2011 Jupiter in Aries, opposite Saturn, A year of action and conflict

What a year is in front of us, with Jupiter moving into Aries on January 23rd where it will oppose Saturn's orbit through Libra. The most intense focus of these two great lights, and bringers of destiny, will be in March with the exact opposition at the end of the month. Then Jupiter will streak out of Aries into Taurus, oh the banks, the money, the gold....
and finish the year retrograding in the early degrees of Taurus. This is your money. Real estate will begin its climb again. Investments in early 2011, will pay off big and quickly, and land, gold, and real, that is, real things will become more valuable. This Jupiter cycle in real estate and money always peaks when the planet reaches mid-zodiac, in Cancer and Leo. This will take five years. By that time, the value is topped and it will be a poor time to buy as prices will be maxed.
The disturbing month for 2011 is April, when the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter AND Uranus will be in Aries. We are only dealing with nine planets, and so all but three of them will occupy the sign of beginnings. Aries also rules war, aggression, creation, fire and initiative. Everyone will be feeling change this year, wanting something new, different, and more alive.
The Mercury retrogrades for 2011 are all in fire signs, signaling that our emotions are high, and our feelings are whipping into a lust for action, and awareness that pioneering into the world's needs is our only way through. This is not a safe year, or a stable one, but it is a year of immense motion. Every person will feel this drive to create and start something, and all projects that are new are favored. In the most staid situations, try the unexpected, and say the thing that makes it all new again, and interesting.
Year of the Rabbit will start in February, and is a most interesting sign to combine with the violence of the Aries group. Notice the opportunism everywhere, and who gets lucky. Many will get lucky in year of the Rabbit, but not by holding still. Throw me in that briar patch, brother fox, and see what the Rabbit can do.

Winter Solstice Full Moon is a total Eclipse of the Moon

Among omens in the celestial world, eclipses are the most profound. They are the moment when the light that we regard as eternal leaves us, and unless you are an almanac reader, the departure is sudden and strange. Remember the daring rescue described by Mark Twain in the Prince and the Pauper?, In this story the modern time traveler dupes the illiterate populace of an earlier era by predicting the total eclipse of the sun, in the middle of the day. This ruse has been repeated in many fables, and capitalizes on the necessity of knowing your cycles and keeping up with the cycles of the sun and moon.
Already this year, a full moon has coincided with the cardinal point of the Autumn Equinox, a coordinate of remarkable rarity. Now with the next quarter point of the year, the Winter Solstice, the most important one in the human archive, we have another perfectly placed full moon, and this time the full moon will be eclipsed by the earth's shadow passing between the sun and the moon.
Eclipses are the reminder that the dimensions of our earth, moon, and sun are more perfectly aligned than we can comprehend. In one of the coincidences of staggering proportions, our proportions are aligned so that at these moments the yearly orbits of earth and moon, all three bodies are the same size.
The Winter solstice will be December 21st at 6:38pm EST. This event is the most celebrated in human culture, being the time of the return of light. Christianity has deposited its whole iconic history on this date, making puns of the sun and the son, and the birth of light, as the return of the solar cycle.
Lunar energy is emotional and the Moon is the indicator of the soul. An eclipse of the Moon is always the astrologer's judgment of emotional change, or elimination of a level of feeling that won't be returning in the same way. On the winter solstice of 2010, our very souls will be touched, and we are going to be welcoming the return of the sun's light from a place that lies too deep for ordinary understanding.
Refer to the article on the Autumn equinox full moon Jupiter conjunction of September, 22nd, 2010.

Mercury retrogrades as the Meteor Shower pops

In the grand cosmic design, there is included a rest period. All nature appreciates this, but humans who are trying to evolve out of the design find these a nuisance, and manage to get it wrong, most of the time. Seriously, it is good for us to crash the hard drive, stall the battery, and get summonses that we had hoped were all forgotten. It is dearly, the time to slow down and catch up. But when we can't, of our free will do that, well, as we say, cosmic design is greater than us.
This winter retrograde of Mercury began to roll backwards on December 9th, but us observers always notice that the whole week before the retro date is full of stops, blunders and signs of niggling might. In Capricorn, on the same degree as Pluto, Mercury slowed to a virtual stop, and all kinds of things also crashed, viraled, and hacked where no hackers have gone before.
The exciting thing about these three week episodes that happen three times a year and cross a place in space three times,is that the unexpected always happens.
Capricorn rules the rules, and since Pluto was so close, the bigger impact under all our foundations, is that the rules are changing. As if you hadn't noticed. Deep in the disturbances that are the fairly minor ones of Mercury (communication & trade) just met the thunderous ones of the mighty god itself, Pluto smasher of atoms, bringer of the nuclear age. hmm. No itchy trigger fingers (hands are ruled by Mercury)on the uranium have bothered us yet, but watch for what is not being said.
And lest we forget, the most exciting Meteor shower of the winter, starting the week of December 13th is of Mercury's sign, Gemini. The Geminid Meteor shower this year will last all week, peaking on Monday night. Look at great Orion in the east and notice the two equally bright twin stars to the left and down: there is Gemini, and that is the direction of the brightest part of the meteors. Make your wishes on these falling stars be a Mercury retrograde kind of wish, that all our mistakes become enlightenment, and all our crashes be healed in better ways than we knew.

How to experience this joyfully? Well. Act natural. Be Cool.
Watch your traveling, expect all the usual discomforts, prepare for them, like take your food that would sustain you on a desert island, or O'Hare, and relax. The best you can do, is go with the disasters, enjoy them, have a real hot toddy, learn from them and above all, don't buy technology until after the direct dates. Like is natural, they are, of course, after Christmas.
True dates: December 8-9th until December 29-30th. Mercury started its retrograde motion in the early degrees of Capricorn, and will finish in the late degrees of Sagittarius, oh dear, the sign of travel... say your aves, our fathers, and all the other appeals to nature that you know, and then the only way through, is to enjoy yourself. Long lost communication in people and in devices will appear, some to thrill you and others to amaze. Be hearty, and look for the humor in all things. Mercury is the trickster, the joker, and the thief.

Venus Retrograde, everything is re-evaluated

The new moon on October 7th coincided with a remarkable other kind of consideration, the beginning of the retrograde phase of beautiful Venus. This occurs every other year, bringing Venus issues, love, value, money and beauty into a backwards review. Now is a time period where values are being reconsidered. Losses of love and value may occur. Most of all, it is a deepening of the ability to look at love and money, your love, your money. You will understand even through pain and deprivation, what love and beauty mean. It is a rare event, causing your intuition to rise with insistence. A part of your emotional self is demanding that you consider it, immerse in it, and ponder this unusual perspective.

Venus is making her retrograde in Scorpio this time, adding a profound and wonderful level to the already obligatory deepening of perspective. Scorpio rules sex, death, and the mutually held values of everyone, and partners especially. This retrograde, being in the sign of power is a loss of power, and re-vamping of power, and a treacherous time to trust other people's intention. Everyone is changing, willingly or not. Venus has nothing to do with will, only the values and desires that drive the will. Will is Mars, the action based on what Venus wants. It is true, Venus is interior to Earth, like Mercury. Those planets carry what is inside us, what we think and care about from birth to forever.
Venus retrogrades happen every 18 months, when Venus crosses either behind or in front of the Sun, from Earth's view. In an 8 year perfect diagram, Venus will make 5 retrogrades, which from space form a perfect pentagram. This means that the signs of the Zodiac which will carry the Venus retrograde are in a formation within the 12 signs, that skips through in a five-fold rhythm. Study the formation of the Rose, it is in a five petaled formation, and so is the Venus cycle when drawn geometrically, and repeatedly.
Your task through this period of Venus-- October 7th through November 18th-- is to look at your worth. What is valuable about you, who loves you? What do you care about that is important? Is it money? Safety? Freedom? Rest? Power? Sex? Admiration? All of these values are eternal, and they come in large and small portions. The proportion of everything is also shifting. The day Venus goes direct, on November 18th, so will Jupiter finish its retrograde phase for this year. Both of them are in late degrees of their signs. Venus will be at 27 Libra. Ah, Libra, balancer, the sign of others, marriage, partnership, and how we connect. Jupiter is finishing its year in Pisces, watery, vague, idealistic, treacherous, and yearning. Making making a very interesting angle to Venus, the 150 degree angle. Not a true piece of the circle but an off-kilter one, called comically enough, a Quinqux.
It is an aspect of adjustment, bringing definite, black and white Libra into a consideration of Pisces, which uses all the possibilities, the dreads, fears, and hopes and dreams. Truth comes in many forms. November is showing us just how many.
The moon will be waxing to full also in that week. The Full Little Bear Moon. Huge shifts will be felt as the Sun leaves Scorpio and moves into Sagittarius. Venus will dust her pretty hands of all these deep, deep, feelings, and begin to lure us back to the surface world, where everyone's face will look different. And you should SEE yours!

Mercury Retrograde for Spring!!!

Every 88 days is a phase of Mercury that causes the planet to retrace degrees already passed in its orbit. The phase lasts 21 days in retrograde. Since Mercury retrogrades 3 to 4 times each year, the phases often go with the changes in the seasons. More aptly put, our mood to change the seasons of the year follows more closely with Mercury than with the actual cardinal shifts into the Equinoxes and Solstices. This spring retrograde is in Taurus. Right on the 12th degree of Taurus, which is a degree of beauty. All our earthy affairs will go backwards for a while, and the past week, while Mercury was slowing down brought some fabulous earthly phenomena. Like the Iceland Volcano upsetting travel, a Mercury function, all over the world. Hmm. Values will be discussed much during this retrograde, and one of those values is money. All our money is going backward for a while, unless we can find a deeper earthy resource. Do not rush in this cycle, and do not expect the general to become actual. This is a time of intuition, deep reflection, and fine tuning of subtle wonders. Chill deeply and long, this retrograde of Mercury has material threads going all the way into the earth.

Final weeks of the Mars Retrograde, and other unruly Planets

How complicated is it to describe the conjunctions of Jupiter to the two great outer planets Uranus and Neptune? Seriously, it is complicated. These two brothers of mighty Zeus, Oranus and Poisidon, represent the sky and the sea. In astrology they represent chaos and mystery. Chaos, Uranus, is the principle of beholding phenomena never witnessed before, or in the action of unusual energies in ways unknown--before. Neptune/Poisidon is the chemical element and includes dissolution of spirit as well as matter. In 1993, Uranus and Neptune made a once in 170 year conjunction in Capricorn. Their orbits of 84 and 164 years respectively, make that conjunction a long, slow process, and as it moves out of exactitude, after 13 years they are only 30 degrees from each other. The most recent Jupiter orbit that caught up with Uranus and Neptune was in 1997, January for the Jupiter / Neptune, and just a month later, February of 1997 for Jupiter / Uranus. Those were also the years that Uranus transited through its own sign of Aquarius, and the lights of the new age came on with extra brightness. Another story; and yet, never in the planets and cycles of our solar system is anything separated from anything else.
These conjunctions, where the two planets occupy the same degree of space as seen from Planet Earth--right, nothing in the orbits of planets every actually touches-- are considered highly influential. The trajectory of their energies to Earth is therefore combined, and so multiplied. In physics, everything relates through geometry. Angles, the major ones, of 60- the hexagon, 90- the square, and 180 - the hemisphere, are considered the most potent. Except for the conjunction, which is the heaviest one of all. The New Moon is a conjunction, where the Moon's orbit intersects the Sun's exact degree, as seen from Earth. It is all relative. Astrology is subjective science. We are using absolute material, physical, electrical, and chemical data, and applying it to life on Earth. The spiritual, emotional, and coincidental data is also included in analyzing the science of planets and time.
The times of right this minute and what is going on right now are chaotic, shattering and layered in planetary anomalies of a rare severity. It is the Jupiter orbit, beginning in Pisces as of January 2010, making a long conjunction with Neptune that started at the Winter Solstice of 2009, December 21st. Jupiter and Neptune are, as mentioned the brother gods of the sky and thunder and lightning, and of the Sea, and storms and waves. They also share the quality of being lifted to ideas, feelings and experiences that are larger than ordinary, even more wonderful and noble than ordinary. In Jupiter and Neptune are the sense of the religious, in Jupiter the pomp and grandeur, in Neptune the wonder and magic of visions, and of Music. Jupiter and Neptune carry us places, geographical places with Jupiter and its sign Sagittarius and dream transcendent places with Neptune and its sign, Pisces. Places that are outside of our sphere, our ordinariness and our sameness can be fearsome, dreaded and terrifying. Or, are they magical, fantastic, philosophical, educational and beatific? Or, are they madness, loss, yearning, drowning, escaping, dying?
They are all of these.

Will it be a good thing or a bad thing?

People ask me when I describe planets, their meanings, symbols and actions. That, my dears, is the thing we can decide. Knowing the planet is an absolute. It is here, they are conjoining, we have no control over that the universe exists, those planets are going to meet. Have met. So? what did YOU do since the Winter Solstice of 2009? prepare for life, or death? or nothing? The worst of these is nothing, because something has happened, the world has changed. Things that should not have been forgotten in the fogs of Neptune have been forgotten. Things like compassion, and stewardship of plenty have been lost. Truths hard-won and dearly bought through Jupiter have been bought out, sold away, to a higher bidder, the power of now, money.
In a few short months Jupiter will be in conjunction with Uranus in the last degrees of Pisces. This combination is less fortuitous, less compatible. Uranus is our planet of the new, the different, the electrical beyond the material, the unpredictable, and technologies that are intricate. Uranus rules Aquarius, the sign of the Modern Age, the Age of Aquarius. All our talents and our problems now are Aquarius. We are universal, but overcrowded. We are superb communicators, but are allowing one type of communication to dominate all the rest. We are aware of all our differences and distinctions, sharing and learning, yet committing genocides. Jupiter with Uranus, can bring noble philosophy to combine with highest intelligence
or it can simply expand and accelerate chaos. Jupiter is money, power in community, leadership and knowledge, Uranus is the next thing, the universal principle of equality and individual brilliance. The sign they are meeting in, Pisces, is the sign of the past age, the Age of Faith, the Age of Pisces. The modern world is being given a chance to use its compassionate education, its awareness of God, to bring to the application of science. The greatest blend that can bring this to justice is MUSIC. This year has the potential to bring a universal religion to all of us, or to blow those big silos and show what the nuclear age can really do.
Where is the free will in all of this? It will be in knowing the opportunities of the future, using them and being alive to them. The other choice is to push the red button.
Mars will go direct on March 10th after its long retrograde through Leo since December of 09. Energy will wake up and return, but wiser, bruised, battered and with new moves dearly learned. Our arrogance has taken a fall, our confidence has been shown a bitter truth, and our pride has been replaced by empty shows of criticism and outrageous vindictiveness. Mars is a dangerous planet, and it has been chained up for a while, nursing, what? wisdom? More like ego. As it is released, and the great conjunctions mentioned above are lumbering into each other over and over in 2010, make your peace with change. And the times, they are so changing.

Welcome Year of the Tiger!!

Ahead of us in year of the Tiger are all the emotions, passions, and predatory actions that we know are the will of the Tiger. The year has wildness in it, with the flickering light of danger dancing off the lights on the tiger's skin. (You do know that the stripes are on the skin, not just the fur?) This year will favor those who dare, and those whose individuality and firm conviction will try new ideas and be unafraid of change. To use Tiger spirit, we must leap, must know our objective and stretch to reach it. There is chaos ahead, and the confidence of the top predator will be the best guide through the morass of changing economies, and shifting resources. What once had value is being reassessed. What once was the rule, is now obsolete. Who is making the new rules? Tigers.
Asian Zodiac calls Tiger powerful, rebellious and unpredictable, and respected by all. Fearless and fiery fighter is revered as the sign that wards off the three main dangers to a household: fire, thieves and ghosts. Our western astrology ponders the synchronicity of the year of the Tiger, as the year Jupiter occupies Pisces, sign of gamblers, chemists, and insurance companies. Do we need the Tiger or just our local agent protecting us from health, happiness, and prosperity. This is a year to be very careful of deception, can anyone see the Tiger in the jungle shadows? Courage to pursue the truth will be challenged in extraordinary ways. Keep your eye on the Tiger. That will be where the truth lies. In wait.
Follow your strength, be inspired by deepest desire, anything less will be ambushed before you even see what did it.
May this house be blessed by Tigers.

Jupiter in Pisces, 2010

Jupiter is our planet of good fortune, of expansion in mind, body and spirit. This year it entered the sign Pisces in January. The concentration is on things of water, so Jupiter's growth will be filtered through the misty veils of the sign of the Fishes. Travel is a key element in the process of expansion, as we lift our point of view to include more territory than the neighborhood in which we live, we become Jupiterian. Our judgments include more; more people, more land, more variety and more experience. Travel by water is recommended. Include rivers, lakes, shorelines and maybe the great ocean itself.
Jupiter is the indicator of finance, business and world concerns in trade and exchanges. Pisces rules chaos, weakness, and the end of the cycle. This is the darkest hour. As the season of Pisces is early spring, before the growing seasons begin, and as the late frosts, and early rains begin, nature heaps us with uncertainty. Pisces is also the sign of chemistry, pharmaceuticals, drugs and the entire chemical industry. It is a good year for expansion in those areas, and it is a strong year for the pharmaceuticals to overcome any limitations or structure that might be necessary or applied. We can see in this, that the good sense of health care is going to be overrun roughshod by the chemical companies. Every trick in the book, and several unheard of, are going to be raised to keep any restrictions or impediments from the chemical and drug industry.
Morality, which is an old fashioned idea of using right over might, will be another casualty of this year of free-for-all expansion of another Piscian agency--insurance companies. Gambling is one of Neptune's darlings, and the gamble of insurance has our nation in a vice grip. As we have things we value, we bet on the fact that they will stay with us. So, for a little money down, we hedge our bet on our health, our homes and our cars. Anyone who has ever cashed in that bet, tried to collect for damages knows what happens to your favored place in the scheme. Too many needs, too many claims, and you have broken the bank, robbed the kitty, and have to look elsewhere for something to take up your "insurance."
In the middle of the year, Jupiter will ease into the sign Aries for a couple of short months, and some leadership will emerge. This could be a moment when authority demands an end to the chaos, the deceptions, and the scramble for money-no-matter-what-the-costs. We sink back into Pisces, though, as the summer ends and finish the year in this sign. Much is going to vanish and be swept away by these tides and waterfalls in Pisces. Some energies will be cleansing, refreshing and pure, others will be overwhelmed, drowned and purged.
Is there a flip side to all this pessimistic version of Jupiter in the sign of Pisces? Well, how about this... The sign also rules, ideals, dreams, faith and religion. Expansion of religion in a time of financial meltdowns. Somehow, that just makes it worse.

Ecipses and Earthquakes

The old rule in Astrology is, that on the degree of the Solar Eclipse will be a sensitivty that is volatile until a planet (not the Moon) crosses over that degree. My personal, astounding evidence of the proof of this rule is the eruption of, no less than Mount St. Helen's, in 1980. There was a Total solar eclipse that followed the path of the Columbia river on Feb 25, 1979. The degree was 7 Pisces, 49 minutes. On March the 20th, 1980, Mercury hovered in one of its stationary retrograde positions at 7 Pisces, 43 minutes, and the rumblings of the earthquakes under Mt. St. Helen's began. The big blow on May 18th followed those opening earthquakes, two months later.
Solar eclipses make a narrow, elongated shadow over a slice of geography that covers a strip of a few hundred miles in length and barely another hundred miles in width. The visibility of a solar eclipse is more, and can be seen from a region, say half the USA, or Northern China, or New Zealand, and a quarter of Australia, but the actual path is slight, and easily traceable. Lunar Eclipses are seen from one half of the globe and have a very different mechanism in visibility terms. Solar Eclipses are more powerful, and as we note, have much to do with the disturbances on earth and in the solar system in general. Lunar eclipses are indeed powerful for earth itself, and as they give us the tides, there are tides in our watery selves that move in the lunar month, from new to full. At new moons, we are thinner, less bloated, and unhydrated. At full moons, our flow of blood and fluid is maximized. Never have surgery at a full moon, in European medicine this is an established practice. In our country, intelligence has to be applied at all times by the self. The establishments will not pay attention. Watch the moon, it changes signs every three days, makes its quarter in seven days, and finishes the cycle every 28-29 days. Our whole biology is lunar regulated. The solar cycle runs our lives on an everyday basis, with light and dark, sleep and activity. The seasonal sun cycle is our annual renewal in each year of 365 days.
The eclipses of these bodies of the sun and the moon wipe out energies that we have not bothered to study for eons. But once, upon a time, in Chaco Canyon, every cycle of the moon was carved into the stones of the landscape.
Would the world like to know about targeted areas for earthquakes and violent storms and tsunamis? It is a question that this astrologer has pondered for all the years since Mt. St. Helen's. What brings it to mind is the lunar eclipse of New year's eve, 2010, and the magnitude 8 earthquake just days later in Port au Prince. Could we have known? would it have made a difference? Researchers want to know.