Forbes Magazine interviews financial astrologers

February 27, 2012 By

financial astrologyWhen the economic collapse occurred in 2008, astrologers were not surprised.  We had been watching and waiting for the arrival of Pluto’s entry into Capricorn as a time when the explosive growth of the Pluto in Sagittarius period would contract and the reality check of Capricorn’s serious need for discipline would arrive.  The economic collapse also demonstrated quite clearly that financial experts lacked adequate tools to understand the fluctuations of the stock market.

The Astrology News Service posted a link to a couple of Forbes articles about financial astrology that are actually pretty respectful of the art. One of these articles interviews astrologer Grace Morris:

She based her calls on traditional earth-bound analysis from outsiders, like fundamental and technical data. But the real twist comes from the natal star charts of the companies she chose to recommend to her clients. There were only five large cap buys on the list. Most were holds. The rest were mid and small cap names.  Out of the five large cap buy recommendations she made in October, three beat the S&P 500, and all were trading positive from Oct. 3 to market close on Feb. 17.

This was interesting to me because I myself decided that with Uranus in Aries, the innovator of individuality, in conflict with Pluto in Capricorn, the destroyer of corporations, that small cap companies were going to be the real growth investments.  (I am NOT a financial advisor, and I have no training in economics.  I am a professional astrologer with an interest in the geocosmics of finance.)

The other Forbes article on financial astrology quotes my personal favorite, Ray Merriman:

“With Saturn moving into Scorpio later this year as Pluto stays in Capricorn, it will be a time of reckoning and not only for the U.S., but for Japan and also Europe,” warned Merriman.  “Pluto represents debt and Capricorn and Saturn represent accountability. You experience the consequences of your actions in regards to debt when the planets are in that position. The best case scenario is a sobering one where all sides agree it will be a five to 8 year process to fix these major economies. The worst case scenario is that spending continues to exceed revenue, and the credit worthiness of any of these nations is downgraded yet again. Europe and the U.S. are both vulnerable to this potential reality, and it is coming soon, before 2014.”

The article even delves into the astrology of the US Sibly chart and the fact that Uranus and Pluto will be in challenging aspects to the US Sun from 2013-2015.  This is likely to be extremely significant to the fate of the United States and I’ll be writing more about this in the months to come.

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New Moon in Pisces, February 21 2012

February 21, 2012 By

Art from Bianca Clipperton. Today’s New Moon is a juicy one, and will carry us into a new beginning of spiritual sensitivity and compassionate opening of the heart.

The New Moon in Pisces occurs on February 21 st. This is a particularly powerfully Neptunian New Moon since Neptune and Chiron flank the Sun and Moon, all within four degrees of each other. Mercury is also in Pisces, and if we look at the asteroids as well we see Pallas linking the Sun and Chiron.

Neptune and Pisces encourage us to transcend the physical world and delve into the mysteries of spirituality, of creativity. There is a yearning under this influence to be free from the trappings of the material world – to flee from the potential ugliness of our reality and merge with the great Unknown that lies on the other side of conscious awareness. This can be an experience of incredible inspiration. It can also promote confusion and delusion.

New Moons are always times of new beginnings – it’s the beginning of the new lunar cycle when the solar and lunar principles are fused and integration can occur. This New Moon is the perfect time for a spiritual retreat, or to focus on a project involving artistry or some other type of creativity such as music and dance. Any experience in which we can let go of ourselves and allow the divinity to channel through us will be heightened and enhanced under this New Moon. Mercury in Pisces helps us to release the mind into the transcendent experience, although an opposition from Mars to Mercury will evoke a fire influence that will need to be managed in some way (ideally through integration of fire and enthusiasm into the creative spirituality of the New Moon).

Chiron and Neptune have been within four degrees of each other for several years now. You can read more about that conjunction here, but briefly, this conjunction brings together the Soul Healer (Chiron) with the Soul Teacher (Neptune) has overseen the deeply intense and sometimes agonizing experience of clearing old emotional wounds for the purpose of greater spiritual integration. Now that both planets have moved from Aquarius into Pisces, the flow and release of the old wounds can be managed with more ease and grace. It’s important with any Pisces/Neptune influence, though, to try to balance the potential power of the spiritual experience with the need to keep two feet firmly grounded into the physical world.

The presence of Pallas Athena in this assemblage of Pisces planets is interesting, since Pallas represents Divine Knowledge and Wisdom. Pallas links the Sun and Chiron, bestowing a creative intelligence that aids us in gaining understanding from these experiences which go beyond the realm of the mortal mind.

Jupiter sextiles this New Moon Pisces stellium, and over the next few days the Sun will sexxtile Pluto as well which will help the positive effects of the New Moon carry over into the end of the month.

for daily planetary cycles visit my Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Neptune in Pisces and the Forgetting Pill

February 20, 2012 By

The search for a pill to help us erase bad memories is not a new thing.  The film “The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” came out in 2004 which was well before Neptune even thought about entering Pisces.  Pluto was finishing his journey through Sagittarius (1995-2008) during which optimism and positive thinking (Sagittarian traits) rose to an art form.  Pluto tends to bring a compulsive drive to any sign that it travels through, and while a certain degree of optimism and positivism is a good thing, the benefits of this kind of thinking end when other feelings are pushed into the underworld of the psyche.  (This is why my Visioncrafting work always includes an explorations of our blocks and fears rather than simply focusing on the positive.)

While Pluto was in Sagittarius the use of antidepressant drugs soared over 75% between 1996 and 2004 according to this study. Talk about a compulsive (Pluto) search for the positive (Sagittarius)!  The most recent study I could find analyzed data through 2008, the year that Pluto entered Capricorn and it would be interesting to see if antidepressant use decreased or increased with the real problems brought on by the Capricorn-induced contraction in the economy.

At any rate, this interesting article in Wired Magazine discusses a new pill for forgetting traumatic events that could work better than other treatments such as talk therapy (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, or CISD) that don’t work to alleviate the stress of trauma.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, people have imagined memories to be a stable form of information that persists reliably. The metaphors for this persistence have changed over time—Plato compared our recollections to impressions in a wax tablet, and the idea of a biological hard drive is popular today—but the basic model has not. Once a memory is formed, we assume that it will stay the same. This, in fact, is why we trust our recollections. They feel like indelible portraits of the past.

None of this is true. In the past decade, scientists have come to realize that our memories are not inert packets of data and they don’t remain constant. Even though every memory feels like an honest representation, that sense of authenticity is the biggest lie of all.

Memories don’t live only in the mind – they reside in the physical body, in the nervous system, in the subtle or etheric bodies – and talking through trauma alone does not resolve the panic that can result from a traumatic experience.  I know this first-hand after surviving a traumatic event at a young age.  The kind of “somatic experiencing” that Peter Levine teaches is probably more effective because it works on all of these layers of experience rather than simply the mental realm.

According to the Wired article, if propranolol is given before a patient expresses a traumatic memory, the inhibition of the drug on the sensory power of the memory helps to inhibit the trauma in the future.  Now other drugs are being tested to target and erase specific memories.

With Neptune in its own sign of Pisces, the urge to transcend reality can go in two different directions.  It can go to the higher form of spiritual transcendence, or it can delve into escapism and illusion.  Forgetting all about our trauma instead of working through to heal it is so very tempting, and Neptune in Pisces can make that happen.  It can also give us the wisdom to see the Truth that lies beneath and between the illusory nature not only of memory, but of our perception of the world itself.

 

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The Uranian Mystique

February 20, 2012 By

Uranus Aquarian ageI’ve been writing for some time that as we head into the Aquarian Age the idea of gender will continue to blur, and that has certainly proven to be true.  A recent article in the Daily Beast online news magazine wrote:

Are we having a trans moment? Until recently, transgender issues were nearly invisible in the mainstream press—but now, everywhere you turn, transgender stories are being told. From Andrej Pejic and Lea T, two trans models currently walking the high-fashion runways, to the outrage over Work It, the hapless, now-canceled ABC comedy featuring two men who resort to drag to get a job, transgender awareness is growing exponentially by the moment—seeping into pop culture in films like Albert Nobbs.

Take a glimpse at your TV screen, movie theater, and your iPad and you might agree. In a recent Saturday Night Liveskit, host Ben Stiller played a male passenger on an airplane. Suddenly he leans over across the woman in the middle seat and asks the unseen person sitting in the window seat, “Don’t I know you?” The camera pans to Stiller, dressed as a woman, as the words, “Get To Know Your Future Self,” flash on the screen….

The question is why is this shift happening now?

The answer, of course, is Uranus (please refrain from making scatalogical jokes here!).  Aquarius is ruled by both Saturn, the god of form and structure, and Uranus, the god of innovation and change.  As we move into the Aquarian Age we will find that the structures upon which we build our world continue to mutate and transform, giving more voice to the unusual and the individuals that don’t conform or fit into established norms.  We see this in popular culture with the popularity of Lady Gaga, who often performs as her male alter ego.  And in the fashion world, where “fashion is going transsexy.”

It’s a Brave New World, folks, and there’s no going back.

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Economic optimism is on the rise

February 16, 2012 By

financial astrologyAs you know if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, the collapse of the global economy was easily predicted by this and many other astrologers because of Pluto leaving expansive and optimistic Sagittarius and moving into the contraction of Capricorn.  But by the end of 2011, despite gloomy predictions, the stock market had begun to recover and the housing market was not looking as bad as it had looked before.

Mars and Saturn are both retrograde now, yet the stock market continues to rise and it does appear that durable goods orders are up and American factories are producing again, news which is providing an encouraging counterpoint to fears of European contraction following the implementation of austerity measures.

Uranus is in Aries now where it encourages us to live our best life, to find an authenticity (Uranus) that fully expresses our own individual drive (Aries).  Uranus will approach a square to Pluto in Capricorn that will peak in late spring/summer, and I believe that this will have a great impact on larger companies and corporations.  THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE!  But under this astrological signature we are more likely to see the success of smaller companies that are more indivdualized (Uranus) and can adapt more quickly to changing economic situations.

If I were a financial advisor, WHICH I AM NOT, I would be very encouraged by the astrology of the next few months.  Once we get into late May and early June and the boat of Uranus/Pluto begins to rock the whole situation will become a lot more dicey and we will have to be looking at the shorter-term cycles to gain any clues.  For now, though, it appears to be safe to begin peering out of the shadows and betting on success.

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The astrology of Whitney Houston, dead at 48

February 13, 2012 By

Whitney Houston astrologyWhitney Houston, the brilliant but troubled singer and film star, was found dead in a hotel bathtub this weekend.  The cause of death has not yet been determined but toxicology tests found a combination of Xanax and alcohol.

Ms. Houston’s life-long troubles with drug and alcohol dependence were widely documented and often threatened her exceptional career.  Her marriage to singer Bobby Brown was punctuated with violence and bouts of drug addiction and rehab.

Astrologically, Ms. Houston (chart here) had a conjunction of the Sun and Venus in Leo – she was born to be someone whose light shone brightly (Leo) and the presence of Venus typically bestows beauty and the ability to interact with others in a positive way. However, Saturn, the Celestial Teacher opposed that Sun/Venus combination which suggests that she was riddled with insecurities about her looks and her ability to be loved.  In addition, the fact that Saturn in her chart was retrograde shows that she was particularly self-critical.

Although her chart was quite fiery, signifying a person of great passions and energy (her Moon conjoined Jupiter in Aries), Pisces, the sign of empathy, artistry, creativity and intuition rising in her chart, and Neptune, ruler of Pisces, squared her Sun/Venus conjunction.  Neptune and Pisces are beautiful influences for an artist, but they can also indicate addictive behavior because of the strong urge to transcend material reality, an urge which is good for the spiritual life, but not so good for someone who lives in the material world.  Neptune and Pisces express themselves through art and creativity but can make it difficult for an individual to see the realities of their lives clearly, and that was a hallmark of Whitney Houston’s short life.

In delving more deeply into Ms. Houston’s chart we also see an exact conjunction of the Black Moon Lilith to Neptune and squaring her Venus.  I am a novice in studying the Black Moon, but in examining charts and reading the ideas of other astrologers it appears to me that the BML has to do with primal experiences of love, rage and passion that often become obscured in our socialized existence.  When it is prominent in a chart such as this one it may show an individual who faces the ultimate darkness within herself (BML) when she is in relationships (Venus) and can get lost as a result (Neptune).

In addition, the Moon and Jupiter in Aries has a powerful need for self-assertion which conflicts with the Saturn/Sun opposition’s pressure to conform and toe the line, and the Neptune/Pisces tendency to go with the flow.  There is nowhere for the fire in the chart to go which can lead to a buildup of rage, and there are many stories of Ms. Houston’s eruptions, including one of jealous rage at a party right before her death.

Many people have difficult charts, and it is said that we come in with the chart that we need in order to have the experiences the soul desires in order to learn and to grow.  Ms. Houston’s chart shows an opposition between Chiron and Pluto signifying that soul surgery will be accomplished during the lifetime – individuals with this opposition tend to have deep emotional wounds that may seem out of proportion to the life’s experiences.  But the sensitivity and emotional pain are quite real and unless the individual is actively and consciously striving to use this pain to grow and evolve they will often use drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.

This is a challenging combination of planets for anyone, and for someone in the public eye where every action is scrutinized and criticized, it is even more difficult.

At the time of her death, transiting Pluto was in an exact square to her Mars (and had been approaching this aspect for quite some time, at least a month or so).  This would have stimulated her inner rage and anywhere that she felt frustrated and angry.  In addition, transiting Uranus was opposing her progressed Sun.  The Sun represents the physical heart, and I have had an intuitive feeling that the actual cause of death here may have been heart failure caused by the stress of years of addiction.  Uranus transits to the progressed Sun generally indicate some sort of sudden change (very rarely death!), but at the time time transiting Chiron was opposing Uranus in Ms. Houston’s chart.  It would have been clear to an astrologer that some sort of medical event could happen during this time period between February 1st and the 15th.

It’s always tragic when a person leaves this life without having resolved the issues that prevented them from achieving joy and satisfaction during their lifetime.  Rest in peace, troubled soul.

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Sunday inspiration: Trusting the future

February 12, 2012 By

Astrologers have a reputation, which we ourselves and our forbears have propagated, of being able to foretell the future.  If you run a Google search for “Can astrology predict the future,” the very first article is from a well-known astrology site titled “Predicting the future with astrology.”

The hunger to know the future is not, of course, limited to astrology.  Climatologists, stockbrokers, economists – all are paid to predict the future.  All fail miserably.

In our personal lives we long to know the outcome of our personal situations.  As one client brilliantly wrote me in frustration that astrology could not provide a clear map for him, “It is difficult for me, who feels blind about many things in life, to see a possible path to the answers, and that I feel on the edge of great personal discoveries, without the ability to really obtain them.”  I have certainly experienced those same feelings, and for many years I studied every aspect of my life through an astrological lens, hoping to find a clue to the future.

It’s just not possible.

It’s not possible to know the future because we are on a journey of self-discovery.  Religious people have a hard and fast belief system that tells them what their future holds, and for many that blind faith offers comfort.  I am a person that needs to experience things to believe them, and what I CAN tell you is that after over 30 years as a student and practitioner of astrology I have learned to really trust the planets.  The painful changes that we are forced to make under a Pluto transit can be seen through the eyes of hindsight as having been extremely beneficial.  The hardships of a Saturn/Sun conjunction are later seen as having developed great resilience.  If we pay close attention, we begin to see a pattern that each experience unfolds with purpose and leads to a future that we are more ready to face and embrace with trust.

This trust of the planets is echoed in a letter I received from a client a couple of years ago which I made the centerpiece of a blog post. The planets are only a reflection of the greater Wisdom of the Universe that supports and facilitates all life and all experiences.

For me, the effect of the observation of the planets on behavior, which after all is what astrology really is, has given me a closely personal experience of that Wisdom and a trust that the unseen celestial allies and teachers are guiding me through what sometimes seems to be a blind morass of decisions over which I have no control.  These teachers instruct from within – they are that voice that says “Follow your heart.  Do not be afraid.”  The voice  that we so often disregard and later realize was the correct one.  Whether you think of this voice as being from a god or from your spirit guides, or your guardian angel or your spirit allies – it is the voice of your higher self that is always with you, providing assistance along the path.

So when we feel that we are on a path that is twisting out of control, and feel blind and powerless to control the outcome, seek out that inner voice and see what it has to tell you. We are here to succeed on this journey and while we may make mistakes along the way, it’s the journey itself that provides the answers.

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The power of 1962

February 10, 2012 By

aquarius stelliumThis image is an actual gift basket that can be purchased here. Everywhere I look these days I am reminded of 1962. This year marks the 50th anniversary of 1962, so it is an important anniversary and coincides with the Chiron Return.

First I wrote a blog post about Demi Moore, born in 1962. A commenter wrote that actress Janine Turner was also born in 1962, and I followed up with a comment of other major stars born in 1962: Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Ralph Fiennes, Steve Carell, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, John Hannah (in the UK), Cary Elwes, Joan Cusack, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paula Abdul, Eddie Izzard (Izzard is one of the AquaStell people born in February that year with seven planets and luminaries in Aquarius), Jon Bon Jovi, Rosie O’Donnell, John Stewart, Andrew Braugher.

This is the 50th anniversary of some of the major iconic bands from the 1960s, including the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, two very different bands that had a powerful impact on pop culture.

Then yesterday I did a reading for an Aquastell client, a relatively rare event in my practice.

And today I find that it’s the 50th anniversary of my favorite book as a child: A Wrinkle in Time. (I wrote about that book here.)

In early 1962 there was a lineup of Aquarius planets that at one point featured seven planets within 16 degrees of Aquarius including the Aquarius New Moon on February 5th.  Aquarius is the sign of innovation and urges a departure from that which has been known before.  There was likely an explosion of creative intelligence that erupted during this “Grand Conjunction and although Uranus and Pluto were not yet within range of their conjunction (that didn’t occur until Uranus entered Virgo later in 1962) I believe that the stellium may have stimulated that breakthrough that opened the door for the changes that occurred over the next five years as Uranus and Pluto aligned in Virgo.

These Aquastell people (and others born in 1961-1963) are in their Chiron return now.  Because Chiron works on the emotional body and Aquarian types tend to be less comfortable in the emotional realm, the Chiron return can have a variety of manifestations.  Generally, though, a clearing of emotional debris is required in order to achieve the energetic liberation that Aquarius promotes, and the Chiron Return is the perfect time for this to occur.

There has been just one other lineup of seven planets since then: in January 1994  seven planets lined up in Capricorn.  This stellium does not seem to have generated many stars, other than Justin Bieber the number of stars born in that year is fairly low.

The next planet pileup won’t occur until June 2032 when seven planets will conjoin in Gemini.

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Neptune in Pisces and the question of reality

February 9, 2012 By

augmented realityNeptune just slipped back into Pisces where it will remain until 2025.  Neptune’s role in the astrological pantheon is to cause us to question where the physical world ends and a more transcendent reality begins.  It therefore rules our spiritual experience, but it can also be confusing and induce delusion if our grasp of reality begins to slip.

Over the past few years Neptune was in Aquarius, which is ruled by Uranus (modern rulership), and Aquarius, the sign ruled by Uranus, was in Pisces which is Neptune’s sign.  Astrologer’s call this “mutual reception” and it was signaled by the blurring of boundaries (Neptune) between the “real” world and the world of technology and the internet: the wired world.

Neptune is also associated with any kind of mass consciousness in which the mind of the individual is subsumed by the mind of the collective such as we see in pop culture generally,  episodes of mass hysteria, etc.

So with Neptune in its own sign of Pisces, different forms of reality are already entering the consciousness of the masses.  Such as “augmented reality,” which will bring us experiences such as this one:

It’s reality, only better.  Maybe.  With augmented reality you can see the world through the lens of your electronic device, instead of through your own eyes and your own soul.  I’m not so sure that’s an improvement, but it’s certainly the wave of the future during Neptune in Pisces.

In googling around I found an article I myself wrote five years ago on this very subject.  In this article I quoted my friend Tim Boucher who predicted this very thing:

How many years this will take to happen, I can’t say. Maybe five years? But the world is going to look like this. You are going to walk around with an augmented reality device, as well as a variety of devices whose purpose is to record, sort and “index” audio, visual and other information about your experience of life. You will become the spiderbot for Google walking around and “crawling” the physical earth. You will be paid a modest amount for your data-collection efforts. We think of these technologies now as “tracking” and “surveillance” but those terms will fall away and be replaced by terms which more accurately reflect the breadth of cultural change these devices will entail. By way of analogy, you could think of your experience of life as going something like this. You walk around and perceive augmented or mixed reality through your headset.

This is an unexpectedly and eerily accurate prediction, down to the timing.  As I said then, and as I still believe today, “With information coming only through the media, we lose the ability to process information independently and live as autonomous beings; instead we will become cogs in a huge wheel that is controlled by the media machine. The better alternative, I believe, is the choice to live a real and authentic life.”

 

 

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Book review: The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology

February 7, 2012 By

It’s not because April Elliot Kent is a friend of mine that I start this review by saying this is the best book for beginners that I have ever read. Until my own book comes out this is the most comprehensive yet easy to understand astrology book that you will find.

Astrology is an incredibly complex subject. It’s very difficult to talk about without using technical language and using your readers, which is probably why simplistic horoscope columns garner many more readers than articles about serious astrology.

But as anyone who has ever had a competent astrology reading knows, astrology is pure magic. April has written a wonderful book that simplifies astrological concepts without dumbing it down to a point where it is unrecognizable.

You can read more about the book here on April’s site, and purchasing it through this link will help her stats.

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