Eclipse of the Moon in Aries: A View From Inside

Dear Friend and Client:

Harmonic Concordance is upon us, arriving in a bittersweet moment of history. We have so much potential, so many resources, so much human energy and creativity. Look, as a society, what we do with it. The aspects in Saturday's chart speak to the release of the past, and of creating a sensible and workable structure for our lives, and remind us that there is new territory to explore even though the world is old and so many of its people are so tired. The planets are arranged in a celestial star that is really a circle of light surrounding us.

Saturday's event also marks the end of the Mars retrograde in Pisces, as Mars enters new territory for the first time since the retrograde began in July. Uranus stations to direct motion the same day, soon heading into Pisces to stay. Pisces, the last sign, is full of unspeakable mystery, and we're going to have some unusual glimpses as these months and years progress.

The question "what is the meaning of an astrological event" is only answered by experience. A chart cast for the future speaks of the future, and time bears the future out. Sometimes in astrology it's necessary to venture into the questionable and ethically questionable world of prediction. More important, though, I think we need to engage in a process of exploring future charts as an exercise in visioning, which we so rarely do. Charts we haven't lived through give us the opportunity see something new and to seek a future different than the past.

And to seek a future different than the present. Both the news and the feeling of our current era are blinding, and relentless in their quality of movement. The relentless feeling seems to go on and on, gathering momentum all the time. Since I began tracking celestial movements in 1994 the pace and intensity have always felt like they were quickening, first gradually, then becoming an onslaught of millennial thresholds, comets, eclipses and extremely rare alignments that has yet to let up. What simple, calm days those moments of the mid-90s feel like in retrospect, but they had their sense of crisis, too.

I think human experience usually has that crisis-like quality. I cannot imagine earlier eras of history being that much easier, with plagues, witch-hunts and saber tooth tigers roaming about. It is still true that we struggle to survive and have very little time to immerse ourselves in the human experience of our choice, but we struggle to survive in different ways. In the physical sense of the word, more of us succeed at staying alive. The place we don't do so well is in the emotional aspect of living: the feeling of being alive. In order to persist as we do in the rat race of New World existence, and the New World is spreading rapidly east, west and south, we often have to turn down the capacity known as feeling. At least most people cope that way, and we're trained to do it from birth. Cope is the word. One is fortunate to cope, and very fortunate to cope well. Coping skills don't usually grow on trees, mainly because our parents couldn't cope and used us as crutches instead of learning to walk upright themselves. As my beloved professor Robert Knox Dentan told me as a university freshman, there are a lot of people who struggle to get through the day. Being an astrologer a decade later taught me what he meant.

One of the most common coping mechanisms of our society is to believe lies. It eases the struggle somewhat, for a while. One thing I learned in my prior career covering fraud is that one who perpetrates fraud goes a long way to do so. It's quite a job to foist a vast, systemic lie on the world community, and it happens every single hour of the day, and the lies are often defended by lawyers making $500 an hour.

But the other side of the story is that those who become the victims of fraud often reach to just the same extent to deny what they know or suspect. Very few people fight or even take action when they're informed of the truth, no matter how heinous. This has traditionally posed problems for those seeking to do things like evacuate contaminated communities, end wars and see that our food is not poisoned. Such is the world today; and life is just about always business as usual. If changing the world, changing minds and saving the planet were as simple as getting the truth out, the world would be honky-dandy. Because the truth is out.


In the Horoscope of the Constellations

I haven't seen any discussion of the Harmonic Concordance chart for Saturday evening cast using the sidereal horoscope -- the horoscope of the stellar constellations rather than the one we typically use in the Western World, called the tropical zodiac (because it's based on the passage of the seasons, which involve the Sun's angles to the tropics and equator). The astronomy of why there are two zodiacs would take longer to explain than to say that the two wheels are about 23 degrees off kilter from one another, almost a whole sign. Hence, using the sidereal (meaning stellar, and pronounced sy-dairy-all) chart, Saturday's eclipse occurs in the constellation Aries in the 23rd degree.

This is the chart that will be used by all Vedic astrologers (employing a widely-practiced and ancient Indian philosophy and method of astrology). The relationship between tropical and sidereal charts is always an interesting study. The planetary pattern remains the same from one system to the other, that is, there are all the same aspects. But most of the sign placements change, going back a step; the chart's emphasis shifts and often seems to tell a deeper and more revealing story. At the least, it's a contrasting perspective, which is always helpful at bringing out the details of a picture.

Three things happen to the Harmonic Concordance chart when it's recast in the Vedic method. First, the eclipse of the Moon goes from Taurus back to the first constellation, Aries, a fire sign. Luna is joined in the fiery constellations by Jupiter (in Leo) and Chiron (in Sagittarius). Moving the Moon from Taurus, which it co-rules, to Aries, where it has no special dignity except for Aries being the universal symbol of beginnings, is a significant shift. Changing the element of any planet completely rearranges our experience of it because it's broadcasting on a different frequency.

The second thing that happens is that the three water planets of Saturday's chart become air planets: Saturn in Gemini (reminiscent of the 9-Eleven era), Sun in Libra and Mars in Aquarius. Like moving planets from water to fire, this too is a shift from the emotional/receptive Yin energy of the earth signs to the expressive/cognitive Yang energy of the air signs.

Lastly but not leastly, a whole lot of planets that are hanging out in tropical Sagittarius for the Western version of the Harmonic Concordance now wind up in sidereal Scorpio, to wit: Venus, Pluto, Ixion, Quaoar, Vesta, Juno, Eros and Psyche. Numerous planets that were in tropical Scorpio wind up in sideral Libra.

Mercury, in late tropical Scorpio for the Concordance, is sent back to the first few degrees of Scorpio in the Vedic chart and remains a messenger of the sign of the mysteries of birth and death in both charts. It's the only traditional or modern planet to keep its sign for this event when the horoscope systems are changed; it's the common thread between the charts, and fortunately, its specialty is communication. In Scorpio, Mercury speaks among other things about the immortal nature of the soul, and at the same time humanity's seemingly inescapable consciousness of mortality.

Scorpio, that which the thread connects, is what both charts have in common, vibed not just by Mercury but also by the fact that both charts have a dense Scorpio focus, though expressed by different planets. Scorpio represents the great mysteries and the facts of life: birth, death, sexuality, the genetic code, orgasm, surrender. And it represents those modes of power subject to the most frequent abuse: sex, money, secrecy and all their cousins. In both charts, our attention is being called to this dimension of existence, for example as we watch news of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan intermingled with entertainment gossip, sports and corporate sponsorship. We miss the story about how the war is all about money, or rather, many people, if not most people, believe the fraud even though we have all the evidence we need.

What I notice with the sidereal chart is that most of the planets seem a lot happier in their respective signs. This suggests that while the superficial process of life depicted in the tropical chart may feel out of place and even senseless, on the next level down, a little closer to the Soul of the world in the Vedic system, things make more sense and the pieces fit.

While Chiron is doing a very good job of rooting out corruption and deception as it currently transits Capricorn, Sagittarius is the sign of the Centaur's quest. All this nasty information bubbling to consciousness (for example about corporations and their corrupt, debauched executives, governments that lie, murder and steal, and religious institutions whose officials rape children, all being exposed under the glare of Chiron in Capricorn) is not coming out for nothing. Like the arrow of both Chiron and Sagittarius, it's pointed, and Chiron never misses his mark.

Saturn, returned to Gemini, puts the hemispheres of consciousness together and gives those twins of the soul a house to live in. Saturn tends to have a stabilizing and unifying effect on Gemini, and is well-placed in an air sign as the co-ruler of Libra. Mars in Aquarius is righteous, determined and well received; Aquarius is a good place for Mars to express that energy.

Compared to Mars in Pisces, Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Cancer and other ill-at-ease placements in the tropical chart, there is a harmony to the sidereal chart that is apparent only from the Star of David configuration. But one must look for it. And, I feel, beneath the devastating news we face each day, there is a process of awakening at work. At a certain point it's going to hurt more to be in denial than it will to wake up, then, after a while, it will feel really good to wake up. For most people it will remain a choice, and for others, the awakening will be somewhat rude.

But the most interesting shift between the charts happens in Firesign Theatre, where, in the sidereal chart, Luna dims her light in the realm of the god of war. I take that as a warning to everyone: to the masters of war, because it's not what you'd call a good omen for their endeavors. I say this solemnly, knowing that a bad omen for the purveyors of war is not good news for those sent to battle, all of whom carry one-handed tourniquets and bandages coated with material from shrimp shells to stop profuse bleeding. This eclipse follows on the heels of many bad signs from the heavens that the unjust, selfish and deeply deceptive conduct of public servants who are nothing more or less than ruthless businessmen will meet its reckoning.

To the followers, that is, those who write cable service checks, the implication is that the softness of the world, our connection to our personal needs and comforts, that swaying Moon, shuts off her light above the battleground, rendering the scene dim and shadowy. The paradox of a lunar eclipse is that in the absence of reflected light, we can see in the dark.++


The Many Revelations of Gary Leon Ridgeway

In the essay A Book About Women, I discussed the triple conjunction of Venus, Ixion and Vesta in early Sagittarius, which occurs in tropical Sagittarius in the Harmonic Concordance chart. A brief quote:

The third planet in this setup is Ixion. This is an entirely new planet to astrology, discovered in 2001. A planet beyond Pluto, Ixion (a Plutino) is named for a mythologized former king, a descendent of the god Ares (sometimes called Mars) and, notably, the first human to commit murder. Would-be rapist of the gods (in particular, of Hera, whom he unsuccessfully tried to attack after Jupiter offered to help rehabilitate him from his act of killing his relative), he is the squanderer of second chances. He is the forefather of all Centaurs save one -- Chiron, who descends from Kronos (Saturn). Ixion suggests "what we are all capable of" and points to the common thread among all forms of violence, be it physical or emotional. Ixion is the pattern or psychological construction which says we cannot change our inherent nature no matter what the consequences or punishment. We can perhaps change, but Ixion represents the idea that we cannot. He relates to the collective memory of original sin (murder, not sex) and how this is recalled, perhaps subtly, in any experience of desire, transformation or passion.

Yesterday, a man named Gary Leon Ridgeway pleaded guilty to 48 murders of young women in the Seattle area dating back to 1982 -- the most prolific known (civilian) serial killer in American history. That's how many murders are actually documented; Ridgeway said he's killed 60 women, most of them prostitutes, but that there were so many he had difficulty keeping track despite his best efforts. Ridgeway was born in Utah on Feb. 18, 1949, placing his Sun in the last degree of Aquarius and his Moon at the center of Scorpio.

He also has a conjunction of Vesta and Chiron in early Sagittarius, square to Mars in Pisces.

This is extremely interesting given the now-developing triple conjunction of Venus, Ixion and Vesta. Ridgeway shows up prominently three days before the event with his personal Chiron conjunct Vesta (who represents prostitutes and sacred prostitution) in those very degrees of Sagittarius -- his natal Chiron comes a degree from the exact triple conjunction of Ixion, Vesta and Venus.

Justice has been done to the extent that justice is possible, and there is a measure of closure for the families of victims. Instead of being tried for seven murders and given the death penalty, he agreed to give the details of 48 murders and cooperate with prosecutors, which clears up how many actors there were and clarifies the fate of so many young women who have been missing for up to 22 years. His confession was not simply accepted on its face; he took investigators on a score of expeditions around the metro Seattle area to where he hid remains.

That he avoids the death penalty is a step for American civilization, on several accounts. The first is that no matter what the families of victims who desire revenge think, his death will not bring them peace. Second, a credit to the law enforcement officials and prosecution involved, is that a value was put on something higher than revenge. Last, perhaps this will offer a contrast to juries who might otherwise kill a convict for lesser crimes. Particularly in Texas, but in any of the 37 states with capital punishment. (If Ridgeway is prosecuted in other Washington State counties for as-yet unknown murders, he could be sentenced to death for those crimes. And Ridgeway faces a formidable challenge keeping himself alive in prison, where he's unlikely to be given a hero's welcome.)

Astrologically, the suggestion is that the potentially fearsome justice of Ixion, which is still very much an astrological unknown, is humane and fair, at least as it works in Sagittarius, the sign of higher justice and what some call the higher self.

Ridgeway's natal Chiron-Vesta is square Mars. I have seen this aspect (specifically, natal Mars square Chiron) associated with a lot of sexual pain and frustration, mostly born of indecision, and with frustrating, even severe blockages of Mars expression that can be worked out, but nonetheless can be very persistent. Mars square Vesta feels resentful of the service that women so generously offer to men. I also take his natal Chiron-Vesta as symbolic of his animosity toward prostitutes in particular, which may be based on his own sense of injured or limited sense experience of his sexuality (the Mars-Chiron square).

The prominence of Sagittarius in all of this points to the role of religion and fundamentalist religious beliefs, though those Christians who read the book will note the Master's benevolence toward one portrayed as whore.

My feeling from this is that this Gary Ridgeway is helping reveal something critical about the pathological nature of sexual relations in our society, and the nexus of sex, power and silence. His apparent M.O. was to strangle his victims while having sex with them, an act betraying the powerlessness so often experienced by both sexes in relation to one another. That women are often silenced and taken possession of as sexual objects is an understatement; that men often feel so powerless around women that they feel it's necessary to take possession of them is an understatement. Obviously there's more to the dance than this, and the games of the sexes play into one another beautifully. But still, there are some gross imbalances in the world.

Ridgeway certainly understands that prostitutes are treated as third-class citizens; he knew there would not be much fuss made about a missing hooker here and there, and that prostitutes were not exactly in a position to go to the police. It is unconscionable to think that one man could kill 60 women in a relatively short time frame and get away with it for so long. The only way to explain it is to consider the nature of most of his victims: their age, their social status, their line of work. Could someone possibly kill 60 men? Maybe 60 male prostitutes. But I doubt it.

For the purposes of prosecuting Ridgeway, everyone had to accept the fact that sexworkers are in fact people: with families, loved ones, lives, yearbook photographs and feelings. That's a significant leap beyond the Christian idea that sex is the higher crime than murder, though unfortunately both usually happen together when a woman is killed: the murder of a woman is usually the rape and murder of a woman.

Seattle is a town where people don't say much, and when they do, they whisper. The WTO demonstrations for which this city is mythologized were a momentary awakening. I hope we get the message here that we need to break the silence of what in astrology we call the 8th house nexus of sex, death, secrecy and power, all of which is bound and gagged in place by the love of money. And, more than that, I hope that people of our community figure out that women are people too, most especially women themselves.

Law enforcement officials are proud that they solved this crime by good police work, and appeared to be emotionally moved by the events of the past few days.

Thank you, gentlemen. Too bad it took so long. ++


Scorpio Birthdays This Week

Continued from prior edition.

Those with birthdays in the days following the Harmonic Concordance begin their astrological year in the highly unusual zone between eclipses. Think of it like a valley obscured by clouds in which you suddenly find yourself, amidst strange scenery, unusual culture and the feeling of being somewhere you've never been before.

I have many reasons for saying you're embarking on a truly unusual and adventurous time of your life. It is not merely that you have met every obstacle in existence. It is not just because you have undertaken a very careful review of certain aspects of yourself that most people would be mortified to examine, and not only because you've considered the nature of your tendency to do what we could call take risks with the truth.

Mainly, I can say this because you have faced a kind of inevitability that I know from my study of people, of Scorpio people, and of astrology itself, has been one of the most challenging growth experiences of your life. It has taken a long time and the process has been invisible to a great many, if not all but a few, of the people in your life. Issue by issue, situation by situation, you have made the choice to see things differently, to give up your stake in what might otherwise belong to you, and to let go of views that only serve to weigh heavily on your heart.

Some among you have fully experienced what is often called ego death, and while that's a pretty much normal event for Scorpio, this experience of the past four seasons or longer has been anything but normal, anything at all. The issues you have gotten a look at and confronted date back generations. To sort them out has required discernment, courage and finally the willingness not to blame yourself for what is not your responsibility. There are two sides to being a responsible person, and, you've seen, one of them is knowing where to draw the line.

You are confident, or you can be confident, in part because you know that even if you have something to lose, you're not afraid to lose it. But I sense you're figuring out the value of who you are and what you have to offer. I know you've gotten your first clue that your riches reside in heaven and not on Earth. To a master of the games of the world, this is not necessarily a welcome revelation, but as we both know, there is more to life than games.

Continued next week.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
An exchange is necessary; you're being called upon to give up something old so that you can not only have something new, but also be and experience another stage of your life in a substantially new way. This may be easy but it may be subtle. I suggest you allow yourself to be guided by a sense of the unfamiliar. These very days mark a genuine departure from a long and completely original season of your life, one that has come with some unusually intense tensions and stirrings of formerly unconscious fear. Now, at least, you know what you were afraid of; you can see how familiar it was.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Sooner or later, knowledge must lead to action. Someone will make a move; awareness puts you on notice that it may as well be you. Action in the current stellar setup is less about an outer move and more about an inner release of a deeply held pattern of feeling: a limbic program. Or is it plainly your mother's issue? Please try that on for size, because if it happens to fit, you're going to have a lot more detailed language to describe your current changes -- you understand your mother better than you understand yourself. Not for long, fortunately.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
If you find yourself entangled in something that's not quite of your own creation, consider it a job to do. The thing about a job as opposed to your business is that you get to go home. That doesn't mean you don't care; it means you have a compartment, in this case, one that distinguishes the real from the surreal. Speaking of surreal, while I'm not typically in the film critique genre, there's a fine erotic feature from the 80s called House of Dreams directed by Andrew Blake that you'll at least find entertaining, and at best prophetic

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Dream your day. I dare you to open up the sky a little and tell someone, yourself or someone nearby or the rest of us chickens, what it is you want and need from life. Write it in your blog. Describe your perfect day, your perfect season, your perfect wife or lover, your perfect man, your perfect pod. Who would your most awesome advocate be? Who do you want as your personal office manager? Name your favorite brand Jacuzzi, and pick your favorite organic spa consultant.

Leo (July 22-Aug 23)
There is a job for you. Saturday's eclipse stands in your 10th solar house, Taurus: your solid and principled career. In my experience as an astrologer, most people don't understand that they have a 10th house; it's a foreign concept to them. Most people focus on the 6th house, the house of service and servitude. It works -- for everyone else. Then, it's true, you see those 10th house types who say, to hell with right and wrong, let's go for the gold. The funny thing about you is that you have the power to stand up to that kind of cheating, and the tenacity to go till you succeed. Now, aim that at your highest ideal.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You're hearing from just about every direction except a singing, dancing kangaroo in your bathtub that you need to open yourself a little more to the influences of the wider world, and put your feet on an unfamiliar patch of ground. Go someplace high up and look out at creation. Survey the territory and scan through your life from that perspective. Imagine what it would be like to live in another country and, seriously, can you get yourself to one any time soon? You're not as attached to where you are as you may think. It's okay and everything, but you may have someplace else on your mind.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
My real initiation into the occult came through the work of Aleister Crowley, who explains the bare principles of Tarot and Astrology as aspects of the hidden world of secrets and cosmic science better than anyone I've encountered since. Crowley pissed off the good Christians and he pissed off the good Heretics (and a lot of sensible folk, too). This, from a nonchalant mild-mannered Libra. You don't need to go to any extremes, but don't balk at your own authority or the potency of your calling. This is your chance to hoist yourself above the in loco parentis that stalk the world in the form of bosses, teachers and unrighteous accountants. Oh, and presidents. Yo' da man, cousin.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
There is a daring quality to the moment that finds you surfing the waves of water that once had you most concerned you'd lose your way in the fog. The light you carry is bright, and you're not given to foolish flights of compulsive gambling. This is a risk you need to take, mostly to prove to yourself that the past is over and that the present has arrived. You can, looking with your light, see that it's not necessary for you to take on the full weight of the world, to chance it all, or to remain the same so you can be a stepping stone or pillar for one who could not grow without the assurance of your constancy.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
Everyone gets grouchy without loving. Between holy Hogwarts popping in your 12th house (adding what you might call an edgy influence to life, the universe, etc.) plus Jupiter feeling a little itchy in Virgo, I don't blame you for getting ornery about wanting things your way. You're not asking for the world. But secretly you have a lot of plans for the place. They're good plans and you know it. Your mission will improve life, and you know it. So what's the problem? Are you getting lost in the sauce and snagged in the briars of fuss and budgetry? State your vision to yourself; not your detailed plan for getting there, just the shocking sketch on the Denny's place mat.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Now you know the routine. Remember what you just experienced, because it contains a formula. Remember what you experience next. In particular, pay attention to the feeling you have during your decision process. Theory: subtracting a factor that was influencing your opinion shifts the constellation of reality entirely. Sometimes certain influences need to be noted and set aside. Pleasant surprise when what you really know or how you really feel emerges. How to do that, how to find the zone where one can get around one's own distortion -- that is often a great mystery. Notice.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Letter to a friend: I forgive you for being such a bitch. I know you better than to take it personally. Remember, I know what you've been through. Of course you know that. What is spiritual anyway if it doesn't forgive, if it doesn't remember love and forget random faithless moments that will be forgotten anyway? It sucks always being made wrong, or worse, having grown up with the haunting feeling of fault. You've actually managed to surround yourself with people who really care and would never do that to you, never invoke that old feeling that's been beamed at you in the past for no good reason. The only sanity in this world is to accept love when you need it.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
All are lust who wonder. Curiosity is the key to life. That is, the key to life that's actually lived rather than one that's passively experienced. One must click on the hyperlinks of existence, check doorknobs, read random scraps of paper and talk to wrong numbers. This more than makes the game interesting; windows to the future oft arrive as small gestures and unfamiliar letters. Mundane note: Stick close to the neighborhood for the time being. Your whole community is at a threshold point, and you seem to be called to take that step with others, likely serve as a catalyst. Step back and take it in; step forward in your time.