Category Archives: Saturday Extra!

Saturday Extra: Living in Uncertain Times

Keeping an eye on the sky gods Many of us are feeling jittery these days and wonder what we may be picking up. A lot of people are asking me to look at charts to see if I can figure out what’s going to happen.

It’s understandable that in times of great uncertainty, people want to know the future. Those who think astrology is a bunch of bunk turn to economic indicators, global political forecasts, and other “expert” advice. I have a feeling, though, that many of those same people are secretly taking a peek at what reputable astrologers are saying.

I’ve heard from several people over the past week that they feel like something big is about to go down, to the point that planning for the future is almost futile. We have to plan; we can’t just sit around doing nothing, waiting for fate to take over. But we also know that these plans may be meaningless.

I’m encouraging those of you with highly evolved intuition to listen carefully to the messages you’re receiving. These messages will be more accurate if you can move out of fear. We’re in a heightened state of collective fear, and it’s not hard to get sucked into it. If you do, the messages coming in to you will be distorted. For the good of everyone, we need to stay calm in our center.

There is no doubt that 2009 is going to be a landmark year. Astrologically, we’re in a tumultuous period, with six eclipses, a tense Saturn-Uranus opposition, and a Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune conjunction. Venus is retrograde, and she’ll conjoin Mars twice more after a conjunction in Libra in September. Three Venus-Mars conjunctions in less than a year is extremely rare.

I’m collecting charts for these events, starting with the Aries ingress chart for next week, and will let you know what I see. This has got to be a collective effort, however, as it’s far too much for one person to do alone. Please let me know if you find interesting charts for particular dates, and feel free to offer your interpretation. Each one is a piece of the puzzle.

Much love and courage to all,
Pat

Image: No, this isn’t a mushroom cloud! It’s a supercell over Amarillo, Texas, last year that meteorologists were watching as a possible tornado. Photo by Gene Blevins for REUTERS.

Saturday Extra!Documentary Film Explores Growing 2012 Debate

The latest offering in the growing 2012 craze, 2012: Science or Superstition, is intelligent enough to make it worth recommending.

The documentary film, released on DVD by the Disinformation Company (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Bush Family Fortunes), takes on the question of whether there is any significance to the year 2012, specifically the date December 21, which according to some scholars is the end date of the Mayan Calendar.

Does it settle the question its subtitle proposes to answer? Not really. Is it the best film on the subject to date? I don’t know, because I haven’t seen all of the others. Is it worth laying out $10 for on Amazon.com? Absolutely. Be the first in your condo complex to see it. Better still, invite your friends over and make it a party. You’ll have an evening filled with lively discussion about a topic that does matter, in the grand scheme of things.

The filmmakers no doubt are hoping to capitalize on the 2012 hype, which will increase by galactic proportions with the release this summer of a big-budget Hollywood disaster film using 2012 as a theme. But hey, anything that injects some rational debate into the subject and entices mainstream audiences to think more deeply should win a public-service award.

The panel of experts featured in 2012 is impressive, but it could have done with fewer New Age writers. The film relies heavily on well-known author Graham Hancock, who makes a case for the end of civilization as we know it, and John Major Jenkins, a recognized pioneer in Mayan Calendar research. Jenkins comes across as bombastic and at times ridiculous. Maybe it was the editing, but I had a similar reaction several months ago when I happened upon an Internet debate between Jenkins and Carl Johan Calleman, another 2012 researcher. Actually, “debate” is giving it too much credit. It was more like two males egos in a cosmic pissing contest — hardly the kind of enlightened behavior one would expect from individuals claiming to have special knowledge about the evolution of human consciousness.

Among other things, Jenkins and Calleman disagree about the end date of the Mayan Calendar, with Jenkins promoting the Dec. 21, 2012 date and Calleman arguing for October 28, 2011. You’d hardly know, watching this film, that the exact date wasn’t carved in stone.

The film’s token scientist, Dr. Anthony Aveni of Colgate University, makes the predictable observation (of which he is very certain) that the world is not going to end in 2012. But at least he has a sense of humor.

Fortunately, the filmmakers also found Alonso Mendez, an archeo-astronomer and researcher at Palenque. Speaking with quiet conviction, Mendez makes perhaps the wisest observation of all: “The concept that this end date or completion date of the Mayan Calendar has some relevance to the world in a global sense I think is a fallacious thought, because this system is a particular system that was developed for and by Maya, for their particular ideology, for their particular place in the world. It would be a mistake to rally around a philosophy that has its place in its history and in its world and appropriate it as something that belongs to a global sense.”

From an astrology standpoint, the film uses fabulous special effects to explain the precession of the equinoxes, and for that reason alone should be in the library of every astrologer or serious astrology student. I’ve mentioned this phenomenon often in my writing about the coming Age of Aquarius, but explaining the reasons gets complicated and tiresome. With these brilliant visuals, you get it right away.

Pat

2012: Science or Superstition
Documentary presented by The Disinformation Company
Available on DVD
Directed by Nimrod Erez
Written and produced by Gary Baddeley
78 minutes, no rating
Featuring interviews with Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Anthony Aveni, John Anthony West, Walter Cruttenden, and several other writers and leading experts.
Official site

Saturday Extra: Tragic Love Stories

Hermia and Lysander, by Julius Simmons, 1870. Hermia and Lysander are lovers in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, from which we get the famous line, "The course of true love never did run smooth."

Libra Neith is usually the one who writes about synastry, so you might have expected that she would do our Valentine’s Day post. Well, Libra also is religious about taking turns, and this week it’s my turn!

I started thinking about the greatest love stories of all time and then ran across a Live Science feature in the news headlines that began like this:

Nothing celebrates Valentine’s Day quite like a good love story. And by good, we mean tragic, of course.

How true! When you think of the greatest love stories of all time, do you remember the ones with the happy endings? Of course not. We remember those where the heroine poisons herself, the hero dies after one night of passion, or someone betrays the lovers, dooming them to remain separated forever.

The Live Science story cites five tragic tales from the history books, but fiction is just as tragic, if not more so. When we think of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet come immediately to mind. In Celtic mythology, we have Tristan and Isolde, and we might think of Lancelot and Guinevere as well. In contemporary film, there’s Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Nicole Kidman and Jude Law in Cold Mountain, and Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman in Dracula. Indeed, in Francis Ford Coppola’s rendition of that age-old tale, the hero is cursed with becoming a monster through betrayal that results in the death of his true love.

As an astrologer, I’m always looking for the astrological angle in these stories. Are there markers to indicate a tragic love? Unfortunately, our fictitious lovers don’t have birth charts, nor do we have precise data for couples from ancient history. However, I’ve seen enough charts to make some observations.

Venus rules love, while the Moon rules emotional attachments. For sexual desire and passion, we look at Mars and Pluto. Any of these planets in conflicting aspect to Saturn in a synastry chart between two individuals can mean trouble, as Saturn limits and also carries karmic implications. So, for example, a conjunction of Saturn and Venus might indicate a love affair that is hindered in some way. Likewise, a Moon-Saturn square could indicate great emotional suffering, while a Mars-Saturn square might indicate a violent breakup.

It’s also useful to look at the lunar nodes and chart angles, including the Vertex. For chart angles and also for the exact degree of the Moon, we need a birth time. The nodes and the Vertex in particular give us an indication of karmic connections; in other words, whether these two are soul mates.

As I’ve commented many times before, having a soul mate may sound romantic, but it’s hard work. Add to that the potential for a tragic ending, and you may start wishing that you never meet yours!

Happy Valentine’s Day.
Pat
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Happy V Day from Neith
Happy Valentine’s Day from Neith

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Saturday Extra: Two Messengers

Comet Hyakutake, 1996 Mercury, the Messenger planet, returns direct tomorrow (late tonight on the West Coast of the United States) after three weeks in retrograde motion. For the next couple of days, don’t be surprised if communications come to a dead halt, traffic is jammed to a standstill, and stores are out of whatever you’re looking for.

This Mercury retrograde period has been curious, and it’s difficult even to pinpoint what it might have brought, as there are so many other planetary energies zinging around over our heads lately that they’re all jumbled together in a big astrological casserole.

Based on my own experience, it does appear that certain issues that have been building for weeks and even months have come to a head, and now we may have a chance to resolve them once and for all as Mercury returns direct and begins to gather speed next week. Communications with authority figures may play a heightened role, with Mercury in Capricorn. Once Mercury enters Aquarius, on February 14, we’ll start hearing more about the collective, individual rights, and grassroots efforts.

Meanwhile, there is another messenger in our neighborhood, Comet Lulin (thanks to Rossa and Tseka for alerting me to its presence). I’m still researching this entity to discover where it is from and what it might be trying to tell us. This will take me some time, as I’m incapacitated by the back injury I sustained the day after the solar eclipse on January 26. The latest is that I may have a herniated disc. So the long hours I used to spend surfing the ‘Net are prohibited for now.

An initial look at this comet’s unusual behavior suggests that chaos and disorder are part of its message. Lulin is literally going against the grain, in an orbit roughly tracking the path of the planets as we see it from Earth, only it is moving backwards. It was closest to the Sun on January 10, which is another clue for the message of comets, but it wasn’t visible with the naked eye at that time. We may get only a brief glimpse of it, as it approaches its closest point to Earth in late February. From that we can conclude that the forces it symbolizes aren’t obvious and need special vision to see. Lulin comes from deep space and apparently has not visited our inner solar system before, so we might conclude that the message is something new, totally outside of our ability to imagine.

Interestingly, this is all in keeping with the chaotic energy of the planets and eclipse cycle, which I’ve been writing about here and on my personal blog, The Pisces Chronicles.

I will have more as I am able to research. If any of you have links and relevant information, I would love for you to drop me a line.

Much love and courage…
Pat

Image: The “Great Comet” of 1996, Hyakutake. Photo by NASA.

Saturday Archives: Saturn in Synastry . . . Neith’s Take

folk's wedding in 1944 Pulling a post on Saturn in synastry from the archives for Saturday (Saturn’s Day) seems like a good idea. It is also important to remember Saturn aspects in synastry can provide the foundation for a lasting relationship . . . not such a bad guy after all?

A friend requested my take on how Saturn works in synastry between the charts, and as a true Libra Sun person with a life-long fascination with how relationships work, how could I say no?

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of reading relating to synastry, and I’ve looked at a lot of different relationships plus my own — especially my own! When it comes to Saturn, I still favor Steven Arroyo’s work in this area. He is a fellow Libra and has done extensive astrological relationship counseling over the years. Another favorite, Liz Greene, has what I consider The Book on Saturn: Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil. Between these two astrologers and my own experiences, Saturn in synastry is simply not the bad guy that traditional astrologers have made him out to be.

This is not to say there aren’t synastry aspects with Saturn that are not tough to deal with; there are. Saturn forming squares and inconjuncts to the Moon and Venus in particular can be difficult to resolve. However, conjunctions and oppositions, as well as squares, show up with great frequency in chart comparisons of couples that have been together — and happily — for many years. One of the key factors may be that most of the time there has been some kind of formal documentation of the relationship, such as marriage, wills, etc. Saturn likes it very much when both partners sign on the dotted line and announce to the community that they are a couple.

Conjunctions, trines, sextiles, and oppositions between Saturn and the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ascendant, and Descendant are all aspects that can indicate a durable relationship. Saturn acts as a stabilizing element and helps ground the relationship in time and space. When the synastry has loads of Jupiter and Uranus intra-aspects for fun and freedom, I like to see a good solid Saturn aspect to provide some balance. If I don’t see one or two, then it’s likely that the relationship will burn brightly, and then both partners will move on.

My SO’s Saturn is conjunct my Moon-Neptune, which falls in his seventh House — a classic aspect for the long run. Traditional astrology says I will experience this as oppressive and run into lots of resistance to the natural expression of my emotional nature. I will own up to some of that, but after 17 years of being essentially happy and comfortable together, my overriding experience has been one where I find him emotionally dependable, and this creates a feeling of security for me. OK, I have Taurus on the cusp of my seventh house, so I like a partner who others may find boring, but that’s the beauty of astrology: we can determine what type of partner best suits us.

While we love to look chart comparisons, I feel I must reiterate — one more time — that chart comparisons start with the individual! And if as an individual you are not yet in a place to be a good partner, please acknowledge that to yourself if no one else. My Libra side tells me the willingness to compromise is a very important aspect of being a good partner. To make healthy compromises, we need to know exactly what is and what is not negotiable. This goes right to the heart of being a good partner . . .

posted by Neith . . .

Image: This is the wedding photo of my Libra mom & Cancer dad . . . they were married just a week shy of 63 yrs when she died March 2007. One of the reasons I believe in the possibility of lasting reasonably happy relationships!

Saturday Extra: Observations on Retrograde Mercury

Tiepolo's Mercury Appearing to Aeneas Mercury went retrograde a week ago, and while many of us didn’t experience any effects right away, now that he’s gaining momentum on his reverse course, a few springs are starting to pop.

We can start with the bizarre airplane accident in New York on Thursday, which apparently was the result of a collision with a flock of birds right after take-off. Air travel is ruled by Aquarius, the sign in which Mercury currently is retrograde. It was interesting that the jet went down in water. Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, currently is in Pisces. Jupiter, meanwhile, is also in Aquarius, with Mercury only a few degrees away. Jupiter typically is a lucky influence, and it was nothing short of a miracle that there were no fatal injuries.

Yesterday, my ferry was 15 minutes late leaving the dock because the captain missed the boat! He had to catch the next one, which wasn’t scheduled to dock at Vashon and had to make an emergency stop to deliver him. Of course, that meant all the boats on our route were behind schedule for the rest of the day.

U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama is making his way to Washington for his inauguration on Tuesday, and while I haven’t read about any delays or incidents on his historic train trip, his first days in office will be spent cleaning up big messes left by the previous administration. For that matter, retrograde Mercury in the inauguration chart suggests that he may spend his entire term in office that way. Mercury retrograde actually should help him in this regard, as retrograde periods are great for research, review, and revision.

Mercury is retrograde in my first house and will cross back over my Ascendant twice. The events I’m experiencing are a bit too personal to recount here, but one of them involves a grievance before a labor union, and unions are ruled by Aquarius. A couple of old friends also resurfaced after months of silence. Aquarius is the sign of friendship.

On Tuesday, right after the inauguration, Mercury retrogrades back into Capricorn. This may temporarily tip the balance back in the favor of authoritarian rule, or it could frustrate those forces even more, as Saturn, Capricorn’s ruling planet, also is retrograde. By this time, the Sun will have entered Aquarius, and we’ll be only days away from a solar eclipse. I think it’s safe to say that many unpredictable events and surprises are in the works.

I’ll have more on the eclipse in my weekly forecast on Monday. Until then, much love and many blessings…
Pat

Image: Mercury Appearing to Aeneas, by Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1696-1770.

Saturday Extra! – Changes to Neith’s Services

let the stars light your way This seems like a good time to let people know I’m making some changes in the reports I offer, the number and type as well as price. It’s been nine months since Real Astrologers was launched and very busy months they have been.

First, I’ve decided to focus primarily on doing compatibility-synastry reports because that is by far and away where the greatest demand is and it is also the area I feel most comfortable working. The full compatibility report for two people includes: an overview of both natal charts to see how the individuals approach their relationships, simple comparison of personal planets by sign, intra-aspects between the charts (same planets aspecting each other from both charts), other synastry aspects and a quick look at the composite. It is the report most people were interested in. I do a shorter version of that report writing about only one natal chart and without a look at the composite chart.

I will still do a natal report and a transit report as well as Solar Returns. However my idea of a transit report is to focus on the broad trends and patterns using a combination of transits to the natal chart and a check of your progressed chart to see what’s shifting there. If you want a really good in depth transit report, Pat does a great one.

The other report I wish to keep is the Quick Question because it’s such a good tool for addressing a single issue you may have. If you meet someone and you manage to get their birth data, I can use this format to offer feedback on the relationship potential; or if something has happened and you are wondering what the astrology of it was this is a great tool for that.

I’ve also had a chance to evaluate the amount of time I devote to each report and because all my reports are written, there is a significant time commitment. So I’m going to raise my prices to reflect this. Be sure to check the pages for various services to see what’s changed. As always, it doesn’t hurt to ask about negotiating on costs and content plus I will occasionally offer specials. For those of you who have already contacted me about doing reports for you, be assured you will be charged the old rates.

Personal Note: Over the past few days, we had major flooding in our area and while our house was isolated by the flood waters, we came through fine. However, my father’s house had about a foot of water in it and not only has he been staying with us but we are helping him clean up the mess. This seems to be a continuation of the Saturn-Uranus opposition falling in my tenth house-fourth house: having to deal with the unexpected crisis in the home while keeping with career demands. So please bear with me while I am doing my Libra best to keep all these balls in the air!

posted by Neith . . .

Saturday Archives: Jesus and the Age of Pisces

Night of Peace, by William Blake As we continue to celebrate the Christmas season in much of the world, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the origins and astrological significance of this Christian holiday.

Believe it or not, this is one of the most searched-for posts on my personal blog, The Pisces Chronicles. The original post ran on December 18, 2005.

Much love to all in this holiday season …

Pat

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Jesus and the Age of Pisces

For many people around the world, the winter holiday is Christmas and the birthday of Jesus.

The year of his alleged birth was very close to the beginning of the Age of Pisces. That alone is noteworthy, but there are plenty of other startling coincidences, such as early Christians’ use of the image of the fish to identify themselves. If you’d like to know more, here is an excellent article by Ray Grasse, who has written a book about the Age of Aquarius.

Whether you believe Jesus really existed or was just a symbolic figure, this is as good a time as any to look back on the Age of Pisces. What did it replace? What was its promise? What have been its primary manifestations?

The Age of Aries was ending just as the Roman Empire had extended to its farthest reaches. Aries is ruled by Mars, the god of war, and it was Rome’s military innovations that allowed it to conquer lands on three continents. Rome invented the idea of a trained military unit that attacked and fought as one, with a pre-planned strategy. That might sound like a no-brainer, but until the Romans came up with the idea, warfare was more like schoolyard gangs beating up on each other.

Jesus lived in an outpost of the Roman Empire, and according to some historians, he was a rebel (if George Bush had been the emperor of Rome, he’d have called Jesus a terrorist, but that’s another story for another time). Yet his message was of peace, compassion, and oneness with God – all concepts that astrologers strongly associate with Pisces. Indeed, these are the best attributes of Pisces.

So how did a message of peace and compassion get turned into the Crusades, in which “infidels” were killed in the name of God? Or into the war in Iraq, in which “terrorists” or “insurgents” are being killed in the name of democracy or oil or eradication of WMDs or whatever?

The answer lies in the flip side of Pisces, which is fear and blind faith. As the Age of Pisces draws to an end, the worst traits of the sign are coming to the fore in a way that we no longer can ignore.

I went to a Unitarian service this morning during which the visiting minister admonished everyone to remember our divinity, to turn toward what’s beautiful and good, and away from what’s ugly and bad. Well, in my mind, therein lies the problem. In deciding that certain behaviors are “bad” and “ugly,” to be feared and hated, we renounce an essential part of ourselves. When society as a whole represses behaviors or thoughts, they emerge in overt, physical form. The more repressed, the more in our faces they get.

Before we can reclaim our divinity – and our power as divine beings – we must own our dark side. We are all capable of being selfish, greedy, petty, resentful, narrow-minded, self-indulgent, stubborn, and limited. And most of us live in fear of something, and the antidote to this fear is blind faith, whether in a supreme being, a political leader, a religious or political ideology, a scientific theory – whatever. To live with uncertainty, to be in a constant state of “I don’t know,” is more than most human beings are willing or able to handle.

As the Age of Pisces dwindles, our beliefs are falling away. Lately, this is happening with mind-numbing speed. As a result, we are entering a period of intense confusion. Nothing makes sense. The behaviors and reactions of people, governments – even nature – are inexplicable. Chaos reigns.

Eventually, when the dust settles, we will enter a new age of peace and stability. But we’ve got a way to go yet. . .

Image: Night of Peace, watercolor illustration for Milton’s On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, by William Blake, 1809.

Saturday Extra: Living With Saturn Opposing Uranus

Bridging Earth & Water On November 4, Saturn opposed Uranus at 18 degrees Virgo and Pisces, the first of four oppositions that will take place in these signs over the next 18 months. The next one will occur on February 5, 2009, at 20 degrees, followed by a third pass on September 15, 2009, at 24 degrees, and the last one on April 26, 2010, at 28 degrees – clearly a mandate on working with the Virgo-Pisces axis.

Bernadette Brady refers to this aspect as “the Structure vs. the Surprise” and I sure agree with her. Uranus is always good at throwing a curve ball or two our way, and Saturn cringes every time. However, we can’t live under the bed for the next couple of years waiting for the sky to fall, no matter how much some of us would like to, but we can help each other understand what’s happening.

One thing about oppositions is that they take place in complementary signs, unlike squares or inconjuncts. Virgo and Pisces may mumble about the other a lot, but they do have a sneaking admiration for each others’ strong points. Virgo often wishes they had Pisces’s knack for going with the flow, and Pisces people would love to have Virgo’s organizational skills at their fingertips. In other words, the possibilities for meeting each other halfway and for compromises are greatly increased.

I am inclined to believe the sporadic disruptions will be followed by repair and rebuilding, just as I have experienced in my own life. And, as in our case, the end results will be better than the previous structures. Many times Uranus transits force us to deal with something we’ve consistently put off, too. The first opposition found Saturn and Uranus in harmonious aspect to Jupiter in Capricorn, and that encouraged us to accept the fact that rebuilding is a process. Uranus can create chaos in a matter of moments, but it takes Saturn’s willingness to do the work to create order once more.

As always, be prepared to practice forgiving yourself and others, because this series of oppositions is bound to bring moments of uncertainty and doubt as part of the process.

posted by Neith . . .

Image: A bridge is a good symbol for working with oppositions. This lovely Japanese Moon bridge brings earth and water into harmony.

Saturday Extra: RealAstrologers, a Truly Global Community

Sagittarius is winding down, but the Sun and Mars (the “ego” planets) are still in the sign of the Archer, so I thought this would be a good time to do a little bragging.

As of today, RealAstrologers.com has readers in all 50 states of the United States plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and in 112 countries on six continents! I don’t believe this is any accident. Neith and I have the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Chiron all conjoined in Sagittarius on the Ascendant in our composite chart, Sagittarius being the sign most associated with traveling, foreign contacts, and growth through exposure to other cultures. And while we’ve been in existence for only nine months, today will we will surpass 100,000 page views!

I’ve been keeping a list of where our page views are coming from. Here’s just a small sample:

Bahrain
Bangladesh
Bosnia/Herzegovina
Botswana
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Hong Kong
Iceland
Moldova, Republic of
Palestinian Territory, Occupied Bethlehem
Slovakia
Slovenia

I confess that I’ve had to consult a map a couple of times to know where some of these countries are, and I also had to look up the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia, but that’s how we learn — learning being one of the keywords for Sagittarius.

As we head into the winter holiday season and solstice — be it winter or summer where you live — Neith and I send our love, gratitude and best wishes to our readers all over the world!