Oct. 09, 2009 – Gemini – Weekly

Mercury is about to become free of its retrograde in Virgo, a transit that has made progress seem like a thing of the past. The process has certainly given you plenty to meditate on, and you may be wondering if you’re any better for having gone through so much mental and emotional introspection. I suggest that you not try to make up your mind about this right now; try to avoid judging anything at all. Simply move forward and see where you end up in a few weeks. For a while you’ll still be covering what seems like old territory, doing some things over and rethinking history yet again. You’ll notice the difference vividly when you arrive in new territory, and that’s the time to keep your focus on what is new and what you’re creating.

Our weekly audio is back after I took a one week break — thanks for that. Today’s podcast covers how the cardinal cross has dissolved into something new: many moves by Venus, Mars and Vesta in the relationship-oriented signs Libra and Scorpio. We go from the sense of large, sweeping changes in society to deeply personal influences, but which are no less meaningful as the ripple through our emotions, into our households, circles of friends and the wider community.

I look at the chart of Ken Mehlman, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, who presided over the 2006 elections — Ken came out of the closet as gay last week, despite his long track record of making life extremely difficult for lesbian and gay people. We have an example of how the personal is indeed political, and a great example of what not to be.

I also take up last night’s episode on the Rachel Maddow program where her mic goes out in the middle of a tirade on how the Cheney-Bush administration lied us in to the Iraq war. I look at the chart for the Rachel Maddow Show, which is approaching its second anniversary, and also the ways in which the current Mercury retrograde aspected the natal Saturn of the program’s chart, giving the feeling that Big Brother was watching. Clearly, he is, though I don’t think that her mic going out was anything more than a technical glitch. But it definitely spooked her — a truly human moment along the razor’s edge of telling the truth with love. That’s Rachel.

With all the interesting news this past weekend, your trusty detective neglected to make note of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — the costliest natural disaster in United States history according to Wikipedia. Given what a huge event it was, I knew Eric must have some astrological insights about it tucked away in the archives. So with my trusty fedora and flashlight both on, off I went in search of clues at Astrology Secrets Revealed.

The site did not disappoint, as this article from September 9, 2005 shows. Eric notes a couple of important factors in the astrology of that event, both earlier in the summer: Saturn entering Leo and a Capricorn Full Moon exactly on the solstice — that date when the Sun enters Cancer. In other words, it was an Aries Point event with exponential potency. Eric writes:

Solstice represents a peak of a cycle — the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest in the Southern. The Sun has reached the furthest extent of its annual northward journey. The Full Moon also represents the peak of a cycle. Put the two together at the same time and the effect is not added, but rather multiplied. In addition, the point where the Full Moon happened, the first degree of Cancer, has been shown many times to be associated with vast, life-changing events that effect large numbers of people. This is because it’s related to the Aries point or because the Aries point is related to it.

Anyone who has been reading Cosmic Confidential (or any other Planet Waves offering) knows well by now how potent Aries Point events are, since we’ve all been living through some palpable tension in the form of the cardinal T-square/grand cross this summer. What I haven’t seen much on these pages lately, however, is mention of the relationship between the sensitivity of these points and a couple other influential spots in the cosmos, the Galactic Core and M87:

Basically, the cardinal points are a highly sensitive energy structure, shaped like a cross. It is now clear that this cross, whose action and influence was long a mystery, may be so sensitive due to its proximity to the Galactic Core and M87. The cardinal points are sensitive whether the Sun is there or not. They are so predictable that, when activated by planets or planetary events (such as a Full Moon or eclipse), they will often respond with a worldly event or chain of events that affects many people.

Can we do anything about such information in advance? Well, not really — not usually. Even if astrology could predict a natural disaster exactly, nobody would listen. People barely listen to scientists. But we can use astrology to be psychically and psychologically prepared. Still, astrologers are expected to have a measure of foresight, and it’s good that they do, since often an astrologer’s job involves the whole issue of “what happens next” no matter how useful or not that information seems at the time.

Eric is probably right — we don’t listen to foresight nearly as closely as we could and need to, given the way our world seems to be spinning off its axis. And we can’t turn back the clock to prevent Hurricane Katrina or any other past disasters. But we can make the commitment to ourselves to carve out a little stillness now, listen, share information and act in whatever way we can when we hear the call.

June 20, 2007 – Virgo – Monthly

You seem to be in the process of negotiating with your idealism. What is realistic, what is possible, and what from the “impossible” category is worth attempting? There are no right answers to these questions, nor can you know in advance which of your current investments, endeavors or relationships will bear the fruit you can almost taste. You simply must persist, but it’s not a persistence of logic; rather, you can guide yourself by the tides of your feelings, which at times will seem to be on the ebb and the flood simultaneously. The one thing you can do that will set you way ahead is to be completely honest with yourself about how you feel, and how you feel about the people who surround you. The chances are you will learn some things about friends and associates that you were not expecting to find out. Some of this may fall under the heading of what the world these days calls “too much information,” but I assure you there is no such thing.

Mercury is about to be retrograde, beginning Friday. This is one of those events we all agree has an effect. Some people love it; it gets their creative energy jumping. Other people lose their keys six times, get their cell phone cut off, have their Yahoo account hacked and bounce the mortgage payment. Occasionally it can lead to significant problems — and just as often, truly helpful solutions and shifts of awareness. I’ve often noticed Mercury retrograde as the moment where the truth reveals itself, or (in a Chiron-like way) we discover the flaw in a system just in time.

"Logios Hermes" (Hermes, Orator). Marble, Roman copy from the late 1st century CE-early 2nd century CE after a Greek original of the 5th century BC. Hermes is represented in astrology by the planet Mercury and the apparently real historical figure by the same name is considered, according to Project Hindsight, to be one of the founders of astrology.

In a special audio edition of Planet Waves, I’m taking a closer look at the Mercury retrograde experience and exploring both why it’s so potent and how we can use it to improve our lives. For the next few weeks, Mercury will be retrograde in Virgo, one of the signs with which it’s the most closely associated.

My take on this particular retrograde is that it’s reminding us about unfinished healing projects. What are those projects? What has changed since we forgot about them? Where would be a good place to resume where we left off, and what can we safely move on from? I’ll be looking for ways to help you consolidate your efforts, as well as to focus on specific issues and ideas that will assist like leverage points.

Another angle of this retrograde involves our typical state of mental overload. We wouldn’t get into that, you know, scattered, stretched-thin state of mind, if we didn’t have certain predispositions, and often these are oriented in the past — as mental patterns. Mercury trekking backwards through Virgo will help us clue into the nature of those patterns and give us some hints about what to do with them. Where any of us has Virgo placed in our charts is an aspect of life where we need to be less self-critical, more self-supportive and relax our perfectionism. I would count those as healing goals, and I’ll be reading the charts from that angle as well.

For subscribers, this is a 12-sign report — all the signs for one price. This will enable you to listen to your Sun, Moon and rising signs, as well as those of the people you care about. I’ll present it in an audio package with introductory materials that explain Mercury retrograde in general (offering insights into the more common themes of avoiding bad purchases and our continuing relationship to technology) and offer deeper ideas about this particular one. Then I’ll take the signs one-by-one in 15-minute presentations.

The report is scheduled to be ready Friday afternoon, the day Mercury stations. I’m offering it now for the pre-order price of $24.95. This includes all the introductory materials and all 12 signs. The price will go up to $29.95 after the report is released (or the signs will be sold individually). The report will include an overview of the Libra equinox chart — which includes a Full Moon on the Aries Point the day of the equinox.

Pre-orders will be sent access information and you’ll receive an email as soon as the report is posted. This promises to be a fun, useful project — and one that has a value that will outlast the current astrology as a dependable resource.

Once again, here is your pre-ordering page. Thank you for your business and happy retrograding!

PS: Here is last year’s Mercury retrograde report — a written edition that was a bestseller and got great reviews. There will be much more information for the 12 signs in this audio edition.

Feb. 11, 2000 – Scorpio – Weekly

I’ve been getting loads of mail about an article on the Planet Waves web page about something called “compersion” — that is, the love we feel when others feel love, or the love others feel when we love someone besides them. Our models of relationships parallel our market economy, where everything can be arranged with the swipe of a plastic card. We do indeed take people as property, we use them as such, and typically dispose of them when we’re finished, often feeling like we were the ones who were used. Compersion, that is, a concept of love that includes freedom as its main ingredient, is often seen as a radical idea. It may be, but surely, with the way your potential for love is expanding every day, it also would be a very practical one.

This week’s audio covers Mercury stationing retrograde in Virgo. We are now in the Mercury storm phase — with the little planet closest to the Sun moving at its slowest, about to turn around and give us the illusion of moving backwards for 22 days. This time near the station — a few days before and after can be challenging, confusing days, when it’s possible for a lot of things to go wrong that don’t need to go wrong. So do your best to keep your focus, harness the winds of change in a productive way.

I also cover the conjunction of Venus and Mars in Libra (that carries through to Scorpio, where Venus goes retrograde in October), and I look at the Sun opposing Neptune and Chiron this week before it ingresses Virgo over the weekend.

Assisting me with a programming project for the Mercury retrograde audio report, Tracy Delaney @Serennu created this mini-ephemeris that looks at Mercury aspects from late July through early October, while Mercury is in Virgo. Mercury’s aspects to many minor planets and points in Sagittarius helps explain why this retrograde is so psychologically hot, as in intense, as in a bit overwhelming — with breakthroughs.

Please send your friends to Planet Waves, and if you’re undecided about subscribing to our email service, don’t think too hard — it’s an awesome, entirely unique, excellent service that will teach you about astrology, yourself and current events. And these subscriptions make all this great stuff we do at Planet Waves possible.

Thanks and — comments/questions on the audio are welcome.

Sept. 4, 2009 – Gemini – Weekly

The creative process is not arts and crafts. Rather, it’s about everything from doubt to confronting your sense of emptiness to exploring the feelings and memories that we are basically all conditioned to ignore. In sum, you go deeper, and that depth often requires the use of a working medium that could be clay and it could be a camera and it could be your notebook. Let it become a sacred space, but not so sacred that you fear that what you create there will be known to others and influence their healing process. You’re not alone in going through what you’re experiencing. The feelings running through your body are part of a collective current shared by millions of other people, each in their unique way, and each equally meaningful.

I came back with that trusty flashlight to peruse the archives but a light bulb came on to help me out: earlier this week a new Supreme Court justice was sworn in, only the fourth female justice in history. The astrology has been so dynamic and challenging lately, the event passed right by me. However the Hon. Elena Kagan makes her mark on the highest court in the US, one thing is sure: Planet Waves will be watching.

In poking around for something on the theme of justice, I came across Eric’s delineation of the asteroid Astraea, from Next World Stories. This was the fifth asteroid ever discovered, 38 years after Vesta. He writes: “Astraea does not necessarily bestow a sense of right and wrong, but it seems to offer a reasoning process; a sense of balance. Whether someone or something is balanced to your liking is one thing, though you can look to Astraea for what that sense of balance might be, and where it might suspend in the person’s life.”

Eric goes on to describe how Astraea is placed in the charts of two historically important Supreme Court Justices. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a hold of Justice Kagan’s birth data to see how this interesting little orb weaves into the fabric of her life as she faces what are sure to be challenging decisions on the bench. After all, at this point in time, a great deal hangs in the balance.