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In Canada, They Call it Therapy

Dear Friend and Reader:

AT OMEGA INSTITUTE last weekend, I did something that in retrospect was pretty daring — start a bunch of relatively new astrology students working with Chiron transits. Looking at the events and experiences surrounding several past Chiron transits is one of the most efficient ways to get an understanding of a person and of their chart.

Therapy I: The Voyeur. Painting by Warren Criswell.

These transits include Chiron’s squares, oppositions and return to its own natal position (each of which happens for a brief phase once per 50-year cycle), as well as Chiron conjunct the ascendant, Sun and Moon.

A friend made up a nifty 100-year Chiron ephemeris that fits on six pages (for easy copying), I brought a new, very fast printer so we could have instant charts for the class and — with a little bit of mindfulness — we had everything we needed to get going.

After a brief introduction, I demonstrated the process on one student whose transits turned out to be quite dramatic and timed precisely to the 50-year orbit of Chiron. The themes of these events all related to his Moon/Chiron conjunction in Capricorn in the 4th house: the result being a long sequence of events involving his home, family and security base. This was astrology in real life, not in theory; and it was astrology connected to a living client we could all see and dialog with, rather than case study in a book.

Usually, astrology studies begin with the rote memorization of the planets through the signs and houses. Each placement is presumed to have a “meaning,” and that meaning is presumed to be static and definitive. For example, I have Venus in Taurus and once I read in a book that this means I will go to the same restaurant every day and order the same thing. Which is precisely what I do, but I think it’s purely a coincidence.

The themes of Chiron, as I mentioned last week, are apropos of Omega Institute because it’s a holistic studies center dedicated to the raising of awareness, the two most important themes of this archetype. The risk of using Chiron is that material “too deep” will come up, but the friendly part is that when we’re truly serving as a facilitator, we don’t need to fix anyone or do very much, but rather bear witness to the human condition and serve as an honest reflecting pool. I also thought it was excellent that Mercury in Gemini was stationing retrograde in an exact trine to Chiron as we began the class Friday night.

It can take an hour or two to do this process; I recommend that newer astrology students set aside a full session, and strive to accomplish nothing but hear the client’s account of their biographical material.

At this point in my work, I can usually spot check the transits in about half an hour and get a feel for how someone who has come to me processes their changes. Once the lifetime Chiron transits are out in the open, the choices the client faces in the present moment, and the factors influencing them, are much more obvious. The name of the tune is pattern recognition, and seeing where the current experience of life fits into a larger, often hidden pattern — then bringing that pattern to light.

With this done, an astrologer and client can then work with the awareness of what has happened, what it represents and what is happening — then use that information to look at options, consider possible courses of action and to understand recurring issues much more clearly.

I think this is more effective and far more ethical than an astrologer picking up the chart and telling the client who they are. Yes, there are times to read a chart; Saturn in Capricorn has a different sense of existence than Saturn in Aquarius, and you need to factor that. An astrologer needs to be able to feel the Moon in a chart and be aware of the way that it can dominate the personality. But in a process workspace, the sense of existence needs to come from the client’s experiences rather than from the astrologer’s projections.

When I teach this process in Canada, they tell me it would be defined as “therapy” and therefore questionably legal to practice without a therapist’s license. To which I reply, if there is an astrologer in the room with an ephemeris, a horoscope chart and a client who thinks you’re an astrologer, who happens to be chasing a comet around the solar system, that is clearly astrology. It may be “therapeutic,” but on the right day so is going to the movies, a prostitute or the gym. That an astrologer might listen to the client for an hour or two before making any pronouncements at all might be considered radical, but I think it’s common sense.

When I train established professional astrologers in this, one of their most burning questions is how to condition their clientele not to show up with questions like, “When should I dump my stock portfolio?” or “When is the fabulous guy gonna show up?”

This is easy. When you make the space for people to express their feelings, they usually open up. It happens rarely enough that anyone really cares or has time to listen, or the compassion to actually extend themselves emotionally.

Using the Chiron process, we admit that a person has feelings; and in doing so, we might even get underneath the resistance to being in a loving relationship, and we might understand something about values concerning money that would influence a financial decision. This seems more in the domain of spiritual work than therapy or traditional astrology, and I would remind everyone that the practice of both spirituality and astrology (and indeed of therapy) are protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Such a process also does something vital, which is teach astrologers how transits work, and thus how the natal chart works. It provides a window into human nature and not merely astrological nature as it attempts to explain human nature. Transits inherently remind us all that the cosmos is a thing in motion, and that planets act as waves much more than they act as particles.

Working this way runs precisely opposite to a dominant trend in mainstream astrology, which is harkening back to much older modes of work where things are perceived to be predetermined, predictable and more orderly than life usually turns out to be.

In a world that grows more complex and uncertain every day, the idea that there is a simple answer to the many questions of existence is appealing. Astrology is terrible for finding easy answers. It is excellent for taking a complex view of a situation, seeing the many factors and people involved, observing that everything is in relationship to everything else; and then for making observations that may be reflected both in life and in the chart.

Closer to the heart of the matter is the need for astrology to face the many unknowns that come with existence, rather than attempting to explain the mystery away. That is religion: you co-opt philosophy, sex, death and the meaning of life and sell it to people in a moral package.

An art form connected to an ever-expanding cosmos needs to look at mystery and show respect for mystery. We need to recognize that each client and each reader presents an entirely different, truly unique worldview, metaphysical view, sexual orientation and set of specific needs.

We need to recognize that astrologers come to the work with their own issues. I encouraged my students, in particular, to know their sexual issues and to understand the specific ways in which religion and their parents messed them up. We may not be able to resolve all of this material before we start working with people, but if we know our issues it will be that much easier to keep them out of the way of our clients. We will be able to assist people who are happier than us, more successful than we are, or who dare to be freer than we would ever dream. And we can also work with those who face situations far more grim than we would ever wish for anyone, but not be coming from a sense of pity or the need to fix anyone.

Along these lines, I recommend that anyone who is working with people as an astrologer be in a therapy process. I don’t think it’s necessary to have “completed” the process, but rather to be in deep enough to feel vulnerable, and to have opened the lid to the unknown within themselves. Part of therapy is claiming what you feel, what you know and what you don’t know, and if you get into those habits, you will be a lot less likely to inflict damage on the people who come to you for help. And if you have a therapist you trust and can go to, you will have a mentor who can guide you through difficult situations with clients, which may arise from time to time.

This is a tall order, I know. But the short way around the tree is to listen, and in order for an astrologer to listen, the first thing that needs to happen is that an astrologer needs to know himself or herself. Clients need to be willing to speak about their lives, their needs and what they want to create with the work — but this is much likelier to happen if the astrologer is open-minded and able to have a modicum of objectivity on their own situation. If your buttons get pushed really easily, or if you can’t at least make a space where this doesn’t happen, then it would be a lot better for you to not work with people till you get clear about your own inner condition.

There is also a need to have faith in creativity. In other words, instead of telling a client what is going to happen, it makes much more sense to ask them what they want to happen, what they don’t want to happen and to use the awesome power of astrology and awareness to help them make the necessary choices to get the results they need. And this, too, needs to stand apart from spiritual fascism and New Age megalomania: we are only co-creators of the world; it does quite a bit of co-creating with us, and to us.

I think the single most significant thing that an astrologer can do is tune into the creative force behind it all. This is easy: you can start by asking for help, and agreeing that the work be devoted to the greatest good for all concerned. Then you gently move through the plasma of consciousness and see what comes to the surface.

Chiron by its nature turns the discussion to receptive mode, puts the emphasis on healing, and has a useful way of dedicating everything to raising awareness.

And, hey — this is what I learned in my first experience teaching astrology at a world-class holistic study center last weekend.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

THERE’S A remarkable kind of contest going on at the moment, and we should take a moment to appreciate it. The old time-worn ways of being on this planet and our growing realignment with our higher instincts are like a couple of sumo wrestlers, staring each other down and shifting for position, grappling and sweating in contest for the future. We see it in our news, our neighborhoods, our homes — we see it in ourselves.

Psych Silhouettes. Illustration by Danielle Voirin.

You might catch yourself making a statement, even as you hear it ring false; no worries, that’s a sign of your mind changing. You’re being taught. Don’t be afraid to let the new idea in — it would be ridiculous for us to stand in an old understanding when a new one has superimposed itself onto our current situation. Information is being downloaded each moment for us to grab and own; personal bits and pieces that connect the dots to help us in our greatest challenges or take us toward our dearest dreams.

In extreme periods such as these, when we are challenged greatly and our daily world is shaken, we have a tendency to knee-jerk into our default safety position, locking up our energy and stopping the momentum from pushing us forward. That is an error; a common one. For instance, in tough economic times we keep what we have rather than put it into play; that impedes the flow of giving and receiving, a loop that requires both actions in order to move freely. This is not the time to ponder apparent lack — this is a time to celebrate source and keep a generous spirit. Our good depends on it.

Our challenges are obvious; the prayer list my spiritual family and I keep grows bigger every day, filled with grievous health and mental health issues, job loss and survival needs, relationship problems and family dysfunctions. Many people are leaving the planet now in various and creative ways; ageless souls in young and old bodies; unwilling, some say, to make the required changes. Add the political and human calamities of this period and even the sleepiest human must notice that something’s up on planet Terra; that life ain’t what it used to be.

Continued at this link…

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2008, #716 – By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Energy is one thing; being balanced enough to express it is another. You are now in a moment of potential equilibrium in terms of what you feel and how you can express it in a constructive way. I would add a word of caution here: don’t expect everyone, or anyone, to understand what you’re getting at. It’s truly enough that you understand your ideas, or at least that you’re passionate and curious enough to keep developing them. Think of yourself as an environment where you mix your mental and erotic energies in a balance that gives them meaning, a structure to work within, and a space to contain the new things that are developed. The thing to remember is that this environment is actually you: your inner world, your process of growth and self-creation. More than anything, the planets paint a picture of striving for the inner freedom to feel and be yourself.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

You may now see the glimpse of a solution where before you saw none. Perhaps you’re questioning whether you have the fire power to do what you need to do, to create the solution you want to create. You may be factoring out several elements from the equation. For example, you are not the only object in motion; the whole universe is moving around you. Some things are moving toward you and some are moving away, but your environment is in a state of change, and I suggest you observe that change, and make good use of it. True, there is always the mystery of not knowing what is going to come next. But that is always the case, regardless of how we buttress ourselves with activity, commitments and ideas. There is an answer to your current dilemma, and I assure you it begins with one thing: knowing what you want.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)

Is who you think of as yourself really yourself? I only ask because it seems like you’re in the process of discovering someone new inside your own awareness. It is another presence, more stable and more rooted in the sphere of feeling rather than the sphere of ideas. Slow down and you’ll notice that this presence has a distinct identity, and that it’s communicating with you. If it appears in the form of another person, I suggest you check in and notice the particular way you have opened up to a new dimension of feeling which is making their physical presence possible and that much more meaningful. I don’t believe that we “create the world with our minds,” but I do know that what we are open to, what we recognize, and what we embrace has a much better chance of expressing itself in our lives.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Albert Einstein said that imagination is more powerful than knowledge. I wholeheartedly agree with my Pisces brother. The process you are experiencing in these days and weeks is about understanding how your imagination works, and choosing what you want its contents to be. You are typically someone who gets results by taking action in the world based on how you feel; but you seem to have little control over the “how you feel” factor. Now you have a moment to go into the dream synthesizer and explore the bounds where your inner world manifests the outer one. To do this, deep intimacy with yourself helps greatly, and you are very likely to need some time away from others to facilitate this. Given how many others depend on you, that may be difficult, but it will be well worth it.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)

Certain friends may be acting a little strangely at the moment. At the same time, there are likely to be one or two significant new people on the scene, and a few from the days of yore who have returned for a reprise. Though you usually take an easygoing approach to your social life, I suggest you keep track of the comings and goings. Notice what people are saying to you and to one another, and witness how this aligns with what people actually do. Pay attention where friendship overlaps anything involving your professional life, particularly to financial commitments or communication commitments. Everything is cool as long as everyone feels how they say they feel, and does what they say they are going to do. If the ends don’t meet, I suggest you be the one to politely call the question.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)

Your professional environment is changing rapidly. Certain things are showing up that seem to be setbacks; other developments appear to be helpful. For the moment, I suggest you not make up your mind about which is which and what is what. At this point, anything can have any influence. I suggest you take a deliberative approach and allow every influence to reveal its true nature in the long term, rather than assigning it a role straight away. You need to observe more than just your thoughts. Observe the things that people say and what they do; look at how things that seem inconvenient one day turn out to be surprisingly helpful a little while later. While you’re at it, take it easy on yourself: you have become a more impressive taskmaster than usual. I dare say that cracking the whip is not quite in line with your greater vision.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)

One of the things that fuels your Libra sense of weighing the opposites is that you tend to have two opposing sets of beliefs. You may feel like an atheist one day and a devout catholic the next day. I suggest that you use the next few weeks to see how frail beliefs are, and how influential they are at the same time. It appears to be time to take a big step beyond believing in anything and experiencing things, and people, for who and what they really are. It’s rarely easy to penetrate to that depth, particularly where perceptions are concerned, but the place we go when we do is faith. What is the difference between faith and belief? Faith comes with no rationalizations. It has this peculiar sense of standing on its own, and showing up with its own unique form of strength.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)

You may feel like the cooperation of another person is essential to meeting a certain objective or goal, but it may not be the person you think. You have many allies; many people around you have access to the kinds of resources you need. I suggest you get over the feeling that without one of them in particular, you don’t have the magic ingredient. And if there is a magic ingredient, it’s you. Anyway, someone who is acting up right now is not going to keep it up forever. They just need a little time to sort out their own stuff, and to be sure that they are in the right place. Try not to take it personally. Though it may affect you, in truth it has nothing to do with you. Part of being an influential person means that you have the ability to face any situation, and to turn temporary reversals of fortune into opportunities.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)

If astrology is based on superstition, then people have a lot of explaining to do as to why their minds and feelings are whipped around by the planets like peas in a bottle. But they are, and sometimes we are too. Therefore, I suggest you enjoy your exceptionally stable position on the planet and in society, and allow others to go through their mental gyrations and make up their minds about small things in as long as it takes you to make your most important life decisions. Be grand, be wise and be chilled. Use your psychological skills, judiciously. Just don’t be indifferent; keep sending little messages that you care every now and then, which I know that you do. You have some amazing things cooking in that kitchen of yours, and though others may show up late for dinner, you can be pretty sure they’re going to show up (with their mind as well as their body) sooner or later.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

Work (as we think of it) is not all it’s cracked up to be, but it means different things to different people. Most of us would tell you how central our job is to our life, but then most people do anything to forget their job the moment they have a chance to do so. You’re in the midst of getting an interesting lesson in just how different people feel about the experience of work and service. This may be testing your commitment or patience with your own goals, and giving you the sense that you have more on your hands than you bargained for. Yet if you look you’ll see that most of the chaos and confusion is on the surface of the water rather than deep inside. You have, meanwhile, an excellent opportunity to tune up your routines, find the weak links in the chain (human and technological) and to allow people who are not really in for the long haul to go their own way.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

Last week, in a tribute to Mercury retrograde, I offered a commentary on the nature of art. This week I would like to give one on originality. Personally, I don’t think being original is something you strive to do. I think it’s something that you probably look back and notice you’re doing. The greater and more dependable factor is sincerity, and you can indeed push yourself to be evermore real, to draw from a deeper well, or to make your personal impression on the world that much more firmly. True art, if you ask me (which you didn’t, really) is based on curiosity. I am not a big fan of the concept “pure” but I think that curiosity is as close as we get on the earthly plane. It can be applied to the subject matter or to texture; it can be applied to a thought process; it can relate to how we move through the plasma of emotion, or how we relate to ourselves. Right now all these doors are wide open for you.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

What were your father’s messages to you? Don’t just consider the things he told you or the things you overheard; consider the implications of his actions. Consider how he treated people and most of all, consider how you, as a deeply sensitive and emotional person, responded to his existence. Take this back as far into your childhood as you can go. You are in a particularly excellent zone for decoding the mixed signals that he gave you. When decoding a mixed signal, you have to take one side of the equation, then the other, then figure out what they mean together. Most mortals stop the process right before the third step. Make sure you get there; it’s the hardest part of the process, but that’s where the payoff is.

Mixed Signals, Bright Ideas: Mercury Retrograde in Gemini

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Dear Friend and Reader:

WE ALL KNOW how weird Mercury retrograde can be. On a mundane level, it’s usually simpler than the psychological level; i.e., it’s easy enough to back up your disk drives early and often. It’s also wise to avoid doing anything of the kind during the few days close to the stations, and all it takes is a little planning.

Identical Twins: Roselle, N.J. 1967.
By Diane Arbus.

With some negotiation, you can avoid signing contracts or making major commitments during the retrograde phase or during those days when Mercury’s direction is changing. Conserve your cash and you’ll be ready if something goes amiss. All of this becomes common sense after a while, though it’s worth repeating.

Mercury is retrograde for three weeks about three times a year, and we’re about to experience one between May 25 and June 19. There is a phase of about three weeks on either side of the actual retrograde wherein the effect is noticeable; this is called the echo or shadow phase. During this phase, Mercury is moving through the degrees where it’s about to be retrograde, or was just retrograde. When the echo phase ends, Mercury takes new territory and continues to do so for about nine weeks before entering a new echo phase. The rhythm of this dance is meaningful to follow and you can learn a lot about astrology and life if you do so.

The retrogrades make interesting patterns; for example, focusing on one particular element each year. We are currently in a year of Mercury retrogrades in the air signs. Over the winter, Mercury was retrograde in Aquarius. It will soon be retrograde in Gemini, and later in the year, in Libra.

The pattern is not evenly distributed through the signs. For example, Mercury is retrograde least of all in the water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. I’ve noticed that, for most people, these are the most emotionally challenging retrogrades.

Note that all planets (except the Sun and Moon, which are not actually planets) spend part of their orbit retrograde. The patterns are different between the inner planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars) and the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn and anything beyond). The outer planets are retrograde part of every year, usually for about four to five months. Venus is retrograde every 18 months and spends the least time retrograde of all the planets. Mars is retrograde every two years. Mercury, which moves quickly, is retrograde three times a year.

They all have one thing in common — when a planet is retrograde, the Earth is closer to that planet.

The Unique Psychological Trip

While the issues with communication devices, mechanical objects and agreements are what make Mercury retrograde famous, what makes each retrograde unique and interesting is the psychological and emotional material that surrounds the process. Many have noticed that retrogrades can be creatively potent, deeply introspective and reveal a lot about who we are — to ourselves, and at times to others. Conspiracies can come unmasked. Gossip can be revealed.

Mercury retrograde may make you want to do this to your cell phone. Image, courtesy of Ian Saxon.

We can notice things we would have missed otherwise; odd or long-concealed facts have a way of bubbling to the surface. When this happens, Mercury works a little like Chiron, revealing the weaknesses in a system in a way that helps us fix them. Mercury retrograde is particularly hazardous to those who deceive or make a habit of deceiving themselves: it is a great time for gossip to backfire. All these changes can put stress on relationships, and when you add to that the undeniable factor of miscommunication, things can get hairy.

If there is still anybody out there who judges a person’s character based on one unreturned email, or even two, I suggest you reconsider your policy. If you send an important email during this phase, perhaps make a phone call to say you did so.

People who like Mercury retrograde tend to be the ones who enjoy having their ideas about themselves shaken up, and welcome the experience of new ideas being shaken loose from their minds. They tend to be artists, writers and system-busters of various stripes.

In addition to being associated with money and communication devices, Mercury is about the living spirit of our minds, the spark of consciousness that represents self-awareness and conscious intelligence. It is an androgynous god, and appears in many cultures as the archetype of the trickster. The trickster effect is particularly potent during retrogrades, and as annoying as it can be, you can also have a lot of fun playing with ideas, investigating yourself and surfing the threads of synchronicity.

In traditional astrology, Mercury rules two signs — Gemini and Virgo. Both of these signs are mentally oriented, dualistic, and associated with language and intelligence. Of the two, Gemini is more associated with quick wits, skill with language, talent for commerce and multitasking. Virgo is associated with analysis, systematic thinking and service. It is the most self-critical sign, often taking this to excess.

In Alice Bailey‘s system described in the book Esoteric Astrology, Mercury is the ruler of Aries, which if you think about it makes sense. Mercury is a planet associated with ideas, and ideas represent an initiation.

Looking at Gemini

Since this retrograde is in Gemini, let’s briefly review that sign. Gemini is part of the mutable cross. Mutable means changeable, and what it changes between are cardinal (initiative or impulsiveness: to wit, Aries) and fixed (steady or hunkered down: to wit, Taurus). Bailey associates the mutable cross (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces) specifically with the awakening of the Christ mind, which I will translate as a unifying spiritual principle. Even if you look at ordinary interpretations of the signs out of Dell Horoscope, you might get this idea.

The Inner Twin. Catalina from the Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

Many of the zodiac signs infer a reference to dualism. For example, Aries and Taurus are both represented by animals with two horns. Gemini is the first sign to depict a human being, a distinction reserved exclusively for the air signs and for Virgo. The other eight signs depict animals.

In the first sign depicting humanity, we have two people shown — and they are twins! I appreciate this bit of cosmic wit, Gemini styled. Yes, people tend to arrive in pairs (but they do a lot of triangulating).

The twin metaphor suggests that within every individual is a kind of inner double with whom we are in a relationship, be it conscious or not. Think of this any way you like — the dark and light sides of our nature; male and female (Mercury is androgynous); the physical versus the psychic nature; or the dual sense of mortality (ego) and immortality (soul) that follows from the myth of Castor and Pollux.

Another Gemini theme reminds us that it’s impossible to name anything without also implying its opposite; any concept, like “me,” also implicitly contains the concept that everything else is not that (everything else is “not me”). This is the original “fall” or separation; dividing the One into manageable little chunks and slices using mental concepts and taking these to be real, when they are all only ever ideas, imaginary dividing lines between me, you, the tree and the dog. This is perhaps the oldest reason why Mercury rules Gemini: because the mind (initially ruled by Gemini) was traditionally said to divide everything into opposites, and be the cause of separation. The first separation always being into “me” and “everything else,” which instantly causes insecurity and fear that was not present before that concept. You can always see when babies develop their self-concept because they immediately become insecure and clingy.

The twins of Gemini also suggest that many human relationships are typically played out on the level of siblings: not particularly mature, operating by their own rules and — most significantly — subject to parental authority (which begins to take hold in the next sign, Cancer: the sign of the mother). Note the paradox: the kids come in the third sign, mom comes in the fourth. Alice Bailey suggests we run the zodiac wheel in reverse and see how well it works (it works pretty good).

One of my favorite facts about twins is that they sometimes develop a secret language, called an ideoglossia. Here is an interesting case study. This can be an elaborate, complex language understood only by two individuals. (If there is a linguist in the house who has studied this phenomenon, I would love to hear from you.) People who speak to one another in jargon or coded words are invoking one of the infrequently acknowledged powers of Gemini, which is to exclude others from the private partnerships that are so often formed in the world. Jargon frequently appears among people who buy and sell things with one another, and commerce is a distinct quality of Gemini.

A Rich Moment: Retrograde in Gemini

Considering all of this, Mercury retrograde in Gemini promises to be pretty interesting. Retrogrades turn inward and they allow us to reflect on the past. I think this will be an exciting phase for people who are introspective, reflective and who value their relationship to themselves on a conscious level. For others, it may feel like being led through a confusing maze.

Eric’s mom, Camille Cacciatore Savitz,is a Gemini with Virgo rising. One of her hobbies is putting on cabaret performances in her hometown, New York City — a very Gemini kind of thing to do. Photo by Eric Francis.

Looking at the charts, two themes come to mind: mixed signals and brilliant ideas. Humans are famous for their mixed signals. How often do we say one thing and mean another, fully aware of what we’re doing (or not)? One might dress a certain way, which seems to be a message to the world, then not appreciate what people think you’re expressing. You might play a game of approach-avoid, which sends one of the most mixed signals of all. Hypocrisy is a mixed signal, where people say one thing and do another thing, or hold the world to one set of rules and themselves to another.

Mercury retrograde in Gemini can help us see these patterns for what they are, learn from them and, then if necessary, help us rectify them. They are confusing to ourselves and others, and they waste a lot of time.

Second: brilliant ideas. The retrograde takes place square Uranus in Pisces. It’s dancing around in opposition to the Great Attractor; it makes repeated aspects to Chiron, Nessus and is loosely trine Neptune. This is a lot of flow.

The beginning of the retrograde phase teases a perfect square to Uranus; at the very end, the square resolves and, after a long and complex inner journey with many little, big and bigger discoveries along the way, something shifts.

I thought I would put a microscope to this unusual transit and see what we discover, looking at Mercury’s aspects to the more than 100 minor planets we track, as well as other interesting events that occur during the retrograde. For example, on the day that Mercury stations retrograde, Neptune also stations retrograde, with Chiron close by. So there is a triple station retrograde within about 24 hours, and all three planets are in the air signs. If you are one of those people who is looking for ways to shift your thinking, or searching for new experiences of inspiration, this is a rich moment.

We don’t have delineations of all the minor planets that are referenced in the sequence of aspects below, but the ones we do have are linked each time. We are planning 16 more delineations for the next annual edition. Aspects listed below that are marked “near miss” are not the closest pass ever of the aspect, but are the closest pass occurring during this time frame. They are usually exact to one degree. This sequence covers from the beginning of the first echo phase through the end of the second one; from May 11 through Saturday, July 5. I won’t interpret every aspect, though I’ll leave them all in for the sake of the akashic record. It will be interesting to go through the process and take notes on events or thoughts of each day and see how they align with the aspects or not.

Note that most (not all) of the aspects repeat a total of three times on this list. This happens each time Mercury is retrograde, because it covers the same 11 or so degrees of the zodiac three times, repeating its aspects to the slow-movers.

The aspects below were calculated by Serennu.

Sunday 11 May 2008

Mercury (13+ Gemini) sextile Elatus (13+ Leo). Elatus is a centaur planet that I associate with leading people on in situations that they don’t understand; or don’t understand the potential outcome of. It has a touch of Pholus, “small cause, big effect” (which you could easily enough apply to all of astrology).

Monday 12 May 2008

Mercury (14+ Gemini) opposite Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx). Ixion is a study in amorality. I attribute the key phrase, “anyone is capable of anything,” in the best and worst expressions of that potential. In the postmodern era, we know the difference between right and wrong quite well. But we tend to concern ourselves with petty matters and skip over the big ones. It is easier that way.

Mercury (14+ Gemini) opposite Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius). This is an aspect with a polarizing effect on the mind. Things that are not a big deal can become a very big deal, in one’s own mind, but there seems to be a faux quality to the controversy. The Great Attractor is a curiously Sagittarian point, vaster than anything known, bigger than millions of galaxies, and which nobody really understands. Therefore, it can represent our relationship to, and how we relate to, who and what we don’t understand — typically, we make up stories. If you make up stories, take them apart and see what they mean before somebody else does it to you.

Mercury (14+ Gemini) trine Atlantis (14+ Libra Rx). Atlantis is an asteroid about the use and abuse of technological power, and how we handle that quality. It is also associated with doomsday-type thinking, such as the notion that the end is near. Remember, on the collective level, this is an idea. But we might want to ponder our use of technology as individuals and as a society. Forget right and wrong; do we do anything productive, really? Do we make beauty, or do we mostly chatter?

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Mercury (14+ Gemini) trine Nessus (14+ Aquarius). Nessus takes the abuse of power on an exceedingly personal level. Nessus can point to the causes and the effects of karma. A trine opens up a mental window and an easy dialog.

Mercury (14+ Gemini) trine Rhadamanthus (14+ Libra Rx).

Thursday 15 May 2008

Mercury (16+ Gemini) opposite Crantor (16+ Sagittarius Rx).

Saturday 17 May 2008

Nessus stations retrograde (14+ Aquarius)

Mercury (18+ Gemini) opposite Quaoar (18+ Sagittarius Rx). Quaoar is a really interesting point just beyond the orbit of Pluto. I believe it’s associated with the power of our personal creation mythologies (everything from how we were created, to how we ‘create ourselves’ in the process of life) and family patterns that we enter unconsciously from birth. Mercury opposite this point is like a dialog with these ideas.

Monday 19 May 2008

Mercury (19+ Gemini) square Logos (19+ Virgo Rx). I consider Logos a kind of super Mercury. I think it’s one of the most interesting of the objects beyond Pluto. Preliminary research indicates a connection to computer programming (among other things), and I associate it with the phrase, “the search for the soul of technology.”

Dateline Continued Here

The following piece is a reprint from Daily Astrology and Adventure: We didn’t want you to miss this Aries Point analysis after the earthquake in China…
Dear Friend and Reader:

This week’s earthquake in China is the second of two recent events that qualify as Aries Point events. The first was the cyclone (known in our culture as a hurricane) that made landfall in Burma on May 2 and has, so far, killed an estimated 100,000 people.

ShakeMap of earthquake in China.

Earlier in May, I explained how the May 5 New Moon was precisely on the cross-quarter — that is, at 15+ degrees of a fixed sign, in this case Taurus. I explained how this is 135 degrees (a sesquiquadrate aspect, which is a square plus a semi-square) to one of the cardinal points, which tends to magnify the news. In the past decade, all these events have the feeling of what used to be called Earth changes (this language originally came from Edgar Cayce and was adopted by the New Age in the 1980s). Two other memorable examples of Aries Point events are the Sept. 11 false flag attacks and the Asian tsunami of late 2004. Each has this sense that “something big is happening” and, if you’re the type to use such language, “the end is near.”

The New Moon was square the centaur planet Nessus. A friend summed it up well when she wrote that Nessus “is associated with the dynamics of power and abuse, and in Aquarius is about those situations we are all collectively responsible for.” The concept of responsibility stands tall now: both tragedies are mired in politics, including American politics. We could do more; we cannot (for one example) offend China, from whom we borrow $2 billion a day.

Yesterday’s was a 7.9 magnitude earthquake, the worst in the region since 1976. For the record, 7.9 is not the same thing everywhere. I felt a 6.8 once and, though this is significantly less, it felt like a Jell-o mold jiggling; the beer bottles didn’t fall of the shelf in the local tavern. If the waves hit a different way, you can level part of society.

This is the second major disaster since the Taurus New Moon. As Judith Gayle writes in our Political Waves feature about the cyclone in Burma or, officially, the Union of Myanmar:

Take the Myanmar tragedy, with the complications projected to take a million lives; relief is still being kept out generally, but the junta continues to vigorously export rice to Bangladesh and other points, while throwing their citizens the spoiled leftovers. The “election” went on as planned, even though 100,000 people are dead or unaccounted for and the country is in chaos.

I sincerely feel that astrology needs to get out of the business of predicting disasters — you won’t read that stuff here — but we do need to see the patterns for what they are and know what we are dealing with. So, an estimated 50,000 have died at one time in one day, and 10 to 100 times more in Myanmar. This is beyond comprehension — think of the families of all those people, the communities lost, the networks.

What is particularly sad regarding the event in China is the proximity to Tibet; one of the true points of historical grief on the planet at the moment. Associated Press reported that the earthquake occurred along a faultline “where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands — near communities that held sometimes violent protests against Chinese rule in mid-March.”

Rescue workers in China uncover rubble where 900 students are trapped. Image: Shanghai Daily.

Then consider how about 154,000 people leave the planet, every day. Consider how an estimated 24,000 of those people die of hunger, every day — many thousands of them children. Consider, in light of the Sept. 11 false flag attacks, wherein 2,998 people died, and then the United States tore up Afghanistan and Iraq and is, apparently, still planning an attack on Iran. To be clear, on Sept. 11, many more children died of starvation than New Yorkers perished in the event; and we don’t hear about them except on late-night infomercials. We still hear about Sept. 11 in one form or another every time a politician opens his or her mouth. Therefore, while it’s deeply tragic and truly beyond the sphere of an individual’s understanding to hear of these events, I suggest that what we need to be questioning is the death-manufacturing industry. We are not impressed until these deaths happen all at once; it’s like we don’t notice the pain of the world otherwise.

And there is plenty of it now. That, too, presents a paradox: awareness immediately leads to the awareness of the world’s pain. We have a lot of incentive not to pay attention. At least these events cause us to notice for a little while.

This being said, we have the question of how to respond. Is this rightly an excuse to stop living the adventure of our lives? Well, not if we really are doing that, and many of us know perfectly well that we are not. In which case, we can remind ourselves of the fleeting transience of existence as we perceive it, take a breath and resolve to live every day.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

WE LIVE in remarkable times, my friend. Given our heads-down, small-picture preoccupation with the details of our lives, few of us are aware of how much is changing around us and how quickly: except for the bad stuff. And there’s plenty of that to go around, isn’t there?

The San Francisco Mission District burning after the 1906 earthquake. Original Photographer: H.D. Chadwick.

The Mother is on a rip now, giving us earthquakes and cyclones, tornados and floods, fires and extreme weather events. If that isn’t enough, sinkholes the size of buildings are opening under us and the temperature shifts are creating mayhem with our comfort levels, plans and pocketbooks. San Francisco is all a’ twitter as the Ring of Fire has produced a series of sharp quakes in the last weeks: talk of “the big one” is in the air. I grew up in the Bay Area, enjoying (seriously, I did and to everyone’s disapproval) a couple of earthquakes a week, and talk of “the big one” is ALWAYS in the air, or at least since the city was all but destroyed in 1906.

J.Z. Knight’s Ramtha, a channel I admired in the 80s, said that those who lived on fault lines (which he called “zippers”) were thrill seekers, adding that if they listened to their inner voice, they’d know when to leave an area before a major event. I must come from a long line of thrill seekers, since my family survived the ’06 quake, and my grandfather, living in Anchorage, Alaska, made it through the 1964 quake and tsunami. Now I find that here in the Pea Patch, I’m plunked down over the top of a fault line called the New Madrid; one that produced the nation’s largest recorded quake in 1812, felt over a million square miles and causing the Mississippi River to run backwards. Towns disappeared, lakes were formed, life went on; and that would be important to note, given our current level of fear.

Continued at this link…

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2008, #714 – By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)

You may feel like you have so many ideas that your head is going to explode if you don’t express them all. I suggest you start with a small opening rather than a large one: a few thoughts on paper; a few sketches on the kitchen memo board. Get your creative momentum going gently. The next couple of months are likely to be so intellectually rich that you’ll fill a notebook or two. There is another possibility, of course, which in your case would be a mental paper chase to rival a library getting hit by a missile. Either condition is a direct cosmic invitation to go on a profound search within: to explore the contents of your thoughts and feelings with no specific goal. The astrology is more akin to poetry than to journalism, though there is a place where the two meet, and you just might find it.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

Highly unusual turns of events in your life are underway, and they are calling on you to examine the patterns of your existence from every angle. You have reached a kind of Omega point, one of those inevitable thresholds where you notice not merely that change is inevitable, but welcome, necessary and liberating. But at the same time, the changes may cause you to doubt yourself, and be more than a little confusing. Your sign is the one associated by most astrologers with the concept of values, and in the deepest sense you are going through a thorough examination of what is the most important to you. Most people in Western society avoid this precisely because they might discover that what they thought was important to them is meaningless. This is usually regarded as terrifying rather than an opportunity to fill the empty cup. The choice is yours, but please do choose.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)

You are about to have a few brilliant ideas, but this is not quite the breakthrough point. Therefore I suggest you apply a longer-than-usual time between concept and application. Take that time and revise your plans and ideas over approximately six or seven weeks. If you are inclined to think that is too long for your hopes, please consider astrology: Mercury retrograde in your sign through the late spring and early summer (the full process ends around the July 4 weekend, with a stunning New Moon). You get two choices: repair the airplane while it’s flying, or design a positively fabulous one on the ground, take off, and arrive safely at your destination. Money is at stake, and your self-esteem. You like doing the job right, and feel better about yourself when you do.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

You may feel on the cusp of some profound emotional breakthrough. It’s actually part of a series of ongoing developments that are taking you through layer after layer of your emotional reality. The next wave, which is being prompted by the Full Moon in your empathic water sign Scorpio, literally ushers you into a new world within yourself; a world where your inner visions are becoming more vivid than ever. Take your time to close your eyes and look around. Remember that you’re bigger than anything you meet within yourself. Patiently give yourself opportunity after opportunity to express your revelations. Not everyone is as articulate as you are at the unseen world. What you perceive may be strange, and you may wonder whether it is true. Its truth is less important than witnessing honestly.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)

What seems like an accidental slip involving a professional matter will have an unlikely productive result — so do yourself and everyone a favor and don’t take your errors so seriously. It is sometimes true that all things work together for the good; just as often, we seem to get caught in the mire of regret, and that has a way of blocking our awareness of the happenstance improvements resulting from things not going according to plan. In any case, you stand in a delightfully uncertain moment, full of strangeness and if you look for it, grace and light.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)

Don’t be too shocked if everyone else isn’t as hard on themselves as you are on yourself. It is possible to resent others for not being trapped in guilt, regret or remorse but I assure you, anyone who is not stuck there did not arrive by accident. It either took a lot of hard work or a miracle. You might want to ask them precisely how it happened. You are embarking on a profound phase of reassessing your professional aspirations and life goals, and you would benefit significantly by doing so from the space of a clear conscience. What, exactly, have you done wrong? What, exactly, have others done wrong to you? In the scheme of things, it all adds up to a lot of trivia. Yet your life is not trivial. However, it takes a lot of courage to see, feel and embrace that fact.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)

You may feel like you’re pushing your luck, but in truth it is pulling you. The way to think, in a word, is big. You need freedom, and where you’re going to find it is in sharing resources with others. Your life is not a game of survivor, where alliances are good only until the next person gets voted out of the kitchen. In the actual game of life, everyone has to eat every day. And the way we do that is to feed one another. You are sitting on some astonishing resources that you don’t necessarily know you have, or have not necessarily considered. You may not think they are yours, per se, but you have access to them; you need them; and so does everyone else. The revelation may arrive at the end of the discussion, but that is better than never — so keep the ideas flowing until you reach the gem.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)

We are approaching the second Full Moon in your birth sign, which may be arriving with a feeling of futility (making a decision all over again) or going to a deeper layer (is how you felt a month ago, by the calendar, how you feel today)? Take it slow, if you can. Most of what you need to work through is in motion, and was long ago set in motion. Decisions don’t need to be points of agony, but rather opportunities to apply logic, intuition and common sense. It is unlikely that all three of those factors will be in conflict. However, the stars say this: resolving something from your past, and stepping into a future that you know awaits you with a sense of authentic certainty, may take a little longer than you were planning. After being beset by delays, that may not be welcome news. But when you make your move, it will stick, and provide you with solid ground to build on.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)

Pay attention to where you are, what you are thinking and what you are doing these very days. Make a map of your awareness — for example, your ideas, projects, concerns and certain key goals. Take an hour and jot down a few theories about how you plan to resolve some of the bigger issues or puzzles you face today, and where you hope your creative projects are going to go. Note carefully, in writing, who is around you this very week, in these very days, even seemingly casual encounters. Keep their names, numbers and business cards in a special file and save it where you’ll find it around the second week of November. You will need it then, and it will serve you well.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

At times you seem to exist outside your own reality, where the rules are all different and there is no way to tell what is coming next. At other times, you are free to explore your inner world in ways that suspend your usual cut-and-dried logic, tapping into your impressive sixth-sense that logic itself would seem to deny. The truth is, you know before you know; you feel before you feel; the distant past is as accessible as the immediate future. If along the way you’re inclined to doubt your own methods, remind yourself all that is not known about the universe or the world. Imagine being a top scientist in May of 1908 and having a glimpse of the world in which we live today. Just about everyone afforded such a privilege would have said it was outrageous or impossible. Outrageous, perhaps; impossible, surely not.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

You have been under the influence of Neptune for so long, you probably have no tangible recollection of what life was like before it arrived in your sign. Neptune can be difficult in terms of knowing what you want, and the present moment is no exception. Yet over the next month or so, it’s as if you’re being fitted with an enhanced third eye that allows you to use Neptune to see into the dark and peer through solid walls. Like any new technology, it will take some time to learn and more time to master. You will be bestowed with power that you must use judiciously, which is another word for creatively. The critical message of your solar charts at the moment is to take nothing for granted; assume that nothing is as you currently perceive it. For example, you are far closer to one particular goal than you might imagine, and anything you perceive as a setback will provide you with dependable, highly original ideas for how to advance your own cause.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Can you trust people? This is one of the questions humanity has grappled with for all of its recorded existence. There are people who think little of treachery; there are others who think little of giving themselves entirely. Neither of these two fairly rare types need to concern you. The people to focus your discernment on are those who cannot make up their mind. Beware of the color gray, and the feeling. Be mindful when anyone says one thing and then does another. The only way they can hurt you is if you fail to notice the pattern, and your charts say you run a chance of doing just that. Therefore, become a student of patterns, sequences, and of subtle variations on truth that may emerge from the process. Notice what they are, and make sure you use what you learn.

Dawn of a New Day

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For Friday, January 17th, 2003

Dear Friend and Client:

Announcing the inauguration of Rod Blagojevich, the new governor of Illinois, the official state web page said this week, “We turned the page in Illinois, rising to the dawn of a new day.”

It would seem, however, that the eastern sky and the state’s troubled conscience had grown lighter 48 hours earlier, when then-Gov. George Ryan cleared out death row, saving the lives of 167 inmates who had come through the deeply-flawed Illinois capital punishment system. All but a few of these prisoners had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; some objected. Illinois is a state where the governor has sweeping powers of clemency, and his decision is not subject to appeal or judicial review.

George Homer Ryan, Sr. was the 39th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1999 until 2003.

The new governor opposed the move, but is powerless to stop it.

Earlier that week, Ryan pardoned four additional death row inmates whose false confessions had been viciously tortured out of them by police. These four men, all African-Americans, sat in the audience at Northwestern University Law School in their first hours of freedom, as Ryan informed the world of his decision Saturday afternoon. As he spoke, a Mercury-Sun conjunction was exact, within arcminutes, in Capricorn.

It is difficult for me to describe the love and admiration I feel for George Ryan, and the privilege I feel for having lived to see this day come. This is not the end of the death penalty issue. In context, it will likely be viewed as the beginning of the end, the definitive point beyond which the moral issues of executions could not be easily ignored. The documented problems in Illinois, which reach into each of the 38 states which kill prisoners, could easily become the basis for a widespread demand for a national moratorium on state homicide.

By any measure, it is a rare and stunning victory for social justice.

And it is an example of how a movement that included the political, legal, academic and journalistic communities could shape both public opinion and public policy.

The four death-row inmates Ryan pardoned, Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange, brought to 17 the total number of men who walked off of Illinois death row completely exonerated of crimes for which they had been convicted and sentenced to die, and whose trials withstood repeated appeals. The first 13 were cleared by DNA evidence, donated legal services or the efforts of a diligent undergraduate journalism class whose homework projects freed Anthony Porter, a developmentally-disabled inmate who at one point came within 48 hours of execution. Students also obtained a confession from the real killer, whom they had identified and located.

“Seventeen exonerated death row inmates is nothing short of catastrophic failure,” Ryan said Saturday, adding that, in addition, 33 other people in the state had been convicted of murder charges and then exonerated. And he said there were 93 other Illinois cases since 1977 “where our criminal justice system imposed the most severe sanction and later rescinded the sentence, or even released them from custody because they were innocent.”

[The full text of Ryan’s historic comments are located here: http://www.sfgate.com/ryan — unquestionably worth the 30 minutes they take to read.]

Death Row, San Quentin Prison.

Capital punishment was held as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court between 1972 and 1976, and Illinois has executed 12 prisoners since reinstating the death penalty in 1977. When, thanks to the efforts of undergraduate students at the Medill School of Journalism, the number of freed exceeded the number of executed, Ryan said the odds of an innocent person being executed were worse than a coin’s toss. He shut down the lethal injection chamber, and ordered a three-year study of the problem.

The investigative reporting class, taught by Prof. David Protess, would each semester take on one iffy-looking death row case and dismantle it with old-fashioned, on-the-street reporting. Efforts by earlier students in this class also freed the Ford Heights Four, two of whom had been convicted of capital murder and were awaiting execution. It turned out that all four had actually been arrested at random by the police, who, along with prosecutors, were later changed in the scandal but not convicted.

The Chicago Tribune also played a major role in shaping public opinion. In a series beginning Nov. 14, 1999 by Ken Armstrong and Steve Mills, Tribune readers had the scenario laid out in rather clear language: “Capital punishment in Illinois is a system so riddled with faulty evidence, unscrupulous trial tactics and legal incompetence that justice has been forsaken, a Tribune investigation has found.” This series led to numerous other daily newspapers around the country investigating the truth of the death penalty within their own states, essentially creating a new genre of investigative reporting.

Gov. Ryan, a pharmacist with 35 years of experience as an elected official, said he personally reviewed each of the 167 cases in which he granted executive clemency, met with families of both victims and perpetrators, and deprived staff members of sleep many nights researching the issues. As a state legislator, Ryan had voted for the reimposition of the death penalty under which the prisoners were convicted. His independent three-year study said that the situation was far worse than had been suspected, with documented racial bias and severe problems with juries, lawyers and judges misunderstanding the rules for sentencing a person to death.

He went on for an hour describing numerous documented problems with both the capital punishment system and with the justice system at large, touching on everything from horrid conditions in prisons, to the poor treatment of victim’s families, one of whom could not afford proper grave markers for its murdered children. The state did not provide them, and he questioned why funds were so generously forthcoming to kill convicts but not take care of survivors.

He railed on legislators and the courts for failing to take action on copiously documented problems, adding, “The legislature couldn’t reform it. Lawmakers won’t repeal it. But I will not stand for it. I must act.”

“I never intended to be an activist on this issue,” Ryan, a Republican who took office four years ago, said. “I watched in surprise as freed death row inmate Anthony Porter ran into the arms of Northwestern University Prof. Dave Protess, who poured his heart and soul into proving Porter’s innocence with his journalism students.”

[More of that story is told at http://www.PlanetWaves.net/mumia2.html.]

Ryan’s actions are not historically unprecedented; on at least three other occasions as recently as 1986, governors have cleared out death row. But the number of inmates he spared Saturday is many times the previous total, coming at a moment when the death penalty is under siege. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have curtailed the power of the lower courts to impose a penalty of death, a lower court judge has held the federal death penalty unconstitutional, and a federal court recently ruled that Mumia Abu-Jamal, perhaps the best known death row inmate, could not be executed. A worldwide coalition has long demanded that the courts review significant evidence that Jamal, accused of killing a Philadelphia cop 20 years ago, is innocent.

Ryan was in part able to act because a campaign funding scandal, in which public funds were allegedly diverted to political candidates when he was secretary of state several years ago, ended his political career, forcing him not to seek re-election. But it stands as evidence of how, in politics, one can’t really do something daring or meaningful unless there is nothing to lose.

Ryan is a Pisces with the Moon in Cancer, born in Maquoketa, Iowa on Feb. 24, 1934 (data: Illinois state homepage, place of birth via in-house research, no time available). According to The Secret Language of Birthdays, he is born The Day of Sacrifice, a day whose natives typically give themselves over to larger causes than their own, sometimes amidst great inner conflict. He has Mars, Mercury and Pallas Athene in Pisces as well, and Neptune opposing his Sun. Athene, in particular, is a planet associated with politics and strategy, and is prominently placed in the main energy center of his chart. Looked at one way, it is a defining energy in his chart.

The powerful influence of Pisces in his natal horoscope is expressed by his over-riding compassion and the ability to act in accord with cosmic law regardless of what opinions may be running loose on the planet. He acknowledged that his action “will draw ridicule, scorn and anger from many who oppose this decision,” but said he would sleep with a clear conscience. He also faced the anger and disapproval of his wife, who opposed to clemency for one prisoner who had killed a close family friend.

Ryan was inaugurated in 1999, the year of the grand cross and Leo total solar eclipse, which impacted his chart about as directly as is possible. The eclipse occurred exactly on his natal south node with many planets in aspect to it, activating what can appear in life as destiny, the release from a burden, or the fulfillment of a long-held mission potentially relating to a prior incarnation. In recent years, he has also been experiencing transiting squares by Pluto to many of his natal planets in Virgo and Pisces, initiating what could reasonably be called a series of total transformations.

He was also inaugurated the year of the Chiron-Pluto conjunction in Sagittarius, which is prominent in the inaugural chart. Under this astrology, world witnessed the first of the anti-globalization protests in Seattle.

“In the days ahead,” Ryan said in his last public appearance as governor, speaking to many of the lawyers, students and activists who had worked tirelessly on the issue for years, “I will pray that we can open our hearts and provide something for victims’ families other than the hope of revenge.” ++

===

More on the work of journalists in ending the Illinois death penalty is at this article, written for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting’s journal Extra!: http://www.ericfrancis.com/articles/death_penalty.html

===

Late Capricorn Birthdays

The energy of release is all over your solar return chart, and it’s deep and good stuff. Release can have a destabilizing quality to it, a touch of going mad, the lure of freedom, and the hot necessity to crack or wiggle out of the bonds that have been holding you into yourself. There is a lot of pleasure to this, and some pain; both are important. And there is a history here; there is something old that’s finally resolving, but your exploration of your past feelings is not quite over. In a sense, you don’t have to think of them as the past, as something you need to move beyond. You can treat anything you feel now as present experience, whether it seems to be old or new. In a sense, everything is new. On another theme, the powerful emphasis on Sagittarius in your anniversary chart (Mars, one of your ruling planets, has just entered Sagittarius, and Venus is doing her thing there as well) offers a stark contrast to the usual ways of Capricorn. The relationship is akin to the concepts boundless/boundaries. You are, to be sure, becoming more boundless, and the strictures of the past are finally losing their grip. You may not realize it, but one energy is driving this whole process forward, and that, simply, is awareness.

Aries (March 20-April 19)

There is, of course, a difference between “being spiritual” and allowing spirit to do the work. One is predominantly a mental process. The other, multidimensional and in fact fully tangible. The rare strength you feel right now is the strength of spirit, nothing more or less beautiful than that. In the world of darkness, mystery and deception, accurate information is one of the most nourishing aspects of healing. Though you may be experiencing rank confusion in some parts of your existence, look for a ray of undeniable personal truth shining through your personal cosmos in the coming hours and days. The particular questions you seem to face, despite their dramatic or high-suspense appearances, are fairly petty. What rises to answer them will emerge from true grandeur.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

I can see that you’re becoming a lot more daring about what you will allow yourself to believe, or realizing that you can certainly get there if you need to. The whole notion of appropriateness is one of the most crucial bonds from which you now have the strength to break free. Few people recognize the strangulating power of this notion, or how much life is sucked from us in the process of attempting to make sure nothing we do is offensive in any way to anyone. Your inner bursts of freedom may feel ecstatic like flight, they may feel like throwing a television through a bank window, or they may feel like you’re reaching a previously restricted depth of feeling within which you are utterly free to exist. They are all new elements; move with awareness.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)

Now a real exchange can happen. You want it, you need it, and most of all, your fear is dwarfed by your desire to feel. It’s a beautiful thing when fear is put in its place, or reduced down to scale. Exchange has been limited throughout your life by a hidden belief that a formal quality is what makes any sharing of energy real, that tradition must somehow be invoked or followed, or that outside parties must somehow sanction the process. Well, all that is getting the first-class run for its money right now, and it’s huffing. There are, in actual fact, times when something that did not exist before commences to exist. There are in reality moments when events happen in this world for the first time. Welcome to one.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

You are broad-minded and aware enough to allow any experience of another person into your heart and mind, which is a good thing, because you’re being offered a diversity of extraordinary human experiences right now. It would be an excellent idea to stand back from what you think is happening and allow people their journey without much analysis. What each of them is going through is unique in all the world and really quite beyond anyone’s scant ability to size up in convenient terms. Truer still, it would help immensely if you recognized the power of mystery and the wisdom of the unknown that they feel about their own experiences. Bear witness. Be compassion. The gift is mutual.

Leo (July 22-Aug 23)

You may think you’re finally feeling some of your old fire, and it’s likely that you’re feeling just that, some of it. The rest of what you’ve got access to is decidedly new. Or shall I say it’s decidedly now. This is the time to practice ritual de lo habitual, the worship of the most mundane details of everyday life. You may already be getting this message, and be assured that I’m not suggesting you do this in order to bore you. Not at all. I would never, ever want to bore you. It’s just that there are vivid messages of freedom waiting in small, odd places of consciousness, and as it turns out, a massage therapist’s table may be one of them. Anything involving the formal practice of alternative healing will do you wonders. Your office is a space portal. Other strange things are true.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)

You would feel a whole lot better if you allowed yourself to come undone. That’s what you want, right? There is no point at all in holding on to all you’re holding onto. Life has been handing you clues for some time on the theme of compassion, in particular how you handle the apparent transgressions of the people to whom you are the closest. Now, a situation has presented itself in which you are being given an opportunity to try on your new values. You are not doing this for the benefit of other people. This is purely a gift to yourself, because the process of holding on, to whatever you happen to be clinging, is consuming too much of your energy and potential happiness. This may seem like an awfully big dare, with great risks. But there are risks either way.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)

You may finally wake up from the dream that you must play cup-bearer to the gods around you, or from the dream that says you don’t like it. In any case, your sense of desire begins to rule your emotional world; you are entitled, though the concept ‘entitlement’ is not usually the best way to make friends with a Libran. Anyway, the question vibrating through the chart has to do with your sense of service, or servitude, and how you express it in the world. Even if you have to serve others by some karmic mandate, you do get the choice of how you go about it. And you get the freedom to respond to how others perceive you in your service role. You don’t have to put up with people who take advantage unfairly, or take you for granted. More freedom resides in this recognition than you may think, freedom within yourself.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)

I can see you writing in your notebook, or on a napkin, “Okay, this time I’m actually going nuts.” Well, okay, I hear you, but it’s not quite for sure. What’s happening is that a lot of internal energy is getting liberated (Mars in Sagittarius) at the same time a marvelously complicated situation is unfolding in your mental world. Conditions are such that the increased energy is amplifying your perception of what is happening, though the situation does warrant a close look. It is dangerous to be too invested in your own personal value system; that’s one message of this crisis. There are a lot of ways to accomplish the same goal, or meet the same need. One message of your current chart is to strive for diversity in your thinking, including what you learn from other countries.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)

Mars bursting into your sign has the attention of the astrological world right now. The transit of Mars from a 12th house reality (in your case, Scorpio) to a 1st house reality (your Sun sign, Sagittarius) has an effect of shifting the experience of fear from unconscious to conscious. At that, it can just vanish without a trace, replaced by a heart-felt sense of confidence and the awareness of your deepest commitments. Both Venus and Mars are in your sign, and they are all charged up with the deep, evolutionary energy of the Scorpio zone. If that’s not erotic, I don’t know what is. And you get to do something about it if you wish. Just as a reminder: not all sex causes pregnancy or disease. There are about a thousand ways to have a lot of healthy fun, lots of them without a partner. Lots of them with.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

You may be feeling a mad flight impulse or urge to escape, or a craving for peak experiences, or a desire to plunge into your inner depths like never before. Without a few moments of reflection, the distinctions may not be obvious, and hence, the choices may not seem available. And choice is very important to you right now, both the prospect and the act of deciding. You are, at the moment, standing in your own portal to life, which is a space where many good things have happened, and many horrendous ones. All your experiences of this world are inscribed on the walls of this temple, and it feels like you’ve been here so many times before that it’s not worth noticing. But if you’ll notice, you will see that despite the illusion of familiarity, you’ve never passed this way before.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

Coming aspects during the next two weeks are among the most unusual I’ve ever seen, particularly regarding your sign. One of my astrological research projects of recent months has been the issue of family and cultural lies, that is, systems of deception that take up residence in a family or social system. If you have not noticed this phenomenon, here is an example. In many Latin cultures, a homosexual man is not considered gay unless he plays the role of “the woman” in the relationship. To us this is ridiculous; within its culture, it’s transparent. Every culture, and family, has these kinds of self-deceptions, certain topics that “don’t exist,” certain facts that are never acknowledged, and ideas that are beyond the realm of consciousness. Find them. They will make you strong.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Almost all the hottest astrological activity reaches across the public angles of your chart, those which deal with your professional life, your circle of friends, the groups and organizations you belong to, and most importantly, what you want out of life. Pisces is often given to intense self-doubt, but you have no actual reasons for misgivings about what you are striving for in the world. By all measures, this is a brilliant time of getting clear about new ways to express your deepest creative movements, but also of discovering portals to other universes of expression. Your powerful inner sense of calling by default puts you in a position of outer leadership. You may need to be a bit subtle about it, but the guidance you are being called upon to offer is moral in nature. Occasionally, right and wrong exist.