Astrology Explored

October 7, 2008

With the U. S. Economy in first throes of a major recession, there is a good amount of finger pointing starting. Currently we are focusing on the huge bonuses that failed or failing financial institutions were paying their top executives, though this is symptom and not the disease. Our financial problems as a nation start with our own beginnings, the day the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.

It is rumored that some of the founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, used astrology to determine the “birthday” of the new nation. After all Franklin is well known as the publisher of Poor Richard’s Almanac and almanacs are based on astrology. For an astrologer of the day, it would have been a chart filled with the protective nature of Cancer, from the stellium of planets in Cancer, the humanitarian instincts of a Moon in Aquarius, and the love of justice and fairness in the legal system with Saturn, placed in the sign of Libra. Certainly these symbols describe our self-perception as a nation of laws that protects the hearth and home with liberty and justice for all. Had the founding fathers known about the discoveries to come after the birth of the nation, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, they might have reconsidered the choice.

(more…)

October 5, 2008

On September 3, 2007, millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett told a fellow aviator that “he was going to play for a while”, climbed into a two-seat Bellanca Super Decathlon plane and was never seen again.

On October 2, 2008 it was reported that the wreckage of the plane was found at an elevation of 10,000 feet on a mountain in the Mammoth Lakes area of California, approximately 80 miles south from his origination point in Yerington, Nevada.

“The crash looked so severe I doubt if someone would have walked away from it,” Anderson told reporters. “There was no body in the plane. We have not found any human remains at the crash site.”
National Transportation and Safety Board official Mark Rosenker said preliminary analysis of the site indicated Fossett had died in the crash.

And the reason that Fossett’s plane went down is speculated upon by one of his friends:

Downdrafts, Morgan said, are winds that whip over the Sierra and force planes down with crazy gusts. Thermals are blasts of air that thrust up from the ground when cold and hot air mix in environments like that of the eastern Sierra and surrounding desert.

The day Fossett disappeared, the skies were clear and the temperature was about 80 to 90 degrees. Seemingly perfect weather for the kind of morning jaunt Fossett had in mind that day. But as Morgan and others pointed out, perfect weather means nothing to downdrafts and thermals - and that day, high in the Sierra, the winds were blowing at more than 30 knots.

What can astrology tell us about the finding of Steve Fossett’s body and his plane?

(more…)

October 5, 2009

Here is Chris’ take on tomorrow:

Do you see Chris’ projected trend working in your life right now?

If you have a question you would like answered on these pages, send your question, birth time, birth date and birth place to starrynightastro@aol.com.

October 2, 2008

In the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the market lost 89% of its value at its final slide. It took decades for it to recover, with the country suffering along with the rest of the world an economic depression that marked our grandparents and great grandparents for the rest of their lives with the memory of want and financial struggle. With the sub-prime mortgage crisis begging for a 800 billion bail-out by the government many of us wonder if we are heading into the same bad economic situation of 79 years ago.
From Wikipedia:

In the days leading up to Black Tuesday, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes of trading were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. Economist and author Jude Wanniski later correlated these swings with the prospects for passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was then being debated in Congress.[4] After the crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered early in 1930, only to reverse again, reaching a low point of the great bear market in 1932. The Dow did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954,[5] and was lower at its July 8, 1932 level than it had been since the 1800s.[6]

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (sometimes known as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act)[1] was an act signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels. In the United States 1,028 economists signed a petition against this legislation, and after it was passed, many countries retaliated with their own increased tariffs on U.S. goods, and American exports and imports plunged by more than half. In the opinion of most economists, the Smoot-Hawley act was partially responsible for the severity of the Great Depression.[2][3]

At the time the Tariff Act was enacted, the United States had a surplus of domestically produced goods created by the Industrial Revolution. In trying to control the economy, the government strangled it. At the period just before the Stock Market crash, Congress was debating this bill, which was unpopular among economists. Over a thousand economists signed a petition against it.

Now the United States government seeks to control the economy by means of another bill, one with dubious merits. Congress has voted down this version of the bill, but the Senate passed another version, one that totals 800 billions in financial relief to lenders and tax credits aimed at the crunched middle class.

Astrology tells us that regular, repeating cycles should produce the same results. Can we look at the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and see similarities in the current transits?

(more…)

October 2, 2008

Obama and McCain aren’t the only ones seeking your vote. Astrology Explored has entered a few blogging contests, and well, we are a few votes shy of getting awards. OK, we are more than a few votes shy, but YOU can fix that by clicking onto the links below. Please, people, show us some love!

Divine Caroline Love this Site! Contest

2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards (voting to close very soon!)
Best Blog About Stuff

Thank you for your support!

September 30, 2008
The American Indians called October the Month of the Hunter’s Moon, where the Moon at the full is reddish orange and the tribes gathered and prepared the meat that would sustain them through the winter. For the ancient Celtic tribes, this is the Moon of Ivy, the evergreen plant that is said to harbor fairies dancing in its abundant folds. This association with fairies, an immortal race that rides the backs of butterflies, invokes the themes of the timelessness of the soul, physical death and resurrection. It is the time of Samhain, (Sow’ when) when the veil between this world and the next thins and those sensitive enough can communicate with the souls of the departed.

For the astrological significance of this moon we turn to the book the Celtic Lunar Zodiac by Helena Paterson, a painstaking and rich work that recreates the meaning of the lost Celtic Calendar.

(more…)

September 29, 2008
That American legend of the small screen, Heather Locklear, was found partially blocking traffic on a freeway, apparently dazed and disoriented, and was arrested for suspicion of being under the influence of prescription drugs this past Saturday.

The American actress, who recently left a medical treatment centre where she had been treated for depression, was arrested after driving erratically, revving her engine loudly and repeatedly backing over a pair of sunglasses in a parking lot in the exclusive enclave of Montecito in Santa Barbara, about 4.30pm on Saturday.

Police said a witness reported that Locklear, who she hadn’t recognised, had stopped on a nearby highway and got out of her car, apparently stumbling into traffic.

“The witness called 911 because she was concerned for Locklear’s safety,” California Highway Patrol spokesman Tom Marshall told the US celebrity magazine People. “When a CHP officer arrived, Locklear was found seated inside her vehicle, which was partially blocking the roadway.”

He said Ms Locklear appeared to be “disoriented and impaired” and was taken to a local police station and given tests for drug and alcohol.

Heather’s successful career, mostly on the small screen, spans nearly thirty years. She played such memorable characters as Sammy Jo Dean, on “Dynasty”, Stacy Sheridan on ‘T. J. Hooker”, Amanda Woodward on “Melrose Place”, and Caitlin Moore in “Spin City”. Her stunning California Girl good looks are part of her broad appeal, so much so that her most notable roles were also ones were she was added to the cast to boost the show’s ratings. She was so effective at this that Aaron Spelling called her “his good luck charm.”

In her personal life, however, she is not so lucky.

Locklear . . .was married to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee from May 1986 to August 1993. After their divorce, she later married Richie Sambora on December 17, 1994 in Paris. On October 4, 1997 she gave birth to their daughter, Ava Elizabeth. Locklear’s representative announced on February 2, 2006 that divorce papers had been filed to dissolve the couple’s marriage. In further papers filed by Sambora, it has been revealed that the couple has been separated since December 26, 2005 . . . In April 2007, Locklear and fellow Melrose Place alum Jack Wagner confirmed their new romance at a charity golf event.

We know surprisingly little of her personal life aside her for apparent penchant for “bad boys”. Her two marriages were marred by her partners’ infidelities and substance abuse problems. Of her early life we know even less:

Locklear was born in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Diane (née Tinsley), a production executive for Disney, and William Robert Locklear, an administrator at UCLA. She went to Newbury Park High School. She is the youngest of four children and a cousin of Donald Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples

We do know after an incident in June of this year that she checked in to an Arizona treatment center for “anxiety and depression” for a couple months worth of treatment.

With beauty, money and fame, why does the woman who appears to “have it all” appear to be falling apart? What can astrology tell us?

(more…)

September 28, 2008
Those with any exposure to the principles of astrology are well aware of the Saturn Return, the period every 28 to 29 years where Saturn returns to the natal placement. This happens twice in the usual lifetime, at the age 28 to 29 and again at ages 56 to 58. The first Saturn return marks the official entry into true adulthood, the second, the retirement from the duties (child rearing, keeping of home and hearth). During this period we feel tested by our circumstances, buffeted by societal forces, and, if we are wise, humbled by our own limitations.

However, there is a less often discussed Saturn cycle, that of transiting Saturn opposing the Natal moon, again a twenty eight to twenty nine year cycle. Because this cycle depends on the moon placement in the natal chart, it does not happen at same time in each person’s life. However, when that period rolls around, the effects are just as profound, perhaps more so, because it directly impacts the heart of your emotions, your moon.

(more…)

September 26, 2008

The gathering of the major players of both political parties found little common ground in packaging a bail out of the financial markets, leaving all the players a little bruised and bloodied. In the mean time, JP Morgan Chase scooped up another financial institution after the government seized its assets. Known affectionately (or not so) known as WaMu (Washington Mutual) was bought at the bargain price of 1.9 billion. This now makes JPMorgan Chase the second largest bank in the United States. Who says the free enterprise systems doesn’t work? Well, its not working for WaMu’s investors who had all their assets wiped out in the deal. And this is the sort of thing that has both the Republicans and the Democrats skittish about the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout.

The plan’s centerpiece still is for the government to buy the toxic, mortgage-based assets of shaky financial institutions in a bid to keep them from going under and setting off a cascade of ruinous events, including wiped-out retirement savings, rising home foreclosures, closed businesses, and lost jobs.

But:

Late Thursday, McCain’s campaign issued a statement saying, “the plan that has been put forth by the administration does not enjoy the confidence of the American people as it will not protect the taxpayers and will sacrifice Main Street in favor of Wall Street.”

The proposal then, is that the government has the false money supply of the debt markets shifted from the private sector to the public sector, letting the banks keep the healthier parts of their business. But is this enough to shore up the economy? As we know and have seen from Bush, Sr.’s and Ronald Regan’s tenure in office, government debt has its own toxic effect on the economy, as the banks eventually need the money back that the government borrows from them. Also, no matter how strong we make the private sector, we’ve all seen that contrary to Ronald Regan’s assertion, the “trickle down” theory does not work.

Currently the government, in its desperation to head off a Depression, as in the example with JPMorgan Chase, is seizing assets and selling them to the most willing bidder. All this is doing is stealing money from investors of the seized banks and transferring assets to the buyer. Mind you that such a deal at any other time would have received extremely close scrutiny to avoid companies like Chase from securing a monopoly in the market. This “fire sale” along with the proposed 700 billion buyout does little for the American Public while giving a wink and a nod to the bigger fish feeding off the smaller.

Pluto in the last throws of its sojourn in Sagittarius is looking for fire sales and bailouts, but with Mercury in Retrograde, nothing is likely to pan out or hold. With the Saturn/Uranus opposition private markets are pitted against public concerns. With the Sun in Libra, everyone wants to get along, but in challenge aspect to Pluto, the power dynamics of the proposals put forth are just plain scary.

As any astrologer will tell you, its best not to make deals during the retrograde phase of Mercury. Better to wait three weeks and come up with a better plan and implement it quickly.
But why listen to the astrologers. The government and the private sector has made so many good decisions on its own. Yeah, right.

If you have a question you would like this astrologer answer on these pages, send it to starrynightastro@aol.com along with your birthday, birth place and birth time.

September 25, 2008
First, an explanation of the title of this piece, for the people who think this astrologer is excessively morbid. As a young mother, facing the censure of certain childless family members for my unconventional parenting skills, my Aquarian reply was invariably, “They ain’t dead yet.”, which shocked those family members into silence. It became a bit of a family joke with my children and me. Well, they all grew up just fine, but I suspect when I do become a grandmother, (not for sometime yet) I am sure I will hear the same thing when I have something to say about how those children are raised. As we will see below, Criss Angel’s shocking style of illusionism has people on the edge of their seats, wondering if he’ll kill himself with his stunts. But for Criss, it’s all a cosmic joke, of sorts.

Criss Angel regularly shocks his audience with his bold and sweeping illusions. His Season Four finale has his viewers wondering if he is dead and the internet is buzzing with this rumor. The stunt went like this:

Criss later meets up with pro-wrestler Kurt Angle and is handcuffed inside a car that’s filled with explosives and racing downhill toward a cliff. Apparently there was fire and smoke and even Sully thought “it felt like I just watched my brother kill himself.” “I was standing only 20 feet away and I thought for sure the stunt went wrong.

Angle says of the stunt:

“It blew my mind, my nerves were shot. I thought it was a stunt that definitely went wrong. I saw him chained, I saw him in the car and saw him go over (the edge). I thought ‘Oh my god, this is a tragedy, something went wrong’.”

But according to Entertainment and Showbiz, Criss is “just fine”.

Angel says of The Carwreck Vanish:

“Illusion is what you see. Magic is what you feel.”
“It’s time to start thinking outside the box and let the art of magic live on in real life.”
“I hope to be engaging my audiences by having them ask themselves… What is real and what is illusion?”
“That is truly the magic of emotion.”

In others words “Gotcha!”

Angel’s signature style includes bold and sweeping stunts and illusions which include:

walking on water, levitating above the Luxor Hotel (in the light of 62 lightbulbs that can be seen from space), floating between two buildings, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, surviving in an exploding C4 Crate, cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying stomach down on a bed of glass.

However fantastic his illusions appear he is not a believer in the paranormal or the supernatural:

Starting in October 2007 he appeared as a judge on Phenomenon, with Uri Geller and in a CNN interview about the show he told Larry King “no one has the ability, that I’m aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead. And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I’m going to bust [him] live and on television.”

And in August of 2007 he supposedly debunked all astrology and tarot card readings in one fell swoop. You can read and see the details here.

So what drives Criss to apparently more and more dangerous illusions? What makes him want to grab hold of the emotions of his audience and make them gasp? What makes him a “Mindfreak”

(more…)

September 24, 2008

When trying to determine the birth chart of the United States you run into a fascinating array of factors. Was the Declaration of Independence ratified at 2:20 PM as noted by Hamilton? Or was it done in late afternoon as Jefferson recalls? History is murky on the details, but perhaps the details were murky to begin with. Even if we traveled back in time and witnessed the event we might find out that something altogether different happened and we still wouldn’t end up with a definitive time. Why?

(more…)

September 23, 2008

My sister, the Taurus, called me. “I need your help. Look at these mutual funds and let me know if we should sell them.”

A financial counselor I am not, especially if you look at the state of my finances. I tried to beg off. Financial astrology is a very heady subspecialty and I’d hate to be responsible for any financial losses. But my sister insisted. They’ve been losing money already in the volatile market. She trusted my skills. She knew I could help. (God bless sisters.)

In the meaty book about financial astrology by Barbara Koval, “Time and Money”, Barbara takes us through the economic theory and the timing of events in financial markets. She tells us that Jupiter and Saturn represent supply and demand and that these two planets through their movements in the heavens have regular repeating cycles that signal profit and loss through the markets. In the sixty year cycle that is the tango these two dance, they move through all the different energetic connections, the conjunction, the sextile, the square, the trine, the opposition and through the modes of expression, mutable, fixed and cardinal. During the mutable phase , that is when Saturn or Jupiter is in Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces the market crashes and everyone knows what is means to be poor. Currently, Saturn, the taskmaster, is in the sign of Virgo, making the easy energetic connection to Jupiter in Capricorn, a cardinal sign. Despite the fact that cardinal signs usually signals high expectations, you see here that the planet of optimism, Jupiter in the sign of Saturn’s exaltation, conservative Capricorn. The synergetic message then is that to hold onto to your wealth it is best to very cautious. Why? Saturn is in opposition to the planet of the unexpected and shocks to the system, Uranus in the murky sign of Pisces.

Uranus in this placement is very representative of the underlying fault in our economic system. This fault is the creation of false wealth through debt and economic institutions selling this debt to the American public at large. It’s not just the government who create the money supply. When a bank floats you a loan it is creating a money supply by banking on the future profits of its sale of its money to you. The danger of creating this money supply is that it artificially pumps up the value of the money you have today by saying that this money is worth what you are paying for it tomorrow. But what happens when the value of money is artificially inflated? The price of goods and services increases because the consumers, (which include businesses) of the banks’ money need a way to create the money needed to pay back the loans. This is what we know as inflation. To curb inflation, which can shock the economy into a recession, the Fed artificially reduces the prime interest rate, which takes potential profits out of the hands of the bankers. When the Fed takes away potential profits from the banking institutions, the banks, to reduce their losses, reduce the artificial money supply by making fewer loans. When there is too little money in the system to grease the wheels of commerce, this sets off a second cause for inflation, increase in prices to offset the reduction of the money supply. It also sets off job losses, because companies will look to reduce costs to sustain their profit margin.

This is where we are now, in the precarious balance between profit and loss and I’m afraid that the market is not set to improve any time soon. According to the astrology, and only the astrology, because I am not a financial counselor, the restriction in the money supply will last for some time to come. Pluto is making its last pass in expansive Sagittarius, but it will head shortly into the restrictive sign of Capricorn. If you’ve thought you’d seen bankruptcies now, just wait until Christmas time. And for you retailers out there buying for Christmas, buy less rather than more. And you shoppers, if you’ve got it to spend, start your Christmas shopping now, because there will be less on the shelves this year than in years previous.

As for my sister, we went through the mutual funds and I recommended they dump all but two. It was scary to see how Pluto in the sky right now was making major energetic connections to the personal planets of each of these funds. Pluto signals loss and boy did this bear out in the charts of those funds. But don’t ask me to do this for you. I just don’t have the nerves of steel needed for worrying about other people’s money.

If you have a question you would like this astrologer answer on these pages, send it to starrynightastro@aol.com along with your birthday, birth place and birth time.

September 21, 2008
In 1987 I lived in Asheville, North Carolina with my then husband, my four year old son and my infant son, (the Scorpio who recently became a Marine). I was also being driven mad by astrology. A tarot card reader since the tender age of twelve, during the enforced bed rest of the last pregnancy I took up a solitary study of astrology, to deepen my understanding of the tarot. Being an Aquarian, anytime I started to study something as soon as I got the gist of it, I’d drop it. So I didn’t expect to get more than a basic understanding of the art, just enough to punch up my skill level with the tarot. But for astrology this wasn’t to be the case. I felt literally driven to study the science of the stars each and every day. As any astrology student knows, there is only so far you can get on solitary study and I felt I was floundering.

In my favorite bookstore in Asheville, where I purchased my books for my solitary study, there was a flyer for a presentation of the channeled Ramtha teachings, then one of the hottest tickets in new age circles. The woman who put together the gathering was Barbara Morales, an astrologer. After attending several meetings at her house over the Ramtha material I found out she had an astrology class and I asked if I could attend. She seemed doubtful at first. She told me it was a midlevel class. The people she taught had attended her classes for several years. Actually I learned later that the core group of her class was part of karmic group of people who moved with her from New Jersey to Asheville just four years before. Nevertheless she agreed I could come and check out the class. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” Barbara said.

During the first few classes, Barbara presented some quizzes on astrology, all of which I did well on. In a sort of cosmic collusion I was reading Stephen Forrest’s “The Inner Sky” which seemed to match lesson for lesson the quizzes Barbara was giving. After about a month of these quizzes, Barbara seemed satisfied that I could keep up with the class and the quizzes stopped, nary to return during the rest of the time I was with the class which was until I left to return to Connecticut in 1990.

During this time Barbara helped me to move into fluency with my astrology, past the cobbled cookbook representations we all start with to being able to synthesize the energy patterns and articulate them to the client. It is with appreciation that I remember that time, because without Barbara I would not be the astrologer I am today. I am sure many of her students would say the same thing.

Though I had lost touch with Barbara in the ensuring years, recently I got back in touch with her and let her know that I was working this blog and writing a weekly column. She wrote a warm response and I looked forward to keeping up an email correspondence with her.

This was not to be. Just two months after she wrote me, Barbara passed rather quickly and unexpectedly. She was 79. An extraordinary person, she was one of the legions of everyday astrologers who worked and taught not for fame, money or self aggrandizement, but for the enlightenment of the souls who came her way,

Until next time, Barbara, you will be missed here on the earth plane.

September 19. 2008

(Written from my hotel room at the Hilton Gardens Inn in South Carolina, courtesy of their complimentary high speed internet connection)

A reader by the name of Simon wrote:

I’ve been following your recent skeptic debate with the Friendly atheist and
Skepchick and would like to offer you a chance to prove them wrong

You know it would be very easy for you to silence them. In fact I can think of 2
ways for you to do it right now.

1) Successfully predict something.
If you can show that astrology actually can tell the future with a better than
chance outcome than not only will the skeptics stop criticizing you but the
entire scientific movement will be desperate to know how you do it.

2) Do an accurate personality profile
[Reader gives his birth information]

Construct a personality profile for me which I can open to honest review by
those people who know me. If there are more hits than misses than possible by
chance then people will have to agree this deserves a closer look.

It’s clear that you believe astrology is getting a bad rap from these people,
and also clear that you strongly believe in it.
It would by very easy to help prove that to the doubters.

I look forward to hearing from you.

(more…)

September 19, 2008

Astrology for the Week of September 19 through September 25

Friday the 19th will seem like a Day of Destiny to many people as a significant energetic formation called a yod forms between the practical Moon in Taurus, Mars, Mercury and Venus in sociable Libra and Uranus in Pisces. Here our goals of securing and maintaining resources are stressed by social obligations and the high expectations of others. Some of us will handle this energy better than others, but all of us will feel that we are being stretched way too much to make things happen the way we want them to. On the 21th, this energy will intensify as the rent comes due from people who think that we owe them. The moon moving in to energetic Gemini also forms the fortunate energetic connection of trine to serious and hardworking Saturn and Mars and Mercury in Libra. Be prepared for information overload as even more expectations are shot our way. As the Sun wend its way through the last degrees of Virgo, you can expect a short burst of intense criticism. Well something’s got to give but it better not be your temper. Irreversible changes can come about from unexpected actions. If you are the type of person to say something like “I never want to speak to you again,” then pretty much expect that to happen. When the Moon slides her way in the protective sign of Cancer we are needy and want our families to bolster our shaky sense of self esteem. But what happens when everyone wants the same thing. Group hug anyone? Wednesday and Thursday finds us in the first degrees of Libra, with Venus preparing her entrance into the sensuous and manipulative sign of Scorpio. Group hugs get new meaning then.

Gemini, Libra and Aquarius—well it is all air sign all the time this week when you are the star shining brightly in the heavens and everyone wants a piece of you. Should you be flattered, or is it that other people want to foist their work on you. Regardless, get plenty of sleep when you can because you’ll need the energy for the daytime.

Aries, Sagittarius and Leo—This week has you feeling at ends since you don’t know what is expected of you and no one is telling you. The only comfort is dishing with your friends, though that is not likely to produce some productive action. Think long term goals and tighten the spending. Let your friends buy a round or two for you.

Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn—You are whiz at organizing and a genius at planning, so what is wrong? NO ONE is listening to you. They’d rather gab around the water cooler and complain about mean you are being without realizing the bigger picture. Your job then is to gently nudge people into the proper direction because of all the sign, you have a clear picture of the choppy waters ahead.

Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces—You may find yourselves overwhelmed with the problems of others when you have more than enough of your own. Maybe it will make you feel better to listen to someone else’s problems and then you’ll realize that yours are not so bad.

If you have a question you would like this astrologer answer on these pages, send it to starrynightastro@aol.com along with your birthday, birth place and birth time.