Blog
by Steven Forrest, copyright 2000.
This article first appeared in The Mountain AstrologerPLEASE NOTE: Steven no longer does chart rectifications. Contact Braden Diotte or Shirley Waram to have your birth time rectified.
"I don't know the time of my birth." Any working astrologer hears that line a few times a month. In rectification—the craft of discovering the true Ascendent of a birthchart—the first rule is never accept an "I don't know" statement on face value! Always, without fail, make a strenuous attempt to discover the recorded birth time...which is often actually available, many times quite easily. Don't let a client's hesitation to search compromise your work!
When is the following declaration the saddest, bitterest thing you've ever heard? "I will always be your friend."
Sweet words, most of the time. Real friendship is precious. But most of us have felt that terrible sting--the word "friend" when it comes out of the mouth of someone with whom we are in love in a romantic, mating way. Being downgraded to "friend" means rejection. Something upon which we have staked a big piece of our lives is taken away. We know it and our lover knows it too.
True friendship is a rare and wonderful thing; I don't mean to belittle it. We share interests; we celebrate each other's victories and commiserate in failure and pain. We share values and assumptions. Unspoken understandings abound. Like good jazz players, we even interrupt each other at exactly the right, comfortable moments. You can feel that kind of friendship instantly. You meet someone at a party and there's an instantaneous sense of being on the same page. Everything a friend does is all right.
A Quest for Wisdom and Balance
by Douglas "Dag" Rossman
In seeking to develop a personal philosophy that is both emotionally and intellectually satisfying, many of us shallow-rooted European-Americans have been drawn to the world views expressed by Native Americans or peoples of the Far East. Appealing as this approach may be, it is very difficult for most people to become completely attuned to a cultural heritage that is not their own. While one can respect and admire "the Other," most of us will always remain to some extent an outsider, a visitor in someone else's culture. The sense of truly belonging that we all crave continues to elude us.
by Jodie Forrest
This article first appeared in The Mountain Astrologer magazine. Reprinted with permission.Do you give astrological readings? What planet are you most likely to hurry through if time is pressing? Mercury, most likely. And little wonder: the Mercury-Hermes of classical Greek and Roman mythology could be passed over as a message-carrying youth, a glib and quicksilver lightweight. Mercury is a quick-witted deity of logic and order--lord of the logical left brain, as it were.
Certainly that can be an accurate description astrologically. Accurate, but incomplete. Even the classical world also saw Mercury as a psychopomp--a guide of souls to the Underworld--and as the ruler of crossroads and other transitional states.
I am often asked to comment on the old "fate versus free-will debate." My short answer is a very emphatic focus on personal responsibility, creativity, and choice. Here's the long answer.
