Mercury Retrograde – Manipulated Perception

Posted on June 30, 2014 by ohioastrology

Mercury retrograde (apparent backward motion) signifies difficulty in communication from misdirected communication to missed communication. Like a letter lost in the mail (or in today’s mode, stuck in a spam filter), you may not know about it for a while.

Mercury went retrograde in water sign Cancer on June 7 and goes direct in air sign Gemini on July 2. Mercury will then go back (forward) through Cancer from mid to late July.

Mercury has been on my mind for much of the retrograde period. The Hero Twins story brought to awareness some deeper levels of Mercury which is sometimes misunderstood as superficial conversation.

Mercury seems to be about perception itself and its reputation for trickery simply the trickery of perception. Two stories on the BBC demonstrate the trickery of Mercury well.

Facebook Emotion Experiment

We learned just before this Mercury retrograde that for one week in 2012 Facebook conducted an uncommunicated test on 689,003 users. According to the BBC story which quotes a report:

The experiment manipulated the extent to which people were exposed to emotional expressions in their News Feed.

Using the date of February 4, 2004 when Facebook was launched at Harvard (according to Wikipedia). That chart has sun in technology-oriented Aquarius and moon and Saturn in emotion-oriented Cancer. Mercury is in the late degrees of Capricorn (and possibly opposite the moon).

Saturn in Cancer is a sense of not belonging or lacking home life and emotional security. According to The Astrologers Handbook by Sakoian and Acker, Saturn in Cancer:

. . . may cause the inhibition of the expression of emotion, which is likely to result in estrangement from family members; such emotional isolation in the domestic scene can lead to neurotic reactions.

These people hide their inner feelings from public view in order to preserve their dignity. Emotional sensitivity and the need for approval sometimes force them to build a shell around themselves, which can inhibit the expression of true warmth in personal relationships.

The Facebook research was published online June 2, 2014 with Mercury at two degrees of Cancer (five days before it went retrograde) and Jupiter at 20 degrees of Cancer. Transiting Mercury and Jupiter (which has a 12-year cycle) were in between Facebook’s natal Saturn and moon.

Cancer is about personal emotions and the research in an undisclosed week of 2012 was meant to gauge unconscious emotional response (“emotional contagion“).

Our perceptions of others through their Facebook feeds could probably fuel a psychological textbook. Our reactions to those friends may be no different than when we meet them in person; but how often do you meet with all of your friends, past present and somewhat unknown, in one room at one time?

It’s emotional overload that creates Mercury in Cancer type perceptions – do I belong? Do they like me and my posts? Have I offended someone? Why are are my friends more [fill in the blank] than me?

Mercury in Cancer perceives through the personal emotions. This is a wonderful placement for your spouse who you want to read your emotions as you walk in the door. This is also wonderful for a writer or other creative person.

Where this placement can be difficult is when you need emotional detachment to make decisions or where you respond emotionally to everything thereby weakening your nerves draining those around you.

When Mercury in Cancer visits Facebook (which is voluntary, by the way), it may respond more strongly to the images and words created by friends than would Mercury in an air or earth sign.

Pickpocketing Your Perceptions

In this interesting article on pickpockets (from the land of the Artful Dodger), we learn that pickpockets take advantage of a limitation of your mind – the inability to multi-task.

. . . According to neuroscientists our brains come pretty much hard-wired to be tricked, thanks to the vagaries of our attention and perception systems. In fact, the key requirement for a successful pickpocket isn’t having nifty fingers, it’s having a working knowledge of the loopholes in our brains. Some are so good at it that researchers are working with them to get an insight into the way our minds work.

The most important of these loopholes is the fact that our brains are not set up to multi-task. Most of the time that is a good thing – it allows us to filter out all but the most important features of the world around us. But neuroscientist Susana Martinez-Conde, the author of the book Sleights of Mind, says that a good trickster can use it against you. She should know: as a researcher at the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience in Arizona, she has studied how Las Vegas stage pickpocket Apollo Robbins performs his tricks.

“Trickster” is a word used in the article and a word associated with the sign Gemini which is ruled by Mercury. Gemini is the sign of the twins which means while the rest of us focus on one object, the Gemini can focus on two which is a perceptual advantage. Gemini and Mercury are also able to think and move quickly.

Distracting our focus is the key to finding the loophole in perception. From the BBC story, it also appears, from the woman who was pickpocketed by a man carrying flowers, that creating a perceptual “story” is also important. A man walking toward a woman with flowers evokes lots of images from greeting cards, movies, songs and poetry. It feels “nice.”

Pickpockets are rightly ruled by Mercury which understands perception. And pockets. And everything else – quickly.

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Distracted Humanity

Posted on June 25, 2014 by ohioastrology

According to this Psychology Today article, the earliest images of meditation from the Indus Valley date to 3500 BC to 5000 BC.

That means 7,000 years ago individuals felt the need to remove themselves from the distractions of daily life.

What distractions?

Nagging wives? Demanding bosses? Crying children? Ten text messages?

Seven thousand years ago there were no telephones, radios, televisions, Internet, magazines, books, daily mail or newspaper waiting on the front door.

What was so distracting?

Distracted living

There’s a lot of complaining in my part of the world about distracted driving. While distracted driving is certainly a menace, I think the bigger issue is distracted living.

Distractions have been around since men created wall art, so isn’t really about hand-held devices. Maybe at dinner your friends have always been distracted and now it is simply more evident as they move their eyes from yours to the phone as you narrate the thousand reasons you left your ex.

Attraction to distractions

When I mention to people that I don’t have cable channels, they respond quickly with the different options. It’s always assumed that I want options.

Back in the 1980s when there was much complaining about violence on television (do we not care anymore?), I wondered why people didn’t simply turn off the television. Watching violent TV or any TV was a choice.

That was the seed of what was to come. We not only can’t or won’t turn off our televisions, regardless of content, but willingly pay for the content, even content we don’t want.

We want distractions.

Here’s an interesting blog article called The Plague of Distraction which comments on the increasing distractions of today.

Mercury

My own Mercury has been processing a lot about the astrological Mercury lately. This wing-footed messenger between the gods is much more than communication and papyrus scrolls. He is perception and stands between you and what you consider empirical reality.

Mercury becomes a menace when he moves from his sentry post of interpreting “out there” and starts running loose “in here.” In meditation some question whether the distraction is what we’re sensing or our thoughts regarding what we’re sensing.

If a bad event occurred in the past, is it still hurting you or are your thoughts regarding it hurting you?

Mercury seems prone to distraction in lesser or greater degree dependent on the personality represented by the horoscope. Those handing us cell phones and constant streams of tailor-made entertainment are simply feeding Mercury.

The tailor-made portion of the entertainment may also be feeding the moon which gets hungry and pecks at any available food like a bird.

A bird – we’re back to the wing image. Winged beings fly quickly, peck often and rarely sit in one place for long periods of time.

 

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The Gemini Hero Twins

Posted on June 14, 2014 by ohioastrology

This issue of American Archaeology has a fascinating story titled The Hero Twins in the Mimbres Region. Accompanying the story are images of the Hero Twins story from painted bowls found in the region.

The twins in astrology are the sign Gemini which is ruled by the planet Mercury. The god Mercury was a messenger and both Mercury and Gemini are associated with communication. Because of Gemini’s high intelligence, speed and ability to perceive situations extraordinarily quickly, Gemini gone bad is associated with the con artist.

The Gemini personality, as the twins, is seen has having two distinct sides. Having two sides is part of the intelligence and, if you think about it, should be admired. But too much diversity of personality is often viewed as inconsistency which is counter to the physical, permanent aspect of our world.

What fascinates me about the Hero Twins saga is not only how the astrological symbolism matches, but how allegory enlightens and brings up deeper aspects of life which is symbolized by astrology.

Birth and Rearing

The birth of the twins is described as such:

The mother of the twins is a virgin and the daughter of one of the gods of the Underworld. After an encounter with the twins father, she becomes pregnant . . .

We learn the mother disappears from the saga after birth. Interesting. The paternal grandmother raises the twins. We then learn:

The larger, right-handed twin carries a sunflower, as he is destined to become the sun; the left-handed twin holds a moonflower, as he will become the moon.

The sun is conscious self and moon reactive self. Right and left – today talking about right and left brain is common but remember these plates are from 1000 AD.

That Gemini represents both left and right brain ability is clear from the sign and from the myth. The virgin mother I almost skipped over with the thought, “here we go again, another virgin.”

But then I realized the virgin is ruled by the sign Virgo which is also ruled by Mercury. I’ve been viewing the double-rulership as simply a lack of planets, but now I’m seeing the relation.

The virgin represents purity as she hasn’t been physically penetrated. After penetration by life, one is split which is represented by Gemini.

Mercury, then, is the dualistic perception (split into left and right) of daily life. The virgin represents the pre-dualistic perceptive state. It’s interesting that one planet contains both potentials.

Trickery

Like many gods, the Hero twins were challenged with trials by the gods of the Underworld (which is watery). One of the trials mentioned in the article was to smoke but not consume tobacco.

Smoking follows the same path as the communication channels, the throat.

The trial plate goes on to say:

The twins were tricksters, imbued with a duality of both earthly and divine heritage.

We’re back to the trickster / con artist image of Gemini. But if Virgo is the non-dualistic state, then possibly the twins, by nature, represent trickery. The trickery isn’t the ability to shift the shells and take your money, but dualistic perception itself. That is the trickery.

Arms and hands and ascension

We know some folks talk with their hands. In the Hero Twins saga, each has one hand dominant which suggests that they are not complete until both hands are equal. Our left and right sides need to merge to be whole.

One one portion of the story, the right-handed twin loses an arm to a monster and now must get it back. The brothers have to go to the underworld to retrieve it.

In the Underworld, the twins eventually retrieve the lost arm but then the left-handed brother decapitates the right-handed brother whose head stays attached to his body by a lifeline. I’m not clear why he does this but the article says it’s needed to defeat the gods of the Underworld.

Both brothers eventually ascend from the watery underworld where the right-handed brother becomes the sun and the left-handed brother becomes the moon.

Both sides survived, but now are separate, one ruling the day and one ruling the night.

The moon brother has a “celestial burden” on his back represented by a “burden basket.” Today we call it the monkey on your back. Look to your moon sign to see what you’re carrying in your burden basket.

Astrology and myth

Astrology and myth both try to describe through symbolism underlying energetic principles. Story is truly more enjoyable which can explain why so few struggle with the numbers, geometry and math behind astrology.

Mercury is so much more than communication and talking. In a prior blog I mentioned a little book by Jim Self which describes the third dimension as: time loop, duality and the rational mind.

Duality and rational mind point directly to Mercury. The myth seems to be clearer than astrology in describing how the rational, dualistic mind (Mercury) is conceived from the Virgin (pure non-duality). Our two sides are represented at the highest level by sun and moon.

That the left-handed brother decapitates the right-handed brother in that watery Underworld represents something we all do in this world – Gemini or other sign. We often suppress parts of ourselves to get along in a dualistic world.

When I read myths I often wonder why we need to keep writing stories. All the stories we need exist.

But that’s Mercury too. Communication in a dualistic world can confuse as much as enlighten.

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Melanie and Antonio: Leos Split Before Jupiter Return?

Posted on June 10, 2014 by ohioastrology

When an OHA reader informed me that actress Melanie Griffith and actor Antonio Banderas were divorcing, I was not shocked. After the Al & Tipper Gore breakup of 2010, no political or celebrity breakup will ever shock me again (not even Bill & Hillary which would be a logical one).

What did make me smack my own head in wonder is how two Leos would break up just weeks, I mean days, almost hours from a Jupiter transit of Leo.

What are they thinking?

On the verge of Jupiter

Jupiter will begin a one-year transit of Leo beginning mid-July. Leo is ruled by the sun, is a fixed fire sign, and is known for its loving intensity, childlike and childish drama, exuberance, generosity, pomposity and anything superlative.

Melanie and Antonio are both Leo suns. Imagine going outside, say in Spain, on a clear day (which occurs often in that arid land). You’ve just woken from a delightful night of socializing, feel refreshed and the morning is cool and the low heat of the sun is warm and soft.

Now imagine that one more sun rises above the horizon.

Your paltry pair of sunglasses now can’t stop the rays from burning your irises, your level 45 sunscreen now needs to be doubled to 90, and the warmth quickly turns to oppressive heat.

Now imagine that the planet Jupiter, which “expands what it finds,” comes to expand the energy of these two suns.

There is no sunscreen that can protect you.

Need I go on?

Melanie and Antonio

Not only do Melanie and Antonio have sun in Leo, both also have Uranus in Leo. Melanie has the added pleasure of Pluto in Leo (29 degrees). Antonio, a tad bit younger, has Pluto in the next sign – Virgo.

Antonio has a wide fire trine with moon in Aries and Jupiter in Sagittarius. Melanie has moon in cool, detached Aquarius which opposes all her Leo energy. Believe it or not, she can be detached when she’s not 100 percent obsessed (which may happen 10 percent of the time, but can happen).

Jupiter should be good to these Leos, although Melanie might have some trouble during the full opposition to her moon.

Jupiter in Leo means the attention is coming. The key for both of these attention-seeking Leos is to filter and focus the attention into the positive kind. But, then again, for attention-seeking folk, attention is like ice cream and while not all flavors are equally palatable, it is ice cream.

Will their breakup be as passionate as their pairing?

While this Jupiter transit could indicate a fully-public, dramatic, divorce, I’m suspecting that the breakup right before the transit suggests that both will feel more energized from the breakup, from being apart.

Back to the two suns analogy – while you’re getting fried into a raisin wondering where you can find shade, the suns might also feel, how shall we say it, a little cramped.

I’m wondering if these two just need a little space, something neither horoscope would ever consider, obsessive as they are.

Transiting Pluto in Capricorn is crossing Antonio’s natal Saturn in Capricorn. This could mean some sense of failure or an awakening that one is growing old and life is now following the setting sun, not the rising sun. This realization can create some intense responses. Melanie dealt with that same transit (transiting Pluto conjunct natal Saturn) years ago, in the early 2000s.

Jupiter Cries with Joy

When you watch actors in a movie, you laugh with them, cry with them, rage with them. Actors have that unique ability to channel emotions and filter that through moving image so that you feel what they feel.

That ability transfers into news of their personal lives. They carry that ability to transfer emotions and we, the admiring public, feel with and for them.

One of the exceptional traits of Leo (and the other fire signs) is the ability to bounce back after just about any setback. With Jupiter adding to this trait, we may have a bit of bouncing from both parties.

Jupiter will be in Leo from July 2014 – August 2015. Then it will be in Virgo and soon after pass over Antonio’s Venus and then six months later Melanie’s Venus.

Who knows? Maybe they will spend a year of Jupiter in Leo realizing they both have Venus in Virgo which wants to be loved “perfectly” and that a partner with such similar energy kind of knows how to love quite-close to perfectly.

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The Organization Man & The Pluto Half Cycle

Posted on June 8, 2014 by ohioastrology

Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930 in 17 degrees of the sign Cancer. Cancer is a cardinal water sign ruling personal emotions, home environment, need for safety and security and the drive to belong.

Pluto entered Cancer in 1913 several years prior to its discovery. At that time, a war started that involved the entire “world” – World War I.

I’ve wondered much about how Cancer energy led to war. Now I’m on the path of “belonging” which has led us to our Pluto in Capricorn of today. In about three years, Cancer will be in 17 degrees of Capricorn, halfway from where it started at the time of discovery.

Pluto transforms and destroys and in Cancer it destroys family, community and personal emotional security. After Pluto passed through Gemini, innovations in communication brought us a “mass” to communicate to which seems to have led to Pluto in Cancer which changed the sense of family and community. Then afterward Pluto in Leo Generation in the US (The Me Generation) openly stated that they did not want to be like their parents.

As Pluto moved into Cancer in 1913, new senses of belonging occurred in several parts of the world as China created a republic, Russia a communist state, the Middle East was partitioned into “countries,” and in the West the family unit shrunk to “nuclear family” in contrast to the extended family or clan.

While Cancer isn’t directly connected to warlike or aggressive energy, the need to feel security and belonging creates intense emotional responses.

The Organization Man

In 1956 William H. Whyte published “The Organization Man” with the premise (if I understand it correctly) that the corporation replaces individualism with the “social ethic” which has these three “propositions:”

  • A belief in the group as a source of creativity
  • A belief in “belongingness” as the ultimate need of the individual
  • A belief in the application of science to achieve the belongingness

During the time this book was written Communism was growing and the idea of “collectivist” thought was pitted against individualism.

If and when we had this individualism, did we also have families? If corporation and individualism are at odds, how do family and individualism relate?

Did the corporation break down individualism or did mass communication break down the personal sense of belonging which trumped the development of individualism?

A Pluto half-life away has Pluto currently transiting Capricorn, the sign of the corporation and government. Is there any government anywhere in the world that is smaller today than it was in 1930? Or any military?

What’s fascinating to me is that prior to Pluto transiting Cancer, it was in Gemini so it took the inventions in communication to break down the family and community structure.

We are again in a period of inventions in communication. The irony to me is how social media has exponentially increased our interaction with devices (rather than people). Also, communication today is briefer and more marketing and/or public relations oriented. If you watch a news show or pick up a magazine from 30 years ago, topics were discussed in much greater depth.

It’s cliché that communication is important in relationships, but I personally believe talk actually creates separation. Silent retreats have taught me that cooperation comes from agreement, not verbal communication.

Water signs are about connection and they connect through food (Cancer), intimacy (Scorpio) and spirituality (Pisces). That’s why holidays are family events filled with food. Can you imagine a holiday without food?

(As for sex and the holidays, I was surprised while working retail a few years ago how much condom sales increased during the holidays. I figured it was because people finally had some time for intimacy but maybe it’s because the holidays create connection.)

While William H. Whyte criticized the corporation promoting belonging over individualism, I think the real issue is that belonging got wiped out through mass communication and the corporation stepped in, like a foster family, to fill the need.

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Marijuana Abdication of Your Reputation

Posted on June 6, 2014 by ohioastrology

American astrologers, like me, will mention that the 10th house of the horoscope is about career. When Americans meet each other, we often ask, “So what do you do?”

According to The Culture Code, for Americans work represents WHO YOU ARE. (Money, by relation, represents to Americans PROOF of who we are says The Culture Code).

I’d say the 10th house of the horoscope represents this WHO YOU ARE. It’s your reputation, your public image. That Americans have made it the focus of personal identity (which is the opposite, the 4th house) is simply a cultural choice. That we have turned “job” into the concept of “career” is also representative of that cultural trait.

Do you have a job or career? What’s the difference? Is that how you define yourself?

10th House Transits

When planets transit your 10th house of reputation or public image, changes to the public image are common and the type of change indicated by the planet making the transit. This house is at the top of your chart.

The moon transits your 10th house every month so for a least a day or two our public image is as controllable as a gossip magazine being blown about by the wind.

Mercury (communication) spends about a month a year affecting your public image. Mars (active principle) spends a month every two years.

Jupiter will spend a year, Saturn a couple, Uranus up to seven, Neptune 15 and Pluto feels like forever.

To get a sense of what a 10th house transit looks like to the public, let’s look at a few peeps with some 10th house activity at public-imaging changing times of their lives.

Abdication

What could be more representative of public image than royalty? Royalty is public image by default. In the past, it was also a bit of an 8th house experience as royalty did rule your life simply because they had the strength, power or means to do so (which often involved you providing sustenance to them so they could do this).

The Spanish King Juan Carlos has decided to step out of the 10th house royal domain.

Juan Carlos is a Capricorn sun, the sign that rules the 10th house. Capricorn and its ruler Saturn are magnets for responsibility and all the burdens that come with it. Capricorn energy is serious and exerts a stern force internally and externally.

Transiting Pluto is in Capricorn conjunct King Carlos’ sun. The 10th house in King Juan Carlos’ chart is at 28 degrees of Capricorn. Pluto won’t go there for another five years or so.

While King Juan Carlos is officially abdicating, the transits suggest he won’t fully abdicate until about 2019. He may stand behind his son who will rule in his stead.

The big change with Pluto in the 9th, which is right before its path in the 10th, is that we change our thinking about the situation. The 9th is about higher thought so we come to a new world view, philosophy, religion or idea that leads us to our new public image in the 10th.

When King Edward VIII of England abdicated (to marry a commoner) in 1936, Jupiter was right at his midheaven (the beginning of the 10th house). Jupiter was in Sagittarius and moved soon afterward into Capricorn. The movement from Sagittarius to Capricorn suggests King Edward moved from a more freedom-seeking life to one of more responsibility.

When American President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 (a modern “abdication”) due to the Watergate Scandal, Saturn was transiting his 10th house (while Pluto was transiting the 1st). Because Nixon’s house of public image was ruled by Cancer the opposite sign of personal emotions, leaving public life would have been doubly difficult as public attention was like family attention. In public was the only place Nixon may have felt he belonged, felt like family.

The 10th House is the Highest

Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist, recently decided to go to Colorado, eat some pot-laced candy bar and had an unfortunate reaction.

From the BBC story, Dowd is quoted as saying:

I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

While this doesn’t qualify Dowd for an official “image change,” I think smoking pot does give you a little bit a “cool” (although not as cool as the late Christopher Hitchens undergoing waterboarding).

But what kind of cool makes someone comatose and paranoid?

Dowd currently has Neptune in Pisces transiting her 10th house. I suspect that the pot is just the beginning.

If Dowd is truly a drug virgin, she might not be aware that channels in our greatly-underused brains (what do we use, ten percent?) are opened from drugs and the world is a different place perceptually.

Neptune in the 10th says you are a bit fuzzy in your public image and the public may also project some very weird stuff onto you. Pisces is the empathizer and often falls into the victim. It can be the savior or scapegoat (as noted with Justin Bieber’s Neptune transit).

Dowd’s entire experience is a Neptunian breakdown of boundaries and the experience may not pass through her as easily as the candy bar that contained the marijuana. Experiences like that make you question reality, the most intense and scary of Neptunian challenges.

With drinking, there’s some folk knowledge of different types of drunk: the happy drunk, the sad drunk, the violent drunk, the can’t-stop-talking-about-my-ex drunk, etc.

Dowd is a Capricorn sun with Pluto conjunct moon in Leo and Saturn/Neptune/Mars in Libra. Without the marijuana, these placements can be considered a bit paranoid and frankly complex and challenging. Her next marijuana trip may contain extreme jealousy.

The Neptune experience, in just about any sign, dissolves ego. In Pisces, it’s all the worse because Pisces is a mutable water sign – energy in constant fluctuation. We all have ego, regardless of sign, but some egos are stronger such as the fire signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius). Capricorn (ruled by Saturn) and Scorpio (ruled by Pluto) also are associated with strong egos.

Dowd’s strong personality probably dislikes uncontrolled change and any kind of experience that reeks of humiliation so the complete collapse of ego (I’m dead and no one told me) must be extremely terrifying. Leo represents assertion of the self and if you’re not even a self, what can you assert?

More mellow personalities may have had more mellow responses in a more stereotypical marijuana-ish way.

In other words, if you’ve never let the boundaries down, be careful during a Neptune in Pisces transit of the 10th house. It’s sort of the best and worst time to dissolve the boundaries between self and the perceived universe. In the 10th, the universe is watching.

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A Story of Peace and Harmony

Posted on June 1, 2014 by ohioastrology

Have you read a novel lately where all the characters were happy, cooperative and entirely at peace?

Why would you?

A novel like that would be, well, boring.

A novel of that sort wouldn’t be a novel. A novel of peace, love and harmony is usually a religious or spiritual work and often involves the distant past (like lost societies) or a distant future (post-life non-corporeal existence).

Peace and harmony is the past or the future, not the present.

Traditionally, a novel needs to have a central character (protagonist) who encounters some situation (a conflict) and we see how the central character and other characters change (character development). Not all novels follow this course, of course, but the most famous novels (and movies) you may find follow this pattern.

War makes a good setting for a novel because the conflict of war creates all kinds of personal challenges in terms of ethics, morality and character. War is sort of an easy way to have your work taken seriously. Invoke the horrors of World War II for greatest effect.

If we can’t imagine reading a book about peace and harmony, could we stand a life of peace and harmony? Or would it be simply too boring?

Third Dimensional Time

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s there was discussion about whether violent video games made people (often young boys) violent. While that discussion has changed scope through our recent high-profile violence (Boston Marathon bombing, school shootings, etc.), I think it’s an interesting time to re-visit the question.

My own view is the violence stems from within but yet when projected outward, it seems to encourage and enhance the violent energy. While violent video games (and TV shows and movies) might not cause violence, they still feed the energy, like dropping sugar into yeast. The feeding helps the energy to expand.

Recently I happened upon a small book called “The Shift” that explains this phenomenon well. The author, Jim Self, says the third dimension is not structure but consists of three elements: time loop, duality and the rational mind.

Regarding third dimensional time he states that “it is an application that allows us to create a new set of experiences based on our past to be experienced in our future.”

Where’s the present?

Self states that there is a sliver of the present which he refers to as Reactionary Present Time.

If you meditate, you might find your teachers focusing in on the sliver of the present. Your mind, if you chose to observe it, often goes to the past or future. Keeping it in the present is the discipline of a lifetime.

The horoscope

The horoscope for all of us is the same with different elements enhanced or reduced. The planets revolve and rotate in a consistent and never-ending pattern.

Sounds a bit like the time loop.

Let’s say you have a desire to eat a lot of food all the time which might be represented by moon in Cancer. Every time a planet moves into Cancer, your desire to eat a lot of food is brought out in some way.

The sun goes into Cancer every year and so that period of time may bring lots of food. Saturn goes into Cancer every 30 years and during that time you may be reducing food or struggling for food. Jupiter goes into Cancer every 12 years and during that time there is too much food or gifts of food. Uranus goes into Cancer every 81 years and you may find unusual and drastic changes to food often brought on by changes to society.

The placement of the moon is triggered in a number of ways in a consistent and endless pattern.

Endless pattern.

If we lived for 500 years, imagine all the triggering (called transits) that would occur.

While peace and harmony may be boring, the endless triggering of repeated patterns is bit boring too.

Jumping out of third world

While studying Qi Gong in the east, the teacher provided an article that had reference to something called “jumping out of the third world.” Or something similar to that phrase – I can’t find the work right now.

When jumping out of the “third world,” you may not be so similar to the personality represented in your horoscope the teacher said.

If you’ve jumped out of the third “world,” you may have, as The Shift describes, jumped into the fourth “world” (i.e., dimension).

In that dimension, Self states, you live in the present.

Your corporeal body, of course, is still in the third. In the fourth dimension, however, you are removing yourself from the time loop and the endless projection of triggers.

Is peace and harmony still boring in the present moment?

If not, we can then have peace and harmony without having to die first.

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Personal vs Transpersonal Self

Posted on May 18, 2014 by ohioastrology

Reading an entreaty to Ohio Astrology today to cover a news item from Europe, I began to think again about personal vs transpersonal self. Upon reading the email, I wondered why the writer would think an astrology blog from the US Midwest covering global news would mean anything.

Compared to many places one could live on this planet, where I live can be considered peaceful. Peace means that we can live our personal lives without undue threat of violence. We can read a million books for free from the library. If we can find the funds, we can study almost anything we want. We can live with others or alone, we can live in a bustling city or in the remote, quiet countryside.

In places without peace, peace is sought so that the personal life can be lived. People continue to immigrate to the US for this peaceful life.

Yet at the same time we here in the US live a peaceful life, if we examine closely the elements of our peaceful life, we can see energetic threads that lead us to lifestyles very different from our own. For example, a benefit of peace is having consumer goods available. But if I examine where my clothing, my flowers or my coffee originates, I find similar stories that speak to how economies across the globe must work so that a large consumer-goods store can be filled with low-cost items.

My own struggle in understanding the personal vs transpersonal is that we seem biologically wired to live a personal life. Yet our ability to get beyond the personal with technology has made us transpersonal whether we desire it or not, whether we are wired for it or not.

For example, there is radioactive waste that may take 240,000 years to break down. A personal life created waste that will extend to billions upon billions of lives throughout time. We seem to have broken through both matter and time.

Personal vs Transpersonal Planets

Astrological symbolism is just that – symbolism. The evolution of personal to transpersonal lives is symbolized by the planets discovered during that crossover.

Until 1781, astronomers and astrologers (who were often the same people) noted seven heavenly bodies – sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

As you’d expect, the body closest to the earth, the moon, represents our closest personal experience – our emotional reactions and responses from the push and pull of daily life.

The sun, moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars represent our personal self from how we consciously identify ourselves (my name is, my family is . . .), to how we communicate (Spanish? Italian?), to how we derive pleasure (singing? dancing? sports?) to how we defend our personal environment (gate? guard dog? missiles?).

After the personal planets come Jupiter and Saturn, the first two transpersonal. But they are still within the range of view of your personal self. Jupiter is philosophy, education, religion and any belief system. It’s the story of your life and your community’s life.

Saturn is next and the last of the known planets as of 1780. Saturn is the edge of the world and what protects us from falling off into chaos. Saturn is government, law, rule and standardized anything from currencies to weights and measures. Saturn is the guard dog protecting the personal world.

Uranus

Until 1781, our symbolism was personal and extended to a community that congealed and protected our personal life.

Then in 1781, Uranus was discovered (when it was in the air sign Gemini). This corresponds to the Age of Enlightenment which combined technology and scientific experimentation with ideas of human rights.

Uranus is past the gate of Saturn which created the structure for society. Uranus is a shiny object dangling from a tree outside the gate of your protected community. It calls you to discover what it is. Uranus is freedom to go outside the gate but also entails meeting whatever lies outside of what you’ve known until this moment.

Uranus might sound nice today and Americans liberally use the term “freedom,” but consider that if our sun is the self and Saturn the gate, we’re now straying far from home.

Enlightenment and freedom, as Eric Fromm wrote much about, can be frightening. Life can be much easier when we follow known rules in a structured existence.

Neptune

In Neptunian foggy fashion, its discovery officially occurred in 1846. However, right after Uranus was discovered it was noticed that its orbit had the tug of another object (which was Neptune). When Neptune was finally discovered, it was in the air sign Aquarius.

Neptune is where our personal and transpersonal merge. Did that happen in the mid-1800s? I don’t see it but wonder if this is the connecting link between Uranus and Pluto. Once Uranus and then Pluto hit stage, we had no choice but to be Neptunian. In its revolution around the sun, Neptune sometimes surpasses the orbit of Pluto.

Pluto

Pluto was discovered in 1930 in the water sign Cancer. Soon after its discovery, in 1934, nuclear fission occurred. In Plutonian and unfortunately, human, fashion, it was first used as a weapon. Pluto is the transformer and destroyer.

In 2006, Pluto was “demoted” to a dwarf planet. Like atoms, Pluto may be relegated to the status of tiny but it is more powerful and destructive than ten Jupiters and a hundred suns.

Pluto will be around for a long time to remind your of your nuclear activity. Pluto never forgets.

The Transpersonal Future?

Uranus, since its discovery, has gone through three revolutions around the sun. Neptune just finished its first in 2009 and Pluto is not even half way there although it is now in the opposite sign (Capricorn) from where it was discovered (Cancer).

As the personal and transpersonal merge, like nuclear fusion, I’m wondering if the personal family (Cancer) is merging with the corporate family (Capricorn) as more of our well-being depends upon being attached to a large corporate entity. The rise of the corporation may be our first clue that we’ve transcended the personal self. Even if you don’t work directly for a corporation, a corporation may be guiding your personal life in ways unseen. We no longer can say, “But that’s not me.”

The Internet, too, has changed the nature of the personal environment as an individual in Serbia, far from Ohio, is wondering why astrology blogs aren’t covering the flood situation. The grand water trine formed when Jupiter entered Cancer last June is not over. While Jupiter and Saturn will pass out of water soon, Neptune will remain.

Neptune, that link between personal and transpersonal, will remain in boundary-less water for many more years. While the flooding may subside in Serbia and elsewhere, the water issues facing the planet will not subside as quickly. Water, there’s another transpersonal issue for you.

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Ohio Political Fight Club: Sharen Neuhardt

Posted on May 11, 2014 by ohioastrology

News from the Ohio primary polls in the state capital is more about a failed zoo levy than the exciting news that the 2014 Ohio Governor race is on!

In case you missed the big Ohio news, Ed FitzGerald is now, officially, the Democratic challenger to incumbent governor John Kasich this November. FitzGerald, in January, selected his running mate – Sharen Neuhardt.

It’s never too early to do some background checks (of the astrological kind) on our political contestants. We have only 177 days until the election and often get busy in the summer with cook-outs, pool parties and wild and crazy carousing in the streets. Of course, that will begin when Jupiter enters Leo in July so we still have May and June for political study.

Sharen Neuhardt

Sharen Neuhardt has Saturn, Neptune, sun and Mercury in Libra with moon in Taurus. Mars and Venus are conjunct in Virgo. Pluto and Jupiter are in fire (Leo and Aries respectively) and Uranus is in Cancer.

Taurus and Libra are both ruled by Venus so five of the ten astrological planets have a Venus overtone.

Pluto possibly squares the moon (depending on time of birth), my own mark of a politician. If it weren’t for that mark, I’d see the interest in politics and law in Neuhardt’s chart, but not necessarily the drive or compulsion to run for political office.

The first image that came to mind from her horoscope (without knowing time of birth) is someone both stubborn and scattered, someone who is fiercely protective of ideas but who changes them often, someone who is both influential and, at times, easily influenced.

That Venus/Mars conjunction in Virgo makes for a very discriminating partner whether in the home or at the office. Venus in Virgo is “love me perfect.”

Neuhardt has a natal T-square with Jupiter (in Aries), Uranus (in Cancer) and Saturn (in Libra). The opposition portion of this (Jupiter and Saturn) is quite tight. Often with Jupiter in hard aspect to Saturn, you see a challenging of authority or status quo through partnership or alliance with someone of a different ethnic, racial or religious background. If that doesn’t provide the challenge, sometimes it’s outright rejection of the religious beliefs in the environment.

Neuhardt is lucky to have a Taurus moon; it provides stability and grounding in a personality that would have trouble maintaining equilibrium.

Pluto is currently transiting Capricorn and is directly opposing Neuhardt’s natal Uranus. The Plutonian powers that be are asking her to make changes to some unusual family situation. Uranus doesn’t like to be told what to and often erupts with irregular or disruptive behavior in response. In Cancer, the disruptive occurs in a family or social group.

Meanwhile transiting Uranus in Aries is creating the same need for eruption opposite natal Neptune, sun and Mercury. I’m getting the sense that Uranus, in its many hard aspects here, is eager to bust out of a constricting situation.

The recent transiting cardinal grand cross of Mars (in Libra), Jupiter (in Cancer), Uranus (in Aries) and Pluto (in Capricorn) must have been tough for Neuhardt. It’s like pressure from every angle, no matter where you look. The pressure will continue.

Jupiter will transit Leo beginning mid July. By January 2015, it will be exactly on Neuhardt’s Pluto. At that time she will have a burst of both powerful and righteous energy – whether a political winner or loser.

Ed FitzGerald Partnership

The partner Neuhardt will have for the next 177 days is her governor contender Ed FitzGerald.

Looking at their two charts together is like following the ball in a pinball machine or watching to chefs in a tight space grab for the same ingredients. FitzGerald and Neuhardt are made of much the same stuff – lots of cardinal energy – but I’m not seeing how they balance each other out. I can imagine it’s a stimulating but also frustrating relationship. I hope they don’t argue in public . . .

The missing cardinal energy in Neuhardt’s chart is Capricorn, which her partner supplies in the form of moon in Capricorn. Capricorn, more than other signs, is about ambition and success and the political arena is rife with this energy. FitzGerald has a compulsion for it and Neuhardt has a T-square that needs Capricorn “success” to make it whole.

FitzGerald’s missing cardinal energy is Libra which Neuhardt supplies in abundance. Libra is partnership, charm, social graces and smoothness with others that moon in Capricorn doesn’t possess.

Because both Pluto and FitzGerald are filling in the fourth point of her square, both will represent authority and both will be a challenge. FitzGerald will probably be harder on her than her foes although her Plutonian foes will hit hard.

Neuhardt will be motivating to FitzGerald with Uranus on his Mars and her Mars/Venus on his Jupiter. But he may seem like an anchor when she wants to sail with the wind in her hair as his Saturn in Aries opposes her Neptune/sun/Mercury.

There may also be issues of who’s leading whom. It may be difficult for FitzGerald / Neuhardt to come across as both a balanced and equal relationship.

Neuhardt is about 17 years older than FitzGerald which is manifested through her Saturn in an opposite sign (Libra) to his (Aries). Saturn oppositions, due to the length of time Saturn takes to revolve around the sun (about 30 years), reflect generation gaps.

There’s a generation gap here with Neuhardt focusing on law and equality (Saturn in Libra) and FitzGerald focusing on confidence and self-assertion (Saturn in Aries).

With her Venus and Mars in Virgo, I’m guessing that Neuhardt will do a lot of coaching of her partner, although technically she’s a junior position to his. Moon in Capricorn FitzGerald likes to be the authority so this may not go down well.

Cardinal energy candidates

During the recent cardinal grand cross mentioned above, you read a lot of blogs and stories about what that energy means. Some blogs even scared you, made you feel the sky was falling and the world ending (again). Cardinal signs tend to overreact.

Yet everyday the skies are changing and we astrologers promise love, progress, development, emotional changes, thinking changes, great shifts in consciousness, forgiveness, sudden encounters, monetary loss, monetary gain . . . everything.

Looking in the rear view mirror of our lives, most days are similar and some stand out due to a major event or simply because something was realized. Reading these darn astrological blogs, you’d think every day was a great transformation. Love is around the corner even though you’ve been married for 35 years – of course astrology is dismissed.

To better understand astrology and cardinal energy, tune in to the Ohio governor election and watch two cardinal candidates in their motivations, perceptions and reactions in the middle of a cardinal pool of energy. Watch how cardinal energy reacts as opposed to fixed or mutable energy.

Do we do better when swimming in our own energies or in balancing energies? Will cardinal energy in the astrological skies help or hurt these two candidates with so much cardinal energy in their charts?

Energy is everything and people are part of that energy. Astrology isn’t really about people, it’s about energy patterns. Ohio is attracting the energy of the cardinal grand square, so let’s see what it’s about.

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Jupiter in Leo

Posted on May 4, 2014 by ohioastrology

Have you paid attention to Jupiter lately? Jupiter, my friends, is our Greek God Zeus renamed for Roman palates and he demands attention. For the last year he has been raining and mud sliding his dramatic tears onto the planet while transiting Cancer. For those who have ignored the mold in the basement, the leak in the roof and the muffled sobs of the person lying next to you, he will speak more loudly this July.

[Image from Wikipedia]

jupiter

This July Zeus will have a megaphone, a spotlight and maybe even a TV show. It will be like giving an arsonist a match, like providing a self-absorbed 19-year old affluent a six-figure book contract to write his/her memoirs, like giving executive power to a cop.

American Idol aired its first episode on June 11, 2002 as Jupiter was in the final degrees of Cancer. Jupiter moved into Leo two months later. Jupiter has a 12-year cycle and has returned to bring us to the next expansion cycle of the idol.

Jupiter will bring its expansiveness to the fixed fire Leo in your chart. While expansion can provide extra spotlight for the expressive Leo, the spotlight can also bring into view, for the first time, self-expression that you’d prefer remain private. It’s nice to see your art on the wall, hear your voice on the recording and see your image on screen – if that’s where you wanted it.

Fire

028

Jupiter is going to expand the fixed fire energy. Fire is heat and flame and expect both to grow larger. While I expect the weather to become warmer and drier in July, any flames you do create you might want to take extra caution to contain.

Fixed fire is permanent fire like the J. F. Kennedy eternal flame, like the pilot light on your furnace or stove, like the molten lava beneath a volcano, like the heat from hot springs, like burning sand on a sunny beach.

Fire inspires and survives by the ideas that air creates. Water smothers fire by drowning inspiration in a pool of reactions. Earth can contain fire and make it useful, bring its inspiration into physical form – as long as fire doesn’t burn down the container that holds it.

Fun

Jupiter in Leo is joyful and celebratory. Leo also rules romance and children so we might find that childbirths increase during and after (timing, of course) this transit. Since Jupiter’s transit of Leo crosses two calendar years, I’d expect 2015 to show the increased birth rate.

Leave your calendar open as you might be invited to a few more parties, including children’s birthday parties. You won’t want to plan a Saturday night of cleaning the closet and getting those coupons in order. That can wait until Jupiter moves into Virgo.

Expression

Graffiti and bumper stickers kind of do the same thing – they provide your opinion where others can’t avoid it. I think of graffiti and bumper stickers as more Gemini – Sagittarius as these two mutable communicative signs are ones to not just fight the fight, but to make you aware that there is a fight.

Leo might bring more graffiti which Saturn in Sagittarius will try to remove in 2015. Leo expression is a bit grander than graffiti – it’s like Christo wrapping an island, it’s like putting a message on a blimp, it’s like the Wicked Witch of the West writing “Surrender Dorothy” in black smoke across the sky (with a touch of Pluto).

Leo graffiti will be bolder, louder, and more colorful and will have a touch of humor, or a deep-felt sentiment or recognition of a special person.

Challenger

Jupiter in Leo’s greatest challenger will be Saturn finishing its transit of Scorpio, the fixed water sign. Fixed fire meeting fixed water is like trying to melt a large block of ice with a flame. It’s not the best way to get water – it’s slow and unproductive.

While flames never get tired, they do get bored and dealing with a block of ice will send it to the guest bedroom. When Saturn is in Scorpio, Leo expression may be more hidden or reserved. When Saturn moves into Sagittarius, it will be more open but with some new boundaries.

Fire doesn’t like boundaries but definitely needs them. Saturn in Sagittarius might be the best thing to happen to Jupiter in Leo because while everyone likes a camp fire, no one wants the camp on fire. This is the good part of Saturn – containment.

Enabler

If Saturn in Scorpio is the challenger, Uranus in Aries is the enabler. Uranus has been passing through fire-sign Aries the fighter since mid 2011. Uranus will travel through Aries through 2018.

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, cardinal and fire which starts most sentences with “I” but can be interested in everyone else’s “I” as well as its own. The person who asks the first question, the person who challenges your notions, the worker who says “that’s not right” when everyone else agrees in fear of losing his job – that’s Aries.

Aries supports Leo and in Uranus adds sudden inspiration, sudden enlightenment and sudden uprising.

Sudden. Now. Me. That’s the energy here.

A Leo President

The US president, Barack Obama, will be feeling all the Jupiter transit having three planets in Leo – Mercury at two degrees, sun at 12 and Uranus at 25. Right after Obama’s Uranus is Pluto in Virgo which Jupiter will visit after his time in Leo.

Obama’s chart has a lot of energy in the houses of health and work (6th) and others (7th). Saturn and Jupiter in the 12th oppose the 6th house energy. Jupiter opposes Mercury and the Jupiter in Leo transit will oppose that natal Jupiter.

Obama is going to be feeling some Jupiter for sure. What does the expansive Jupiter bring to Obama’s chart?

It’s difficult for me not to think, again, there is a health issue undisclosed. Leo rules the heart and Jupiter “expands what it finds” so we may have issues with an enlarged heart and circulatory issues. Natal Jupiter in Aquarius across the chart in the 12th (and Saturn in Capricorn) suggests something hidden or from the distant past.

The Astrologers Handbook says that Jupiter in Aquarius, Obama’s natal placement, “indicates people who know no class, racial or religious distinctions.” Jupiter opposing in Leo may be a drive to express personally which will be in contrast to this lack of distinction.

Right now Jupiter is in the last degrees of Cancer opposing Obama’s natal Saturn in Capricorn. The 12th house Saturn indicates loss of a father and Jupiter opposite suggests depression regarding it.

The triggering of Obama’s natal 12th house Jupiter and Saturn is very intense. The 12th house is the hidden and subconscious, and relates to psychologies and mythologies we’ve acquired from our lineage that we may not be aware of. We don’t normally let others know when we are having 12th house experiences but when in the public eye, these things sometimes get out.

I’ve always called the White House “an aging machine” as the men who enter it come out four or eight years later looking 20 years older. Seeing Obama in a press conference last week, the White House aging effect appears to be taking hold. Jupiter in the house of health and work mean that one is working too much. As president, I think you’ve probably agreed to work overtime every day of your life for eight years.

Idols

Jupiter in Leo will bring idols. Courage will be honored and recognized – children of courage, especially so. While Jupiter in Leo brings fire, it also brings out the rescue energy of those that know fire.

If we still had posters, I’d say there will be a new face on your bedroom wall soon.

Lions

Leo’s ruler is the lion so you must, of course, be on the lookout for lions in your backyard. Some may get loose from zoos and prowl around the neighborhood.

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