Tag Archives: mundane astrology

Weekly Forecast June 22: Mercury Square Neptune, Mars Enters Cancer

Secret Garden. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

Secret Garden. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

When tragedies like last week’s shooting take place, the first instinct of an astrologer is to cast a chart and try to identify the correlating aspects.

I did, but not immediately. My first reaction was to get depressed, or maybe it was a sad sense of resignation. We’ve known all along that it wasn’t a question of whether another shooting spree would take place, but when. That this one took place in a church added to the shock and disbelief. We think of churches as a sanctuary. Then, I don’t suppose it’s any more “sacred” than a school, a sorority house, or a movie theater, and certainly not more than one’s home. We tend not to include the latter in our definition of mass shooting, so they don’t make sensational headlines, even though Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast June 15: New Moon in Gemini, Sun Enters Cancer

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

We’re still floating along in a Neptunian fog, but this week has a couple of positive shifts that should make life more bearable overall, maybe even fun.

Oh, dear. Did I just use the “F” word? Must be all the sleep I got over the past week. Apparently it has made me feisty. If I could put that in a bottle, I would be a millionaire, and all those Lunesta moths would be out of work. (Did you know that luna moths belong to a family called saturniids?)

There’s going to be a lot of feistiness in the air this week, for better or for worse, with the New Moon in Gemini conjunct Mars. Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast May 4: Sun Trine Pluto, Venus Enters Cancer

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

This week is mostly about the Full Moon in Scorpio, which occurs on Sunday night in the United States and Monday morning in Europe.

Because it technically fell within last week’s forecast period, I covered it last week. However, I didn’t realize last week that this Full Moon is Wesak, the celebration of the birth, death, and transformation of the Buddha. Normally it falls at the Scorpio Full Moon in sidereal astrology, a different system practiced in Eastern countries that is a month “behind” Western astrology. The sidereal Full Moon in Scorpio is on June 2. But apparently it’s more complicated than that and historically has always been in May Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast April 27: Mercury Enters Gemini, Full Moon in Scorpio

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden and Pat Paquette, 2015.

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden and Pat Paquette, 2015.

The pace remains fairly low key this week, and yet our thoughts start racing in a struggle to make sense of the barrage of information we encounter daily.

Many people understand or are beginning to realize that much of the information we receive is meaningless. It’s like loading up on junk food, which is cheap and readily available. After living on a diet of this stuff for so long, one tends to develop a taste for it, and then it’s hard to appreciate healthy alternatives. In time, real food becomes a distant memory.

Likewise, many of those born since the 1980s don’t remember what real journalism was like. We had Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast April 20: Sun Enters Taurus, Mars Trine Pluto

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

Composite by Osk Ingad Alden, 2015.

This week we get to slow down and smell the roses, and there’s even some levity to compensate for the unrelenting stress we’ve been under.

We’re still in the wake of Saturday’s New Moon when the Sun enters Taurus early Monday morning. Many of us are starting new ventures or entering a new phase in our lives, while still contending with unfinished business from previous cycles. The slower pace this week will help us catch up, and we’ll also have some space to confirm new priorities and formulate a plan for wrapping up old projects. The planning part is important, because it simply isn’t possible to complete the entire “to-do” list, and certainly not in a few days or a few weeks. Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast April 6: Jupiter Direct, Venus Enters Gemini

Spring smiles. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

Spring smiles. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

Image for this week: You’re driving on an eight-lane highway in the pouring rain, with a semi-truck passing on your left, buffeting your car in his draft. It seems like he’s been there forever, but thankfully he moves on.

And then the spray from his tires hits your windshield with a big splat. It’s not like you didn’t see it coming, but you can’t prevent being blinded for a second or two. Still, that’s no big deal, as long as you’ve been paying attention and know what’s in front of you.

As the week begins, we’re still in the draft of Saturday’s lunar eclipse, and the Uranus-Pluto square is activated by the Sun and Mercury. Nonetheless, Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast March 23: Sun Trine Saturn, Venus Square Jupiter

The Structure Beneath. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

The Structure Beneath. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

This week is a mixed bag astrologically, but it could turn out quite well for many of us.

The bad news is that the Uranus-Pluto square remains close until the end of April, and we’re coming up on a total lunar eclipse that reinforces its explosive, destructive nature. Also, the period between eclipses can feel just plain weird. I usually feel like I’m in some kind of a twilight zone, not all “here” and but not all “there.”

The good news is that this week’s aspects are all largely positive. The Sun in Aries is more upbeat and active than it was in Pisces, and the trine from the Sun to Saturn is a good combination Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast March 9: Mars Conjunct Uranus, Saturn Retrograde

Saturn V rocket, Apollo 11 liftoff, July 1969.

Saturn V rocket, Apollo 11 liftoff, July 1969.

This is a potentially explosive week. Whether that’s good or bad news depends on where you are.

If you’re in your space capsule, buckled in and waiting for ignition and liftoff, the explosion beneath you is a good thing. Not so good if life with a partner or family member has felt like a bomb waiting to go off. Even controlled demolition gets out of control under this week’s highly explosive astrological aspects.

We’re just a week away from the seventh and final pass of the 2012-2015 Uranus-Pluto square. Outer-planetary aspects such as this take place over time, so the day of the exact aspect often passes without Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast February 16: New Moon in Aquarius, Sun Enters Pisces

First signs of spring. © Pat Paquette, 2015.

First signs of spring. © Pat Paquette, 2015.

This is a week for sudden endings – some foreseen – leading right into unexpected new beginnings, as the overall pace picks up considerably.

Wednesday’s rare New Moon occurs in the last degree of Aquarius – so close to the end that the Moon enters Pisces seven seconds later, with the Sun another three minutes behind. It’s so close that I couldn’t get my astrology software to show the New Moon in Aquarius. It rounds up to the nearest fraction of a degree, which puts it at 0 degrees Pisces. I’ll discuss more about this unusual New Moon below.

Mercury is now moving steadily forward (from our perspective here on Earth), in brainy air sign Aquarius. Projects that were delayed Continue reading →

Weekly Forecast February 9: Mercury Direct

Winter gems. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

Winter gems. © Gretchen Friedrich, 2015.

Welcome to yet another week in which there are no major astrological aspects but that nonetheless is dominated by tension.

In the past couple of days, I’ve read countless commentaries by folks who feel sure we’re headed for “total war” as the West confronts Russian President Vladimir Putin over events in Ukraine. Putin met on Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande to negotiate what observers call a last-ditch effort to avoid an all-out war. The three world leaders are scheduled to meet again on Wednesday in the Belarus capital of Minsk to work out final details of a peace agreement.

Reports from Friday’s meeting at the Kremlin were dismal, Continue reading →