Author Archives: Amanda Painter

A Little Light Goes a Long Way

Dear Friend and Reader:

In the midst of so much that is overwhelming — the dire need to effect immediate steps to slow global warming; mass tragedies and fear-stoking threats (both real and perceived); even certain immediate circumstances of personal life — I have found myself grateful for a pervasive message coming through the writings of my colleagues at Planet Waves. This morning it struck me that each of them is essentially channeling our current astrology, whether intentionally or not.

Star trails captured behind the lighthouse at Cape Melagavi, near Loutraki, Greece. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.

The astrology, which I’ll come back to in a moment, involves the Sun in Sagittarius conjunct centaur Pholus and the core of our galaxy, as we approach the Capricorn solstice; Mercury conjunct Pluto in Capricorn; and even Mars in Libra opposing Eris in Aries. I’ll get to the exact dates and times and interpretations further down. First, consider these thoughts:

Amanda Moreno, in facing the global spiritual mandate to “stop fucking around, compromising our beliefs,” eventually comes back to the understanding that, “we don’t have to shoulder the entire weight of the world, but rather claim whatever part of it is within our reach and make the intention to heal it in some concrete way.” She also linked to this grounded, heartening essay by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (author of Women Who Run with the Wolves).

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Growth Opportunities, Restraint and the Gift of Life

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Note: For the past several weeks I have been standing in for Eric on the Monday Astrology Diary so he can make efficient, relaxed headway on your soon-to-be-incredible Vision Quest annual readings for 2016. Read more about Vision Quest and pre-order these year-ahead readings (written and audio components) here. — Amanda

Earlier today I was reading a section of astrologer Robert Hand’s book Planets in Transit to get some extra insight on the Sun-Jupiter square that is exact today (Monday) at 10:02 am EST, with the Sun in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Virgo. At its best, this aspect can signal tremendous growth and expanded opportunities; particularly spiritual growth or opportunities to serve humanity, given the signs involved.

Like COP21, its bark is worse than its bite… Photo by Amanda Painter.

Yet a particular passage by Hand stood out for me:

“Basically this transit is a test of your discipline and self-restraint. If you are not a restrained person, you will react to this influence by going overboard in some way, overextending yourself or living in a fool’s paradise where you think nothing can go wrong. Or you might squander a valuable resource, only to find on another day that you do not have enough of what you need.”

Does that passage remind you of anything? For example, the agreement reached at the COP21 climate summit in Paris that, unfortunately, does not really accomplish anything meaningful toward slowing global warming?

I realize that many are celebrating that an agreement was reached at all. But take four minutes to watch this interview with Paul Oquist, lead envoy from Nicaragua to COP21, who describes why the mechanisms agreed to at the summit are a path to failure: “We don’t want to be an accomplice to taking the world to 3 to 4 degrees and the death and destruction that represents.”

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Your Own Personal (Productive) Volcano

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By Amanda Painter

Last week, two major volcanoes put on impressive shows with their eruptions: Mt. Etna in Sicily, which is regularly active, and Momotombo in Nicaragua (for the first time in 110 years). Unsurprisingly, they serve as fitting illustrations for this week’s astrology — and the way that creative and destructive forces coexist, even within the same event.

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Reconsidering Previously Accepted Sexual ‘Truths’

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In honor of Venus moving into Scorpio, a sign ruled by Mars, here are excerpts from a pair of articles that reconsider or reframe two facets of sexuality. In the first, Joe Kort, Ph.D., discusses “Why I Am No Longer a Sex-Addiction Therapist” on Psychology Today. In the second, Stanley Siegel, LCSW, explains that, “When It Comes To Sex There is No Difference Between Male and Female Desire” on Psychology Tomorrow.

Venus and Mars by Michael Bergt.

Kort writes:

In the 1980s, addiction models were becoming increasingly popular, and the sex addiction model tagged onto that wave. Twelve-step groups on behavioral addictions were forming everywhere.

The groups, as well as the information, were easily accessible, and clients understood the concept immediately. I became a certified sex addiction therapist, and fully embraced the model until 2010 when I began to see some serious flaws.

Among those flaws are the pathologizing of certain sexual behaviors that, if practiced in safe and consensual ways, can actually enhance a person’s happiness and wellbeing; and also the focus on controlling sexual behavior in a way that puts people at odds with their own sexuality — a battle they are sue to lose, creating inner chaos in the process.

Siegel, in comparing notes with his daughter Alyssa who is also a practicing psychotherapist, writes:

The mind, just as the body, is naturally driven toward self-healing and sex is among its most powerful allies. Desire often grows out of unmet childhood needs or unresolved past conflicts. The longing to satisfy needs or reconcile old conflicts drives men’s sexuality as much as women’s. We all use sex to connect, communicate, negotiate power, give and receive pleasure and remake old relationships. Our desires grow out of our unconscious attempts to work through deep-seated feelings.

During our many conversations with people in and out of the therapy room, my daughter and I have found that sexual fantasies are a human phenomenon. We learned that men’s fantasies are just as deep and complicated as women’s. During the heightened sexuality of adolescence and young adulthood men sexualize the same painful childhood feelings as women, encoding them in fantasies – stories they tell themselves to solve deep issues and conflicts. And by surrounding them with erotic pleasure, men counteract feelings of powerlessness, guilt, shame, rejection, abandonment, inadequacy, loneliness, and insecurity in much the same way as women do.

If you read Len Wallick’s post Friday about Venus in Scorpio being an invitation to extend some love as a way to counteract the proliferation of Martian aggression in the world currently, you know that your expression of love need not be sexual. If, however, you choose that route, know that you are not alone — and you are normal. As Siegel points out, contemporary psychology’s casting of the sexes “in alien roles, with ‘men from Mars’ and ‘women from Venus’” only gets us so far.

As astrology shows us, we all have Venus and Mars somewhere in our charts. What we do to balance them may differ, but ignoring them and what they can teach us is not rally an option.

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Weekend Astrology: Empowerment, Devotion, Ethical Ambition

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As I wrote this on Wednesday, the COP21 UN Climate Summit in Paris was in its third day (today is the fourth). The ban on public protests that was instituted as part of a ‘state of emergency’ (which some are calling a police state) in the wake of the Nov. 13 attacks was scheduled to end Tuesday; instead, it has been extended by French police until Dec. 13 — specifically for central Paris and for Le Bourget, where COP21 is being held.

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Time for a New Meme du Moment

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From Friday’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, to the ISIS attacks two weeks in Paris, to France’s bombing of Syria, to rampant backlash against Syrian refugees, to divisive politicians, it seems our world is awash in fear and violence. We want so badly to see the big, humanitarian picture right now (and many people devoted to it still do); yet if we look out at the world via news reports, we meet a mirror full of chaos and pain that looks like it can never be healed. Don’t believe it.

“We are Mainers who welcome Syrian (and all) refugees here. Do you?” This sign appeared in my neighborhood the week before last, and has been filled with signatures. Photo by Amanda Painter.

I don’t mean to say that we’ll see the eradication of pain and violence in our lifetimes. What I mean is that what Eric described in an email as the “meme du moment” — i.e., “be afraid of getting blown up” — is an illusion.

One that has the Saturn-Neptune square behind it (now separating but still nearly exact). Every astrological aspect can have a positive expression; but part of what helps us to distinguish positive expression from an aspect’s shadow side is that, yes, sometimes that shadow comes through strongly.

So here we are, with the Sagittarius Sun having come through the Saturn-Neptune square earlier on Sunday. If you’ve had any contact with the media (including social media), you’re aware that the collective psychological climate right now is dominated by fear (Saturn in shadow form) and delusion (Neptune in its lower expression): fear of being bombed or shot; the delusion that shooting or bombing someone will solve the problem of your fear.

Yet there is much productive, creative work to be done, and being engaged in such endeavors is, I think, one antidote to the fear and delusion. It’s not necessarily an escape (though it can be); rather, I mean that any time you engage in creative, productive actions, I think you act to neutralize fear and delusion.

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Reclaiming the Erotic Body, one pole at a time

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Performance artist and filmmaker Michele Beck has turned her camera on her women-only pole dancing class — and herself — as an exploration of the ways women can reclaim their sensual, body-centered sexuality by using a dance form that has long been considered exploitative and misogynistic by many feminists. Removed from the limited context of a strip club, these classes offer a safe space in which to liberate a form of feminine sexual power that has been repressed, cut off, shamed out of existence, misunderstood or misdirected in the lives of many women.

The documentary My Erotic Body is set to be released in 2016. You can watch a brief trailer above, and another short video about the project here (it contains some of the same interview segments with these ‘regular’ women, but also some words from Beck).

Reviewing the project on the Psychology Tomorrow website, Velleda C. Ceccoli, PhD, writes:

Pole dancing and the particular moves that it involves — squatting with open legs, crawling on the floor, swinging and wrapping oneself on the pole — seem to counteract the constrictions that history, society, and culture have imposed on female sexuality. It helps to liberate Woman from the inside. In fact, the classes provide ways of moving that are aimed at helping women to re-experience their bodies within an environment that is about self indulgence, in that it encourages what feels good. For some, this involves re-claiming their sexuality after having children and shedding the idea of motherhood as sexless and/or saint-like. For another, it involves reclaiming aggression as a way to protect oneself and insure that what happened in childhood never happens again. For all the women in the film, there is an element of performance that helps to create the particular erotic creature they become – the clothes, shoes, and other accouterments that they select have a powerful effect on how they embody their erotic.

In the end, this film is about women discovering their bodies and their Eros along with other women, through their validation of desire and sexuality. It is about re-discovering the female body in all of its embodied sexual potential, and needing other women as mentors and co-conspirators on the way to developing a sense of comfort and confidence in being WOMAN.

Perhaps we are still reclaiming the feminist movement.

Observing Gratitude, and Putting It To Work

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I covered one facet of today’s inaugural Saturn-Neptune square and yesterday’s Gemini Full Moon in the Monday Astrology Diary, which you’re welcome to review if you like. So in today’s column, I wanted to look ahead into the weekend — particularly the Sun entering the Saturn-Neptune square.

Water and structure — Neptune and Saturn — meet in the form of bubbles. Photo by Amanda Painter.

First, I’ll mention that the newly waning Moon will continue through Gemini all day today (Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.) It enters Cancer Friday at 2:26 pm EST / 19:27 UTC. This means the Moon will be making a slew of aspects to planets all around the zodiac wheel.

Some of these contacts may briefly heighten tension (especially emotional reactions to old family patterns, criticism or self-criticism, and collective beliefs you might be trying to distance yourself from). Yet the Moon will also harmonize with other planets that could ease communication with intimate partners (Venus and Mars in Libra), or foster nourishing ideas about what it means to share a meal today with others (Ceres in Aquarius). For that, I am grateful.

So today is not likely to be dull — but it should move quickly (or, at least, your thoughts about it will). Saturday and Sunday, with the Moon in Cancer, may take on a domestic tone — complete with nesting and caring impulses. One of the loveliest ways to show gratitude for someone or something is to take care of them in some way. Even the smallest ways of being thoughtful can achieve this.

Yet the most prominent aspect pattern this weekend involves the Sagittarius Sun making a conjunction to Saturn, and a square to Neptune in Pisces — both exact Sunday, essentially constituting one event. The Sun is entering the yearlong Saturn-Neptune square, though the Sun only passes through briefly.

Since the Sun represents your conscious self-awareness and Sagittarius is a philosophical, ‘big picture’ sign, you might notice a sense of how you yourself fit into this process of dissolution and visioning that is developing on the world stage.

Then again, you might not. It could be that having the emblem of our consciousness positioned so close to this process that is only beginning could make it hard to see or understand clearly. That’s okay, too; you have time to observe and process and engage with what is happening.

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Even on a ‘mundane’ or ‘everyday’ level, this astrology could feel difficult to pin down. Sun square Neptune is known for making it hard to see clearly; your idealism might be stimulated, yet you might not have the energy or the traction to push toward your loftier goals.

Yet Saturn conjunct the Sun provides some structure and direction if you’re willing to see and accept it (though it also could feel a little low-energy). Figure out what your most important responsibilities are; that is, your real duties — the ones that feel essential to you at a fundamental level; you might even notice a theme of ‘service’ involved. Those are the tasks you can tackle and make some progress with, especially if there is an element of organization or planning involved.

You don’t have to dictate that others do the same; the Cancer Moon may emphasize ‘caring’, but there are many ways to show that. Dig into whatever it is you must do, and allow a sense of gratitude — that there is work you can do to make something better than it was, for example — keep you moving.