Blog
The devil is in the details. So are the angels sometimes. In my transits and progressions work with clients, the focus is always on the “big picture.” That grand evolutionary perspective emerges most clearly when we reflect on the slow-moving, theme-building planet — basically the transits of everything out beyond Mars, plus the progressions. In the counseling room, it is usually practical to ignore the little “firefly” transits of Mercury and Venus, or the Sun and the Moon. They go by so quickly that they don’t have much time to develop depth and complexity of meaning. But they sure “work!” Let Mercury transit over your Sun, for example, and your phone is ringing like crazy and your email inbox looks like Obama’s.
by Steven Forrest
Wait a minute! Didn’t we find the ninth planet eighty-six years ago and name it after Walt Disney’s most famous dog? No, Pluto’s now a dwarf, remember? (But who dares to tell THAT to Pluto?) But wait another minute! Astrologers have been calling the Sun and the Moon “planets.” since the beginning of astrological time—so that makes ten planets, not counting Pluto. But we WANNA count Pluto! Ask any astrologer—or at least any modern astrologer. (Some of the Classicists don’t even want to count Uranus or Neptune . . .) But, then, if we DO count Pluto, we had better count Eris too. Eris is about Pluto’s same size and mass, and if one’s a planet, then the other must be.
Like a lot of things in the modern world, such as turning on a television set or adjusting a thermostat, counting planets is a heck of a lot harder than it used to be! And it looks very much like it is about get a whole lot harder. Evidence is mounting for the existence of what astronomers are tentatively calling “Planet Nine.”
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There is a divine, evolutionary purpose behind everything that happens in the astrological sky. For me, that is the foundational principle of our craft. Aiming ourselves toward the higher ground is what it is all about — and there is always higher ground, no matter how grim the astrological configuration might appear to be. I believe in that principle fervently. It is elemental to everything I teach, write and practice with my clients.
But I’ve got to say, my knees got weak when I looked at April’s planetary patterns. On April 17th, Mars makes a station, turning retrograde, at 8°54' Sagittarius. The next day, Pluto also stations, at 17°29' Capricorn. That’s two potentially scary planets, both getting very intense at the same time.
I will stick to the best truths I know here: this combination of energies represents an open evolutionary avenue for us all. There is higher purpose in it. Astrology is the mirror in the sky.
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A couple of months ago, I wrote about the ongoing square of Neptune and Saturn and how our rational minds and our intuitive ones are currently engaged in a long, creative talk. Collectively we are invited to aim for the integration of our capacity for reason and our capacity for spirituality. We need to allow each of these modalities of thought and perception to have equal time, to encourage them to support each other as good friends do—with hard questions, helpful criticism, and unexpected insights. We observed that under this Saturn-Neptune aspect any cherished, but ungrounded spiritual beliefs we held would be challenged by pressing Saturnian reality. We could deny that challenge—and choose to live in a spiritual fairyland. Or we could accept it and become far wiser.
Equally—and a lot more fun to say—we recognized that our attachment to “grounded reason” would likely be humbled by inexplicable experiences: miracles, acts of grace, and visionary moments.
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by Steven Forrest
The current square between Neptune and Saturn has been a weird elongated one, long-foretold but only now flowering. Technically, the aspect made first “partile” (exact) contact just a few weeks ago—on November 26, 2015. The reality is, we’ve all been living with it since December 23, 2014, when Saturn first crossed into Sagittarius. Neptune was only in about 5 degrees of Pisces then—thus, well within the orbs of a square. The aspect has gone on, stronger or weaker, since then—and it will continue through this year, as two more exact squares form on June 17 and September 10.
Saturn teaches patience. In eternal Saturn fashion, the square seems to be taking longer than it needs to.
All square aspects are about tension, but this is a particularly tense one because of the antithetical natures of these two planets. In other words, there seems to be a “natural square” between Saturn and Neptune, just in terms of their basic energies.
