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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.

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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 Underlying the “chop,” however, is a deeper process: old, outdated structures are shaken to make way for breakthroughs and pulses of evolution.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.”

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by Steven Forrest

Chiron makes a Station on the Fourth of July, turning retrograde at about 2.5 degrees of Aries. Meanwhile, Saturn is already retrograde at about 5.5 degrees of Capricorn. So they are making a square aspect within about a three-degree orb right as those Chironic energies come to a peak.

Here’s where it gets strange. Since both bodies are retrograde after the 4^th, Chiron is already “ahead” of Saturn in the backwards race – and Saturn is too slow to catch up. Chiron escapes into Pisces on September 26^th. Saturn, already seeing the futility of the chase, gives up on September 6^th, turning around at about 2.5 degrees of Capricorn and heading direct again.

Chiron doesn’t venture back into Aries again until mid-February 2019. By then Saturn is too deep into Capricorn for the square to form. The next perfect – or “partile” – aspect that the two bodies make does not happen until 2021 when they are sextile for a few months. By then Saturn is out of Capricorn and into Aquarius, while Chiron is still in Aries.

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Uranus is famous for providing surprises and it sure worked for me a couple of days ago! I was speaking at the United Astrology Conference in Chicago. On Monday night, transiting Uranus was just 0°28' from conjuncting my natal north node of the Moon. “Expect the unexpected” is the classic advice. And it sure worked! I won the Regulus Award for Astrological Education.

I don’t mean to sound disingenuously modest here. I know my work is popular and that I have a high profile in the world of astrology. It seems that winning an award should not come as a total shock. But it did. Some of my surprise derived from simple experience. I had often been nominated, and never won. I had no reason to think this time would be any different.

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by Steven Forrest

Call me old-fashioned, but in this age of digital relationships, I like to ring the bells for the magic of good old face-to-face, eye-to-eye human contact. That is especially true when I am teaching astrology. Something special happens between my students and myself in my classes, something beyond what is available in any other way. My favorite way to say it is that, unlike the digital world, life is composed of more than audio and video tracks.

I think of a treasure: my friendship with Robert A. Johnson, the great Jungian writer and thinker. I had read all his work avidly. It had sunk into my own thinking and had made a real impact on the way I practiced astrology. But when the fates brought us together as neighbors a few years ago, I felt that I understood his work in a much more multidimensional way. It had already entered my mind; but after getting to know him, it sunk into my heart.

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There are many challenges connected with being a professional astrologer, but blessedly getting older is not one of them. Unlike runway models, athletes, and rock stars, a few “credibility lines” on the face only enhance our plausibility in the role.

Another plus is that, the older you get, the more transits you have personally experienced. No one asks a teenager about the second Saturn return!  Let’s celebrate this under-appreciated dimension of our field. Not old yet? Well, maybe you aspire to be . . .

We hope you enjoy this keynote presentation from the 2013 NORWAC conference. 

by Tony Howard

Mars buddied up with Saturn in Capricorn at the end of March, and almost instantly I started hearing from friends whose charts are triggered by this aspect. One friend with transiting Mars-Saturn squaring her natal Pluto wrote, “I’m feeling confronted with this left, right and center.” You can hear Mars in the word “confronted” and the overwhelm feeling that can be associated with any transit to Pluto. So let’s work out how to respond to this energy in a constructive way.

Last year I was invited to speak about Mars to Frank Clifford’s London School of Astrology. As part of my lecture, I spoke about Mars-Saturn aspects in the natal chart. After looking at some Mars-Saturn charts in preparation, the word “tenacious” came to mind. So I Googled quotes with the word “tenacious” and amazingly, the first three quotes were all spoken by prominent people with Mars-Saturn aspects.

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Mars, currently in Sagittarius, enters Capricorn on March 17^th, joining Saturn and Pluto there. Interestingly, around the same time, it also goes “out of bounds,” crossing south of the Sun’s most southerly possible declination. Mars remains in that strange, volatile “OOB” condition until early April. On April 1, it forms its conjunction with Saturn. Finally, back within bounds, it catches up with Pluto on April 26^th.    

It promises to be a colorful few weeks.

Before I attempt to unravel all this moving symbolism, first let’s have a quick word about what it means when a planet goes out of bounds just so we are all up to speed. It’s an easy concept – imagine Earth’s equator projected onto the heavens. Planets are usually above it or below it, just like New York is north of Buenos Aires and they lie on either side of the equator. In the sky, what we call “latitude” here on Earth is called “declination.”

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"A Man Born Before His Time"
by Vernon Robinson

Bayard Rustin was the chief strategist for Martin Luther King’s famous march on Washington, but he was also a behind-the-scenes force in various rights movements, including Civil Rights, Labor Rights and Gay Rights. A man born before his time, he was a black, gay, pacifist (WWII), radical at a time when each of those identities worked against the grain of the dominant culture. He believed in changing the status quo to have a more democratic and equal society. Rustin has not been as well-known as other historical figures, perhaps because of his sexuality and the times he lived in, but also because others in the movement considered him a liability. We’ll talk about that shortly.

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by Steven Forrest

“In like a lion, out like a lamb” is a proverb generally associated with the month of March.  Blame it on global warming, but I think we will see that happy transition occurring a little earlier this year, in February.  And I am not exactly talking about weather reports.  The warming trend I am expecting is in the human heart.  The month begins with an unusual concentration of energies in feisty, often-contrarian Aquarius. By mid-month, we begin to see a mass migration into milder Pisces.

Let’s look at the astrological specifics for starters, then dive into their meaning and purpose.

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