STUDENT SECTION

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Astro Assistance: April 2022

By Moon Zlotnick
 

Birth Data is confidential, but the source is birth certificate.

Chart uses Koch houses and the Mean Node

 

Q: My life has tremendously shifted since the pandemic. It feels like I’ve taken the long scenic route to finally be embarking on a much quieter and more desirable spiritual life path, which I’m sure will take some time to mature. I am wondering if the calling is aligned with my highest potential as I really love what I do now, but I sometimes feel uncertain about this decision and the direction which I am able to steer this in the near future. I am currently a full-time Tarot practitioner and reader, freelance writer, and Evolutionary Astrology Apprentice.

 

A: I think you are very well suited for practicing Tarot and astrology and also writing, but doing all three of these may cause some difficulty. You have an extremely condensed chart, with all of your planets falling between late Virgo and early Capricorn and in houses 10, 11, 12, and 1. This signifies a highly focused personality, someone who typically keeps to fairly narrow interests, and finds themself very successful within a chosen field. Your interests would often focus on the collective and spiritual sides of life, with eight planets in the fourth quadrant of your chart.

 

You have Neptune, the planet of attunement, conjunct the Ascendant, your everyday life, and also square the Moon, giving you a highly sensitive emotional nature. These are also strong indicators of psychic abilities, high intuition, and a compassionate nature. These attributes can offer you great gifts in working with Tarot and astrology, but you would need to learn to ground and clear your energy because Neptune’s position is likely to cause you to absorb all kinds of feelings, emotions, and energies from other people. This can lead to great physical and emotional depletion over time, so practicing clearing and grounding is extra important for you. Neptune square the Moon can engender confusion about personal boundaries and makes you susceptible to wanting to help people too much. Fortunately, the Moon in the 10th house, which is naturally ruled by Saturn, gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes and create solid, long-lasting boundaries.

 

You have a powerful stellium — four conjunct planets in Scorpio — indicating a heightened capacity for deep and thorough study of any subject that interests you, as well as an interest in life’s mysteries. Venus and Jupiter in a tight conjunction with each other and your Sun supports your love of learning about the occult, and can indicate the capacity to attract good fortune. This conjunction also shows you working with people because of Venus’s social capacity, and brings you a natural understanding of diplomacy and kindness. Mercury is also part of the stellium and, besides contributing to your skill as a writer in your previous career, makes you a natural communicator. All of these planets being in your 11th house, and with Sagittarius rising, suggests that you like people and might find contentment as part of a collective or group of people sharing the same ideals and pursuits.

 

On a more difficult note, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter all oppose Chiron, reinforcing your vulnerability to the wounds and illness of others through its placement in your 6th house. Chiron acts as a singleton, or point of high focus in your chart, being the only planet on the western horizon, and it speaks to the need for you to consciously address your own physical and emotional problems so that, through your own healing, you can help others. Because we often experience oppositions as external problems, you might tend to encounter clients who reflect or mirror your own issues, again pushing toward your own healing.

 

Your Virgo Moon in the 10th house, conjunct the Midheaven, suggests a down-to-earth business sense and a commitment to working hard to develop your skills. Over time, people with the Moon in the 10th house will often experience deep emotional satisfaction from their career. The Moon sextiles your Scorpio stellium, helping you to integrate your practical side with your intuition. Because Neptune squares your Moon, finding ways to focus on small, practical, and obtainable goals is very important, since Neptune will often create dreams and longings that are highly idealized.

 

The main challenge I see coming your way began around June 2021 and lasts until the end of May 2025, as Uranus traverses 13°–27° Taurus. This transit may be part of why you are questioning your career decision, since Uranus is associated with some degree of ambivalence. During the next two and a half years, Uranus will oppose your Mercury, Sun, Venus, and Jupiter and conjoin your natal Chiron. This indicates that the change you have already begun, with moving toward a full-time Tarot and astrology practice, will continue. Because you are still in the beginning of this change, you can expect that your ideas of who you are, how you think, and what you want to be doing will keep evolving. Uranus transits can be both exciting and destabilizing, leading people to let go of parts of themselves that they have outgrown in order to live a more authentic life. I believe that your chart supports your calling to the metaphysical, and that the time to make the change is now.

 

Bio: Moon Zlotnick began practicing astrology 1975 and then received formal training in 1979 with Zipporah Dobyns through her Los Angeles school CCRS. Since then, Moon has worked with clients full-time, taught astrology to beginners and seasoned students alike, participated on the boards of ProSig, OPA, and STARS and been to many national and international conferences. She has been certified through OPA and currently leads. Her book, Star Sisters: An Astrologer’s Memory of Twin Loss, is available on Amazon. Moon’s website: astrologybymoonrabbit.com

 

 

FORECASTS

Our beloved Forecast section includes by sign Horoscopes, daily aspect interpretations to help empower the skillful navigation of changing planetary currents, and every Full & New Moon Lunation guide. 

 

 

Libra Full Moon 
April 16th 2022 11:54 a.m. PDT
By: Paetra Tauchert
 
The Full Moon in Libra, makes an easy trine to Saturn, on Saturn’s day. The t-square to Pluto is not easy however, and this may be a day of relationship flashpoints. 
 
This is somewhat assuaged by the Moon taking her cues from exalted Venus in Pisces, having a friendly and productive chat with Mercury and Uranus.
Trust the process that whatever comes up with this Full Moon is serving greater growth and harmony, but stagnation is not allowed. 
 
If there is anything lurking that hasn’t been said, it’s likely to get said today, so if there is something pressurized you’ve been trying to avoid, you can get ahead of a things  by finding a productive way to express yourself rather than an explosive freak out.
 
 
 
 

ASTROLOGY NEWS & BOOK REVIEWS

 

Charts in the News

with commentary by Elisabeth Grace

 

Facebook’s October Surprise: An Astro-logical Wipe-out?

 

October 2021 included an especially hot Mercury retrograde cycle in Libra. With three trines from Mercury to Jupiter, three squares to Pluto and three oppositions to Eris, we expected big news of corruption exposed, especially in Pluto-in-Capricorn establishment arenas. On October 3, in sync with the second of these configurations, former Facebook executive Frances Haugen revealed herself on 60 Minutes as the whistleblower who had leaked pages of damning internal documents earlier in the year. (1) It seems that Facebook executives knew from their own research how harmful their products could be to users. It seems that safety measures created to prevent disinformation from flooding Facebook’s newsfeed were disabled immediately after the November election, facilitating the planning of the January 6 invasion of the US Capitol. (2)

Later that week, Haugen would tell all to members of Congress, but before you could say “Mercury is retrograde,” Facebook — and all its apps and services — crashed completely — at around 11:40 a.m. ET, on October 4. Billions of users around the world were locked out of their social networks for more than five hours. (3) It was a wipe-out — and it was just getting started. On October 28, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a new vision for his conglomerate, complete with a brand-new name: Meta. The new vision for the mothership? Virtual reality, as you can see in the video linked here. (4) By now, you must be thinking, “Scandal. Deception. Wipe-out. Vision. Virtual reality. Gosh, that sounds like Neptune. What’s going on in the horoscope?”

We do have a launch date for Facebook, with an exact time reported in a book written by two Harvard alums and who could be reliable sources. (5) However, their book is intended to be a satire, so we wonder if the 8:04 p.m. time is for real. Still, the 21° Virgo Ascendant (ASC) and 20° Gemini Midheaven (MC) feel worthy of consideration — if only because transiting Neptune was in hard aspect to the angles all through 2021, with one final opposition of transiting Neptune to the ASC in February 2022! And we see Pluto at the root of this chart (power!) squaring the ASC and at the apex of a t-square with Jupiter retrograde in Virgo and Venus in Pisces, which are also on the angles. Translation: these angular planets suggest action-oriented extremes of empathy, social expression, resources (e.g., potentially way too much information for one’s own good) brought to the forefront in the “life” of Facebook.

In the 5th house, we see the Sun in Aquarius conjunct Neptune, suggesting an idealized creative self-expression that is also socially significant, yes? But Neptune conjunct the Sun could also suggest that Facebook’s essential nature may not be as it seems. We anticipate that transiting Uranus square the 15° Aquarius Sun will reflect “breakout” news in May and December 2022, continuing into early 2023. What other major transits do you see? Meanwhile, Facebook’s Moon seems appropriately placed in and ruling the 11th house of friendship. At 0° Leo, the Moon would drive Facebook with a need for love and “look at me!” ego expression. A launch time of 7:49 p.m. ET or earlier would put the Moon at 29° Cancer and replace the need for love with the need for emotional security. What do you think? Do we like this 8:04 p.m. launch time? And what about Mark Zuckerberg’s horoscope? How might it reflect the potential for 2021 being “Facebook’s worst year yet?” (6)

We do not have a birth time for Mark Zuckerberg. It’s yet another Facebook mystery, and it seems Zuckerberg was born that way. With Saturn, Mars, and Moon potentially conjunct in Scorpio, we can appreciate his need for depth and control. His Neptune at 0° Capricorn — the Aries Point — suggests prominence in all Neptune affairs, and what could be more “Neptune” than the unknown?

When astrologers do not have a confirmed birth time, they use their knowledge of astrological signs and planetary cycles to divine a time in a process called rectification (i.e., to set right). A speculative birth time may be tested by working backward through the life of the individual, checking the timing of significant events with planetary transits, arcs, and progressions. It’s like cracking a safe. When all the tumblers are lined up correctly, the astrologer sees — and feels — the flow of the client’s life development in sync with planetary cycles! We can then use our rectified horoscope as a tool to anticipate events in the future — with key caveats.

Rectification is an intimidating and time-consuming process, though my mentor Noel Tyl made it look easy. A few lines from his 1,000-page manual for consulting astrologers are burned into my brain: “Rectification of a general birth time is very, very risky business. There is no way ever, ever to be sure. The process is to please the astrologer, actually, more than it is to please the client.” He notes the astrological conundrum that “every practicing astrologer has drawn the ‘right’ conclusions, even in very specific detail, from the wrong horoscope data.” (7) Indeed, there is nothing more humbling for an astrologer than to discover that their rectified time is incorrect, even if their counsel to their client was spot-on!

With Mark Zuckerberg, more than one astrologer has found the challenge of rectification irresistible — with varying results and reasoning. (8, 9) In 2010, Michael Wolfstar proposed a 2:03 a.m. birth time with 25° Aquarius rising and Uranus conjunct a 10° Sagittarius MC. Aquarius felt right for a rising sign, “since no other placement in his chart is found in the sign associated with social networking.” (10) What do you think? Does Zuckerberg feel like a man with Aquarius rising? We can see the appeal of having Uranus powerfully placed on the MC. On the other hand, Zuckerberg’s Uranus is unaspected, and thus has the potential to dominate a persona no matter where it is placed. Hmm.

What does fascinate me about Wolfstar’s proposed angles is that they are in the same degree and modalities as Zuckerberg’s wife’s horoscope, for whom we do have an AA rated birth time! Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg’s ASC is 25° Scorpio; her MC is 10° Virgo. (11) Thus, it was not surprising that when Mars and Jupiter were at 25° Scorpio and 25° Aquarius in early December (close to a trigger of the November 19th lunar eclipse at 27° Taurus), the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Institute announced a multi-billion-dollar health initiative (12). We know her Ascendant was activated by transiting Jupiter — was his? We should keep an eye on the May 2022 eclipse at 25° Scorpio. Meanwhile, note that in 2015, Wolfstar adjusted his proposal for Zuckerberg’s ASC to 27° Aquarius. (13)

Astro-Databank tells us that two astrologers proposed an 11 p.m. birth time, with Neptune conjunct a 1° Capricorn ASC, and Zuckerberg’s ruthless Mercury–Pluto opposition on the IC and MC, respectively. A third astrologer suggested 10:02 p.m., with a 19° Sagittarius ASC. Both proposed horoscopes have the Sun in the 5th house opposing the Moon in the 11th — same as the Facebook launch chart for 8:04 p.m. What do you think? Does a Capricorn or Sagittarius ASC feel like a fit for Zuckerberg? What about a Virgo ASC? That’s what worked for astrologer Lauren Delsack with her proposed birth time of 2:39 p.m., posted on her website in 2011. (14) Take a look and you’ll notice that the 21° Virgo ASC and 19° Gemini MC are within minutes of the angles of the 8:04 p.m. Facebook launch chart!!!! If Delsack is correct, Zuckerberg’s horoscope has been hit by a series of hard aspects to the angles from transiting Neptune since April 2020.

Delsack studied with Noel Tyl, and her rectification of Zuckerberg’s horoscope is presented in careful detail. (15) Being familiar with her solid skills, I had no reason to doubt her effort. But in 2015, I decided to test it further. On August 6, I wrote the following in my forecast about the astonishing synchronicity of planetary patterns and the news:

“I do not believe we have a confirmed birth time for Mark Zuckerberg, but several times have been proposed. One proposal suggests a 20° Virgo Ascendant, and it has a boatload of solar arcs exact soon and into next year — amongplanets involved with the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th houses. Solar arcs involving the Moon and Mars (action) at the IC (the angle referring to home & family), as well as between Jupiter, ruler of the 4th (family, foundation, home) and Saturn, the ruler of the 5th house (children, creative self-expression) reflect the potential for changes in his personal life. Other arcs and transits involve Uranus, which refers to the spark required to start something new.

 

“These arcs will be exact on various dates between now and April. Last week Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife announced they were expecting their first child after trying without success for several years. On September 13th, the 20° Virgo ASC will be eclipsed, suggesting a major change in life. This eclipse will be triggered by transiting Jupiter (expansion) on November 29th and again on February 16th. The Zuckerbergs did not say when their baby girl was due. Let’s test this horoscope with its 20° Virgo ASC and see what happens.” (16)

 

On December 2, 2015, it was delightful to report that:

 

Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg (and his wife, Priscilla Chan), made big news with two announcements: 1) the birth of their daughter, Max; and 2) the “birth of one of the world’s biggest charities”; i.e., a pledge to donate 99% of their Facebook shares in a “mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality.” I am intrigued that Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Chan did not tell the Free World when their daughter was born — not even what day. The NYT said it was “sometime last week.” (17)

 

To my knowledge, the precise birth date of Zuckerberg’s now six-year-old daughter has yet to be publicly disclosed, though her younger sister was born on August 28, 2017.

Fun fact: In reviewing that August 6, 2015 post for use in this blog post, I realized that the original link to the 20° Virgo ASC chart went to post on Astrotheme, a notoriously unreliable source, as experience has since proven. Don’t rely on Astrotheme! The correct ASC for Delsack’s proposed 2:39 p.m. birth time is 21°02’ Virgo, as we can see on her website. Transiting Jupiter conjoined Delsack’s proposed ASC on December 1, 2015, the day of the Zuckerbergs’ two big announcements.

So. What is the correct birth time for Mark Zuckerberg? Is it 2:39 p.m.? We can never know — until a birth certificate or other reliable source reveals it! Until then, we can continue to test the rectification in 2022. On January 18, Neptune makes its last hard contact with the angles of the chart in a final opposition to the proposed 21° Virgo ASC. From March 24–30, transiting Jupiter will travel between 19° and 22° of Pisces, activating all the angles. Something expansive should make the news, as it did in early December when transiting Jupiter definitely activated Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg’s Ascendant. (18) We can also keep an eye on the transits of Saturn and Uranus as they approach 18° of Aquarius and Taurus, when they will square and oppose the proposed 18° Scorpio Moon. Consult your ephemeris for details.

 

Chart Data and Sources

Facebook, launched at Harvard University, February 4, 2004; 8:04 p.m. ET; Cambridge, Massachusetts (42°N22’, 071°W06’); X: Source: Greg Atwan and Evan Lushing, The Facebook Book, Abrams Image, 2011, p. 120.

 

Mark Zuckerberg, May 14, 1984, 2:39 p.m., EDT; White Plains, New York (41°N02’, 073°W45’); X: Rectification by Lauren Delsack. Source: Astro-Databank.

 

References and Notes

(All URLs were accessed January 2022.)

  1. See Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen details company’s misleading efforts on 60 Minutes – CBS News.
  2. See Facebook’s very bad year. No, really, it might be the worst yet | Facebook | The Guardian.
  3. See https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger-are-down-in-a-major-outage-2021-10.
  4. See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/28/facebook-name-change-rebrand-meta.
  5. Gratitude to astrologer Deborah Houlding for sharing the time and its source on social media on February 28, 2021. The Facebook Book is available on Kindle, and the reported launch time of 8:04 p.m. is, in fact, on p. 120.
  6. See note 2, above.
  7. Noel Tyl, Synthesis and Counseling in Astrology, Llewellyn, 1994, p. 392.
  8. How it is possible to arrive at a correct conclusion based on faulty data could be the subject of another TMA article — or a lively Bar 101 discussion at the next astrology conference.
  9. See https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Zuckerberg,_Mark.
  10. See http://newsscopearchives.homestead.com/nsc100410.html.
  11. See https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Chan,_Priscilla.
  12. See https://news.yahoo.com/zuckerberg-chan-invest-3-4b-031702780.html.
  13. See https://halloran.com/15asn8-5.htm.
  14. See https://laurendelsack.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/birth-time-rectification-facebooks-mark-zuckerberg/.
  15. See note 14, above.
  16. See https://elisabethgrace.com/2015/08/06/.
  17. See https://elisabethgrace.com/2015/12/02/.
  18. See Zuckerberg, Chan to invest up to $3.4B for science advances (yahoo.com)

 

© 2022 Elisabeth Grace — all rights reserved

 

Elisabeth Grace, ISAR-CAP, earned her BA in Philosophy from Wellesley College. She is a consulting (modern psychological) astrologer and a highest-honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Course for Professional Astrologers. She is a certified horary practitioner, mentored by J. Lee Lehman, with credentials earned from Deb Houlding’s School of Traditional Astrology. Elisabeth’s work in TV news inspired her must-read forecast on the astonishing synchronicity of the headlines and planetary patterns — now in its 12th year! Get the forecast via e-mail, book a consultation or invite her to speak or teach a workshop at https://elisabethgrace.com.

 

 

 

FEATURES & INTERVIEWS

Our Features & Interviews section is where the most exciting minds in astrology today set their sights on the big picture. A resource and a retreat, our archives are a space to slow down and breathe deep with longform pieces to enliven your practice, expand your mind, and lift your knowledge to new heights.
 
Unearth the past with astro biographies, scholarship on the history of astrology, and studies of the transits that shaped our world. Explore the present with cutting-edge research, game-changing techniques, and conversations with leading and up-and-coming astrologers. Imagine the future with visionary forecasts, commentary on how we create community and culture, and meditations on the cosmologies that inspire our ever-evolving tradition.
 
Step outside the rush of mundane life, take a trip to the Mountain, and remember — time is on your side.

 

We are the Cosmos in Human Form:

An Interview with Rick Tarnas and Kenny Ausubel about the new documentary, Changing of the Gods

By Ray Grasse

 

 

Ray Grasse: There’s an idea that comes up in the documentary — the “arc of the moral universe.” Would either of you care to explain what that means to you, and how you see it as tied in to world transits, and to the historical trajectory of social movements?

Kenny Ausubel: Yeah, in constructing the film and looking at the narrative, a lot of my interest was with world transits, as in Cosmos and Psyche, and looking at these correlations across different cycles of Uranus and Pluto. And I saw a kind of historical arc, a trajectory. In the film, we go back primarily to the French Revolution and work forward from there, and each time it’s like jumping across lily pads; you see this radical kind of surge of this revolutionary energy in large-scale social transformations. And it’s not a kind of “Groundhog Day” of simple repetition, there’s clearly an evolution each time. There can definitely be two steps forward, one step back, or one step forward and two steps backward, but it’s moving, and moving in really big ways.

And as we were constructing the film, Rick really pointed out that, from his perspective, the overall character of Uranus–Pluto transits is indeed that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And of course, it all happens to coincide with the three main Uranus–Pluto transits where that beautiful quote recurs in three very prominent ways: it began in the 1850s with the abolitionist Theodore Parker, then, of course, with Martin Luther King Jr., and then, Obama repeated it, yet again, who topped it off by saying the arc doesn’t bend by itself, you have to put your hand on it and bend the arc.  Which happens to be my personal belief system, as well.

That was what I found really compelling. Even when you look at the footage we have of the 1960s and the different aspects of that period, you see how we have come so far in so many ways from that period, though in other ways, of course, we are regressing. You know, in the ’60s not only was being gay illegal but you could go to jail for it; it was just absolutely a taboo in society; people were loathed and reviled. And that’s just not the case today, not even close. And of course during this transit we see gay marriage and sexual revolutions involving transgender issues, and so forth. So I think it’s possible to live with a lot of cultural amnesia — particularly in the digital world we’re in today, what with the sound bite and the 15 seconds of fame and all the rest of it — so that we lose that long view. Certainly in mainstream and corporate media, the depiction of social movements is generally very stereotyped and kind of denigrating; you’re tagged as “do-gooders” and that it never really leads to anything good. I think that by seeing that historical arc there really is a moral arc of the universe and that it does bend towards justice. As to whether it’s bending enough, that remains to be seen.

RG: That brings up that interesting point, about how “history doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes.” And that quote of Theodore Parker’s is a great example of that. It resurfaces at different times through history, under those Uranus–Pluto transits, but there’s a change in the context and inflection each time.

Rick Tarnas: Yes, it’s quite striking how that pattern played itself out in history. There has been a tendency, going all the way back to ancient astrology, to think in terms of ever-repeating cycles of the planets returning to the same point, coming back into a conjunction and beginning a new cycle. What was remarkable for me in writing Cosmos and Psyche was, I set out to follow cycle after cycle of each time Uranus and Pluto went through a major quadrature alignment, or each time Uranus and Neptune did, or Jupiter and Uranus, and so on — and I saw there was not only a cyclical activation of the same archetypal principles very visible through history, but there was also a very distinct evolution. This was something I hadn’t planned to track quite so vividly — that we’re really experiencing a spiral here, we’re not seeing a flat circle or cycle that keeps repeating itself. It rhymes archetypally; it’s the same archetypal principle, but it can be rhymed and inflected in a number of different ways. And that’s where freedom and courage of consciousness comes into the equation.

RG: Beautifully said. I know this could change, but as of this conversation your documentary is scheduled to premiere on February 22nd of 2022 — which happens to coincide with the first Pluto return for the US. Was that intentional, or just a scheduling fluke?

KA: It was not intentional. We had an earlier release date, but we had to change it because of COVID-19, actually, and we knew that for practical reasons it needed to be after the first of the year. So, I was looking for an approximate window that would be practically viable, and I conversed, of course, with Rick on the exact day, and it ended up being February 22nd. So that was sort of synchronistic.

RT: The whole process of doing the film took a number of years, so the Pluto return was not something we focused on at the time the film was being conceived. But I do see the Pluto return of the US as one of the really shaping archetypal factors in US contemporary political and social life right now, even its moral and spiritual life. And of course the Saturn–Pluto conjunction we’ve just gone through has played a huge role, as well, on many levels.

KA: Yeah, when I learned about that (the timing of the film’s release with the Pluto return), I felt that that was deeply karmic on some level. Because although the series deals with global events, it’s also very American, in that it’s centrally focused on the US. And we go into a lot of hidden history that is not necessarily in the history books or most of them. And one of the themes that Rick raises around Uranus–Pluto transits is the “return of the repressed,” and so just looking now, for example, at what’s happening with critical race theory — which was a rather niche, academic discipline, and is now on the front page everywhere — is really about the rewriting of American history.

What we do in the series is go back to the very beginnings of the founding of the country with a pretty serious analysis of what the constitution is. The series is not just the story of revolution, it’s the story of revolution and counter-revolution. In the American Revolution, there were revolutionary elements that we would consider to be very progressive and positive, but then there would be a countervailing movement to essentially recreate a property-based society that would secure the elites in place once again — but with American elites, rather than British ones. And we deal with similar issues related to the racial history of the country, and to the feminist history of the country — there’s just so much hidden history, much of which we often talked about at Bioneers. Very few people know that during the mid-19th century Uranus–Pluto conjunction, Seneca Falls happened. That was a seminal event in the women’s rights movement in the first wave of feminism. And very few people know that some of those women lived in New York state and ended up visiting the Iroquois, who actually had the only genuine democracy existing on the continent until that time, where women had truly equal standing in all ways with men; different roles, yes, but equal standing, politically. And that became a primary influence on the early feminists who all had been having this dream of “What would equal rights look like?” — and there it was, in their own backyard.

And so going back to the transits and tracing the evolution of that “arc of the moral universe,” these are the things that constitute a kind of a transmission; this is the history that people really need to know, and that has been largely neglected or repressed until this time. And I think in relation to the Pluto return coming full cycle now, in many ways you could characterize this as a contest between democracy and empire, the two multivalent poles of that Pluto return. And I think that is what’s up right now, that is the choice point that the country is at: Who are we, and who are we going to become? Are those founding ideals real, or are we, in fact, a tyrannical state and an imperial one?

RT: Regarding the Pluto return, I would include the importance of facing the shadow at the level of our national consciousness and conscience, and also the willingness to go through the purgatorial fire of transformation that is Pluto’s signature.

RG: Well, as you know, the U.S. not only has the Pluto return happening, but its third Uranus return will be firing as well, in 2027. So we’re in for some interesting times!

Rick: Yes, that’s right, both of these huge national transits will be active during this decade. And notice how that first Uranus return in the mid-1860s was both a Uranian disruptive event that went straight to the heart of the American experiment, yet was also bringing the possibility of what Lincoln called a new birth of freedom. This ideal had been prevented from being fulfilled by the very structures of the original Constitution, which had sanctioned slavery and given special powers to the slave states. The Civil War represented this enormous convulsion that helped set in motion a new birth of freedom.

And you can see perhaps some similar factors at work in our own time as we move into this next Uranus return. But the Pluto return of course is unique to this time, as it’s our first Pluto return. It’s a journey into the underworld and an activation of the collective Id within the US, yet at the same time it’s this transformational crucible of death and rebirth. I am hopeful that the United States may come through this in a deeply transformative and life-enhancing way.

 

Ray Grasse is associate editor at The Mountain Astrologer, and author of several books, including StarGates, Signs of the Times, and Under a Sacred Sky. His website is www.raygrasse.com

 

© 2022 Egregore, Inc. DBA The Mountain Astrologer – all rights reserved

 

To learn more about Changing of the Gods, including screening information, see ChangingoftheGods.com. For more information about Bioneers, see www.Bioneers.org.

 

Full interview is featured in our current “Aries Nox 2022” issue, available here!
 

 

WYRD ARTS & POETRY

Our Wyrd Arts & Poetry section is dedicated to the magical, intuitive side of astrology, and serves to celebrate all the different ways we can express this timeful language.

Plant Planet: MARS

by Paetra Tauchert

Editor’s Note: This column explores the relationship between plants and planets from a personal, experiential, and astrological perspective. As an elemental language, astrology plugs into other elemental systems, such as plants and herbs. The elements are the building blocks of all life, as every manifest thing expresses some mix of earth, air, fire, and water. All plants contain a unique blend of elemental compositions and, when studied, may be worked with to counteract conditions of excess or deficiency in the human being. This is the basis of herbal medicine.

Tobacco

I am an enthusiastically devoted grower of any and all species of Nicotiana, the genus of tobacco. In the modern world, tobacco has been commodified and somewhat bent into submission at the hands of big biz, and is largely pumped out into very questionable-quality packs of smokes, filled with pesticides, herbicides, sugar (carcinogenic when smoked), and other chemicals. In combination with nicotine, the active ingredient in tobacco, you have a potent cocktail of addiction and disease. It’s all packaged in very seductive marketing to make you feel like smoking will be the cherry on top of your stylish coolness. (Tommy Shelby’s chain-smoking in Peaky Blinders is enough to make anyone want to smoke lol.) But once you get past the glamour, there is a fierce addiction with which the seductive charmer pulls you in — and then there is a grumpy old man, demanding his pound of flesh, again and again.

My friend and teacher, Kat Harrison, says that there is something very ritualistic about tobacco smoking even when used unconsciously/habitually, in that it grants the user an excuse to step out of the fray and go to the edges and light up, taking a break and taking off the edge. She says that the way to properly smoke tobacco is to do it consciously, always in connection with a prayer, invoking the spirit of tobacco to send your prayer out into the ethers.

When people try to quit smoking, they lose not just the nicotine hit, but also the excuse to step out and away from normal routine. There is more of a war on smokers than there used to be, but for a long time, someone stepping out to have a smoke was recognized as having a respected need. Smoking tobacco for anyone with addiction tendencies is walking the knife’s edge, and Mars rules knives. The people I have known over the years who truly struggle with the addiction to tobacco are all what I call “lightning rod” people; they are very open and sensitive and tend to attract intense people and energies in their lives. I have seen that, for them, tobacco is the only thing that seems to protect and ground them. 

Like Mars energies in a chart, tobacco is a mixed bag of potential blessings and curses. Tobacco is used in ritual to exorcise and break hexes, also to send and reverse curses. The malefic qualities of tobacco are very evident in the cases of associated lung cancer; these days in my home state of California, tobacco smokers are vilified, and in many areas there is nowhere to go to smoke, even while cannabis smoking is generally now allowed in public places.

Mars is a provocative planet and this is evident in the ways tobacco is received in this world.

 
Full article available in our current “Aries Nox 2022” issue, available here!
 
 
Plant Planet: Saturn available in the June–July 2021 issue of TMA
Plant Planet: Jupiter available in the Capricorn Sol 2021–2022 issue of TMA

Aug/Sept 2021

Aug/Sept 2021

 

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Highlights of this issue:

  • Exploring the First Meeting Chart
  • Cheiro the Wonderful
  • Rooting into Relaxation with the IC
  • Integrating Astrology with the New Neuropsychology of Trauma Healing
  • Op-Ed: Magic at the Heart
  • Primary Sources
  • Student Section, Book Reviews, Arts & Poetry, Forecasts and more…..

Click on the cover to download a PDF file containing the current issue:
Table of Contents, Astrologer Directory, Astrology News, and Astrology Software

 

June/July 2021

June/July 2021

 

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Highlights of this issue:

  • On the Planetary Nodes and Collective Evolution
  • Does Uranus Make Me Gay? Unearthing the Queer Archetype in History and Culture
  • Harriett Tubman as a Magical, Mercurial Figure
  • “Surely You Can’t Be Serious” Jupiter, Neptune, and the Astrology of a Seriously Funny Film
  • Plant Planet: Saturn
  • Primary Sources
  • Student Section, Book Reviews, Arts & Poetry, Forecasts and more…..

Click on the cover to see a PDF file containing the current issue:
Table of Contents, Astrologer Directory, Astrology News, and Astrology Software