Popular Culture

The astrology of Art Nouveau

Alphonse Mucha

I recently visited an Alphonse Mucha exhibit at our local museum with my sister.  Mucha was an artist during the Art Nouveau period, and of course Art Nouveau heavily influenced the aesthetic of the 1960s when I was growing up including all of those Fillmore posters for bands like Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

The planet Neptune is associated with spirituality and creativity, and has also come to define the aesthetic sensibilities of an era. Neptune’s discovery in 1846 coincides with the emergence of spiritualism as well as idealistic Utopian communities.  In the world of art, this was the time when Realism in the art world gave way to Impressionism.  We can see the workings of Neptune – subtle and watery – in the works of Impressionists such as Monet.

Neptune was in Aquarius (reason) when it was discovered but by 1849 it had made the shift into Pisces where it was able to operate unfettered by the constraints of Realism which emerged around the time that Neptune, invisible at the time, went into Aquarius.

In 1885, Pluto moved from Taurus into Gemini.  Taurus is associated with money and financial security, and the Pluto in Taurus period (1852-1884) saw unprecedented economic growth in some areas, and destitution in others. The accumulation of wealth in the upper classes led to the “Gilded Age,”- the upper classes had money to spend, and they wanted to spend it on art.  According to Wikipedia, “New technologies in printing and publishing (Gemini rules communication) allowed Art Nouveau to quickly reach a global audience.”

Neptune entered Gemini in 1889 and began to approach a conjunction to Pluto which began officially in 1891.  Neptune/Pluto […]

Share this article...
By |2021-11-23T09:51:53-05:00November 23rd, 2021|Popular Culture|4 Comments
Read More

RIP Peter Fonda and Woodstock: An end, finally, to the 1960s

Image borrowed from Pitchfork 

There are few more iconic images of the 1960s (or what astrologers call the Uranus Pluto conjunction) than Peter Fonda in the film Easy Rider and the Woodstock music festival. Both took place in 1969, technically after the end of the big planetary conjunction that brought together the planet of radical change and destroyer of the status quo (Uranus) and the planet of destruction and total transformation (Pluto) in the sign of convention and conservative values (Virgo).  At the time a favorite saying was “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” which from an astrological point of view means “Don’t trust anyone who has had their Saturn return and has had to grow up.”  In any case, these icons of our generation, the Pluto in Leo baby boomers who have made an art form out of youth and vitality into old age, both died this week.

Peter Fonda (born 2/23/1940) was himself under 30 when Easy Rider came out, the youngest of the primary actors in the film who included Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.  Fonda wrote and produced the film which marked the spread of the 1960s (Uranus/Pluto) counterculture eruption into the mainstream consciousness.  Fonda was born under a Full Moon in Virgo (Pisces Sun), and like many Full Moon personalities Fonda had an inner conflict from the Virgo/Pisces polarity which required continuous adjustment.  He acquired an early reputation as a “dropout” and took LSD regularly, making him less than reliable for film work, yet continued to seek acting and directorial roles.

Neither Pisces nor Virgo deal well with the fire of a sign like Aries – they are too […]

Share this article...
By |2023-03-02T12:52:05-05:00August 17th, 2019|People, Popular Culture|2 Comments
Read More

“Stay Woke” and the Aquarian Age

Some of this content may be controversial to some readers. I welcome comments as long as they remain civil and add to an intelligent discussion. 

“Stay Woke” is a slang term defined by the Urban Dictionary as: “Deriving from “stay awake,” to stay woke is to keep informed of the shitstorm going on around you in times of turmoil and conflict, specifically on occasions when the media is being heavily filtered- such as the events in Ferguson Missouri in August 2014.”  While most of us white people just started hearing the phrase recently, it was first listed in a glossary of African American slang back in 1962 and then  popularized by Erykah Badu in 2008 before it spread through African American communities after the death of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

The idea of being “woke,” or awake, is in my view a harbinger of the Age of Aquarius.  During the Age of Pisces there has been a sense of sleep.  Pisces teaches us to go with the flow – to connect with our dreams, to seek comfort in transcendence and the bliss of losing one’s self.  Under the Piscean influence humans relinquished control to the religious institutions which have dominated the power structures of the past 2,000 years.  Aquarius is the sign of awakening – of rational thinking.  Neither is better, and both have their dark sides.  But the idea that we need to wake up – keep our eyes open and see behind the curtain of Piscean illusion – looks to me like the transition between the Piscean Age and the Aquarian.

The meme of “Stay Woke” often edges into conspiracy theory.  As someone with a healthy amount of suspicion myself, this seems normal in a world where you are told […]

Share this article...
By |2022-10-09T13:32:16-04:00July 19th, 2017|Consciousness, Popular Culture|12 Comments
Read More

John Oliver proves that Sagittarius is rising in the US chart

There is a big debate among astrologers about the rising sign of the US chart.  I use the “Sibley” chart, named after Ebenezer Sibley who created it, and has Sagittarius rising on the ascendant.  Michael Wolfstar O’Reilly insists that Scorpio is rising in the chart because the power that America wields is reflected in the Scorpio archetype, and because the symbolic Eagle is also tied into Scorpio.  In this article he also explains how the Gemini rising chart came about.

Michael and I have had some spirited debates on the subject.  Now John Oliver has put that debate to rest.

The ascendant is the persona – it reflects the way we see ourselves, the lens through which our experiences are filtered, and how we are seen by others.   Sagittarius is the sign of optimism, faith and religion, and it’s easy to see how the American persona fits under that umbrella.  No other country is such driven by religion and faith – and no other country is as optimistic and expansive as the US.  Sagittarius types are typically open and friendly, and Americans are seen the world over as having big friendly personalities (often TOO friendly for some more conservative nationalities).  But it’s American optimism that is probably the single biggest quality that is identified with the American persona.

I love John Oliver and listen religiously to his podcast “The Bugle” which sadly is on hiatus because of Oliver’s new status as major media star.  If you haven’t seen his HBO program “Last Week Tonight” you really owe it to yourself to try it.  I heard Oliver say in his podcast that America is relentlessly optimistic to the point of ridiculousness.  In fact, he said, “Optimism is America’s kryptonite.”

[…]

Share this article...
By |2017-07-04T08:08:19-04:00July 23rd, 2014|Life, Popular Culture|4 Comments
Read More

Guns, Guns, Guns, in the USA

guns astrologyEverywhere you turn these days the discussion is about guns.

Guns are not a new topic for discussion, but the feverish frenzy over which gun rights advocates are protecting their rights to own assault weapons and other types of weapons meant for mass killings is rather recent.

There is no nation like the United States in terms of gun ownership.  The (Sibly) chart of the United States has Sagittarius rising, which echoes the expansive philosophies that have always drove the country towards constant expansion and religious ideals, both Sagittarian concepts.  We normally would look towards Mars for signs of warfare like behavior, but in the US chart the passion for guns is found in the placement of Pluto in the second house.  This fanatacisim about guns originates not in an aggressive desire to assert force (Mars) but in a hunger for freedom (Sagittarius ascendant) and a relentless (Pluto) drive to accumulate masses of money through manipulation of the nation’s ideals (second house).

American gun lovers don’t want to accumulate stockpiles of weapons to kill their neighbors.  They want these weapons because they believe that it will protect that Sagittarius rising freedom.  It doesn’t hurt that Uranus (planet of liberation from oppression) conjoins both Venus (partners) and Mars (aggression) in the chart.  That Uranus/Mars conjunction especially denotes a radical desire for liberty at all costs.  Americans own twice as many guns as any other country, per capita.

That’s where Pluto in the second house enters the picture, in the form of the National Rifle Association.  The NRA spent $15 million in the 2012 presidential campaign, using a fearmongering campaign promoting the idea that Obama planned to take away gun rights (he wasn’t).  This same organization used the school shooting in Newtown […]

Share this article...
By |2022-05-29T07:13:44-04:00February 5th, 2013|Politics, Popular Culture|4 Comments
Read More