jupiter square pluto

Planetary news this week: Taurus New Moon and a challenge to overcome

Astrological update for the week of May 15-22, 2023

art by Zdenek Moravek

Planets changing signs bring about a shift in human consciousness, and when three planetary bodies change signs in one week it can be very enervating. There is a strong Taurus signature, with Jupiter entering Taurus and a Taurus New Moon, so the drive for peaceful experiences is a strong one. However, the Sun enters Gemini at the end of the week and opens up the door to Gemini season which is much more active, so we will want to be prepared for that.

Jupiter in Taurus. Jupiter, the planet of optimism, good fortune, and the search for meaning, enters Taurus on Tuesday where it will remain for about a year. Taurus is a sign of Earthly matters: prosperity, comfort, sensory pleasures – all of these are of greater importance when Jupiter is in Taurus. It’s worth remembering that Taurus is a fixed sign, and while Jupiter is expansive and idealistic, it also inspires religiosity. Jupiter in Taurus can often be somewhat inflexible and we may need to prepare to bend more than is comfortable at times.

Taurus is ruled by Venus, and Venus and Jupiter are known in traditional astrology as benefic planets – generally speaking, they tend to open doors of opportunity and attract positive things. So Jupiter in Taurus over the next twelve month may offer opportunities and some of us may be luckier during this time. This is not a guarantee, though, and too much faith in Jupiter’s bountiful nature could create its own problems and just a reminder, the last time Jupiter went through 2011 there was an economic crisis in the U.S. when a budget could not be […]

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By |2023-05-15T07:21:46-04:00May 15th, 2023|Planetary news this week|2 Comments

Jupiter in Taurus 2023-2024

Jupiter will be in Taurus from May 16, 2023 to May 25, 2024. What can we expect?

About Jupiter. Jupiter is the planet of optimism and faith, and it also describes the way we find meaning in life. Jupiter rules religion and philosophy in the crafting of beliefs and world views which help us to structure our perspectives and values. Jupiter is the teacher and the one which inspires us towards grand objectives as well as grandiosity. As astrologer Deb Houlding writes,

We think of Jupiter as the planet of increase and expect to prosper under its influence, but the opportunities that it brings are based upon having greater freedom to think and act for ourselves, less inhibited by closed options that normally define our prospects and selections for us. Such freedom calls for conscious awareness of what we do, why we do it, and how we balance the urge for instant gratification against the need to invest in the future. If we fail to acknowledge the value of caution and moderation, we can be fooled into exploiting opportunities that lead towards financial failure, spiritual dissatisfaction, or the boredom and depression that accompanies surfeit and over-indulgence. Jupiter doesn’t offer revenge but allows us to be the architects of our own destruction, giving us enough rope to hang ourselves if we call for it. As the supplier of the bounteous feast, Jupiter knows that those whose greed exceeds necessity will end up sorry that they failed to self-impose propriety. read more here…

I like to think of the planets in pairs that complement each other: the Sun (outward facing) and the Moon (inward facing), Venus (receptive) and Mars (assertive), and Jupiter (expansive and optimistic) pairs nicely with […]

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By |2023-04-25T17:12:39-04:00April 26th, 2023|Planetary cycles|6 Comments

The astrology of Marianne Williamson

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My original plan was to continue profiling the candidates (see other posts in the series here) in their polling order, and I frankly didn’t think Marianne Williamson would stay in the race as long as she has.  But she continues to raise money and attract voters to her events and she has said that she will continue her run for the presidency.

Williamson is an unlikely presidential candidate, which is what makes her interesting.  After a youth spent, as she says,  “mired in a series of unhappy love affairs, alcohol and drug abuse, a nervous breakdown, and endless sessions with therapists,” she discovered the book A Course in Miracles and became a spiritual teacher.  She has written 13 books and was a favorite of Oprah.

Williamson’s chart shows a heavy emphasis in the sign of Cancer, with Sun, Venus and Uranus all conjunct in that sign which is focused on family and tribe.  Cancerians tend to feel the troubles of the world more deeply than most, and a strong desire to help others runs through the archetype of Cancer.  Her Cancer planets form a challenging square to Neptune, suggesting early challenges in forging an identity and a high level of creativity combined with a tendency to be more idealistic than realistic.

We are fortunate to have a birthtime for her which reveals an ascendant (rising sign) in Gemini.  The ascendant describes the way in which we move through the world, which is different from the Sun which tends to show instead the individual’s personal quest.  Those with Gemini rising (like me!)often find it difficult to focus on any one thing, and we can see this with Williamson’s personal history.  Her Wikipedia page includes over ten different vocations which she has […]

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By |2019-10-31T14:23:56-04:00October 16th, 2019|Politics|2 Comments

Astrology in my world: The falling away of things I know to be true

Art from Third Eye Tapestries

Astrology gets a bad rap for being unable to reliably predict the future. The fact is, while astrology reveals the underlying order of things, it does not reveal the future.  Through astrology we can know when there is potential for difficulty, but everyone experiences these cycles differently, and they are experienced differently at different times.

As I write this today at the end of November, I have just found out that a brilliant astrologer that I have worked with over the years, Dawn Bodrogi, just died.  In her last news letter she wrote that her mother had recently died just after a New Moon in the progressed chart, and Dawn had a New Moon in the progressed chart at the time of her death.  A client recently also had a New Moon in the progressed chart at the time of death.

When we think of New Moons, death is not the first thing we predict!  A New Moon marks a new beginning – the old way is falling away as the lunar phase wanes to pave the way for a new start at the New Moon.  Often there is a fundamental change at the core of our being, or a move to a new location.

In my own chart, Jupiter (beliefs and meaning) is in a powerful square to Pluto (power and intensity).  This dynamic typically suggests someone who holds on tightly to their belief system, and there is a self-righteous quality to it.  When I have a strong feeling about something, my confidence in that belief never wavers.  98% of the time this confidence is well-placed and serves me well.  But when we are so rigid in our beliefs and what we think […]

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By |2018-07-15T09:50:25-04:00November 30th, 2017|Astrology in my world, Life|28 Comments

“When will we see the end of these difficult planetary cycles?”

planetary cyclesSomeone left this question in a comment recently, and I quite frequently hear this question from clients.  It’s a difficult one to answer because there are so many layers of planetary cycles that begin on the personal level with your own astrological chart that is affected by planetary movements.  Then we have the astrological chart of the nation in which we live that undergoes planetary cycles which affect the political landscape.  Expanding even further, we have the dances of the slower moving planets including Saturn, Chiron, and the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Not everyone is affected by planetary cycles in the same way – human behavior is difficult to predict since it depends so much on the choices that we make.  Still, this Uranus/Pluto cycle that we have been going through since 2010 is one of the most difficult because of the degree of change that it brings about.

While the Uranus/Pluto cycle is technically over, it is being kept alive this year by Jupiter which is bouncing back and forth between squares to Pluto and oppositions to Uranus, “translating” and re-connecting the Uranus/Pluto conflict and maintaining a level of tension that requires adaptation and synthesis.

Still, there are always harmonious cycles flowing through the most challenging of planetary alignments that provide support and encouragement.  A harmonious trine from  Saturn (discipline and focus) and Uranus (innovation and radical change) could help to facilitate the changes and new patterns that are necessary in order to recreate our world in the new ways that are required for the future.  Under this aspect the structures that we build under Saturn are energized by the ingenuity of Uranus.  This aspect tends to make the idea of change seem more exciting than frightening […]

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By |2017-04-11T08:14:25-04:00