This calendar month begins a day before the start of the lunar cycle. Here comes March, ready or not.
If you use the lunar cycle to navigate the unfolding of time, as the ancients did, you’ll appreciate the shape of March. One New Moon (March 2nd) launches the month, and another closes it (March 31st).
In between them, just before the Equinox, the Moon is Full (March 18th): two New Moons serving as bookends to support a big popping climax imid-month.… click here to continue reading.
The Sun conjoins Saturn the first week of February, reminding us that we have work to do.
The specific nature of this work varies from person to person, depending on where mid-degree Aquarius falls in your chart. But all of us are getting the same Saturnine message: Effort pays off.
Can we view our tasks not as unwelcome burdens, but as good, hard work?
With Saturn, gratification can’t be finessed; it has to be earned.… click here to continue reading.
As the new year began, a lot of people were watching a movie about the annihilation of Earth. “Don’t Look Up” is a wake-up call movie, that’s clear.
What isn’t so clear is how wake-up-able its audience is.
It must be galling to make satirical art in a society where every headline already reads like a joke. How do you improve upon the dark humor of a country where captains of industry argue over whether saving the planet makes economic sense?… click here to continue reading.
2022 is beginning in more ways than one. The New Moon (Jan 2nd 10:35 am PST) arrives while we’re still sweeping up the confetti and hauling our empties to the recycling.
It’s unusual for the lunar cycle to start right alongside the calendar year.
This double emphasis signifies a growth spasm: we are being quickened, like a fetus in the womb. Everything lies ahead, everything is possible.… click here to continue reading.
As December begins, just before the lunar Eclipse, Neptune makes a direct station. The great sea god is so near we can practically smell the salt on his breath.
Do you have natal planets around the twentieth degree of Pisces? If so, you’ve been feeling the confusions and/or inspirations of this slow-moving transit for a couple of years. Planets on that degree of the other three mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius) have also been thrown off their bearings.… click here to continue reading.
In November, the astrological month gets going on the 4th, just a few days after the calendar month begins.
If you use lunations to see which way the cosmic winds are blowing, you know how much a New Moon chart can say about the month ahead. It’s the birth chart of the new cycle, setting the template for the four weeks to come.
On 11/4, the starting gun sounds at 13° Scorpio, where the Sun and Moon conjoin.… click here to continue reading.
Every generation has its traumas. My parents had World War II. My peers and I had Viet Nam and Watergate.
Our children — the generation now in charge — arrived when wars had gone digital and stateless. Their worldview was framed by 9/11. Foreign-policy-wise, those two burning skyscrapers set the template for the American epoch we’re all currently in.
… click here to continue reading.The U.S. response to 9/11 was corrupted by a toxic soup of revenge, imperialist ambitions, war profiteering, systematic brainwashing and sheer stupidity.
October features four planetary stations. Mercury’s (10/18) is the one that gets the most press, but it is the least consequential.
Mercury retrograde has become a cliché of pop astrology. Interestingly, it’s often mentioned with a laugh, which seems to imply “I know I shouldn’t be blaming a transit for having lost my car keys.” Perhaps Mercury’s stations get the most press because this planet seems to lend itself to event-level interpretations (although it, like every other symbol in astrology, has deeper implications.)… click here to continue reading.
As September begins, relationships may take us to extraordinary places, if we follow the cues.
Whenever a transpersonal planet interacts with a personal one, we get the chance to inject a little magic into everyday experience. The first week of this month is full of these opportunities, as Mars opposes Neptune and Venus squares Pluto.
Urge to dissolve
During the tenure of Mars in Virgo (7/29-9/14), this normally aggressive planet is diligent and task-oriented.… click here to continue reading.
Joe Biden found himself unable, for whatever reasons, to keep up the tradition of kicking the bloody can down the road to some future president.
Under the Full Moon of August, he struggled to explain the origins of the occupation of Afghanistan (it’s being called a “war,” but that doesn’t seem the mot juste when superpowers try to steal countries), claiming that the USA’s mission had never been nation building. “Okay,” retorted John Oliver, ”then I guess not-Mission not-Accomplished.”… click here to continue reading.