Blog
by Steven Forrest
Jupiter is in Sagittarius now and it will stay there until December 2, 2019. Since Jupiter “rules” that sign – and also famously has dominion over Lady Luck – there’s a pervasive tendency among astrologers to view this as an innately wondrous thing, as if all of us can expect an avalanche of winning lottery numbers, true love, and weight loss.
Fear not: we are not going to say the opposite! But this big Jupiter event does offer us a chance to think some deeper thoughts about what it means for any planet, and Jupiter in particular, to be “in its own sign.”
Here’s the simplest way to say it: when a planet passes through a sign that it rules, it does not become “better;” it just becomes stronger. The good or bad of it depends, as ever, on how you use that energy rather than on the configuration itself. In that rulership situation, it is as if you are cutting a piece of wood with a hand saw. When you are cutting across the grain, it’s hard work. When you are cutting along the natural lines of the grain, it’s much easier. The lay of the grain and the direction of your efforts are in alignment.
As we enter November, the big news looming on the astrological front is that the lunar nodes are about to change signs. That is always a crucial development even though it happens every year and a half.
What does it signify?
Two things: first, that the nature of the collective “karmic chickens coming home to roost” is about to shift dramatically.
The second is that we will soon see the births of children who are members of a very different soul-tribe than the babies who’ve been born since early 2017. That is because south node energy is what you see in a newborn baby’s eyes, at least once you have stripped away all the required rhapsodic cooing. Babies are as human as you or me, warts and all. As the south node switches signs, the nature of the warts switches too.
Here are the details:
On November 15, the lunar north node – always retrograde – backs out of Leo and enters Cancer, where it will remain until June 4, 2020.
by Steven Forrest
The August 2018 edition of Ed Snow’s wonderful Astrology News Service revealed the results of a survey he had conducted among members of the astrology organizations. It turns out that 68.5% of the five hundred astrologers he surveyed accepted the idea of reincarnation, while only a tiny 12% disagreed with the idea.
That so many of us practicing this craft believe in prior lifetimes came as a big surprise to me. Reincarnation is of course fundamental to evolutionary astrology. But, while it is increasingly popular, evolutionary astrology is still a minority voice in the larger context of our profession. I would have imagined that far fewer astrologers were concerned with who they or their clients were in their past lives. But more than two-thirds of us do.
by Tony Howard
The Mr Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor has been the sleeper summer indie movie hit, suggesting that its poignant message is just right for the times we’re living in. With a focus on the short supply of human decency, respect, compassion and tolerance, at this moment in history the film feels, as Alissa Wilkinson at Vox points out, “radically subversive.” How did we get here?
The answer to that question is of course long and complex. But it’s my hope that everyone receiving this email resonates with Fred Rogers’ mission, which is distinctly Piscean: We’re all sisters and brothers here, with insecurities, fears, problems. So why not support each other with care and kindness?
Rogers had such a lasting impact, in part because, as the documentary shows, he walked his talk.
Like many of you, I’m so jaded by the high drama of the news cycle and of sensational documentary exposes that I found myself waiting on the edge of my seat for the “big reveal.” But it never came. It turns out that the big revelation was that Rogers was the guy we all thought he was - and that his mission hasn’t lost its power or importance.
With its eighty-four year orbit, Uranus – the fabled Lord of Earthquakes and Lightning Bolts – enters a new sign of the zodiac about every seven years. As befits its dramatic title, when it enters a sign, any area of life connected with that symbol is due to hit some choppy air. Underlying the “chop,” however, is a deeper process: old, outdated structures are shaken to make way for breakthroughs and pulses of evolution. As befits the lightning bolt metaphor, these pulses can happen very rapidly. Like earthquakes, they can, in the blink of an eye, change the shape of the landscape forever.
What does Uranus’ entry into Taurus portend for us, both as human societies and as individual beings? In this month’s newsletter, I want to wrestle with the “big picture” perspective – what this event means for the world. We are also simultaneously releasing a two-hour program I recorded regarding the event’s more personal dimensions.
Before we stroll out on the thin ice of global prediction, let’s remember that of all the planets, Uranus is the least predictable. Seeing it arriving at a sensitive point in a client’s birthchart, many an astrologer suggests a strategy of “expecting the unexpected.”
