First the good news: Yesterday’s opposition between Jupiter and Saturn was the last of the series. What started in 2000, when the two giants conjuncted in Taurus, has now reached it’s fruitional stage — which is what any opposition connotes. A seed is planted at the conjunction, development occurs as the two planets move apart, and then reaches a crescendo at the opposition. Which was yesterday.

OK, so the ‘Where’s my Xanax’ news? Traditionally the years that follow the Jupiter Saturn opposition are years of attrition, stymied growth and stark rationale for modest optimism. Traditional astrologers attribute a growth phase to the first ten or eleven years that follow the conjunction (from 2000 to 2011); Jupiter has jurisdiction of this phase. But the period following the opposition, which starts today, is Saturn’s. Picture Saturn rummaging around his tool shed, looking for his pruning shears. Now begins the cutbacks, the trimming, the ‘nose pressed to grindstone’ phase. A balancing and correcting period that will give a ‘reality check’ to whatever grew and gorged turning the eleven years post the conjunction. Read more

You’ve no doubt heard about tomorrow’s Full Moon SuperMoon. What’s that about exactly?

Occasionally the Moon misses the Earth a little too much and decides to move a bit closer to us during her new or full phase. That’s what will happen tomorrow. Astronomers call this a lunar perigee. But a guy named Richard Nolle coined the term SuperMoon to describe the proximity. You can read his explanation here — a nice clarification because it dispels a lot of misinformation about the SuperMoon too.

Because of the curve of the Earth (and the crazy curve of your mind during a Full Moon), the SuperMoon appears gigantic once she’s slid above the magnifying effect of the horizon. She’s so humongous that you start to worry that your roof will be damaged as Luna glides across the night sky. That’s a metaphor, actually, to let you know that this Full Moon might take the top of your head off. Read more

The end of another year. The completion of another decade. Who could be sad to see either disappear from whence they came, back into The Void? 2011 is our preparatory inculcation, setting the stage for 2012’s Grand Cross — a cosmic symbol of High Noon for the human spirit slogging away in mediocrity and burnt-out systems. Consider 2011’s positions and shifts.

Here are the particulars of the curriculum: Saturn remains exalted in Libra, the tough love dispenser — firming the virtues of fairness, calmness and equanimity. Moderation becomes holy. The Buddhists know all about this with their ‘middle path’ teaching. Try it, you’ll like it. But be prepared to work hard; abiding on the fulcrum isn’t going to be easy. See below. Read more

  
 The sense of levity and joy that so many of us respond to, perhaps unwittingly, during the Christmas season, has a cosmic correlation with the return of the light, which the Winter Solstice celebrates in the Northern Hemisphere. Dane Rudhyar describes the Winter Solstice as a turning point, where the personalizing Day-Force overtakes the in-gathering effects of the Night-Force. He associates the increase of the Day-Force with the embodiment of the spiritual impetus: spirit that is actualized, grounded and set to work. Thus the traditional association of the Day-Force with the Christos, born as Jesus, at the Solstice. A birth that re-occurs, with the return of the light each year.

Rudhyar explains that each Solstice sets in motion a process that transforms “the scattered and disintegrated remains of the previous cycle into a new organic whole.” And after living through another year of Pluto’s dismantling process in Capricorn, Rudhyar’s words sound doubly refreshing to me. I’m ready to connect with the stirrings of a new organic whole. Aren’t you?

To study and appreciate this year’s Solstice, I asked one of my favorite astrologers, Heather Roan Robbins (right) to participate in a dialogue about this very unusual and rare Solstice event. I’ve read Heather’s weekly Starcodes reports for years now, and have appreciated her commentaries; Heather communicates to her readers from a place of wise understanding and offers down-to-earth, creative ways for us to align with the daily celestial motions. Heather and I connected via email to compare notes and impressions about this year’s dynamic Solstice chart.

Please, pour yourself some tea and join us:

Frederick:What caught my attention about this year’s Solstice — which is the chart that marks the commencement of the upcoming new year — is the Full Moon eclipse that occurs in tandem with the Sun’s entry into Capricorn, which initiates the Solstice. So we have the solar awakening on one hand, and a fruition of the lunar light on the other. A cosmic opening and closing if you will. Read more

A week after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion I scanned the above emblem of the swimming King, added the black blotches of ‘oil’ and printed the picture on paper to prop on my desk and contemplate. The illustration is from the legendary Atalanta fugiens series, by the 16th century alchemist Michael Maier, and like most alchemical imagery, the scene seems lifted from a dream or nightmare.  A forlorn king, removed from his throne, floundering and bellowing for help. How does his story end?

A metaphorical link between Maier’s drifting King and the Gulf Coast holocaust — the largest ecological disaster in the United States’ history — seems obvious. But what has Maier depicted? What stage within alchemy’s many elaborate processes is this one? Is there a clue for us to follow in the brew. And how does that formula turn out?

It’s best to start at the beginning. Read more

Today’s New Moon makes for a stellium — a sort of cosmic bloc that takes place within one small section of the sky. The locale? Pisces. The theme? Well, with Pisces you always get two completely different scenarios to choose from: Inspired dreaming, otherworldly inspiration and unshakeable faith — on one side. But that’s just one facet of the the fishes’ tale. The dark twin fish connotes Shakespearean tragedies like manipulative martyrdom, deluded flights and fuzzy self-deception.

Regardless the approach, and which of those orientations manifest within the psyche, our present dream cycle is winding to a close. Today’s New Moon highlights the buildup prior to the real new year that begins with the Spring Equinox. Any Piscean pileup will impart a sense of closure, or perhaps, as we’re experiencing life on the world stage, a feeling that the thread that suspends Damocles’ sword is beginning to fray, preparing to snap. The damage to be revealed two weeks from now during the Aries Full Moon.

This particular planetary mashup (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus — half of the solar system’s denizens in Pisces) heightens our susceptibility to psychological disassociation and splitting, due to the line in the sky drawn by the vector of the Moon’s nodes, and how Pluto, Saturn and Mars — sometimes a brutish planetary trio — are corralled into their own hemisphere of the zodiac.

This division of the circle can be difficult to maneuver. Treacherous actually — always the case when normal, healthy functions within the psyche are sequestered into the shadow realm. You’ll need to decipher the symbols for yourself. And you can do this by trying to picture the enclosed trio via the lens of dream. Let’s say you have three ruffians locked away in a closet. What do you discover once you’ve rallied your courage to open the door? Or you could see this in a less alarming light, and imagine, say, a solider, a lawmaker and a plutocrat being forced to collaborate on a well-lit stage. What sort of play would unfold? What would their relationship set in motion, what is the dream trying to convey by conjuring these three symbols?

Well, in the first instance — related to the thugs — it’s all about the brute force of the instincts and the particular demands the instincts make upon the environment. Mars being the sexual side of our nature, can be rapacious. Saturn being the social side of the self-preservation urge, often appears disallowing and stifling. And Pluto, well Pluto is always about the raw, primordial power of survival. The “get the fuck out of my way I’m going to eat that” sort of subsistence. Survival that must destroy in order to thrive. And this isn’t as unsavory as it sounds. If the cells in your body weren’t constantly being destroyed so new cells could run the course of their function, you’d become a toxic monster. And this is a perfect image to conjure when considering the body politic at this time. Read more