US Pluto return

The Astrology of the U.S. Midterm Election, 2022 edition

Zazzle

Election Day in the U.S. falls on November 8th this year. Whoever decided to schedule Election Day during Scorpio season clearly wasn’t working with an astrologer – how much nicer would it have been to hold the election during Libra season when everyone wanted to be nice. Oh wait, then nobody would be able to make up their minds. 😃

Lunar eclipse. This year the midterm elections fall not only in Scorpio season, but on the day of a lunar eclipse at dawn in Washington, the Moon opposite the Sun at 15 degrees of the Taurus/Scorpio axis. This is one of the cross-quarter Celtic power days (Samhain), and with a lunar eclipse on this day it’s bound to carry a great deal of potential to create waves.

This is a total eclipse, with the lunar nodes just three degrees from the Sun and Moon which intensifies the eclipse energies – there is a sense here of something underground about to burst, which is then pushed into consciousness with an almost violent thrust. Mercury is exactly conjunct the Sun within one minute of a degree, something called “cazimi,” suggesting that ideas and communication could be lost under the power of the brilliant nuclear explosive energies emerging at this time. On top of this, Uranus, planet of “shock and awe” – sudden change and eruption of awareness – virtually ensures that what happens on Election Day this year is impossible to predict (exact conjunction to the Taurus Moon and opposes the Sun and Mercury).

The position of the lunar nodes is critical in an eclipse, and here we have the North Node of fate tied in with the eclipse of the lunar energies, and the South Node of […]

Share this article...
By |2022-10-15T08:58:35-04:00October 15th, 2022|Politics|4 Comments
Read More

Astrological news this week: Autumn equinox brings a turning point, and a New Moon

Astrological update for the week of September 19-26, 2022

art by Hayley Roberts

September is one of those months when the Sun moves into a cardinal sign and marks the beginning of a new season. Here in the northern hemisphere we are moving into fall, and my friends Down Under are transitioning to Spring. Either way, there is a whiff of change in the air.

Fall Equinox September 22, 9:03 pm. This month the Equinox marks the point of equality between darkness and light as we move from the mutability of Virgo into the cardinal point of Libra. Each of the cardinal signs marks a solstice or equinox, the turning points in the wheel of the year and the budding of promise as we enter a new season. In the Aries season at the March equinox we are more focused on initiating something new and adventurous, but here in Libra season in September we begin to integrate into our surroundings and learn to find greater balance and harmony. In the spring we plant the harvest, and in the fall we share it.

The astrological chart for the Equinoxes and Solstices are sometimes used to predict the energies of the coming season, and this Equinox chart is an interesting one. The Equinox Sun exactly conjoins Mercury, suggesting that there will be some fast moving events to shift us into the next phase. Jupiter is involved in this dynamic too, expanding the possibilities and opening doorways to new experiences.

The Equinox chart for Washington D.C. has Pluto tightly conjunct the Midheaven, the place of government and rulership, which does not seem ideal for a pre-election season in a nation that is torn by political strife. But that is nothing […]

Share this article...
By |2022-09-20T07:33:46-04:00September 19th, 2022|Planetary news this week|3 Comments
Read More

Happy (?) Birthday USA, 2022 edition

art by Linda Mears

Every history has a beginning, a crescendo, a crisis, and then either a breakdown or a breakthrough. This is true for individuals, and it’s also true for countries. The story of the United States is a fascinating one, especially through the astrological lens.

Before we can understand the current situation we have to understand how we got here. Back in 2009 I wrote:

The United States is at an astrological crossroads.  The US progressed Mars turned retrograde last year, and is searching for a new direction.  Pluto, god of transformation, has been challenging the US Midheaven, the point of public perception.  The qualities that gave the US its power over the past 400 years will not work for the next 400, and the nation will have to adapt.  Economic systems are changing and becoming much more tenuous and fluid as they go global.  Traditional social systems are weakening and require a new way of looking at the way humans form families and cultural groups.  As a people we must become more lithe and limber so that we can adapt to the changing collective, or we will not survive the 21st century.  This is not a time to look back and long for the conservative values of the 1950s – those days are over.  There is a new day dawning, and we will have to be ready for it.

Apparently we are not ready for it, and the return of Pluto to its place in the U.S. chart is drawing attention to the deep fissures that divide the country. But let’s take a birthday look at the chart of the United States and see what is in store for us […]

Share this article...
By |2022-07-07T07:38:04-04:00July 3rd, 2022|Politics|9 Comments
Read More

Sunday Memorial Day musings in a time of chaos

No poetry or inspiration today, friends – looking for the crack where the light gets in which I usually try to do in difficult times can’t change the basic facts on the ground here in the United States. The culture of the country is based on guns, and it’s hard to imagine that this will change. “The Shot Heard Round the World” began the American revolutionary war. Guns were needed to subdue the native peoples in order to fulfill the Manifest Destiny of the Sagittarian ascendant given to the signing of the Declaration of Independence (Sibley chart).

The roots of gun culture in the United States seems to be less about sportsmanship (really, how sporting is it to use an assault rifle to go deer hunting?) and more about fear of the “other” – the native peoples, the freed slaves, the rise of the Mexican and Black minorities to claim more equality. “This use of a friend/enemy distinction to crystalize a political identity is a well-known authoritarian technique, popularized by fascist theorist Carl Schmitt in The Concept of the Political (1932). According to Schmitt, sovereignty is the power to decide who is an enemy, a category of person against whom it is justified to use lethal violence. ” read more in this excellent article.

I have written many posts after these mass shootings, including this one in which a commenter said “Ask someone who was protecting their business or home during the LA riots why someone might need an ‘assault rifle’.”  All of this fear is very good for business, and even though the clout of the National Rifle Association may be weakening, its symbolism is still strong as we […]

Share this article...
By |2022-05-30T08:17:05-04:00May 29th, 2022|Politics|13