Many cities and towns have old laws on the books against “fortune-telling,” but they are rarely if ever exercised. Now Philadelphia has taken a giant step backwards by “closing storefront psychics, astrologers, phrenologists and tarot-card readers who charge money for their services.”

I don’t know how a storefront psychic is different than one who works over the phone, and there is no disputing that there are a lot of charlatans and scam artists out there as there are in any business. We can see in television programming of shows such as Medium that psychic awareness is becoming more accepted in the mainstream, but these archaic laws remain on the books.

In 1998 (with Saturn’s restrictions approaching a square to Neptune’s spirituality) the Gypsy Cafe in Cary North Carolina was issued a citation for fortune-telling. Then in June of 1999 (with Saturn exactly square to Neptune) a psychic shop in the North Carolina mountains was shut down by police citing a 1951 law prohibiting “fortune-telling” as a professional, and amateur fortune-telling can only be practiced as part of a church or school social event.

In response, the Ancient Arts Freedom Association held a peaceful demonstration in downtown Asheville in which about 50 participants practiced various forms of divination. Police, rather than arresting everyone, issued a citation to just one participant (a tarot reader). Appearing in court with her ACLU lawyer, she hoped to be declared guilty so that she could appeal the decision to a higher court and have the law erased from the books. Instead, the judge declared the Asheville law to be unconstitutional. Unfortunately, however, this decision was not binding on other North Carolina jurisdictions.

It makes sense that this issue would arise again as Saturn opposes Neptune. While I decry the scam artists that pose as psychics to bilk people of their money, I hate to see the state taking any more control of personal wellness issues. With the mental health system across the country being in a shambles, people need all the help they can get.

Thank you Astrology News for posting this link from Oculus Divinorum with this link to an article by astrologer Victoria Bazely that mirrors my feelings on this issue EXACTLY!!

I have a pet peeve, and like most pet peeves perhaps, it’s a bit hypocritical. My pet peeve is people who use astrology (or anything else really) to support a life run by fear. I’ve read that Nancy Reagan used to consult an astrologer before her husband did anything and wouldn’t let him do things like sign legislation unless an astrologer gave the okay–which meant he sometimes ended up doing things at odd hours like 1:59 a.m. I don’t know if she actually did this, but just reading about it irritates me. It irritates me because it strikes me as operating out of a combination of fear, dependence, and an excessive need for control. . . .

Life happens, and life includes bad, scary, challenging or even exhilarating twists of fate. You can’t control the entire universe with astrology or anything else. Life happened to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, just as it does to everyone else. His presidency had its challenges and its triumphs, just as other presidencies do. If credit is to be given for the success of his presidency, I’d rather give it to a combination of his character, his ideas, and his willingness to act on them. . . .

It’s the same thing when I hear astrologers say things like “don’t get a haircut or buy shoes when the moon is void of course!” Something in me just says “I’ll buy shoes and get a haircut whenever I darn well please. I can’t live my life running around checking to see whether or not the moon is void of course every time I want to go shopping.” . . .

“Get over it!” I want to say. Live your life with bravery and conviction and passion and daring and enthusiasm. Listen to your own inner voice and honor it. Take some chances; dare to indulge in some real risks.

A good astrologer (I hope) puts you in touch with the inner voice you do have and encourages you to explore it and understand it and work with it and enrich your life by accessing your own intuitive wisdom to reach the dreams you’re half terrified to pursue. A good astrologer doesn’t make you afraid to buy shoes or sign a document in the middle of the afternoon when everybody else does.

In fact, if anyone or anything makes you too scared to live your life, then I don’t see how it can be a good thing. I knew a therapist once who told everybody as soon as they embarked on a relationship that they were “getting co-dependent.” Oh, come on. What is life worth if you’re too scared to love anyone for fear of “getting co-dependent?” . . .

So I’ll say it again. Buy shoes, get your hair cut, sign documents, fall in love, get on the freeway, dance in the moonlight, take a chance, honor your wisdom, face your challenges, and don’t live a life run by fear. And I’ll try to do the same.

I love this article. We create most of our problems through our fear, and at least half the time our fear is worse than that which we are afraid of.

I had an email from a woman who had just had a series of difficult transits and she wrote to me hoping the rough cycle was over. Alas, it was not! She still had more to go. I gently let her know what was coming and how she could best navigate those rough waters and I never did hear back from her, I know that was not what she wanted to hear.

These are difficult times, there is no doubt. But hidden in every difficult planetary event are the keys to our soul’s evolution. There is a lot of “doom and gloom” in the astrology world and here, like in the mainstream press, bad news sells. But I don’t find it particularly useful to tell clients “Look out, you’re having your second Saturn Return and you will face the demise of your ego.” Rather, there is an opportunity with the demise of the ego to seek the truth that lies deep within and underneath the personality; the true self that we become more and more familiar with as we age.

We can’t avoid pain and discomfort in our life, and once we accept that then we are able to utilize the energies of the planets to facilitate the transformation that the challenging cycles of squares and oppositions have to offer. If you think humans have it bad, just rent “March of the Penguins.” Those poor little guys have to walk 100 miles just to breed, and then the males spend the Antarctic winters in a huddle hoping desperately that their eggs won’t freeze. Meanwhile the females make the 100 miles trek back to their homeland where they hope they can get some rest and many don’t make it. You can’t help but appreciate a mere Pluto transit after watching that film.

Anyway, I loved this article and it is excellent advice!!

We are in range now of the Mars/Uranus conjunction which is exact on the 29th and occurs in concert to a square of Mars to Jupiter on the 30th. Mars moves relatively quickly, but these are intense energies that have a strong impact even though the experience will only last a week or so.

This cycle will be softened somewhat by the fact that Mars is in Pisces and therefore more considerate of others, but in some ways that could be more difficult as both Uranus (radical rebellion) and Jupiter (fanaticism) enter into a conflict with the god of war.

There is a tremendous amount of energy released with these combinations, and Mars in Pisces will desire to shove any conflict that comes up under the rug. This is where it can become dangerous since that energy needs to be released during this time. Vigorous physical activity is one of the best ways to release that energy so that it doesn’t erupt in major conflict or create reckless behavior. Mars will make a quincunx (150 degree) aspect to Saturn at the same time and Saturn’s tendency to restrict and limit may push Mars into a corner where it feels it must react. A trine from Jupiter to Saturn now will aid us in making a conscious effort to be responsible (Saturn) during this period will also facilitate Saturn’s ability to enhance the energy of Mars so that it flows in a productive manner.

Update: Several of you have written me of being personally affected to the extreme with this transit. If find yourself having problems look at your chart and see what planets you have between 12 and 25 or so degrees of Virgo, Pisces, Gemini and Sagittarius. Those are the planets being affected right now by the Mars/Jupiter/Uranus event.

If like Nona in the comments you still feel angry after exercise, it could be that your anger is more than energy. See what your anger has to tell you, and then direct it appropriately. As I mentioned in the comments but want to emphasize, a healthy expression of anger is essential for our physical as well as mental health!!

Although I am a news hound, I prefer to take my news with the biting sarcasm of Jill’s blog or the sophomoric humor of Jon Stewart. Another one of my favorite news sources is Stephanie Miller’s radio show, and Stephanie was kind enough to send me her correct birthdate and even the time when I sent her a profile I did when this blog was new that had incorrect birth data from the IMDB database (that’s what happens when celebrities lie about their age!). Stephanie is funny AND intelligent, which is something new for talk radio. Even Al Franken could not compare in belly laughs to the Stephanie Miller Show.

Evidently Stephanie and the “Mooks,” her “no-men” Chris LaVoie and Voice Guy Extraordinaire Jim Ward, will be lighting up the airwaves as temporary replacements for MSNBC Monday through Wednesday next week, set your DVRs for April 30-May 2, from 6-9 am EST. It will be fun to see the radio show translated to television, and you won’t be sorry you tuned in!!

Transiting Saturn is making a square to Stephanie ascendant right now, making this a difficult time for personal relationships, but Pluto is in trine to Uranus in her chart which sits right on her midheaven. This is a great time for her to move more fully into the public eye and become more visible (the midheaven is the point at which we become a public figure). Fortunately she has her dogs to keep her company.

You can listen to snippets on her website for an exciting preview of next week’s events.

Elsa was kindly put up a link to an article John Townley wrote about “When Uranus Meets Mars.”

A little less than every two years on average Mars conjoins Uranus, and when that combination of explosive force and targeted energy meet, often all hell breaks loose in the period surrounding. A good example is the conjunction of August 17, 1945–Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened just days before, and the first pictures of the Hiroshima blast went public that day. It happened to be my birthday–my mom used to tell me Japan surrendered as soon as they heard of my arrival–which may be why I have a fondness for it, despite its bad rep. . . .

What’s it all mean? Is it time to redecorate the panic room and the fallout shelter? Probably not, at least not for everybody, but there are some traditional places to look–to look to avoid, actually. That wonderful curmudgeon Al. H. Morrison once told me that where the exact Mars-Uranus conjunction rose and culminated would be the places on the globe that would be hot spots of wars, natural disasters, and general catastrophe for the next two years. Like so much of astrology, that seems to work more often than not, but sometimes misses the boat by a mile.

This intrigued me so I went to John and Susan’s Astrococktail site and found John’s updated article on the April-May ’07 Mars/Uranus events. It’s got lots of cool maps and illustrations so visit the whole article, but here is the gist of it:

Although most future forecasting is done by looking at the general swath of planetary aspects during a particular time period (like the scythe-type bucket chart of early 2007), or occasionally by looking at an individual nation’s transits and progressed chart (see: America Quo Vadis or Dark Days). Those are roughly parallel to normal, everyday transits and progressions, but on a grander scale.

Another approach is forecast by single events, such as the ingress of a year or a season as seen from a particular capital, or extremely rarely even a national solar return (a bit tricky, since that’s more like a human lunar return, because nations live on an expanded time scale, see: Adolescent Nation). It’s like a snapshot in the sky, from which you glean some kind of predictive information.

There’s a third, halfway approach, which is to do a chart for a major conjunction and find where in the world the conjunction is at the Midheaven, presumably making that the area where its manifestation will most be heard about in the following cycle. Outside of commonly-done local lunations, perhaps the most prominent example is the conjunction of Mars and Uranus, which happens roughly once every two years. Find where that occurs at the Midheaven, and you’ve got your finger on the location of the Mars-Uranus pulse (explosive events, violence, conflict) for the next two years. . . .

Another problem in using this to predict is not in having too much destruction to pinpoint, but not having big enough examples of it. The bigger the conflict, the more it seems to be on the mark. The Mars-Uranus conjunctions immediately previous to both WWI and WWII were directly over Europe, spot on. The one before the beginning of the latest war in Iraq didn’t really register at all, possibly because the invasion’s decisive rapidity wasn’t sufficiently destructive at the time, and its result is only just developing into something fiercer now, perhaps. The conjunction happens every two years, but major global conflicts and catastrophes don’t, so you can’t expect it to deliver in spades every time, thank goodness. We haven’t found an indicator that predicts size or intensity, and perhaps it lies somewhere in the rest of the chart. The usual common considerations don’t seem to tie in too well, however, like the sign or element it’s in. We’ve just had two in a row that were water-oriented, with the conjunction in water, but the air conjunctions of ’43 and ’45 brought both fire and water results. WWI was air, WWII earth, and there doesn’t seem to be a logical connection right off.

Testing the idea for the next round may be a little extra hard to do, because it paints its picture across the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, as the heart of the dire action to come. That’s a slam-dunk prediction, unfortunately. You don’t need an astrologer to tell you. The test, however – and the reassurance, if it works out that way – is hopefully that there is not some even bigger catastrophe lurking over the horizon somewhere else, in addition. Until the conjunction after that, anyway, over Western Europe and Africa, same as both World Wars…

Jill wrote a post yesterday about the sudden disappearance of honeybees, and subsequent research turned up this article which connects weather anomalies to changes in the Gulf Stream circuit, an event which occurred between December 11 and 19th just as Pluto was making its first conjunction to the Galactic Center. There is a link which shows a short period where the Gulf Stream stops flowing towards Europe and flows back down without completing its normaly circuit. Earlier this month I wrote about my hypothesis that the effect of Pluto conjunct the GC, which historically has seemed to bring about major shifts in human civilizations every 248 years that it occurs, seems to have brought the issue of climate change to the forefront of mass awareness.

The disappearance of the honeybees appears to have begun with a sudden dropoff in bee poulations in mid December. There is some speculation that genetically modified seeds may have a role to play. Another peculiarity is that many of the bees are abandoning the hives and leaving their stores of honey and pollen, suggesting that there is something toxic in the hives themselves, and scientists have found up to four different kinds of viruses and fungi in the bees that remain in the hive.

A loss of bees would be devastating to agriculture, since honeybees are responsible for 80% of pollination of crops around the world. Looking back to the reclassification of Ceres which linked it to the Plutonic archetype, we should remember that in her grief the mythological Ceres caused starvation and famine before she negotiated the partial release of her daughter from Pluto’s underworld. In playing god through technological interference with the processes of nature, we may be replaying the drama of Persephone’s abduction and the devastation that ensued.

The natural world is undergoing a huge change as a result of technological progress that will alter forever the lives of humans on Planet Earth. These changes will likely result in tremendous stress for many people, both physical and psychological, which is why it is useful for us to begin to prepare now by expanding our conscious awareness of our true purpose here on earth. The more we align with what is true and good within us and make positive choices to evolve and grow, the higher our own frequency becomes and the more change we are able to effect in the world. Many of us feel we have a mission here, and this can cause us to feel somewhat alone and helpless in the face of such huge obstacles. But we are not alone – we are interconnected by spirit and substance, powered by intention and fueled by love. Maintaining our focus on the higher goal will help to keep us from despair as we connect more and more with the truth that lies within us and facilitates a process of lasting change.

It was recently announced that the US has made the brilliant (tongue in cheek) decision to build a wall separating the Shia and Sunni districts in Baghdad (after all, it worked so well for Germany). Dharmaruci has a wonderful post today about walls and the Saturn influence where predicts the likely outcome of this wall idea:

On April 10 this year, the Americans began the construction of a wall around a Sunni district in Baghdad. The chart for America’s efforts in Iraq – the Iraq War – is set for 5.33am, 20/3/2003, Baghdad. This chart has Saturn at 22.45 Gemini closely conjunct the IC. The Moon, being the closest ‘planet’ to the earth, triggers the energy of all the other planets. On April 10, the Progressed Moon of the Iraq War chart was at 21.28 Sag, almost exactly opposing the natal Saturn. So again we have a connection between Saturn and the erection of walls/boundaries.

Will the Baghdad Wall be successful? Saturn in the April 10 Chart is of course opposite Neptune, which must be the stupidest time conceivable to start building a wall. What has become apparent lately is that despite the hugely heightened security in Baghdad as a result of the American ‘surge’, the bombers are still getting through, the most prominent case being the bombing of the Parliament building. This is probably a function of Mars’ present passage through Pisces. Mars was in Pisces in the Baghdad Wall chart, and in this sign is probably very good at flowing through walls if it needs to. So the Baghdad Wall probably won’t work very well.

If you’re new to this site and missed the articles last year on Pluto’s reclassification and the new planet Eris, along with Ceres which was promoted from asteroid to planet status, I’ve synthesized them into permanent articles and posted them on my website.