Pluto stationed retrograde a couple of days ago, just as people were succumbing to the springtime urge to free themselves from lockdown:

“…beaches in the southern part of California were packed with thousands of people over the weekend.”

Sunscreen but no masks or social distancing. Very American.

Saturn will retrograde back towards the COVID start point on May 11, in tandem with more easing of constraints.

Planets do not move backward through the Zodiac, but the Earth does move CLOSER to the planet as it catches up with the orbiting planet and then surpasses its orbit; creating the appearance of retrograde conditions.

The whole notion of retrogrades and ‘revisiting’ or ‘redoing’ feels like semantical idiocy to me. I’ve always found this embarrassing about astrology, along with notions of ‘intercepted houses’ and other non-literal conditions that are treated as factual.

What does seem germane is planetary proximity, which could be read as intensification. As an astrologer of 45 years, I’ve never noticed any alteration or ‘weakening’ of a planet that is retrograde at birth, in fact, more the opposite, they are often more emphatic.

Astrologer Noel Tyl claimed that a natal retrograde planet, in his experience, was so potent it threw its influence across the wheel, highlighting the house in the opposite hemisphere. I can attest to this with a retrograde Saturn in the 4th house and the aspiration associated with my chart’s Taurus midheaven — namely the desire to live in the natural world completely — which, fortunately, I’ve achieved. My home (4th house) and business (10th house) are combined and entwined completely within nature.

So Saturn and Pluto retrograding back through Capricorn in late spring toward the hotspot of their January conjunction (which coincided exactly to the recently confirmed dates when COVID first registered in the US) would translate as acceleration, not deceleration — and possibly an increase in potency.

I’m afraid this is going to turn ugly and have the opposite impact as what’s hoped for and intended. The silver lining would be more casualties associated with Trump’s feeble-minded handling of what was announced to him in early January as a looming pandemic. Translated: fewer votes in November.

There’s all of this talk of building herd immunity — but as is the case with most theoreticians, they aren’t the ones that actually inject themselves with whatever they are blowharding about — so think twice about exposure and your own springtime hormonal blowouts. You might not live to see the child you fathered in May come to full term the following year.

Stories like this are always great teaching tools. The more absurd or emphatic an event the more the planetary positions (and chart angles) are highlighted.

I spoke with a Verizon official to get an estimated time for this event and it was between 11 am and noon (*) on July 17th.

The short version of the story: A woman entered a Verizon store in California without a mask on, she was asked to leave, she refused. The store’s manager called 911, and the women then proceeded to lower her pants and urinate on the floor in a corner of the store. Cops arrived to arrest her and while doing so found a cache of stolen goods in her bag, stuff cockroached from an adjoining sporting goods store.

So high-jinx and criminality that’s displayed in public would have Mercury and 10th house associations throbbing — and sure enough, the chart for the adventure has a Virgo ascendant (which Mercury — god of thieves — rules) with the Moon (females) and Venus (an older-than-a-child female) conjunct the mid-heaven of public (oops, Freudian slip — typed ‘pubic’ there which is my way of knowing that this is worth amplifying) happenings or displays.

The Gemini mid-heaven is a high-noon Mecurial iteration — an event for all of the world to see (or read about). And with Venus and the Moon conjunct in Gemini — both of those markers link over — another iteration — to Mercury (Gemini’s ruler — in Cancer, as well as the chart’s ruler par excellence). All this Mercury, all of this Gemini, all of this trickster acting out.

Mercury in Cancer (unedited instinctual reactions — that can be highly imaginative) makes an applying square aspect (gathering storm and ‘cloud burst’) to an impulsive Mars in Aries in the 8th house of clandestine criminality: stolen sporting goods (Mars-ruled) hidden in a bag (the 8th house).

Add scatological behavior (8th house is associated with elimination and expulsion, especially with Aries on the house cusp) and we’ve slipped into another dimension of ‘the return of the repressed’ — as kids we just shit and pissed ourselves willy-nilly, often as ways to punish our parents who we might have experienced as controlling or, worse, blind to our existence. Read more

Consider the following if you are attempting to adjust to what’s to come during the rest of your year:

Phase 1: Saturn retrogrades back towards the COVID Chernobyl zone on May 11th, right when the great and powerful ruler of Oz wants Americans out and about — working and wining and dining and experiencing the angst from witnessing early mortalities.

Phase 2: Saturn officially re-enters Capricorn on July 3, just in time for the 4th of July and the urge to gather in crowds and watch faux bombs bursting in the air while moisture particles sneezed into the air carry the actual detonations.

Phase 3: Possibly a second wave of COVID accelerates when Saturn stations direct near Pluto on October 5.

When clients ask me about the COVID cycle, viewed astrologically, I offer the above dates. Not as a prediction but as a high probability of movements within the cycle.

Saturn is such a keen barometer of the human life span, it’s why I make the planet’s transits my primary guide for pinpointing direct solutions re any particular conundrum a client comes to me with.

You can follow Saturn around the wheel of your chart and note where you are located as an entity within our collective hallucination — the realm of cultural visibility (or obscurity).

Are you riding the wheel of fortune skyward, or descending to regroup and rework your act before taking it out on the road again?

Why?

Because Saturn marks the beats as it turns and grinds the gears, bringing life up and taking life down. Consider the US’s horoscope and the horrors of our impeached ruler.

As soon as Trump was elected Saturn started crawling toward the hell zone of America’s birth chart — after crossing the country’s Sagittarius ascendant.

Each of us plays a role in the stage set of life. Where is Saturn transiting on your wheel? How are you situated in the particular Zeitgeist?

Recently I was a guest on Tesher Cohen‘s podcast All Things Interesting.

We discussed a slew of topics related to astrology, the Internet, social media and writing, with tips and suggestions from both Tesher and myself as to what works nowadays when you hope to make a mark for yourself in the crowded world of social media and Internet memes.

Here’s a breakdown of what we explored:

• Astrology and the 60s counter-culture.
• Camille Paglia on why astrology is an art.
• Why an astrologer requires a psychological lexicon and the ability to synthesize.

• The archetypes of the Oracle and the Seeker.
• The difficulties the Internet creates for artists and astrologers.
• B.J. Mendelson‘s book Social Media is Bullshit.
• Why astrology offers insight into the human condition.
• Commentary on Tesher’s natal chart.
• The Zodiacal wars. And the Zodiac as the Earth’s aura.
• Frederick’s stint as a telephone psychic.
• America’s shadow and Pluto’s ingress into Capricorn.
• Astrology and the Uranus conjunct Neptune generation.
• A monastic movement within modern culture.
• The writer’s life of solitude and why writing can not be ‘taught’.
• Tesher talks about how to launch your own podcast.
• Understanding the need for a tipping point amidst non-stop inspiration.
• Woodruff’s new private report on how to find good astrology.
• Why we can’t lose heart amidst the times we are living.
• Trusting in one’s inner guidance and not outside influence.

You can catch All Things Interesting on the following streaming platforms.

iTunes// Google Play // Libsyn // Spotify// Overcast // Youtube

“Since the so-called Age of Enlightenment, our shaky anthropocentric, rationalist egos have been brainwashed to forget what ‘primitive’ cultures once understood: Animals can be manifestations of celestial beings in disguise; they possess supernatural abilities, and they can be our spiritual guides and healers.”

― Zeena Schreck

Yeah, so I swore a moratorium on any more political posts because — well, SANITY. Too, I’d written the mother of imaginal predicting here.

But today’s such a significant milestone — both literally and symbolically.

Bernie Sanders has pulled the plug.

Friends who have waited for this moment texted me excitedly, that now, finally, the nation can really get down to the business — uninterrupted — of defeating Donald Trump.

Yes, right — should George Romero still be alive and able to direct some necromantic process that would re-animate Joe Biden‘s corpse.

Sorry, as my mom used to say, but: “There — I said it.”

I know it’s verboten now to cast shade on this dadgummit fabulous front runner, but bitch — puh-leeeeeeeeeeze. Seriously? The Dems and their delusions of grandeur.

Part of what doubly depresses me while watching Trump doing his daily COVID-19 press briefings is that on a symbolic level, save for Andrew Cuomo in NY, there is no push back on the imaginal level, that picture-making, animal-centered part of our brain — from where 90% of the population makes decisions and casts votes.

This is why, Maestro of Mayhem that he is, Trump preens atop his coronavirus briefing numbers, comparing the high ratings to our culture’s most significant offerings to the Western canon: The Bachelor and the Super Bowl.

David Talbot summed it all up this morning in his latest post:
Read more