Newsletters

Reinvention in 2011

As we leap into 2011, I can feel a buzz in the air. Dramatic news has already captured the public's attention, people are making new starts left and right, and I'm placing my bets on Jupiter and Uranus stirring the pot quite vigorously this year as they both move into Aries.

Many of us experience the new year as a time of renewal and fresh starts, and with 2 major planets soon moving into Aries, we'll have some extra energy at hand to push us in new directions of reinvention. It will be interesting to see what develops.

Winter Solstice 2010

As we draw our awareness to the coming winter solstice, we find ourselves in tune with an ancient earth rhythm, marching in time to the beat of ancestral drums. I make a point of gathering with friends at these cyclic annual checkpoints, sharing thoughts about what has passed and expressing intention about what is to come.

If you haven't been to a solstice gathering, I encourage you to create your own. It doesn't have to be elaborate or fancy. Just get some friends together, share some great food, light some candles, and talk about what the year has brought you, and what you hope to create or change in the next one.

Steven's latest work has given us a fresh perspective by pointing out the link between the moon's rhythms and the annual cycles of the solstices and equinoxes.

I personally look forward to bringing some of that symbolism into this year's solstice ceremony.  

This year's winter solstice occurs this December 21st with a lunar eclipse at 29°21' Gemini.

Thanks for your support and for sharing this newsletter with friends and on Facebook.

Warm wishes,

Tony Howard

Steven Ruminates About the Year Ending

The Book of The Moon has been selling really well and generating a lot of comment, which pleases me a lot. Two or three years ago, I had been given a generous financial grant by the Integrative Medicine Foundation to write two books. Yesterday’s Sky was the first, and it felt to me like a major piece of work - really the culmination of ten or twenty years of research and experience. When I set out to write The Book of The Moon, I was thinking of it as a minor project. The topic of lunar phase had interested me, and it felt worthy of short volume. But once I got into the writing, worlds began to open up. Astrology unfolds endlessly and there are always new tricks and techniques to learn, but with this lunar material I felt like I had discovered an entirely new continent. Lunar phases, both natal and progressed, are vast, powerful symbols - but then really getting into the Moon’s Declination was a total eye-opener - again both by its natal condition and by progression.

The Current (Astrological) Space Chessboard:

Hello, and welcome to our newsletter. Winter skies are wonderful in the desert!

We'll have some repetition in this section about the longer term current astrological events, and the addition of new material month by month, too.

As I've mentioned here before, we are 3/5ths of the way through a pattern of five oppositions of Saturn and Uranus:

* on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
* on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
* on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn

Transiting Uranus galvanizes whatever planet or point it is aspecting, and whatever house it is passing through in your birthchart. It asks you to overhaul and transform these areas, particularly where you may have been clinging to traditions, habits, fears and restrictive conservatism about them. The more "trapped" you have felt here, the more acutely you may feel this Uranian call to progress and freedom.

Hello, and welcome to our newsletter. We're closing in on the winter solstice, with shorter days and longer nights, and the desert nights are more clear and starry than ever.

As we've mentioned here before, we are 3/5ths of the way through a pattern of five oppositions of Saturn and Uranus:

* on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
* on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
* on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn

Transiting Uranus galvanizes whatever planet or point it is aspecting, and whatever house it is passing through in your birthchart. It asks you to overhaul and transform these areas, particularly where you may have been clinging to traditions, habits, fears and restrictive conservatism about them.

The more "trapped" you have felt here, the more acutely you may feel this Uranian call to progress and freedom. To work well with these transits, you must use the Uranian virtue of *being fully yourself*--not someone else's idea of you, and not a living symbol of "the Revolution" at the expense of your own identity. Transiting Saturn asks you for a realistic and objective assessment of what is and is not working about whatever planet or point it is aspecting, and about whatever house it is passing through in your birthchart. It asks you to use the Saturnian virtues of good reality-testing and shrewd consistent effort to make a concrete, practical change of whatever isn't working for you.

Hello, and welcome to our September 2009 newsletter. Can you believe it's September already? I'm back from speaking at the ISAR conference in Chicago in late August. My lecture was well received, and I was glad to see some of you there.

It's gradually getting a bit cooler here in the desert, and the cats are correspondingly friskier in the mornings when I let them out into our small walled-in back patio. Cato has even decided to start practicing a basic feline skill:

There are only two trees out there, both palms, and a cat's gotta do what a cat's gotta do!

The planets are fittingly busy in solar Virgo, the sign of personal growth, wholeness, and craftsmanship:

1. Transiting Mercury is retrograde from Sept. 6-29, from 6 Libra back to 22 Virgo. For those of you new to astrology, Mercury rules communication of all kinds, learning, teaching, details, transportation, commerce, and devices we use to work with anything Mercury rules. It also rules how your mind works, what you notice, how you process information. When Mercury is retrograde, that which it rules tends to go "backwards." It's a good idea to double check all details, get tracking numbers, etc. It's also wise to review information or edit material rather than act upon it or begin a Mercury-ruled project.

2. There is an transiting Saturn-Uranus partile (exact) opposition on the 15th at 25 Virgo (Saturn) - Pisces (Uranus). We are in a pattern of five oppositions of these planets:
*on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
*the one mentioned above, on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
*on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn

Hello, and welcome to our August 2009 newsletter. We are in the yearly transit of the Sun through Leo, the sign it rules. The Sun is always a Presence, here in the desert, and never more so than at this time of year. You know, intellectually, that the Sun is a star, but in the desert you truly experience it on a sensory level as a star. You can see and feel it blazing long before it looms above the horizon at dawn. The starkness and brilliance of the light is unmistakable, energizing, and commands so much attention that it's difficult to sleep past dawn if you're indoors, and all but impossible if you've slept outside, as though the Sun had summoned your consciousness back to the waking world, away from the realm of the night and the Moon. The force and heat of the Sun are so great that almost all creatures should take shelter from the open desert before mid-morning--the solar energy must be respected, and the inexperienced hiker who ventures out at the wrong hour is in serious danger. You can understand why people in whom the astrological Sun is strong can exert so much charisma and magnetism, and inspire so much loyalty or fear. You can understand why this vast fiery Presence was seen as an all-powerful god in so many cultures.

To tap into the energizing and centering power of the astrological Sun, consider its placement in your natal chart. Feed your Sun by following the journey of its sign through the path of its house, and it will strengthen and invigorate you, and help give your life meaning and purpose. A healthy Sun makes it easier to express all the rest of your chart in a healthy way.

Our solar oven taps into the energy of the astronomical Sun. The oven is light and portable, easily carried outside. Food takes about twice as long to cook, although you can leave the oven outside longer with no harm to the meal. Nothing burns or sticks to the pans. Food tastes juicier, more moist, and just plain better. The oven uses no electricity and does no harm to the environment. Interested? Check out The Solar Oven Society website

And that's just one very tiny example. We hope that the world's governments realize how much power is available overhead for going green.

-Jodie