Thanks to Jill and Facebook for this photo.
Another view of the Transit of Venus
June 9, 2012 By
“What happened to Lynn Hayes?”
April 17, 2012 By
I noticed that a surprising number of people used this search phrase to find this blog, so I thought I would put up a post with this very title to make it easier for people to find me.
For the whole messy drama of why I’m no longer on both Patheos and Beliefnet, you can read this post. And I hope that some of you will leave comments on the Beliefnet blog that still uses the title Astrological Musings illegally and against the terms of my contract with them.
At any rate, I am still very much here and glad that you have found me! Please post links widely because I have to rebuild my readership from scratch. And thank you so much for visiting!!
Sunday inspiration: The Great Nest of Being
February 5, 2012 By
“Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot – we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit.”
–Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology
Mars retrograde and the biggest solar flare hits Earth
January 25, 2012 By
As an astrologer I am always looking for coincidences and interesting links, and the release of a huge solar flare the day that Mars turned retrograde is one of those interesting connections. Mars represents fire, enthusiasm, drive, it’s an aggressive force. A solar flare comes from the Sun, but it is fiery in nature and the quality of the eruption has a Martian flare.
From our perspective here on Earth, the electromagnetic energy from the solar flare could create havoc with telecommunications systems and the fact that Uranus, planet of electromagnetic energy, is in the sign of Aries now (ruled by Mars) suggests that an increase in electromagnetic anomalies would not be unexpected.
There has been a great deal of fear of the collapse of the electromagnetic grid as part of the 2012 phenomenon which supposes that the Solar Max period will occur in 2012, but the Solar Max is actually expected to take place in 2013 or 2014. There is real astrological significance to those years because the cycle of Uranus in Aries squared by Pluto in Capricorn will be reaching its peak at that time.
In any case, with Mars retrograde our attention is turned to our own inner needs to assert ourselves and find a way to energize our desires and dreams. The added fiery influence of the radiation from the solar storms may affect our own electromagnetic energy fields and perhaps we can find a way to harness that energy to assist us become more conscious of the way energy works in our mind/body/spirit system.
Blogversary and Blogvacation
November 19, 2011 By
This week marks the sixth anniversary of this blog. Until recently, I posted just about every day and it has been an incredible way to meet people from around the world and share astrological information.
Perhaps it is my second Saturn Return, but I am feeling a bit burned out. I am going to give myself a two-week blog vacation and will return in early December. There are six years’ worth of archives, though, so please satisfy your astro obsession in the archives of this blog and by visiting my friends who are blogrolled in the sidebar.
I will still be posting astrological updates on my Facebook page and will probably post for the New Moon coming up next week. Have a great two weeks and I’ll be back soon. 
Skywatch link is fixed
June 3, 2011 By
sorry for the inconvenience! There was some bad code but it’s been repaired. Here’s the link to the June Skywatch.
Happy Mother’s Day from Astrological Musings
May 8, 2011 By
Mother and Baby by Gustav Klimt
No wonder mothers have their own day – one could argue that they are the single biggest influence on our lives. A father can be absent at a birth, but never the mother! We spend nine months in the womb of our mothers, wrapped in her energy imprint and (some say) absorbing her experiences. She is the first human that we meet upon emergence from her womb, and if we are immediately taken away the longing of separation persists throughout our lives.
The astrological Moon represents our relationship with our mother, and sometimes describes the mother herself. Each sibling in a family may have a completely different experience of the mother, and not understand why their siblings feel differently about the mother than they themselves do. My own Moon conjoins Pluto, the planet of and for much of my childhood I felt annhilated by and terrified of my mother. We spent years without contact as I regained my footing after a difficult childhood. My sister’s Moon is in Virgo, and she felt (and was) deeply criticized by our mother – a challenging relationship but different in its nature.
Any contact with Pluto shows a dynamic in one’s life that is exceedingly important, and despite long periods of separation I always felt attached to my mother and somewhat desperate to find some kind of resolution. I’m happy to say that over the past ten years we have found that resolution and there has been a powerful transformation in our relationship with each other. I tell this story to demonstrate that there is always hope for important relationships in our lives.
Often clients will come to me to better understand their children, and these are some of my favorite readings. Some astrologers feel that doing a reading for a person who has not present in the reading is unethical, but I do not agree. If information can be provided that is for the highest good of all involved, such a reading can be an extremely useful tool to improving our relationships with others, and this is particularly important with parents and their children.
On this Mother’s Day I wish all mothers, daughters and sons a happy day of celebrating the beautiful individuality that we all carry with us, and offer wishes for peace and harmony in your path of growth and love.
Musings on the death of Osama bin Laden
May 4, 2011 By
Although March 10 1957 is commonly given as the date of birth for Osama bin Laden, This has not been certain enough for astrologers to rely on. While several sources, including an interview with bin Laden himself, have used the date of March 10, 1957 the US State Department records for some reason used July 30, 1957. For this reason, astrologers have not had a date of birth, much less a time, that was reliable enough to create a chart that was anything but speculative. According to Astrodatabank, an astrologer in Brussels named William de Rijke had a friend at Interpol who saw a copy of bin Laden’s birth records with a time of 10:58 am. But this sounds fishy to me since they didn’t keep any kind of birth records in Saudi Arabia until the late 1950s, much less one with an accurate birth time. Astrologer Claire France Perez is quoted at Astrodatabank:
“I had acquired information from a Muslim historian, (on the Internet) who said bin Laden was born 3rd month, 10th day of the Muslim calendar year 1377. The FBI lists his DOB as March 10, 1957–the third month and tenth day of our calendar year–incorrectly transposing the Islamic days and months for ours, getting the year correctly. The March 10 1957 date confirms that the 3rd month and 10th day are what we are looking for.”
So I am reluctant to use this data as a chart for bin Laden. I am frankly not so sure that bin Laden hasn’t been dead for years. Osama bin Laden was very much a public figure and seemed to relish making videos in which he thumbed his nose at the US after al Qaeda bombings, but those videos were never seen after 2001. In his last video from December 27, 2001 he was frail and clearly i ll. Unauthenticated videos and audio tapes with very different speaking patterns and context s were released, but these were not consistent with his earlier communications. In July 2002 Amir Taheri of the New York Times wrote:
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama’s gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama’s ghost alive or because they have no means of communication. With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?
Which mirrors my sentiments exactly. I just can’t imagine that bin Laden would be living quietly in a compound in Pakistan with his family. Over the years multiple news sources reported that bin Laden was “probably dead” including a purported will and a funeral. So what really happened in Abbottabad? And why was the body rushed away from the scene and dumped in the ocean just hours after the event? There are more unanswered questions than answers right now. Getting back to astrology, the major planetary aspect that appears to have been at work here is the opposition of transiting Mars and Jupiter to the US natal Mars. We have been talking here at AM about the strong fiery influence of this conjunction of Mars to Jupiter in Aries over the past few weeks. Mars inspires us to action and to aggression, and Jupiter gives us confidence and optimism so the two together, especially in Aries which is Mars’s sign, creates an environment that facilitates aggressive behavior of all kinds. Because the conjunction opposes Mars in the progressed chart of the US, it activated the warrior dynamic of the country and stimulated a burst of targeted military action. Interestingly enough, transiting Mars and Jupiter are now exactly opposite progressed Mars in the chart of Barack Obama. So the Mars/Jupiter conjunction first activated the US chart, and now activating Obama’s chart, synchronizing his own warrior nature and symbolically aligning it with the military goals of the US.
Pluto retrograde, April-September 2011
April 9, 2011 By
As we know, astrology is not astronomically correct and planets don’t really move backwards. But occasionally from our perspective the apparent direction of their movement changes, which we call “retrograde.”
Most of us are familiar by now with Mercury retrograde periods, which (because Mercury is the messenger planet and deals with all kinds of communication and communication devices) tend to bring about communication glitches and endless renegotiations of contracts. Even people who don’t “believe in” astrology know that when Mercury is retrograde, things are just different.
This doesn’t mean, though, that retrograde periods are “bad.” The sort of “two steps forward, one step back” flow of life that we experience during retrogrades are essential for cleaning up old messes, perfecting projects, re-establishing friendships – anything that involves going back over an event that has already occurred to be sure we are finished with it.
No planet is better at completing old patterns and clearing away the leftover detritus than Pluto, and when Pluto is retrograde, as it is for about half the year, we are forced to look backwards at our successes, our mistakes, our plans, our relationships – anything in our lives that has unfinished business will be re-examined during this time and anything that we are carrying around that is no longer needed will be swept away like the pollen after a rain.
Pluto is the planet of destruction and regeneration, and it also deals with issues of power and its uses. Its not surprising that now, with Pluto having been stationary in the sky (from our perspective here on earth) for the past few weeks as it prepared to change direction, things have been so intense for so many of us. When a planet is stationary it shines a laser-like beam of energy that reflects the energy of the planetary symbolism, and Pluto is all about intensity and getting to the root of the matter.
If Pluto is transiting your chart, as it is mine at this very moment, this laser-like beam may feel like a razor blade, cutting through any unnecessary claptrap that keeps us from delving to the core of the issue at hand. Anywhere we are not honoring ourselves truly – any relationship that disempowers us – any old emotional pattern that no longer serves us will be excavated as we are taken into Pluto’s underworld during this time.
Retrograde Pluto offers an opportunity rather than a punishment – an opportunity to clean out the basement of our lives so that when this project is finished we can enjoy our lives that much more.
Jupiter/Saturn and Mercury Retrogrades
March 29, 2011 By
This week the expansive urge of Jupiter bumps up against the contraction of Saturn for the third and final time in the current cycle. This is the “Full Moon” phase of the cycle, the culmination of a pattern that began in 2000 with the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Taurus. Mundane astrologers, observing the effect of astrological patterns on nations and politics, connect the Saturn/Jupiter opposition with a crisis point or climax in global political events.
It’s hard to tell right now which planetary cycle is inspiring the political events unfolding on the ground, and I tend to think that Uranus entering Aries, being a more powerful planet in its influence, is primarily in play with the revolutionary fervor that is spreading around the world, including in the UK where hundreds of protesters rioted in London last weekend, protesting against the concentration of wealth and the reduction of goods and services for the common man. This is very Uranian and a harbinger of what is to come over the next few years as Uranus and Pluto align in square formation.
Jupiter/Saturn alignments are often significators of financial adjustments, but stock market indices are relatively stable at the moment. I have found that the square aspect (90 degrees) is usually more problematic than the opposition. Oppositions create a tension, but the tension can be balanced and does not always necessitate a crisis for resolution.
However, with Mercury turning retrograde on March 30th, we are in the shadow of the retrograde which could bring about a downturn in the market. Uranus in Aries is quite volatile anyway, and it won’t take much inspiration to create havoc in financial markets and stocks. The retrograde turn of Mercury generally is tied to sudden reversals in the global markets.
It won’t help that Venus conjoins Chiron tomorrow and our values and the things we hold dear (Venus) are challenged by the necessity to bring healing and wisdom into our lives (Chiron). Balance here is the key, but this is probably not the best time to get swept away in a fever of unrealistic optimism. At least not until the retrograde Mercury period is over!
