The problem with predictions, especially astrological ones, is that they rarely, if ever, come to pass. So why do astrologers bother making them and why do readers keep reading them? I’d suggest you skip the obvious answer and consider what the writer Chuck Palahniuk tells us about the power of distraction — which in many ways predictions turn out to be:

“People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

Of course much of the lure (and lore) of predictive astrology is about filling in the “scary unknown” with imaginary possibilities; scenarios that may or may not have any connection to how reality flows. As a diversion and pastime I suppose this sort of nonsense is entertaining, but if you’re sincere about employing astrology to assist in the development of consciousness — no.

With Saturn’s recent entry into Sagittarius this theme — diversion and how it robs us of our allotted amount of time in life — becomes a self-assessment worth engaging. To not examine our life with this intent we fall prey to a harsh form of self-loathing; the shadow side of Saturn’s transits through the fire signs. Here Saturn decrees: “Create!” To not is to live a half-life.

We are like plants, all of us — and light is food.

The all and everything of astrology is about light. The generation of light, the mechanics of light — the movement and dispersement of light and how light enlivens the inert qualities of a body (yours, or say, a planet’s), when it interacts with the atmosphere of said body. That catalytic force translates into expressions, facets or faces of being that make each form or entity unique.

This is why astrology is always fresh — or should be. Meaning, in order for astrology to be relevant to each of us in the here and now it must be released from the too-tight limitations of predictive language, which always reflects back on a lexicon that is ultimately limited in that it has little to do with where everything, everyone is now.

The Saturn of 200 years ago is not the same Saturn of 2015, anymore than the you of 1985 is related to the you of 2015. This is the shortcoming of the notion that astrology is a language. Better to say that astrology is informed by a living logos than a set of conceptual descriptions etched in stone. Free astrology from the notion of archetypes (by which it is currently crippled) and you enter the ‘scary unknown.’ And that’s a good place to start living from should you desire a sense of life that is always fresh; free from someone else’s opinion or cosmology. Again, this is a Saturn in Sagittarius theme. Not everyone will rise to this sort of clarion call of freedom.

Saturn, as the furthest planet from the Sun that allows light to be reflected back to earth and recorded with the naked eye, pinpoints where the pile of grist awaits each of us. Meaning, within the theater of reality, wherever Saturn is transiting the prima materia (the starting material required for any alchemical process) arises, making itself known through the various themes and reality bands corresponding to the signs (or planets) being transited. Read more

People forget that the otherworldly filmmaker David Lynch made the Disney-produced movie The Straight Story back in 1999. The tale of an old fellow that rides his lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin to reconcile with his dying brother. Except for the lawnmower oddity, the film was straightforward and tenderhearted with a narrative you could actually track. Now Lynch is filming another journey, this one traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United States. A 70-day, 20,000-mile road trip led by Lynch’s son, Austin. It’s a film project called The Interview Project. And that’s what the crew is doing, each stop along the way: Interviewing everyday folk. Guys like Jim Carter, pictured above, who, we’re told in the text intro, grew up on a farm with his ten brothers and sisters, and left, reluctantly, to bear witness for God. Read more