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.