Astrologer musings

Mars’ full steam ahead

O.M.G., what a huge breath of fresh air this Mars-out-of-retrograde-shadow is, particularly to Mars-centric folks like myself.

We have all been dealing with Mars' retrograde themes since Mid-May, when it entered this stretch of the zodiac that it then tripled-back over, forward, retrograding, and then forward again. 

During that time, our drive, passions, courage, willpower, sense of momentum and energy, our sexuality, our  ability to take decisive action forward, our very sense of vitality, have been under review and critique.

We had many opportunities to examine and rewire our reactions to social and global events, to consider the effectiveness of our will in helping to create and change realities for ourselves and our world, to become more conscious of what our desires to fit into and/or stand out of the crowd were about.
We may have been pushed back to the drawing boards of our ambitions again and again, considering and reconsidering our action plans and what truly drives and inspires  us to feel truly alive and motivated (and what doesn't).
Any fears we had about any of that, got brought to the forefront of our awareness so that we could really consider how we go about going after what we want (or defending against what we do not).
And through it all, our attempts to actually apply and experience that sense of vitality and momentum towards anything any forward actions and any new terrain, were feeling limp and unsupported. Until now!

As of this afternoon (EDT), it's Mars is finally, FINALLY outta that stretch!

And I for one can feel the difference as thoroughly as a switch being flipped back on. I have drive I can feel again. I have passion I can access again! I have some forward momentum again!
 

Whew! This one was quite the ride on this end!
How about on your end?

 

Not everybody would have had this Mars cycle activating key parts of their charts,
and obviously not everyone has strong Mars themes in their charts/personalities/lives (those who do, would have felt this period, and any other Mars activity more intensely) ; we've also each had this Mars transit moving through different areas of our charts and lives, activating different themes.
Either way, I'd love to hear about your experiences with this Mars retrograde cycle(Mid-May till now). Are you feeling this shift today?

Why Astrology doesn’t run on belief

People sometimes ask me, why I "believe" in Astrology. That question amuses me with its' underlying assumptions; that it's a question of (presumably blind) faith, or reading or being told something which you then believe to be true.

That is not how my path into Astrology went, at all;
When I was first exposed to something minorly astrological in my early teens, I had no real preconceptions on anything like it, no faith (religious, spiritual, or any other I can think of in the classic sense), and, to boot, I had an active suspicious distaste for being in any way manipulated.
But I was simultaneously a curious, open-minded, analytical sort, with intuition and a penchant for digging for answers to make up my own mind.
So I went digging online, to test some minor basic astrological thing at the time. And it clicked. So I looked up info on other archetypes, to see if that knowledge offered anything truly useful and insightful. And it did.
Then I learned about other planets having a relevance and symbolism. Looked that up, tested those with some relevant examples- they made sense. On and on it went- aspects, houses, thematic correlations, predictional, vocational, relational, spiritual, psychological... I took nothing on blind faith. I heard of a thing, I tested it through application to the personal and extrapersonal, and I kept it in my repertoire of tools if it passed my testing, discarding those I found lacking in either usefulness or personal sense to me as I went.

9 years and dozens of expert astrology textbooks and workshops later, and my tool-kit full, I started offering its' use to others with my first readings. Another 10 years later, and here we are.
So, do I "believe" in Astrology?
Do you believe that a mirror shows you a reflection of what you look like? Or did you make faces into it as a baby and had proof that it does? 😉

Perhaps what we should be asking is, why do some people believe Astrology requires being taken on faith, and whether they've done any personal testing of it for themselves, in any open, unbiased ways?
Perhaps, it is the societal bias of "nothing but the physical world can hold testable truths, so dismiss anything else outright lest you be thought a fool.", that we should really be asking people, if they "believe"?

In the wake of the Mercury Retrograde…

As old things rot, new ones grow from the wreckage.Oh, would you look at that- anyone else noticed how the social systems are showing even MORE cracks in their foundations of integrity this week?

It's not really in direct scandals.It isn't always right there in the open with all its' facts, but there are all these stories coming up lately, of things which give you pause, which make you wonder what's REALLY going on beneath it all.

That is Pluto's way- Pluto's "voice" you're hearing echo. And the Mercury Retrograde we've all trudged our way through (January 5th-25th, 2016), started and ended fused (and is now "in cohoots")  with that Pluto in Capricorn I've been talking about since 2008 (when it moved there).

It's kinda like the journalist (Mercury) who went undercover as a crime boss' (Pluto) lackey, and now has the scoop, which it's starting to leak to the presses.
Mercury got our conscious minds in touch with some of that dirt underneath it all... and it's blowing the whistle as much as it can now.

From where I'm sitting, it's like watching a train-wreck, that you know will lead to repair of the whole of the desperately-rusty train-tracks.
Can see it coming, can decipher its' timings and themes, and can't look away for morbid fascination; but also can neither stop it, nor truly wish to- because the change is needed. Oh, so very needed!

The systems are showing their cracks, and being called-out for it more and more.
(Big Pharma, Politics, big oil, Monsanto... I could go on.)
And they're GOING to have to purge their corruption, or crumble (Pluto's slow-building effect, which nothing can escape from).
And, as trust in "the system" (Capricorn) wanes, the grassroots businesses (Cancer, it's polar opposite) and solutions are going to be more and more needed, to step up and support the world. From the heart (Cancer) , with integrity (Capricorn), balancing the two polarities for all our sakes . Everything missing those two key components, will ultimately fall. Will never get past Pluto's slow-building transformational energy.

So what can we do? well, for me,  my goal is to work with it, not against it. By tapping into the best of Pluto's healing transformations, and accepting that vital need for a slow purging reform in our systems, my wish is to work with people directly. To "minimize the wreckage", and support the process from the solution side of things.
Through the readings I offer, and through applying all I can offer to myself as well, my aim, is to spread clarity- to minimize the quiet panic in the hearts of those feeling the changes slowly coming-  and be there for anyone I can help support, in figuring out and adjusting their own lives, to personally be more in-sync with their hearts, their, truths, their emotional integrity.
As we become part of the solution- are leading our own, conscious, personal transformations and lives- we become paragons. Quiet leaders of a new way of being, living, and organizing reality.
The very grass-roots the world would need, more and more, as we keep on truckin' on.

As we strip away thick layers of social-system rot, we will find the healthier, and most vital parts of society... and of ourselves.
And we will breathe all the better for it.

Happy transits, folks.

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