astrology in the Middle East, the beginning of the zodiac was considered 0 degrees Aries. There are two definitions of "0 degrees Aries." One is that it pinpoints the Alpha star (first brightest) in the constellation of Aries. The other is that it assigns 0 Aries to wherever the Sun is on the day of the northern Spring Equinox; this also means that the Sun enters Cancer at the Summer Solstice, Libra at the Fall Equinox, and Capricorn at the Winter Solstice. When astrology was developed about 2,000 years ago, these two points coincided. That is, at the northern Spring Equinox, the Sun happened to be right about at the Alpha star in the constellation of Aries. However, the Sun moves against the background of the stars at the rate of about 1 degree every 72 years, and it does so backwards against what we consider the normal order of the zodiac constellations. So a few hundred years after astrology was developed, the Sun would have been in the late degrees of Pisces on the day of the Spring Equinox. And it will continue to appear in that sign at the Equinox for a couple thousand years. This is what we call our current age the Age of Pisces. At some point in the next few hundred years, the Sun will be against the background of the constellation of Aquarius at the Spring Equinox, which will begin the Age of Aquarius (no, it has not yet begun, sorry to all you Age of Aquarius enthusiasts out there).

This linking of the zodiac to our seasons on Earth has become known as Tropical astrology, or using the Tropical Zodiac. As the Earth goes around the Sun each year at its 23.5 degree angle, the Sun appears to move between the Tropic of Cancer at the northern Summer Solstice, south to the Tropic of Capricorn at the northern Winter Solstice. At the Equinoxes, the Sun appears to be right over the Equator. ("Tropical" comes from the Greek and refers to the "turning" as in the turning of the Sun at the Solstices. Oxford English Dictionary Online)

The linking of the zodiac to the star at Alpha Aries has become known as the Sidereal Zodiac (siderum = star, Latin) and has continued to be used pretty much only in India among Hindu (Vedic) astrologers. Some in the West also now practice Hindu astrology for a variety of reasons, usually stemming from a false idea that Hindu astrology includes predictive and spiritual elements not found in the West. While it is true that these elements are not found in modern Western astrology, it is not true at all that they are not still there; one need dig only a bit below the modern superficial/psychological use of astrology to find them.

So the Tropical and the Sidereal Zodiacs have existed side-by-side for nearly 2,000 years. One thing is very important to note here: both zodiacs use a stylized system of 30 degrees per sign. That is, the Tropical zodiac starts 0 Aries on the Spring Equinox, and just counts 30 degrees per sign going forward from there. The Sideral zodiac starts 0 Aries whenever the Sun aligns with that star every year and also just counts 30 degrees per sign from there. In other words, the Sidereal zodiac makes no attempt to align ALL of the signs of the zodiac with ALL of the constellations that were used to originally form it. There are Sidereal astrologers out there today who claim that Sidereal astrology is "truer" or "more scientific" than Tropical astrology because it aligns with the stars or constellations; but clearly they don't recognize, or won't admit, that the Sidereal zodiac aligns only with ONE star. The constellations aren't all 30 degrees of neat packaging, so the Sidereal zodiac is just as stylized (and no more "scientific" or "true") than the Tropical zodiac.

Modern Inventions
Now this article lists the dates of the zodiac "as the ancient Babylonians intended it." The hubris of modern science! Their own list includes the now-famous (and totally modern invention) of the "13th sign" Ophiuchus, with an asterisk noting that it was "Discarded by the Babylonians because they wanted 12 signs per year." (See my blog post on this.) So on the one hand, they admit right here that they are changing what the Babylonians actually DID, while claiming that they know what the Babylonians "intended." They claim to be "restoring" the "original Babylonian zodiac." Sounds like modern scientist messing around with something that they completely and willfully misunderstand.

If you notice the list of dates on these "signs", you will see that they are not approximately 30 days each. This is because these scientists are not using the Tropical OR the Sidereal zodiac here. They are using a modern invention called the "Constellational Zodiac." See Chris Warnock's excellent page on the three zodiacs for more detail. For now, let me point out that the Constellational zodiac attempts to take all of the constellations that go into making up the zodiacal signs, inserts Ophiuchus, and then sort of stretches the length of each of these "signs" proportionally to fit the size that each constellation occupies in the sky. There are a few major problems with that. The first is that many of these constellations overlap; this is one of the things that has led to confusion about when the Age of Pisces will end and the Age of Aquarius will begin. In a hundred years or so, on the day of the northern Spring Equinox, the Sun will actually be standing in the overlap of these two signs, so there will be a cross over period for many decades before the Sun stands solely in the constellation of Aquarius at the equinox. This is because Aquarius, while standing next to Pisces, also dips in below it for a few degrees (or one could say that Pisces swims above Aquarius). The other problem with this is that with all of the signs being different sizes, it is impossible to DO anything with them. The whole point of astrology is that it represents Plato's Ideal or perfection. One way of looking at it is measuring the difference between where we really are and where our perfected self is. It is in this space that we learn about ourselves, our world, our spirituality, etc.; and it is in this space that astrology does what it was intended to do - narrate the past, present and future (predict). This is impossible to do with an odd-shaped, ill-formed, lop-sided zodiac.

Final Comments
1. Scientists should stay the hell out of astrology. And if you want to know what I REALLY think: scientists should stay the hell out of astrology!
Many modern astrologers have misunderstood traditional astrology because either they did not have the resources to investigate it (which was true for a while in general), or simply because they did not care to (which is often the case now). How much LESS will modern scientists understand classical astrology (e.g. what the Babylonians "intended") than modern astrologers? All they can do is complicate matters.
2. Why would astrologers even CARE what modern science has to say about astrology? Modern science is almost universally hostile to astrology; and modern scientists who do have some sympathy for our Art usually are trying to "help" by proving astrology on scientific grounds. Being a Spiritual Science, if you will, astrology will never be proven correct, true, or valid to the satisfaction of the modern academy, which is still held captive by the materialist/atheist world view. I'm not suggesting that astrologers ignore everything that modern scientists say about astrology (or any other field), but why would we give it such weight? Is their goal to work with us? In most cases, their goal is to debunk astrology completely. Do you think that these scientists who "corrected" the zodiac dates actually consulted with an astrologer? Of course not! If they had, they might have realized how absolutely ridiculous their "corrections" are.

Mercury Retrograde - Again

2010-12-27T16:30:00.003-05:00

So here we are again at the end of a Mercury retrograde cycle, and this one seems to have been particularly fierce for some. There are at least a few reasons for this:

Mercury is retrograde
Mercury is in Sagittarius for most of this retrograde, where he is debilitated
Mercury was combust (as it always is during part of the retrograde)
Mercury squared Jupiter during this retrograde

Mercury retrograde is a debility, but traditionally, it is not nearly as bad as combustion, where a planet is within 7-8 degrees from the Sun. The idea here is that the Sun burns up the energy of whatever that planet is, making it pretty worthless. The exception to this is when the planet is only 17' of arc (about a quarter of a degree) from the heart of the Sun; no one seems to explain why, but I suspect that here the idea is that the Sun adds its energy to that of the planet, since they are in perfect alignment. This is considered a major dignity. Along with combustion is the designation "under the Sun's beams" which extends from about 8 degrees to about 15 degrees from the Sun. This is also a debility, as the planet is either moving toward or just moving out of combustion.

Though Mercury started the retrograde at 5 Capricorn, it has spent most of it in Sagittarius, which is opposite his own sign of Gemini. A planet opposite its own sign is like being in the enemy's territory and is considered a major debility.

Finally, for a few days, Mercury squared Jupiter, which is the planet that rules Sagittarius, the sign Mercury is in right now. While squaring Jupiter is not usually considered that difficult an aspect, Mercury and Jupiter are in many ways opposites. Mercury is cold and dry and is about distinguishing details, while Jupiter is warm and wet and is about growing and seeing the big picture. This is partly the reason why Mercury is debilitated in both of Jupiter's signs (Sagittarius and Pisces).

So there are a lot of factors this time making this a nasty cycle, but not for everyone. See my previous two posts for why this may be so. 1 2

I also wrote last year on the "shadow" period that most modern astrologers buy into. As I point out, this is a completely modern invention with no basis in Traditional astrology. If there are any effects left after Mercury (or any other planet) goes direct, it has nothing to do with the "shadow" and is simply because of events that happened during the retrograde which may still be playing out (e.g. the photocopier broke but hasn't yet been fixed).

In this particular cycle, it's helpful to remember that Mercury is still in Sagittarius, where he is debilitated, until January 13. So while there may still be some Mercury issues going on, most of it is probably attributable to this, rather than any imagined shadow period.

So chin up, all you victims of Mercury! The retrograde is coming to an end.

Full Moon Solstice

2010-12-20T18:53:00.002-05:00

So for the record, the height of the Full Moon is on Tuesday at 3:13 am ET. This is a Full Moon eclipse at the end of Gemini.

Immediately upon reaching this point, the Moon goes "void of course." This is an ancient term which simply means that from that moment until the Moon enters the next sign, it will make no classical aspects to any planet. That is, it will not conjunct, oppose, square, trine, or sextile any other planet. When the Moon is void, the traditional interpretation is that whatever is begun during that time will come to nothing. This is why, for those of you who follow my tweets (twitter/astroharp), you will see me usually encourage you not to begin any important projects during a Void of Course Moon.

(There are a few exceptions to this: the Moon is never void in Cancer or Taurus - the Moon's own signs of rulership and exaltation - or in Sagittarius or Pisces - Jupiter's signs.)

The Moon will enter Cancer just over an hour later at 4:22am ET. So if you are planning to do any Moon magic, you will need to complete it before 3:13 am, or wait until after 4:22. By then, however, the Moon will be waning. So if you have some powerful waning Moon magic to do, now would be the time. The Solstice occurs at 6:38pm ET, so that time from when the Moon enters Cancer through the rest of the afternoon is perfect for any sort of dark or releasing magic one is working. This would include binding, banishing, getting rid of bad habits, and so forth.

Again however, as I hinted in my previous two posts, I encourage you to essentially use the Full Moon eclipse and the Solstice as separate events, even though they occur very close together this year. The two energies may have the potential to charge up each other, creating a generally higher-energy time. However, because of the way that these fall, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to combine them into one sort of cosmic super-event. Work with the Moon's energy, or work with the Sun's (solstice), or work with them both separately. But don't try to create a cosmic goulash or jambalaya of this. It may leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Solstice Eclipse of December 2010 - Part 2

2010-12-18T18:00:00.002-05:00

Continuing from the previous post, let's look at the Solstice. As most people know, the Solstice marks the beginning of a new season, either the summer or the winter, depending on whether it's June or December, and whether you are in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. Tropical astrology, the kind of astrology practiced in much of the world other than in India, is linked to the relationship between the Sun and the Earth, and therefore to the seasons. So the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is also by definition the moment that the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn. It's also the moment when the Sun is lined up with the Tropic of Capricorn, which is about 23 degrees south of the equator.

Traditionally, when the Sun goes into one of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) is the time to cast the chart for a country and make predictions based upon that chart. However, there were conditions here. The astrologer starts with casting the first chart of the year at Aries, the Spring equinox. Depending on which quadrant of the chart the Sun falls in, this might be enough for the whole year. For example, if the Sun falls in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, the main action will occur soon, and one would then need to cast a new chart at the Cancer Solstice. If the Sun appeared in the second quadrant (top left), then the chart was good for 6 months, and then one would cast the next chart for the Libra ingress (fall equinox). If the Sun fell in the right half of the chart (the third and/or fourth quadrants), then the major effects of the chart would either be spread over most of the year, or actually happen in the second half of the year (measuring the year from one spring equinox to the next).

For the Aries chart in 2010, in Washington DC, the Sun falls in the 3rd quadrant. It's up in the upper right side of the chart, indicating that the energy would last most of the year, or perhaps have a focus in the Fall. One might point to the elections and the subsequent scrambling by the lame-duck congress to pass as much legislation as they can before the power shift happens as evidence of this. However, it does point to the idea that we are just riding this energy out until the next Spring equinox chart. So we might not want to look to this Capricorn solstice chart to try to draw too many conclusions for the USA itself.

How might these two events fit together?
The eclipse happens at 29 degrees Gemini-Sagittarius, while the Solstice, by definition, happens at 0 degrees Capricorn. While in popular astrology, the idea is popular that if something is on the cusp, it picks up the energy of both signs, this is exactly contrary to the classical way of approaching things. For the ancient astrologers, there was something almost sacred about boundaries. Something is in either one sign or the other, not both. The boundary between signs is like a wall between rooms. One might open the door very briefly to move from one room to the next, but one cannot simultaneously be in both rooms.

There is, however, one idea to consider from classical astrology that may be important here. When planets or other points in a chart fall exactly equidistant from a solstice degree or an equinox degree, they are linked on some level. Here, the eclipse is on degree before the solstice, and the solstice itself of course, is in its own first degree. So we now take two seemingly unrelated energies and make them equivalent to a conjunction. However, nearly everything about Sagittarius/Gemini and Capricorn is different. Sag is a hot fire sign and Gemini a warm air sign, while Capricorn is a cold earth sign. They have precious little in common. So rather than combining these two energies, my sense is that they will just stack energy on top of energy and create a lot of buzz. In fact, one might not want to do anything to augment the energies of the eclipse, given that it's generally not the most favorable of astrological occurrences.

A word on magic and timing
For those who plan to try to harness or celebrate these energies on the 21st, there are a few things that you should be aware of. These types of astrological energies, and aspects in general, work somewhat like an orgasm, to be blunt. That is, the energy builds and builds, until the moment that it is at its height, and then it fades away very quickly. If one is attempting to work with the Full Moon/Eclipse, you should really do your work before the eclipse is at its fullest (or up to that point). After that, even if we can't see it, that energy will dissipate immediately. There may be a desire to wait until one is closest to the Solstice, but if you do that, you will lose any real power that might have been available. On the other hand, the Solstice marks the entrance of the Sun into a new sign. One does not want to anticipate this, since before the moment of the solstice, the Sun is actually still in Sagittarius.

So while the two events may have some important links, I encourage you to work with each one on its own terms, in order to make the most of each. While the temptation may be there to create some grand ritual that combines all of these, it may prove futile or powerless in the end.

Solstice Eclipse of December 2010 - Part 1

2010-12-18T17:18:00.001-05:00

A number of friends have written to ask me my thoughts on the upcoming total Lunar eclipse which falls right before the Winter Solstice in a few days. I have also seen a number of comments about it by other astrologers come across my Facebook page in the last week or so. Let's talk about the two phenomena involved and then see if and how they might connect.

There are at least two Lunar eclipses every year, either partial or full. The degree to which an eclipse is full or not depends on how close the Moon comes to being in a straight line with the Sun and the Earth as it makes its monthly pass around the Earth. Each month the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. But only when it lines up exactly in a straight line does it come close enough for the Earth to block out some of the Sun's light, and create the shadow on the Moon. This happens on average 2-3 times per year, always within a couple of weeks of the two Solar eclipses that happen. So while eclipses happen fairly regularly, it's only once every three years or so that a Lunar eclipse will happen that is visible from the same place on the Earth, so they seem a bit more rare than they actually are.

In traditional astrology, eclipses were seen as fairly bad omens. On a spiritual and a physical level, the "light" is blocked and no longer gets to us. Solar eclipses, of course, are much more dramatic than Lunar eclipses, especially when seen, since a lot more light seems to be blocked; given that it needs to be day time to see a Solar eclipse, this makes sense. It's already fairly dark at night, so while a Lunar eclipse is very dramatic, it doesn't block nearly the amount of light that a Solar eclipse does.

Astrologically, this blocking of light is like a kink in the system. It prevents things from going smoothly. Traditionally, when delineating how an eclipse will affect the chart of an individual or a country, one must look primarily at the house within which the eclipse falls. So if an eclipse falls in one's first house, it will affect health and happiness, in the second house, money, etc. And since this blockage of light represents some sort of blockage in life, we should look for potential problems in those areas. These problems, especially with Lunar eclipses, are more likely to be underlying themes for a 6-12 month period, rather than a one-time, "sh** hits the fan" kind of explosion. But that doesn't mean that they are insignificant either.

This eclipse happens on Dec 21 at 29 Gemini (Moon's position) with the Sun at 29 Sagittarius, in the early hours before dawn here on the East coast of the USA. There are debates about whether the USA chart has Sagittarius or Gemini rising. In either case, since these are opposite signs, we are dealing with either the first house (health, happiness, physical body), or the seventh house (partners and relationships). So we are likely to see problems with the physical health of the USA (health care issues) or the happiness of the citizens (haven't we been grumpy lately), or problems with our foreign relationships and direct allies. I haven't investigated this Sag-Gem issue myself, so I'm not quite sure which is a more likely chart, and therefore, prefer to reserve judgment on making any hard predictions. But whether one is looking at the chart of an individual or a country, the house in which it falls will reveal where there needs to be some major adjustments this year.

See Part 2 for the Solstice and how these two events may relate to one another.

Progress v Evolution: and the winner is...

2010-10-19T14:16:00.000-04:00

When I explain to people that I practice an older form of astrology, one that is more predictive and less psychological, I often get the question: "But don't you think that people have evolved since the Middle Ages?"

The simple answer is No, I do not. Modern folk are all gung-ho on this idea of "evolution." In the 20th century, W.D. Hamilton proposed the idea of Social Evolution as a sub-category of Darwin's theory of the evolution of the species. The basic idea in Social Evolution is that certain choices lead to newly emerging social forms. Others have posited (even before the 20th century) the idea of Spiritual Evolution. However, there are a few problems with these ideas.

In Darwinian evolution, progress is made not by slow, almost imperceptible changes that occur over time, and less so with the conscious participation of the species in question. Rather, changes are made by radical leaps that happen occasionally. Also, evolution leads to a new species, not simply a more advanced form of the older one. Homo sapiens evolved from another species, and when evolution strikes again, the new species will not be homo sapiens. At that point, we will probably have to fight it out with the new species for resources, and likely only one of us will survive (as has happened before).
Theories of Spiritual evolution, dating from the 19th century or so, are based on the idea that spiritual evolution is predetermined. Also, the idea applies to nature and human beings as a species more than as individuals. Here we see again the lack of conscious participation of the subject in its own evolution. (There are some theories that do posit participation, but not most.) But again, the evolution is not to some higher form of the same basic thing. The change is so radical that it leads to a new form of being.

Many today forget the quantum-leap nature of Darwinian evolution. Comments such as "So why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans if evolution is true?" portray a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory and the process of evolution. And as for spiritual evolution, most people today who believe in the concept imagine a personal journey that brings one to a higher level of awareness/consciousness while still in this lifetime. They certainly do not subscribe to the idea that the entire species, and indeed nature itself, is on a predetermined path within which we have few individual choices available.

The conclusion then, among many new age type thinkers or fans, is that what applied to humans 500 years ago must no longer be valid to today's human. Astrologically, the discoveries of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, asteroids, comets, etc., are said to be "proof" that we've "evolved." These "new" planets and bodies, after all, are indicative of our spiritual change as a species, it is said. Now, even if I believed that these newer planets and planetoids had a significant role in astrology (which I don't), the assumption that they are #1. good things, and #2. signs of evolution, are stretches. Think about the keywords and meanings that most modern astrologers associate with Uranus and Pluto, and to a certain extent Neptune, and you will realize that these are mostly negative, difficult energies. (Most of these keywords were stolen from Mars and Saturn, after all.) They try to pretty them up, so that "revolution" becomes "opportunity for change" and so forth, but the basic meanings that have been around since the discoveries of these bodies are difficult. So they're not really so good, and if they represent any kind of "evolution," it must be one that moves in the direction of negativity and individualism, which is not what I think these proponents have in mind.

But the bottom line is that as humans, both individually and collectively, we are have the same basic concerns today as we have had for millennia: security (home, food, health, money [in modern societies]); sex, love and connection with others; survival of the species (the ability/right to bear and raise children); freedom from unnecessary or enforced restraint, and so forth. These are perpetual concerns. One could also argue that they go beyond our own species. Recent studies show that all primates share similar needs.

No one doubts the superiority of our intellect, but we have no basic wants or needs that are not also present in our close relatives. I interact on a daily basis with monkeys and apes, which just like us strive for power, enjoy sex, want security and affection, kill over territory, and value trust and cooperation. Yes, we use cell phones and fly airplanes, but our psychological make-up remains that of a social primate...
The whole reason people fill their homes with furry carnivores and not with, say, iguanas and turtles, is because mammals offer something no reptile ever will. They give affection, they want affection, and respond to our emotions the way we do to theirs.
Frans de Waal, NY Times, Oct 17, 2010

So not only do I believe that we have not "evolved," but the fact is that we are very closely related to our "lower" relatives. And even when we do evolve into some other species, the chances are very hight that we will continue to have the same basic concerns for a very long time: do I have enough food, do I have somewhere to lay my head at night, do I have someone to care for me and for whom I can care, is my health going to hold out? etc.
As my friend and teacher Robert Zoller is wont to say "Do not mistake progress for evolution." Have we progressed? Most certainly. As de Waal points out, we use cell phones and fly airplanes. And I would add to that that we have begun to learn to read the stars and do all sorts of other marvelous things. And progress is moving faster today than at most times in the past. But that doesn't change the fact that we are human; we are social animals with the same needs as our ancestors and as our children. We may satisfy those needs in somewhat different ways now than in the past, but the needs remain the same. To deny that is to deny our humanity.

Thirteenth Sign?

2010-08-26T16:41:00.026-04:00

I received an email with some questions about the so-called "thirteenth sign" of the zodiac that often confounds moderns. There is a constellation that touches the ecliptic - the apparent path of the Sun around the earth - from the north side. It is called Ophiuchus, or Serpentarius, the Serpent-Handler. The 12 zodiacal constellations straddle the ecliptic.

Here are parts of the email (most of it) and my responses to it.

I have been trying to ascertain from Astrologers all over the US their opinions as to why so many who follow the classical model do not recognize Ophiuchus ... a recently popular but ever-present 13th constellation found along the Solar ecliptic like all the houses of the
Zodiac, which sits between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

Ophiuchus was never part of astrology, so there it makes no sense to include it if one is interested in returning astrology to its roots.

During Ptolemy's time it was an included as part of the horoscope while Libra was excluded,

That's not correct. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos refers to Chelae, the claws of the Scorpion. This falls between Virgo and Scorpio, but was not actually considered a part of Scorpio (as evidenced by the fact that it has a separate entry). (See Ashmand's translation, p. 26). Chelae was eventually renamed Libra, but is essentially the same star group. Ophiuchus is on the other side, as you state, between Scorpio and Sagittarius. It is listed on p. 29 of Ashmand as "Serpentarius" (an earlier Latin name for it) as one of the Constellations north of the Zodiac. So Ptolemy clearly did not include it as part of the Zodiac constellations, and as far as the evidence we have, no one else did.

but apparently at some point in history which no one can pinpoint the "serpent-bearer" was removed (perhaps because of the serpent reference being interpreted as satanic?).

As I say, no one removed it. It was simply never part of the 12 zodiacal signs. The satanic reference is dubious, since Serpentarius/Ophiuchus is actually the serpent handler, not the serpent. Perhaps the reason is that the constellation doesn't really cross the ecliptic, rather it just barely touches it to the north, but that's just a guess on my part.

This constellation has always been there in the sky. It isn't as if is mysteriously just appeared... it's huge in comparison to its neighbor Scorpio, but astrologers seem to still pretend it isn't there.

It's not that we pretend that it's not there. Those of us who work with Traditional astrology work not only with the 12 zodiacal signs, but also the fixed stars in the other constellations as well. However, if it doesn't actually cross the ecliptic line, then the planets do not actually move through the constellation, they move above or below it.

With the return of interest in sideareal systems which emphasize ACTUAL observation (i.e. taking our noses out of dusty old books and looking up for a change) it seems common sense to re-introduce it... it's right there for everyone to see after all.

There is really nothing to "reintroduce", since as I've said, it never formed part of the zodiac.

But let me be clear, those of us who are practicing traditional Western astrology are not practicing sidereal astrology. From the beginning, two systems emerged: sidereal and tropical. The sidereal system is based upon the relationship of the earth to the stars, specifically to the alpha star in the constellation of Aries. However, the constellations are not all composed of neat, 30 degree figures, and even sidereal astrologers use a stylized "12 signs x 30 degrees each" system. The tropical zodiac is based on the relationship between the earth and the sun, and consequently on the seasons. It's about life in our very own solar system, not all the rest of them. So neither system is based upon what one "actually" sees in the sky. From the very beginning, as I indicate above, astrology was stylized. There is an intimate connection between sacred geometry and sacred number. The number 12 is divisible by 3 modes and 4 elements. It's divisible easily by 2 polarities (masculine/feminine, diurnal/nocturnal, positive/negative, etc.). The theory of astrological aspects is tied to this. The number 13 may be sacred for other reasons, but it does not serve the purposes of astrology.

Finally, astrology has never been about exact physical observation alone. It has always been combined with the idea that there is a magic about it, and that the Hermetic law of "as above, so below" is the ideal. Those who insist on a purely scientific approach to astrology misunderstand it, and whether consciously or not, buy into the modern atheistic mindset (yes, even if they themselves are astrologers). That is not to say that astrological methods can't be tested and repeatable, but not everything can be explained in terms of billiard balls knocking against one another.

An Aquarius by any other name...

2010-08-09T18:56:00.006-04:00

One of my problems with modern astrology texts, and by extension, most modern astrologers, is the lack of critical thinking involved in the practice. Most people today read the modern texts off the shelf of Barnes and Noble, or order them from Amazon, and assume that what's in them is correct. In my first six months of studying astrology, years ago, this was the process that was available to me too. And the few classes that I took were taught by astrologers who were working from these same texts. We often assume today that if it's in print, then it must be true, or at the very least, written by an expert on the subject. With the arrival of easy internet access, this approach is even more pervasive today; even the light-weight, poorly-written texts take on the weight of authority, simply because they have made it into print, and aren't merely virtual (online) texts.

One example of this is the sign of Aquarius. Modern astrology erroneously ascribes "rulership" of Aquarius to the planet Uranus, while classically, the ruler is Saturn. I won't go into the crazy (really, crazy) reasons for this rulership in this post, but let's look at some examples of the repercussions of this.

Surfing on over to astrology.com, their website says the following of Aquarius:
"...these folks can be quite fixed in their opinions, in keeping with the Fixed Quality assigned to this sign."
"... which is why they focus much of their energy on our social institutions and how they work."
"If it's new, radical and rebellious, Aquarians are all over it. "
"Some might call their behavior eccentric."
"They are truly the trailblazers of the zodiac."
http://www.astrology.com/aquarius-sun-sign-zodiac-signs/2-d-d-66917

Over at astrologyweekly.com, we find:
"Aquarius' planetary ruler is actually a combination of Saturn and Uranus. The two together form a curious duality: Saturn's influence can be seen in an Aquarian's cool level-headedness, while Uranus' pull is in the need to be unique, modern, and unconventional."
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/sun-signs/aquarius-origin-representation.php

"As a sign of the people, you refuse to be placed on a higher level than your friends, even though you may deserve it. You distrust and dislike hierarchies—you're a true democrat—so inequities of class and race fuel your ardor all the more... Despite your social passions, you're actually very solitary and independent more than people realize."
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/sun-signs/aquarius-positive-qualities.php

What seems to escape people who read this is that the whole idea of being Fixed is contrary to the idea of being radical and rebellious. I'm not sure why people don't see this more clearly.* What's going on here is the "blending" (a term used often in modern astrology) of the traditional keywords for Aquarius (fixed, stubborn, opinionated, socially-focused, new-structure oriented, democratic, refusing hierarchy) with the invented keywords for Uranus (rebelliousness, individuality, radical change, solitude, uniqueness, unexpected actions and reversals). These are contrary energies. But most modern astrology texts mix them together, and the reader often swallows it with no further reflection.

Now for those who eschew the use of the modern planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), this confusion is even more problematic, since according to Traditional astrology, Uranus has no place in astrological delineation anyway. (The keywords used above and in general for Uranus were taken from their original associations with the Sun and Mars, despite Uranus' purported status as the "higher octave" of Mercury. See Lee Lehman's The Book of Rulerships for an excellent explanation of how this happened. See also Sue Ward's well-researched "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: an investigation into the sources of their symbolism.")

Now here's the catch: Some Sun-sign Aquarians are independent, rebellious, and chaotic. However, this is not due to their Sun being in Aquarius. First of all, read my previous post, part of which is about how the Sun sign is not where one would look for personality, in traditional astrology. It's the Rising Sign that's more important here. So having the Sun in Aquarius, unless it is somehow accidentally configured to the personality and physical body/happiness, is completely irrelevant to whether a person is rebellious or not. In addition, as I've been arguing, it's not Aquarius that makes one rebellious anyway. If a person who has the Sun in Aquarius or Aquarius Rising is rebellious and independent, more than socially oriented, there is something else going on in their natal chart that is accounting for this. Every time I've had a Sun-Aquarius try to tell me how independent and brilliant they are, I have discovered that they have something like Mars conjunct or square the Ascendant, or the planet that rules the Ascendant. Of course, in many cases, these individuals are neither very independent nor brilliant, they just think that they are because they read it in an astrology book. What's amazing to me is that many of these people have themselves been professional, modern-style, astrologers. Overlooking Mars (or some other major factor) as the real indicator of their unique and chaos-loving selves. Hmm. If they couldn't even see that a planet like Mars was the culprit/reason, then it's no wonder that they haven't arrived at an accurate understanding of Aquarius. As my mother used to say, whenever we couldn't find something that was right in front of us, if this (Mars) had teeth, it would have bit them in the face.

Traditional (classical through medieval) authors don't give lists of "descriptions" of signs. Generally, they list the qualities, and then the things that the sign is associated with (professions, animals, places, stones, colors, etc.). For example, Aquarius is fixed, airy (therefore moist and warm), diurnal (as opposed to nocturnal), masculine, human (not bestial like Aries or Leo, etc.), vocal (it's not a mute animal like Pisces or Scorpio, etc.), the primary sign of Saturn, and so on. From these qualities, logical conclusions can be drawn, but they must all accord with these characteristics. So for example, Aquarius would be talkative (human and vocal), stubborn (fixed), intellectual (airy and human), structural (Saturn), and so on. While being a masculine, airy, human/intellectual sign will allow Aquarius to be more forward-looking than, say Capricorn (Saturn's other sign), this does not allow for a break from the Fixed, Saturnian nature of the sign, so it cannot be rebellious, independent, and prone to sudden and unexpected reversals.

One other example from personal experience. A friend has the Sun in Capricorn with Libra rising, and Saturn in Libra in the first house. This friend often refer's to his Capricorn nature (dark, strict, formal, etc). In reality, what he is experiencing is Saturn's influence in Libra. Saturn's exaltation in Libra allows him to be himself, but on his best behavior. Of course, having the ruler of the sun-sign (Saturn rules Capricorn) in the Ascendant (aka Rising Sign, aka First House) will associate Capricorn with the personality. But most of what my friend points to as Capricorn is really Libra, with Saturn helping. (More in a later post about misunderstandings of signs like Libra.)

As in my previous post, I am trying here to encourage people to go a little deeper into astrology, if they're going to be quoting it all over the place. To paraphrase myself: we all know that what we read about Sun signs is superficial, but we can't seem to stop perpetuating it. So before we say that we do such-and-such, or that we are a certain way because we're "an Aquarius" or any other one astrological factor, we should take a step back and remember that the natal chart, like the person it mirrors is a complex interaction of many factors, and we shouldn't sell ourselves short (or make excuses) by boxing ourselves into stereotypes.

* For the record, not everything in the description of Aquarius on this web page is wrong, and some of it is quite good, but the ignorant mixing of the accurate with the bogus makes delineating Aquarius, according to these descriptions, nearly impossible.

"I'm an Aries." "I'm a Capricorn." - Well I'm a human.

2010-08-05T11:47:00.000-04:00

I was recently at a meeting of about thirty-five people, where a few of the folks on the team didn't know each other very well. One of the leaders of the group suggested that while going around and introducing ourselves and which piece of the project we were working on this year, we all say what our Sun-sign was. So as we went around, everyone started with something like "I'm Charlie, and I'm an Aquarius..." I was the last person to introduce myself, and I said (trying to sound the least snobby I could) "I'm Chris, and I am not an astrological sign [a few weird looks]. When I was born, the Sun was in X sign and Y sign was Rising." I'm sure that a few people in the crowd thought that I was being pretentious, but since they all know me as a Traditional Astrologer (and they are all my friends), I'm hoping that they didn't just ignore the comment.

I realize that the purpose of the request to state the Sun sign was to get an overall idea of the "mix" of energies that were being brought to bear on the project. At the end of the intros, someone pronounced that there was a nice mix of all the elements. However, as I present in my talk Hey Baby, What's Your (Rising) Sign?, until recently, the Sun was not regularly considered as any sort of indication in one's personality or personal make up (and by extension, the "energy" that one might bring to a project).

In my talk, I present the probability that astrologers of the twentieth century in the USA started to disguise their work under the new, respectable heading of "psychology" to avoid prosecution on anti-fortune telling laws; to do this, they started to describe each of the zodiacal signs in terms of personality traits. (Sorry that I don't have a reference here; if I write more about this, I'll try to dig it out, but it's more work than I can do to find it for a simple blog post.) In addition, I present my theory that the reasons that people started associating these traits with the Sun are probably two: 1- It's quite easy to know what zodiacal sign the Sun is in on any given day of the year, and in fact most newspapers or online astrology columns list these dates. There are 360 degrees in the circle of the zodiac through which the Sun passes, and 365 days in a year, on average. So it's approximately one day per degree, which is quite easy to predict with almost no mathematical precision needed. 2- The post-Freudian association of the Sun (astrological) with the Ego. The Sun is the Hero in the hero's journey, and the "hero" of my natal chart is me. Therefore, the Sun must be a nice summary of me.

Another technique used in modern astrology is to take the elements and modalities of all of the planets in a person's chart (that is, the zodiacal signs in which they are all placed), and maybe their ascendant and midheaven as well, and boil them down to a "signature." So if a preponderance of your planets are in fixed signs (rather than cardinal or mutable), and you have a plurality of planets in air signs, your "signature" would be Aquarius (fixed air). But this is a mere shadow of the rich technique used for hundreds of years to determine an individual's temperament. Though there are some competing methodologies for arriving at a person's temperament (choleric, sanguine, melancholic, or phlegmatic), most agree on most issues in the process, and arrive at a much richer description of what qualities, if you will, make up a particular individual.

Prior to this Sun-sign craze, if one had to look at only one part of a person's natal chart to begin to get a fairly good description of their personality, that place would be the Rising Sign/Ascendant, not the Sun sign. The Rising Sign corresponds to a person's physical body, health, and happiness. Any planets in the Ascendant (first house) will play a predominant roll, then the sign on the cusp should be considered, then the planet that rules that sign (look at the chart to see where that planet is, how it is placed, etc.).

Traditionally, the Sun is about honor, fame, glory, preferments. So the Sun really has nothing to do with the personality, unless it is configured "accidentally" to it. For example, the Sun is the body that rules Leo; if Leo is the Rising Sign, then the Sun, and the sign that it is in, will have some bearing on the personality, due to the Sun's rulership of Leo rising. Also, if the Sun is in the first house (the Ascendant or Rising Sign), then obviously, the Sun will be determined toward personality. If the Sun Sign and the Rising Sign are the same (this can happen if a person is born near dawn), then obviously there is a relationship there. And finally, if the Sun aspects (conjuncts, opposes, squares, trines, or sextiles) the Ascendant itself, or the planet that rules it, then it is determined toward first house affairs (body, health, happiness).

To divide people and archive them into one of twelve boxes (the signs of the zodiac) is to do what newspaper sun-sign columns do. And we all complain about that, so why do we perpetuate it? I propose the answer is that people don't know how to do otherwise. They know that Sun-sign astrology is superficial, but they don't know how to get beyond it. Modern astrological texts don't help, they simply perpetuate this. Despite their pleas to take the entire chart into consideration, they will still delineate people's personalities predominantly by the sign that the Sun was in when they were born.

But what struck me more than ever at this meeting was that in listening to people introduce themselves as "I am a Sagittarius," etc., not only are we reducing the personality to the incorrect correlation, but we are reducing the entire person to a sign of the zodiac. And not just to that sign, but to our imperfect (and often erroneous) understanding of it. Instead of dealing with people as individuals, who embody all sorts of different "energies," we are engaging in a calculus of stereotyping, and according to categories that most of us don't even understand. I'll point out here too that most of the astrologers or astrology buffs who engage in this kind of activity, as if it will tell them how everyone in the group will act, are also the ones who denigrate the idea that there is any such thing as fate in astrology. Note the internal contradiction here.

So I repeat: I am not an astrological sign. While there is some information, and even some wisdom to be gained by a familiarity with my birth chart, we should all resist the temptation to deal with people as if they were merely zodiacal signs, and attempt to see them as the unique individuals that they are.

The Predictive Power of Profections and Planetary Periods (Firdaria) Part III - Betty White's Career

2010-06-15T22:52:00.000-04:00

Continuing from the previous post:

Career
Betty White’s career has spanned more than 70 years, making a thorough treatment of it an impossibility in blog format. However, her recent resurgence in popularity (she may, in fact, be more popular than ever before) made me curious about what’s going on for her astrologically. Again, I’ll limit myself to the two techniques I’ve been using in this series: Profections and Firdaria, and I’ll necessarily limit myself to a few highlights from her long career.

Note: all data which follows is from the Wikipedia page on Betty White.

White began her show biz career right out of high school. Since most people start working at this age, and she lived in Beverly Hills, it’s probably not terribly noteworthy for our purposes. From age 20-32, she was in her Jupiter period. Her natal Jupiter is in Libra in the 3^rd house, fairly well dignified, and sextile to her Ascendant. However, it is also square to her natal Venus, the sign ruler of her Midheaven (career); so while a certain amount of success is indicated, one would not quite expect to “hit it big” during this period. Nevertheless, White began her TV hosting in 1952 (having been on the show herself for a couple of years) when the host of Hollywood on Television left the show. Though this was during her Jupiter period, Saturn was the co-ruler this year, and we saw previously that Saturn is dignified and in her house of money. It is also conjunct the Moon, the ruler (almuten) of the 10^th house (career) and the North Node, generally considered a good luck point.

Her first real career boost came between 1952-55, when she played the title roll in Life With Elizabeth. This brings her squarely into her Mars firdar. Mars in her chart is very highly dignified, in Scorpio, and very quantitatively powerful, being right on the 4^th house cusp. She co-produced the show, and won her first Emmy for it. By the mid-50’s, the show was nationally syndicated, and she was the only woman in Hollywood with complete creative control over her own show (Mars in Scorpio). The 1950s in general were an extremely successful time in White’s career, and her Mars firdar lasted until 1961. The 52-55 span were also 7^th - 10^th house years, 7^th house having a focus on relationships and contracts, and 10^th house focusing on the career.

Betty White’s film debut was in 1962, in Advise and Consent, which,though it claimed some critical success, was not a big commercial hit. This was during the North Node firdar. It may be noteworthy that aside from a 1978 short subject film, White did not start appearing in films again until the 1990s. This means that her film career really didn’t begin until she was well into her Mercury firdar, and into her 70s. Her real success has always been in television, where during the 60s and 70s she slowly became one of the most successful actors in her field. Her years on the Mary Tyler Moore show were mostly during her Venus firdar (which rules her 10^th house of career). Her natal Venus is in her 6^th house of work. During her years on The Golden Girls, she was in her Mercury firdar, Mercury also being in her 6^th house, and ruling her 2^nd (money) and her 11^th (friends). Mercury also squares exactly her Midheaven; while the square isn’t usually a friendly aspect, Mercury is not a particularly malevolent planet, and the contact is probably better than no contact at all.

But what drew my attention is White’s current return to stardom. While she has worked non-stop for a very long time, there are certain shows that were more successful than others, and during those runs she has been more in the public eye than in intervening years. In 2006, White participated in the Comedy Central roast of William Shatner, with whom she starred in Boston Legal. For many young people, seeing this older woman make such openly rude, crude jokes, while still maintaining an air of elegance and even innocence, was an eye-opener. In 2006, White entered her second major Saturn firdar. Remember that her Saturn is well-dignified in her house of money, conjunct the Moon, which is the almuten (overall ruler) of her career house (10^th). Saturn rules her house of work and relationships/contractual partnerships. So in general, these years should continue to be quite good for Betty. In early 2010, a Facebook campaign to get White to host Saturday Night Live led to the announcement on March 11 that she would host the show in May of that year. This was exactly one day after Mars took over as co-ruler (with Saturn). We have already seen the power and dignity of her Mars, which was her major ruler when she really started to make it big. In addition, 2010 is a 5^th house year for White, which brings fun, play, creativity, sex, etc. to the fore.

When I started this series, I mentioned that we would be able to really only scratch the surface of what Profections and Firdaria have to show in Betty White’s chart. Nevertheless, just “scratching the surface” has spilled into three long blog entries. What fascinates me most about these techniques is (especially when one goes into detail) how much information they can give about a person’s life without even looking at transits, or what’s going on currently in the sky that might affect one’s natal chart. This is all based on one, single chart – the natal chart of the person. This raises all sorts of questions about the roll of fate in astrology. I’m sure that I’ll get to ponder that here at some point in the future.

The Predictive Power of Profections and Planetary Periods (Firdaria) Part II – Betty White's Marriages

2010-06-15T20:17:00.004-04:00

In the past few years, the career of Betty White, veteran actor, has seen a huge boost once again. Her work has spanned over 7 decades, since she began modeling at age 17. Although investigating overall fame is beyond the scope of this post, I thought that it might be fun to look at her career (or a few moments of it) and her marriages in light of these two classical techniques.

Chart data

Marriages
According to the Wikipedia entry for Betty White and her page on IMDB.com, she has been married three times. The first, to Dick Barker, lasted only a few months, from June to December 1945. The second marriage was also short-lived, lasting only two years, from late 1947-1949. Her third marriage was to fellow game-show host Allen Ludden, and lasted from 1963 until he died in 1981 of stomach cancer.

In Betty’s natal chart, her house of marriage (7th house) has no planets in it, and Aquarius is on the cusp. Being a fixed sign, we would suspect that a marriage would last. However, being ruled by Saturn, there are sure to be some problems. Happily for her, Saturn in her natal chart is in quite good shape in Libra, where it is well-dignified by exaltation and triplicity. It is in her second house, so marriage and money/material security will have some link. It is also conjunct the Moon in late Virgo; the Moon rules her Midheaven (10th house cusp) and is therefore an indicator of career. So we see marriage and career as two areas that are likely to be tied to one another.

1945 was a twelfth-house profected year for Betty. The twelfth house is a place of loss, sorrow, hidden enemies, confinement, major illness. While there is no information readily available on line about why they divorced, the fact that Dick Barker was a chicken farmer (as well as military pilot) was probably too confining for someone with major Hollywood ambitions. It’s possible too, that they did not get along at all (hidden enemies), though without more documentation, it’s impossible to say for sure. Betty’s 12th house has Cancer on the cusp, which is ruled by the Moon, also in her second house. So perhaps she sought a security in the relationship that didn’t manifest. Regardless, marrying during a 12th house year not the best indicator of success. When Betty married Barker, she was in her Jupiter/Sun firdar. Jupiter had taken major rulership in 1942 for 12 years, and this particular year was co-ruled by the Sun. Jupiter is dignified in her natal chart, is in the 3rd house, and rules the 5th (lovers) and the 8th (death).

Betty married again in late 1947, and this marriage lasted just two years. 1947 was a 2nd house profected year for her, so again, money and security come into play. Also, Saturn, the ruler of her 7th house (marriage) is in her 2nd house, so whenever a 2nd house year rolls around for her, relationship is one of the key themes (in addition to money). Saturn also rules her 6th house of work; so it’s not terribly surprising that she married her agent, Lane Allen. Jupiter was still her major period ruler in the Firdaria scheme, but by now, Venus was the co-ruler. Venus is in Betty’s 6th house of work also, in Capricorn, fairly well dignified in that sign, though combust (too close to the Sun) and in a house that’s not the greatest one to be in anyway. So at best her Venus is in middling condition; in reality, it’s in somewhat poor condition. In addition, Jupiter and Venus are square to one another in her natal chart. So a fantastic marriage is not a likely result.

Two years later, when she divorced, she was near the end of a 4th house year. The focus here would have been on home and family. She has a very powerful Mars, dignified in Scorpio, right on her 4th house cusp. Regardless of the focus on the home, this will be a contentious year, given Mars’ placement there. Also, by now, the co-ruler (still along with Jupiter) for that year was Mercury, which is also in her 6th house, but is square to the Mars. So there is a lot of conflict going on here having to do with home, family, work. Mercury in her chart rules her house of friends, and Betty is quoted as having said that she and Lane Allen were good friends, but that they should not have married.

White’s third and most successful marriage came in 1963 to fellow game show host Allen Ludden. That year was a profected 6th house year for her. Again we see the focus on work. And remember that the 6th house is ruled by Saturn, which also rules her 7th house. So we see a permanent connection between daily work and marriage for her. With this marriage, the connections is the strongest, and the two worked together on many TV shows in the next two decades.

In mid-1963, Betty was in the middle of the three-year span that was ruled by the North Node. Generally, the North Node is seen as of the nature of Jupiter and Venus, the two naturally benefic planets. So this would have been a far more positive time than in previous marriage years. Her natal North Node is conjunct her dignified Saturn (ruler of 7th house of marriage) in her 2nd house (money). So the timing on this one is looking far better for success.

Ludden died in 1981 of stomach cancer. Once again, White was in a profected 12th house year (loss, sorrow, hidden enemies, serious illness). Her 12th house has Cancer on the cusp (yes, there is a connection between Cancer and cancer in that it is a very fertile sign, and cancer is unbounded growth). Cancer also rules the stomach. By now, Betty was in a Venus/Jupiter firdaria. Remember from earlier that Venus and her Jupiter square one another in her natal chart. Remember also that Jupiter rules her 8th house – death.

One might ask: If Saturn rules White’s house of marriage (7th house), then why wouldn’t she be more likely to marry during a Saturn Firdar? For those born at night, Saturn is the major ruler from age 9-20, most of which is a far less likely time to marry. The next major Saturn period began in 2006 at age 84, and will last until 2017 (see below for comments on this and career). Again, unlikely ages for marriage. There were two periods in which Saturn was a co-ruler before Betty married Ludden: from mid-1952 until early 1954, and from January 1959-January 1960. Since I haven’t read a detailed biography of her, I can’t really say what happened during those times, but it’s likely that there were some proposals or at least possibilities of marriage hovering around.

(An interesting note: Ludden’s first wife died days before their 18th wedding anniversary; Ludden himself died just days before his and White’s 18th wedding anniversary. One day, it may be worth a look at his chart to investigate this “coincidence” in depth.)

Coming Next: Betty White's Career

The Predictive Power of Profections and Planetary Periods (Firdaria) Part I

2010-06-15T18:18:00.000-04:00

Ancient astrology was good at predicting. Back in the days before psychology, astrology was perfected as a predictive art. I won’t go into the reasons for its demise here, but thankfully, many of the older philosophies and techniques have been being recovered by skilled astrologer-linguists in recent decades.

Two of the “lost techniques of the ancients” that work particularly well, and which I use in my daily practice are Profections and Firdaria (planetary periods).

Profections
This is a simple and ancient technique, and not to be confused with Secondary Progressions, which is a fairly modern one. It is based on symbolically moving the chart one house per year. So from age 0-1, everyone is in a 1st house year. From age 1-2, all are in a 2nd house year, etc. Every 12 years, we return back to the Ascendent and a 1st house year again. So on birthdays # 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, we start the 12-year cycle again. There is much more detailed information to be gained by thoroughly employing this technique; for now, I will focus only on the main house for each year. Ideally, it should also be used in conjunction with Solar Returns, but that’s more detail than I want to involve here.

Firdaria
This is a Persian word that comes from the Greek “period” (Greek ‘p’ > ‘f’ in Persian). The basic idea is that we are all subject to the rulership of each of the planets at different points in our lives. The scheme is the same for everyone, with one variation, which I’ll explain in a moment. The planets are used from Saturn inward through the Moon, and each rules a given number of years. Saturn rules 11 years, Jupiter 12, Mars 7, the Sun 10 years, Venus 8, Mercury 13, and the Moon 9. The North and South Lunar Nodes get 3 and 2 years respectively, and are inserted after Mars.

The variation I mentioned is this: Anyone born in the day time starts with the Sun as their ruler (for 10 years) and continues around the circle in order. Anyone born at night time (that is, with the Sun below the horizon in their natal chart) starts their lives with the Moon (for 9 years) and then continues on, clockwise, in order. This brings 75 years, which is a healthy life span for most humans. Each of these periods is subdivided again by 7, and each of the other planets co-rules one of those 7 subdivisions, but I won't go into that more. After age 75, you simply begin again with the Sun or the Moon, depending on the diurnal or nocturnal chart.

Coming next: Part II, the case of Betty White

Not Again With This Retrograde Thing! (Not Really, Read On...)

2010-06-09T19:23:00.002-04:00

A Facebook friend posted earlier today about how people are being jerks all around and you would think that Mercury is still retrograde. Excuse me for harping on this issue, but there is a lot going on astrologically, all the time, that has nothing to do with Mercury. Or retrogrades. Now, I don't blame this person at all for attributing it to Mercury retro, since that is the only thing that modern astrologers seem to teach these days about what might be going "wrong" in a chart or in transits. Until better quality info gets out there, or at least the understanding that things are more complex than one planet's being retrograde, folks won't have even the basic language to begin to understand any of this.

However, the really interesting thing here was a comment that was made in response to that post. A self-identified astrologer attributed this people-lashing-out business to the fact that Pluto is retrograde until September. As stated in one of my earlier posts, Pluto (along with Uranus and Neptune) is retrograde for about six months every year. Yup, easy math: 50% of the time, these planets are retrograde. So blaming current behavior on something as generalized as that (citing Pluto's "intensity") really seems a lazy response, not to mention a particularly modern one.

My own response to the issue is that Jupiter and Uranus are standing at 0 degrees Aries, on the world axis. Haughty Jupiter and unbound, unpredictable Uranus in the cardinal fire sign may be spewing forth this energy that people have a right to do whatever they want, consequences be damned. Saturn is only 3 degrees off the opposition, in late Virgo; so beneath this outward haughtiness and disdain for consequences, there may be a nagging feeling that it's not OK to be a jerk, but that just makes people feel guiltier (Saturn) and even jerkier about it. Mercury is about to hit 0 Gemini, so don't be surprised to see an onslaught of words that usher that smug, holier-than-thou attitude into the public arena. The Moon will be crossing this point (0 Gemini) for a few hours too, so Thursday of this week might be particularly unbearable. But this will pass.

My real wish is for those who call themselves astrologers to investigate and study things more deeply before making public pronouncements. In this day of Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and other social media, anyone who calls herself or himself an astrologer, and who pronounces publicly on astrology, has a responsibility to educate themselves enough so that when they do speak or write, they don't embarrass those of us who take this Art seriously enough to do so.

Retrograde Schmetrograde

2010-05-11T16:07:00.000-04:00

I was recently catching up on one of my favorite blogs, Christopher Warnock's Renaissance Astrology Blog (we pre-Enlightenment types have to stick together, you know). Reading the post on retrogrades, I had to agree with him wholeheartedly. If you haven't read my own posts on retrogrades, go here to find them. Christopher points out a few things, and though I encourage you to read his post, here are the ones that jumped out at me, restated in my own words, and with some of my own thoughts thrown in.

Modern astrologers eschew any talk of "malefics". They often refuse to acknowledge that Mars, Saturn and sometimes other planets may work against our desires; however...
There is no way to categorize their descriptions and delineations of Mercury retrograde as anything other than "malefic", i.e., he will work against your purposes.
There are far worse debilities that Mercury can suffer than retrogradation: detriment and fall (in Pisces), afflicted by malefics, combust, and so forth, and these happen on and off all the time, yet no one seems concerned about them.
Reading modern astrologers' take on Mercury retrograde, one would think that Mercury is the single most important planet in any chart, and that it rules everything.
When Mercury, or any other planet, is retrograde, Life Goes On! One cannot stop and jump of the merry-go-round for ten weeks each year just because Mercury is retrograde. Businesses open, contracts are signed, autos and computers are purchased etc.

A lot of this reminds me of when I lived on Cape Cod, and was more closely associated with a particular gift shop; once or twice a year, when some big alignment was happening, the local paper would call to ask what we thought would happen. The psychics at the shop (one in particular) would give some spiel about realigning energies, yadda, yadda... I would often preface my comments with "you're probably not going to like what I have to say". This was because my reply to their question was usually "nothing out of the ordinary will happen that day". What's interesting about this is that it was me, the Medieval astrologer, of the famous gloom-and-doom Medieval astrologers, who was predicting business as usual. The modern types - who, remember, don't believe in malefics - were always the ones predicting some kind of Armageddon-type event. Just look online to see what people are saying about 2012, and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

One day I'll design and market the "Retrogrades Happen" bumper sticker. For now, suffice it to say, amongst ourselves, that they do. And life continues.

Retrogrades 2010

2010-04-18T17:49:00.011-04:00

Retrogrades 2010

All events are given for Midnight at Greenwich Mean Time

If you're not sure what the "Stationary" refers to, please see the prior post.

	Stationary Retrograde	Retro	Stationary Direct	Direct
Mercury	24 Dec ('09)	27 Dec ('09) 27º Cap	14 Jan	16 Jan 5º Cap
	15 Apr	19 Apr 12º Tau	10 May	12 May 2º Tau
	20 Aug	21 Aug 19º Vir	11 Sep	13 Sep 5º Vir
	08 Dec	11 Dec 5º Cap	29 Dec	31 Dec 19º Sag
Venus	05 Oct	09 Oct 13º Sco	15 Nov	19 Nov 27º Lib
Mars	09 Dec ('09)	21 Dec ('09) 19º Leo	01 Mar	11 Mar 0º Leo
Jupiter	08 Jul	24 Jul 3º Ari	02 Nov	19 Nov 23º Pis
Saturn	18 Dec ('09)	14 Jan 4º Lib	18 May	31 May 27º Vir

Retrogrades and the supposed "Shadow"

2010-04-18T17:21:00.002-04:00

Modern astrology posits that when a planet that goes retrograde and then direct, it also passes through a "shadow" connected to that cycle. The idea is that, for example, if Mercury goes retrograde at, say, 12º Taurus, and then travels back to 2º Taurus, then the "pre-shadow" period is from the time that Mercury originally reaches 2º to the time it gets to 12º, then the "post-shadow" period is when it goes direct at 2º to the time it reaches 12º again.

This is a purely modern invention, and has no basis in Classical or Medieval astrology.

If this were true, then Mercury, for example, would spend over seven months of the year debilitated by being either retrograde or in the shadow. This would mean constant problems, especially for those who are ruled by the planet.

Those who espouse this idea claim that they have observed the shadow effects during these periods. However, there are no specific examples given, just generalities. Also, it's curious that this is something that was not observed by the great astrologers of the past, who did a lot more actual observing, of the planets themselves, not just their cycles on charts.

When observing retrograde cycles, I encourage you to pay attention to the stations and the actual retrogrades, and while I won't discourage you from trying to tease some meaning out of this "shadow" idea, I recommend that one have lots of specific examples before including it in any readings or predictive work.

Retrograde Planets: What to do?

2010-04-15T11:40:00.001-04:00

In the previous post, I outlined a few ways in which a retrograde planet might affect someone personally:

the person is heavily ruled by the planet that is retrograde
the person is in a planetary period ruled by the retrograde planet
the retrograde planet is aspecting a person's chart directly

So what happens when there's a retrograde and life must go on? The washing machine breaks, and you have 4 kids at home and no laundromat nearby. The lawn mower blows up and your yard is turning into a field of wild flowers. Your boss has scheduled that important conference, conference call, or project deadline during the retrograde period. We can't just stop in our tracks until the retrograde cycle is over.

Let's take Mercury retrograde as an example, since it's the one that most people are familiar with, and the one that happens most often (it also "conveniently" rules many of the things that make our daily lives "work").

A friend recently replied to the news that Mercury is now stationary retrograde by posting that she has a new business set to open a few days before Mercury goes direct again (surprise!). I don't know what kind of business it is, but all businesses that are involved in Merchanting are ruled by Mercury (you can even see the similarity in the words Mercury and Merchant). Does this retrograde spell automatic doom for the business? No! While it's not the ideal astrological situation under which to open a new business, there are some things that can help a great deal here.

On the day of the Grand Opening, one can pick a time that minimizes the Mercury influence in the chart. Now if Mercury were in really good shape (in Gemini, Virgo, or another Air Sign), one would want to maximize its effects for merchants. But here's a trick for minimizing any damage that he might do. Construct the chart for the opening time of the business so that Mercury does not rule any houses in the chart that are significant to the business. This requires a good knowledge of the houses in a chart and what the mean, and how they might relate to one another, which is beyond the scope of this post. But I'll spell it out a bit more by way of example.

Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo. So these signs in the chart of the Grand Opening should be on the cusps of houses that have nothing to do with what the business is about. Here are the houses that will generally be important to any business:

1st house (aka Ascendant or Rising Sign) rules the actual business and the life and health of the company
2nd house rules the money that the business makes through its own efforts, and any assets that could be liquidated quickly (for example, not real estate or stocks)
10th house rules the reputation or fame of the business (think publicity)
7th house rules clients
6th house rules employees

There may be other important houses involved, but without knowing more detail, it's impossible to guess. So we want to pick a time of day when neither Gemini nor Virgo is on the cusp of any of these houses. Also, we want to make sure that the Mercury retrograde is not in any of these houses.

The good news for my friend is that there are a number of realistic times during that day where Mercury is not in control of these places. At 9-10 am, for example (at her location), Gemini is on the 12th house cusp (secret enemies, isolation). So having the 12th house ruler (Mercury) in really bad shape (retrograde) is a good thing! Also at that time, Virgo is on the 4th house cusp. The 4th house is the land; so unless she (and/or any of her business partners) own the land for the new business, this is not a serious issue. Also during this time, Mercury itself is passing from the 12th house into the 11th house. By 11 am, however, that Mercury retrograde is in the 10th house of the chart (reputation, fame, publicity), so I would definitely avoid opening between about 10:30-1pm. And then as Gemini and Virgo move around the houses, they may fall onto places where you don't want them. For example, by 1pm, Virgo is on the 2nd house - money, which would not be a good thing.

So this is how you might avoid potential disaster during a retrograde cycle. Especially with new businesses, you should do everything possible to keep your hard-earned investment money and make it grow.

Disclaimer: there are other things in electing a time like this. Other planets, signs, and houses, and especially the Moon will play a significant role. And just because the Mercury retrograde does not rule any of these significant houses in the chart, that does not mean that they are automatically in good shape; one must take many factors into account. But this should give you an idea of how to go through the astrological "back door" when it's necessary.

Retrograde Planets

2010-04-15T09:38:00.001-04:00

Before listing the actual dates (in a later post), let me make a few comments about retrograde cycles in general and what to do with them.

Retrograde Cycles

Outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) spend almost half the year retrograde, and they don't rule zodiacal signs, so for most purposes, one can ignore the retrograde cycles. The one exception to this is if the planet changes direction within a degree or so of one of your personal points in a chart (Ascendant, Midheaven, Sun, Moon, for example).
Jupiter and Saturn each spend about 4 months retrograde in a given year. So unless you have a big focus of planets in their signs (Sagittarius, Pisces, Capricorn, Aquarius, Cancer & Libra [these last two are the exaltation signs of Jupiter and Saturn]) don't worry too much about these. The most important thing here is to see what house it's going through in your chart and accept that there may be some slow-downs and reversals in those areas.
Mars will spend 2-3 months retrograde, on average, but it only happens about every 2 years. See above for Jupiter and Saturn for how to deal with this. Mars signs are Scorpio, Aries and Capricorn (exaltation).
Venus goes retrograde about every 18 months, for about 6 weeks at a time. Venus signs are Taurus, Libra, and Pisces (exaltation). Venus also rules relationships in general, love, lust, and to a certain extent, fun. So this has the potential to affect everyone in these areas, as well as those who are heavily Venus-ruled.
Mercury goes retrograde on average 3 times a year for about 3 weeks each time. Mercury-ruled signs are Gemini and Virgo, so if you have a lot of this in your chart, it may affect you personally. Also, Mercury is the natural ruler of communications, thinking, writing, and Merchants. So these things, as well as mechanical items, are usually affected more directly for everyone.

A retrograde planet is far more likely to affect someone if it goes retrograde, or turns direct, at or near the position of a planet in your own natal chart. A Mercury retrograde passing over one's Ascendant, for example, will be more significant than one that is buried in the 8th house, with no aspects to anything else in the chart.

Planetary Periods

Another time that one might be affected specifically by these retrograde cycles is if one is in a planetary period that corresponds to that retrograde planet. For example, if you are in a Jupiter period, and Jupiter goes retrograde, this may affect you. I'll post more on these periods at a later date under the topic "Firdaria", so watch for it.

Stations

When a planet is approaching retrograde, it appears to slow down. It usually spends a few days in the degree that it's about to turn retrograde in. Once it reaches this degree, it's as good as retrograde, since it's not really moving ahead any more. Also, as the retrograde comes to an end, the planet slows down again; when it reaches the degree that it will turn in, it will again spend a few days there, and the planet is about as good as direct, since it no longer appears to be moving backwards. So when looking at these cycles, especially Mercury, which happens often, try to take advantage of the stations. As a matter of fact, since a planet that moves most slowly is far more powerful, when a planet like Mercury stations to go direct, it's at its most potent, even though (or more specifically because) it hasn't started to move forward yet.

See the following post for what to do when you're stuck with having to deal with daily life during one of these retrograde cycles.

Why I do Medieval Astrology, Part 3: Dignity and Rulership

2010-04-14T20:25:00.001-04:00

Picking up where the last post left off...

Dignity

So then what exactly is "dignity"? The simplest explanation is that a planet that is essentially dignified (that is, which has dignity based primarily on what sign it is in), gets to work the way it wants to work. There is a basic harmony between the nature of that planet and the nature of the sign it's in. This allows the planet to operate in a dignified, or graceful way. (Note that this does NOT mean that the planet and the sign are the same, as some schools of modern astrology teach.)

For example, Saturn is sort of like an old math teacher, making sure that the numbers add up, and that everything is recorded fairly. Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius, and so is dignified when in these signs. Capricorn is about the old structure, and cold, hard success, Aquarius is about community-building. So when Saturn is in one of those signs, he is able to operate the way he wants to operate: without emotion, concerned with structure, measuring out everything fair and square. So he is unimpeded in his efforts. Saturn is also exalted in Libra, which is about balance, and also about being fair and square; so this is also a place where Saturn operates well. It's true that Libra is about relationship, but Saturn is the part of it that makes sure that the relationship has a solid structure, and that the partners involved are treating each other justly. It's not the mushy, lovey-dovey part or the lust represented by Venus. So the nature of the signs here support the nature of Saturn. And although Saturn is considered a "malefic" (literally an evil-doer), he is almost kind when he is in these signs (especially Aquarius and Libra, since the heat of a daytime/masculine/positive sign warms up the ice-cold Saturn).

Saturn being dignified in Aquarius, and exalted in Libra gives it a level of rulership in all three air signs, that is, the Airy Triplicity. So even in Gemini, the third air sign, Saturn is considered dignified. Once you get past Sign, Exaltation, and Triplicity, the next two levels of dignity divide each of the signs into smaller portions. The Terms/Bounds divide each sign into five unequal divisions; the Faces/Decans divide each sign into 10 degree segments. So even if a planet isn't dignified by one of the major dignities (Sign, Exaltation, Triplicity), it will be dignified somewhere in that sign. This is of critical importance in many areas of delineation, but especially in matters of fate and free will, which we will see later on.

Rulership
Now in addition to being dignified when a planet is in the proper sign and degree of the zodiac, it also gets rulership over those signs and degrees. So if a planet is dignified in a particular sign, it is also said to be the ruler of that sign. That sign is connected to that planet, even if that planet happens to be off in some other part of the zodiac. For example, let's say that someone has Pisces Rising. The sign of Pisces is ruled by Jupiter; when Jupiter is in Pisces, he is quite well dignified. But what happens when he's somewhere else in the chart? What if he's in Virgo, which, being the opposite sign from Pisces, is a place where Jupiter is debilitated? Virgo does not support Jupiter's being Jupiter. So when I consider the affairs of the first house (primarily, body, health and happiness), I consider Pisces in general (the sign on the first house/Ascendant), but also the condition of Jupiter in Virgo, which is not well off. Again, this is something that would be completely missed by modern astrology. In addition to the dignities that Jupiter has (or debilities, as the case is here), we must examine what house he's in, and what aspects he makes to other planets, in order to arrive at an accurate delineation of the affairs of the first house.

In order to get a very detailed picture of this first house, however, we need to consider all five levels of planetary rulers of Pisces: Sign, Exaltation, Triplicity, Term and Face. As I've said, Jupiter here rules Pisces, and he's in lousy shape, so it does not bode well for one's health or happiness. So what is a person to do if they have this configuration in their chart? Are they totally screwed? Not necessarily. In traditional astrology, there are at least four other rulers to examine for help: the Exaltation ruler, Triplicity rulers, Term and Face rulers. Venus, for example, is exalted in Pisces, and is therefore the exaltation ruler. So if Venus is well placed in the chart, and in good condition, the person can look to that area of the chart to pursue issues of health and happiness, rather than depending on their debilitated Jupiter. As a matter of fact, whenever they depend on Jupiter to secure these things, they will be disappointed; since Jupiter is in the seventh house in Virgo, this means that relationships (7th house) will work against the health and happiness of the native. But if Venus is in one of her own signs, say Taurus, where she is dignified, let's say in the third house, this would give the native an area of life to pursue health and happiness more successfully (3rd house = short journeys, siblings, etc.). But if Venus were in lousy shape too, we can still examine the three Triplicity rulers of Pisces (Venus, Mars, Moon) and the Term and Face rulers of the particular degree of Pisces that is Rising.

Now, why have I gone on so long about this? Because, as mentioned above, one of the modern criticisms of Medieval astrology is that it is too fatalistic. I hope that this somewhat protracted example demonstrates that although there is a certain amount of fate indicated here, Medieval astrology shows more precisely a fuller range of options for success than modern astrology ever could. Far from being fatalistic, it seems to me that this is exactly the kind of information that allows a person to make free will choices in their lives.

I'll leave it there, though I'll have a lot more to say on this matter in the future (and hopefully in shorter posts).

Why I do Medieval Astrology, Part 2: Dignities and Debilities

2010-04-14T08:53:00.000-04:00

When I first learned astrology, I learned from the astrologer who first read my chart. She and her business partner taught some introductory courses, and I was fascinated. I started to read everything I could on the subject. I learned, for example, that Venus "rules" Taurus and Libra, and that she is "exalted" in Pisces. But nothing I read really explained much of what that meant, except to say that if Venus were in one of these signs, it was a good thing. The books go on to say that more recently discovered planets like Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto "rule" Pisces, Aquarius, and Scorpio, respectively. But few sources went on to explain the significance of this, beyond stating that if the planet was in that sign, it was a good thing.

I was lucky in my studies. Within a year of beginning, I fell into a class that was presented by one of the astrologers who had become part of the effort to translate (or re-translate into something that made sense) many of the older astrology texts (pre-Enlightenment) into English; usually this was from Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. The class was supposed to be an eight week affair, one night per week, essentially presenting a lot of what had been translated. However, the course went on for at least six weeks, and was essentially an intensive introduction to Classical/Medieval Astrology.

Probably the most fundamental piece of the class was my introduction to Essential Dignities. Until modern times, astrologers used not only "rulership" and "exaltation", but three other levels of rulership. And one of those was major. The five levels are Domicile/Rulership, Exaltation, Triplicity, Term/Bound, and Face/Decan. But even more importantly, we learned what to do with these. My own chart serves as a good example. I have Mars in Pisces; Mars neither "rules" Pisces, nor is he exalted there. So a modern astrologer would look at this and interpret a pretty weak Mars, all watered down, with low energy levels (in fact, I was told this very thing by astrologers). Anyone who knows me, however, would disagree. I am not a "low energy" person. I have deep energy reserves, but for me it operates more like a slow burn, rather than a flash. Now a classical analysis of the same placement would see that Mars in Pisces is in his own Triplicity, and (in the 22nd degree) his own Term and Face. So this is a very dignified Mars in Pisces, far from a wimpy little fish. Moreover, with Scorpio rising, Mars rules my Ascendant. So this will affect, in a very direct way, my first house issues (physical body, health, happiness).

Since the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) don't figure into this Essential Dignity schema, if one were to use Pluto as the ruler of Scorpio, one would have no way of evaluating the dignity of the ruler of my Ascendant, and therefore, how my health and happiness will work out. (By the way, in Europe many use Pluto as the ruler of Aries, and still associate Mars with Scorpio - how's that for clarity?) In addition, since it takes Pluto about two hundred fifty years to circle the zodiac, my Ascendant ruler will only make it through a fraction of the zodiac in my lifetime, which would allow me only a fraction of life's experiences.

All of a sudden, my chart started to "work," to make sense and accurately describe the circumstances of my life. Now, back to the idea that a placement is "good" or "bad". It's important to remember: What's good or bad for a planet is not necessarily what's good or bad for the person. I'll write more on this in a future post, but just for now, let's keep from being judgmental about people, even though we're judging planets.

The corollary of all of this is that planets can be in signs where they are "debilitated," that is, they don't function very "well" or smoothly.

I'll write more on this too in the future, but I hope that this whets your appetite a bit.

Why I do Medieval Astrology, Part 1: Houses

2010-04-13T22:00:00.000-04:00

This is the first of what will undoubtedly be many posts on this subject. I'll try to keep each one on the short side. I don't really like reading long blog posts myself, but occasionally they are necessary to elucidate a point.

Astrology from the Classical through the Medieval period was not primarily psychological. As with life, there were pieces of it that one would today certainly label "psychological." That particular term, however, is fairly new, so our astrological forebears would not have used it. There are techniques that identify a person's Primary Motivation, Quality of Soul, etc. Some of these are quite simple, and some are special techniques. But in delineating a chart, it's clear that there are elements that are what we would classify today as psychological.

However, this was not the main focus of a chart, and was not the primary approach to delineation. The modern approach goes something like this: The first house (Ascendant, Rising Sign - they are all synonyms) represents the "mask" that you show to the world, the surface "persona", but it's not the real you. The second house is how you feel about money, and your relationship to it, and all things that support you. The seventh house is your relationship with your spouse, etc.

In Classical/Medieval astrology, the first house is quintessentially you. It is your physical body, your health and your happiness. Much more than a mask that you show to the world, it's the single part of the chart that most represents you as a person with flesh and bone. And the ancients had a far greater respect for the connection between matter and spirit than we do today. Aristotelian philosophy posits that a body doesn't exist without a soul, but that a soul can't exist without a body either. Continuing, the second house is your money, not how you feel about it. It's not your values or what supports you psychologically. It's how much money you have, or how much you have in "movable goods", that is, stuff you could liquidate pretty quickly. The seventh house is your spouse. Not how you feel about her or him, and not the relationship itself. It describes and delineates that other person. And so on through all the houses.

In modern astrology, the houses take on the role of mere psychological extensions of the native. It seems to me that one must have a pretty big ego to think that the rest of the world is an extension of oneself. Based on modern astrological logic, if I cease to exist, then so does everything else. The Medieval approach is that the first house is the native, and that all of the other houses show the world (material and spiritual) that surrounds us.

This is what allows Medieval astrologers to predict, rather than merely psychoanalyze. If a chart shows how you feel about the world, what is there to predict? If, however, the chart represents real things in our lives, and the things that affect us from outside of our own psyches, then we can see what direction those things are headed in, and attempt to predict probable outcomes.

Saturn, Cosmic Gardener by Christopher LaFond

2009-09-19T23:25:00.003-04:00

Note: I composed this entry for the blog at EarthSpirit Community, and it was published there simultaneously as here.

The EarthSpirit Community is currently finishing its first Saturn Return. At the same time, a number of the founders and members at the heart of the community are in the midst of, or heading toward, their second Saturn Return. This provides all of us, as a community, the opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going together.

Hey, come back here!

Let’s start with: What is a “return?” If you hang around with anyone who knows even a little astrology, you may hear about this “Saturn return” thing a lot. A return is when any planet in the solar system, or the Sun or Moon (which astrologers often include with the catch-all term “planet”) returns to the same place in the zodiac as it was when you were born. Every year, you experience a Solar Return; this happens within a day or so of your birthday. The Sun returns to the same degree in the zodiac as it was in your birth chart. Astrologers often cast a chart for that exact moment, and use that chart as your chart for the twelve-month year beginning at your birthday. You’ve probably heard the expression: “Happy Birthday, and many happy returns.” This refers specifically to Solar Returns, and is an astrological expression. The Solar Return happens yearly, while the Lunar Return occurs monthly. But the Saturn return happens only once every twenty-nine years.

Traditional astrologers (those who practiced the unbroken astrological tradition up through the 17th century) referred to returns as “revolutions”. The original (and still primary) meaning of “revolution” comes from the verb “revolve”, that is, to turn or spin around something. Implicit here is a re-setting of something; sort of “proceed to Go, collect $200”. On some level, it’s a new beginning, a restart of the energy of whichever planet is returning. So a Venus return is a resetting of the love/lust principle, a Mars return a resetting of the energy/aggression principle, etc.

The word “revolution” only later came to refer to a usually violent overthrow or resetting of a political entity; and even then, not all revolutions are violent. But the different variations in the meaning of the word “revolution” give us some hints as to what to expect from a planetary return. Classical astrologers pointed out that there was something karmic about any planet returning to its place in a natal chart. While a return doesn’t give you a totally clean slate for that planet (after all, it’s still in the same sign as when you were born, for good or bad), it does give you a fresh opportunity to work with that planet within the confines of its condition in your chart. For example, if you have Mars in a difficult sign, it will still be in that sign in any Mars return, but you have a chance to realign the way you connect to and focus that energy for the next cycle.

So, why all of this about revolutions and returns? Because in order to understand what a Saturn return is, we have to understand the basics of what a return is.

Here we go again!

As mentioned above, Saturn “returns” in about 29 years to its natal position in a chart. There is a lot written about the first return: time to finally claim your life as an adult, time to accept responsibility for yourself, time to start a new family, time to cast off anything that isn’t authentically “you,” etc. Some of these reasons are what’s really going on with the “dreaded” 30th birthday.

But what about the second Saturn return? This occurs usually between age 56-58, and obviously, we are at a very different place in life than at our first Saturn return. While it’s impossible to predict what will happen to everyone at this second Saturn return, there are a few generalizations that can be made. First the caveat. Your Saturn return (first, second, or third) will reflect where Saturn is in your own natal chart: what sign it is in, and what house. These factors are not to be underestimated, and will influence greatly your experience of this return. But most people undergo an experience of the Universal Saturn at a return. So what is this Universal Saturn? Saturn was originally a god of agriculture. The image of the Reaper is an image of Saturn with a scythe, ready to reap what has been sown. As a matter of fact, the word “Saturn” comes from the Indo-European root /sā-/, which means “to sow”, as in to sow seeds at planting. So Saturn is all about sowing and reaping. We have come to focus a lot more on the end of this process, the reaping or dying, perhaps because of the fear that is often associated with it. After all, there is often a lot more emotional investment in what is yet to come than in what has already happened.

If Saturn is about reaping what we’ve sown, then that might make many of us nervous, fearing that we haven’t done enough, that we won’t measure up. I suspect that this fear is even more acute in North American society, with our idealization of youth, and our Puritan roots and work ethic: nothing short of perfection is good enough. Since perfection is impossible, we have much to fear. It’s easy to look back at our second Saturn return and see all the failures in our lives, all of the ways that we’ve messed up, and how we could have done things better. Also evident to us is all of the things that we’ll never do, since we are more acutely aware of the passage of time at this point. After all, Saturn later became identified with the Greek Cronos (time), and Saturn/Cronos is the origin of the image of Father Time. In a society that worships youth, the potential for being terrified of old age is high.

But what about all of those things that we’ve done well in our lives? What have we done right? What positive differences have we made in the lives of those around us? What is it that have we planted in our 56+ years that is now coming to fruition? Many of us have given birth in one form or another to children, grandchildren, relationships, careers, ideas, businesses, communities... These are all things that we’ve planted, with or without intention. Saturn challenges us to be intentional, to choose well the seeds that we will sow in our gardens, to limit the amount of weeds that we allow to grow and distract us (or to learn what those “weeds” may be used for). The second Saturn return is the time to decide what we will allow to grow in our Winter Garden. It’s no longer spring time, and not everything will grow; we must choose well. Our first two Saturn cycles have given us the opportunity to see what kind of gardeners we are: what we grow well and share with our community, and what we should leave for others to grow and then share with us.

Whenever I plant seeds, I read the package for the instructions on how to cultivate them. Inevitably, I ignore the part that says to trim the seedlings back when they get to a certain height. Why would you want to thin your row of veggies? I want as many veggies as I can grow in my limited garden! But over the years, you learn that not pruning back the plants makes a mess of your garden, and robs many plants of the nutrients that can only go so far. In the end, you often get more fruit from fewer plants, if you grow them correctly. This is the lesson of Saturn.

So at the second return of the Cosmic Gardener, here are a few questions that we might ask ourselves: What is the bounty in my life that I have harvested from my many years of sowing? What have I learned about the “weeds” that distract me and rob the nutrients from my life? In the coming years, what do I want to continue to plant? How can I pace myself so that I can continue to cultivate what is most important to me?

As I write this, I find myself exactly at the half-way point between my first and second Saturn returns. I look forward in fifteen years or so to throwing myself a Harvest Festival Party, similar to the Harvest Festivals that many of us attend and host every August and September. I encourage you to do the same. Celebrate your harvest. The act of celebration will help you to decide what to plant next.