Blog

I got a worried email from a student of mine this morning. He had a client who had experienced transiting Uranus conjunct her Moon, but “nothing had happened.” He was concerned and embarrassed that his predictions had failed. I offered him a few possible explanations. As I responded to him, I realized that his question would be a fine topic for our newsletter and podcast this month.

The first point I want to make will sound pretty dogmatic, but I do believe it to be true: astrology never fails. I would quickly add that astrologers themselves often fail, but that is a different issue. Astrology is fundamental to how the universe operates. Astrology failing would be like gravity failing.

But astrologers’ predictions sometimes do fail and it behooves us not to be afraid of acknowledging that fact and perhaps learning something from it. There are a lot of potential issues here. Let’s have a look at them. 

A miracle of nature looms on America’s horizon. On August 21, starting in Oregon, racing in a grand arc across the United States, finally going offshore in South Carolina, a shadow of night will fall in the midst of day. Along the centerline of the solar eclipse’s path, stars will shine at lunchtime.  Birds will go crazy. Some people probably will go crazy too. Eleven states will experience the eerie surreality of Totality, but no state in the contiguous 48 will escape the shadow of our first American total solar eclipse since February 26, 1979 – and that one just touched the Pacific Northwest and was mostly hidden behind their famously gray skies.

Meanwhile, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, Little Green People are drooling over UFO travel brochures, dreaming of visiting Earth on August 21.  Our giraffes and hummingbirds may be cool,  but you can’t beat Earth’s most famous attraction:  a total solar eclipse.  It is just possible we are the only planet in the galaxy where this particular spectacle is available. Think about it – the Sun and the Moon, even though they look very different, are almost exactly the same visual size.  That means that the Moon fits over the Sun almost perfectly.  It’s not so small that it’s nothing at all – but also not so big that it blocks out the magnificent solar corona.  The odds against striking that happy balance are “astronomical.” Hence those UFO travel brochures.

by Steven Forrest

We are a little late on this one, but don’t worry – we haven’t missed the show! On April 28, 2017, the axis of the mean lunar nodes changed signs. The south node left Pisces, where it had been since October 9, 2015, and simultaneously entered Aquarius. (Remember that the mean nodes are always retrograde). That of course tells us that the other end of the axis – the north node – also changed signs. It left Virgo and crossed into Leo.

As usual, the nodes will remain in their new signs for about a year and a half. On November 15, 2018, they will cross over into Capricorn/Cancer.

by Tony Howard

This month the declination of Mars gets so high that it is beyond the limit set by the Sun, so we say that Mars is "out of bounds." During this time, Mars will have more freedom than usual to accomplish Marsy types of endeavors. On the high end, this could be a great time for groundbreaking work, pushing forward an innovative agenda at work or in your creative endeavors.

At the low end, when a planet is out of bounds in a natal chart, it can relate to the person being seemingly unable or unwilling to question their own desires. Mars is the planet of "I want." So when transiting Mars is out of bounds, it might be that we are less likely to question what we want, and to take actions we might regret later, when Mars comes back into "normal" range.