Uranus Transiting the First House
Get ready for a tremendous burst of individuation. Who we really are is in conflict with our biographical reality. The psyche demands resolution of this schism, and the resolution is typically quite dramatic. It involves conflict with figures of authority, major restructuring of relationships, and a lot of existential chaos.
Hello, and welcome to our September 2009 newsletter. Can you believe it's September already? I'm back from speaking at the ISAR conference in Chicago in late August. My lecture was well received, and I was glad to see some of you there.
The planets are fittingly busy in solar Virgo, the sign of personal growth, wholeness, and craftsmanship:
1. Transiting Mercury is retrograde from Sept. 6-29, from 6 Libra back to 22 Virgo. For those of you new to astrology, Mercury rules communication of all kinds, learning, teaching, details, transportation, commerce, and devices we use to work with anything Mercury rules. It also rules how your mind works, what you notice, how you process information. When Mercury is retrograde, that which it rules tends to go "backwards." It's a good idea to double check all details, get tracking numbers, etc. It's also wise to review information or edit material rather than act upon it or begin a Mercury-ruled project.
2. There is an transiting Saturn-Uranus partile (exact) opposition on the 15th at 25 Virgo (Saturn) - Pisces (Uranus). We are in a pattern of five oppositions of these planets:
*on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
*the one mentioned above, on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
*on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn
An excerpt from Yesterday's Sky Chapter 5
If you are a nerd, welcome to paradise. If you slept through science, but were wide-eyed when English class turned to the Romantic poets, you will probably make a very fine astrologer—but you might want to skip this chapter.
So, what exactly are the nodes of the Moon? Obviously, they are not planets. Since they are the foundation of Evolutionary Astrology and the gateway into karmic analysis, let’s take a little while to understand them rigorously.
Earth orbits the Sun, but since we are sitting on the Earth, it doesn’t look that way. For millennia, our ancestors assumed it was the other way around—that the Sun orbited the Earth. Since astrology is Earth-centered, we stick with that visual illusion in our language and perspective. What we actually see is that the Sun circuits the same band of constellations each year. Astrologers call that band the Zodiac. Astronomers call it the Ecliptic.
An Interview with Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Wolf Green
by Hadley Fitzgerald, M.A., M.F.T.
This article first appeared in The Mountain Astrologer (TMA), and is reprinted by permission. For Ms. Fitzgerald's bio and contact information, please scroll to the end of the article. For Steven and Jeffrey's definition of Evolutionary Astrology, please scroll to the end of the article, or go to our About Evolutionary Astrology page.
In ancient times, as cultures appropriated one another's deities, the Romans latched onto a god named Pluto as their correlative to the Greek god Hades, lord of the underworld. This god's realm gradually became synonymous with "hell" down through the ages in repetitive cross-cultural mistranslations. We've forgotten that the Greeks commonly referred to Hades by his more popular epithet, "Pluton," the name used in the mysteries to designate the wealth-giver.
"Pluton" is a direct lift from the Greek word "ploutos," which means "riches, wealth, fortune." As in treasure. And it is in the nature of treasure that we do not reach up for it. We must dig down deeply into the netherworlds of our lives and psyches to find the wealth buried there alongside the dark and creepy-crawly things.
Steve Forrest quips that he and Jeff Green have become known in certain circles as "The Pluto Brothers," that the theme from Shaft can be heard in the background when they step onto a stage these days. Both of them have Scorpio rising and Pluto in the 9th house, and everything about their astrological work digs deep and aims high. They re-mind us that the descent into the redemptive darkness is an essential, grounding counterpoint to the New Age "flight into light" that I see at times in my clinical practice. Steven and Jeffrey are treasures, and we are richer for the work they are doing on this Earth.
by Steven Forrest, copyright 2000.
This article first appeared in The Mountain Astrologer
PLEASE NOTE: Steven no longer does chart rectifications. Contact Braden Diotte or Shirley Waram to have your birth time rectified.
"I don't know the time of my birth." Any working astrologer hears that line a few times a month. In rectification—the craft of discovering the true Ascendent of a birthchart—the first rule is never accept an "I don't know" statement on face value! Always, without fail, make a strenuous attempt to discover the recorded birth time...which is often actually available, many times quite easily. Don't let a client's hesitation to search compromise your work!
When is the following declaration the saddest, bitterest thing you've ever heard? "I will always be your friend."
Sweet words, most of the time. Real friendship is precious. But most of us have felt that terrible sting--the word "friend" when it comes out of the mouth of someone with whom we are in love in a romantic, mating way. Being downgraded to "friend" means rejection. Something upon which we have staked a big piece of our lives is taken away. We know it and our lover knows it too.
True friendship is a rare and wonderful thing; I don't mean to belittle it. We share interests; we celebrate each other's victories and commiserate in failure and pain. We share values and assumptions. Unspoken understandings abound. Like good jazz players, we even interrupt each other at exactly the right, comfortable moments. You can feel that kind of friendship instantly. You meet someone at a party and there's an instantaneous sense of being on the same page. Everything a friend does is all right.