the weather inside me

yer ego lookin' for a good fight? help for the holidays.

The thing is, who really knows how to fight well?

With that Leonine Mars screeching to a halt this week as he prepares to go retrograde, our Lion is pawing the ground and churning up a ton of dust in an already tense season.  So I'm interested (but not surprised) about the number of articles popping up now on astro sites about verbal and physical abuse, bullies, back family relationships, etc.

Leo tells us a lot about our ego's instincts, and Mars tells us what we want to fight for and how we go after it. In Leo, there's gonna be a lot of self-expression and Mars gives us motivation. So we're motivated to express ourselves. Both are fiery, so expect anything from the "once more into the breech" call to charge at the enemy --to death-by-the-pricks-of-a-thousand-fire-ants. So you might experience big blow ups or a stream of constant snarky stabs --ouch ouch ouch. There's nothing cerebral about this vibe right now. Enthusiasm, not strategy rules the day.

Now pair that fire with someone who doesn't understand boundaries. Fire blazes right through boundaries.

If you're like me and have spent a lifetime with a verbal bully, you'll immediately understand what's offered in these articles. You will recognize the fear, the sense of displacement, the questioning of your own sanity, the anger you try to deny. "If I can only make this better for them," you say as they demand more and more 'help', "I can get on with my life." But it never works that way. Trust me.

IF and that's IF you're dealing with someone who's got a poorly developed concept of self/ego you'll find yourself facing the ugly side of all this. And don't fall into some sanctimonious assumption you're not one of these poor souls. We all have soft spots and sore, battered parts who want attention. If you were reared by a verbal bully, you have probably fallen into their pattern at some point: to protect yourself you became the bully instead of the victim. The script is so ingrained that you know both parts all too well. I learned this hard way, and the lesson stunned me into some pretty serious self-examination.

The holidays are notorious for hauling all our unspoken needs out of the closet for an airing. We hear "Get me this!" "Spend time with me!" "Why haven't you called Auntie So-and-So since last New Year's?" Guilt-trips GALORE. You, me, everybody. Secretly we're trying to make our little lives Hallmark-card-perfect.

Leo, being a fixed sign, has no interest in playing along or accommodating anyone's script but his own. This could be a good thing for you, if you're trying to break off abusive patterns. But remember the other party is digging in their paws, too. Grrrr...

So.

Here are a couple of favorite articles for your holiday adventures, with very practical and kind help for recognizing and managing the control dramas. I hope you found them as helpful as I did. Please read the comments, too; you may just hear your own story in another person's words.

Tactics and Strategies of Batterers and Other Abusive People --Aquarius Papers

[excerpt] There is no way anyone can please a batterer. They will always find reasons why you're wrong, or don't get it, or why you must address their concerns. As I demonstrated yesterday, even when you logically deconstruct their reasoning and refute their supposed "proofs" that you are wrong, to blame, etc., they will consistently refuse to address what you've said, and will throw more accusations and demands that they expect you to answer to their satisfaction. And of course they're never satisfied.

'OM' For The Holidays --Planet Waves

[except] Sometime in my late twenties, a suspicion began sneaking up on me that the difficulties recurring in my relationships with women might have something to do with my connection to the woman I’ve always had the most difficulty with. (Take a guess!) My mother is one of the most passionately headstrong and expressive women I have ever met. She really voices her opinions and lets her feelings fly. Throughout childhood and on into young adulthood, I often felt swallowed up and overpowered by her emotional energy. It felt to me as if there was no room in our relationship for my own feelings, and even for my emerging (or submerging!) identity. My coping mechanism was to play the game of see-saw. When she raised her voice, I lowered mine. When she emoted, I suppressed. When she expressed caring, I danced at a distance.

It was a painful dance. My mother felt hurt, and she let me know it. I felt both guilty and resentful, and let nobody know it. I became an expert in emotional camouflage.

Art: Gene Flores.

mercury into capricorn

Mercury moves into Capricorn today, squaring the Aries Point, and will pair up with Pluto on the same degree (2+ Capricorn) December 7th. Thus beginneth the Capricorn season.

We'll have about ten weeks of Capricorn thinking this year: Mercury goes retrograde the day after Christmas (aka Boxing Day) and then resumes its forward path January 15th where it will remain in Capricorn until February 10th. Ten weeks. Whew.

Soon each of the personal planets (Mercury, Venus, the Sun and the Moon) will pass by Sir Pluto, pushing all our dear Cappy friends into new realms of selfhood. We Cappys are such Nervous Nellies and Pluto sitting in our sign for the next fourteen years will no doubt make us or break us, so be kind to our neuroses this holiday season. 

On the other hand, if you get rebuffed by a Cap, don't take it too hard. If they feel anything like me, they are so not into your games these days. Whatever games they are. Doesn't matter. Was having a laugh at myself after I realized Mercury had already moved into Capricorn because today I've noticed the shift in my approach to others right now: if you've got a serious offer or a legitimate/thoughtful plan, we'll talk; otherwise, I've got better things to do --and one of 'em is not you.

I know, hard core.

Still, there's that fishy/mystic interior life that Caps work so hard to hide. But with Mars still in Leo and Mercury now in your own house, any opportunity for self-expression won't go unnoticed these days. In fact, if you're a creative Cappy, I imagine these would be pretty fertile times for you.

So welcome, Mercury.

Sculpture: Max Ernst, "Capricorn" (1964).

full moons over december 2009

Full Moon Question: What are you all monkey-minded about? What's the chatter about, anyway?

So one full moon down and one to go. Sorry about the delay, but my own child (whose moon is in Gemini) was a bit loony yesterday. Natch.

As you can expect from a Full Moon in Gemini, those parts of you that respond to mutable themes of adaptability/mobility (any parts of your chart represented by Gemini, Saggitarius --especially-- but also Virgo and Pisces), you might be a bit monkey-minded this week. Full Moons tend to polarize our thinking though, so beware pushing yourself into a mental corner and thinking "no, no, I want this and that but I can only want this..." Why does it have to be one or the other? Oppositions demand we find some mid-point and integrate the two impulses. Otherwise we hurl ourselves from one desire/force to the other --and drive ourselves batty-- or we camp out on one end of the polarity and throw rotten tomatoes at our "other" self, the one we don't want to deal with.

 Today's talk about President Obama's Afghasnistan speech is a good example of a Full Moon Gemini moment on a public/nation scale. You have the theme of duality (Gemini) two approaches to the conflict, and then you've got a big moment of awareness with this defining speech (the full moon effect), and then you've got the polarizing debate (Sun/Moon opposition that occurs each full moon) about more or fewer troops, definite time limit or indefinite time limit.

The Sun is in Saggitarius, emphasizing foreign affairs, and the Moon (which in mudane/political astrology usually represents the people at home --Us in the US) is in Gemini. So the people at home are polarized/divided/a bit monkey-minded about the situation overseas. We're getting a lot of numbers and dates, but no one's sure what to believe or what we really need. 30 thousand troops? Is that enough? Enough for what? ...the debate goes on.

But I think Obama got it right last night. Here's my two-bit summary of the speech--and note the background emphasis of the Saturn/Pluto vibe: This really, really sucks, but we have to do it and I'm not going to make anyone happy about the way I'm going to do it. Because, hear me clearly: this sucks.

As I say, you don't need an astrologer to tell you this, but it's nice to see the symbolism in action.

Okee...And one full moon to go!

December 31st brings us another Full Moon along with a partial lunar eclipse. (!) Yes, New Year's Eve. This time the full moon is in the sign of Cancer, the home, family, ma, comfort food and yer roots. This will land on the same degree (10+), but in a cardinal sign, not a mutable. So less waffle room.

I'm anticipating this bringing some larger understanding of what truly feels like "home" to you. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is a clown making faces. Pretty good, there, because I feel most at home with people who share my sense of humor.

But keeping a good sense of humor is difficult over the holidays. Can you laugh with (at?) your own neurotic/crazy/dysfunctional family of origin? Oh lord, that's a good question. Can I? Some days, yes. I won't talk about the other days.

Now about that eclipse.

The eclipse will happen on the degree the Sun occupied when Uranus turned retrograde last summer (10+ Cancer). Now the Moon will pass over this degree (as it already has four times since July 2, 2009), but this time an eclipse will happen on that point. Eclipses, as I've said, close out something in our lives to allow a new influence or expression to emerge. They are like chapter endings/beginnings. Lunar eclipses bring emotional developments, like releasing old hang-ups and hurts. Lunar eclipses rip up old mental scripts and tapes, too.

If you've been tracking your personal growth path from last summer's eclipse season, think about the changes you've experienced or the risks you've taken since last summer. They might be subtle, but that's okay.

The way I'm looking at the December 31st eclipse as it ties to the earlier Uranus retrograde is like this: last summer you may have thought to yourself "I want to look/be/express myself like this". That's the Sun getting you aligned with a new development in yourself as an individual (Uranus). But you've encountered a bunch of hang-ups and blocks in being this new person, which, you know, is not unusual or unexpected when you're trying to develop yourself. Now comes this December Lunar Eclipse to knock down one (or a bunch) of those hang-ups and blocks that are hindering whatever you identified with or hoped to be last summer.

So often we get the vision (the Sun) of ourselves when our emotional development lags behind (the Moon). Yep.

AND THERE'S MORE FOR DECEMBER. Much more. Alas, here endeth the lesson of the Full Moons. Be back later for the rest of the story...

Art: James Grashow, "The Great Monkey Project," 2006, detail; DeCordova Museum.

Photo, middle: The New York Times, December 2, 2009.

Below: Art Durkee, Japanese brush.

moon in gemini: time for your inner twin!

Gemini, the sign of the twins, is known as a bit of a trickster. He likes games of wit and loves to tease, and well, if there's two sides to be found on any point, he'll advocate them both. It's not that he's incapable of discrimination it's just that he's constitutionally incapable of leaving any detail out of his toy box of ideas. And they key word here is toys. Ideas are playthings!

Occasionally he forgets the details and assigns them instead to his invisible friend --The Inner Twin. Watch now as the Gemini Inner Twin asks the corespondents at The Daily Show about the Trickster's favorite gimmick --lying.

From September 10-12 the moon will be in Gemini, which could keep your communications life lively while we motor through this Mercury Retrograde period. Inner Twins on the loose everywhere.

You want my advice? Double and triple read instructions; check your Target receipts twice for over-rings (always a good idea); don't believe the first thing someone tells you --fact check it; and don't assume all the details are in or all the facts are on the table. Have a talk with your own Inner Twin on the truthiness of your own motives. Play mind games extra responsibly.

If you're an ethical play pal now, Momma will let you have an extra big slice of chocolate cake when the Moon slips into Cancer Saturday afternoon. Promise.

the mars in leo preview: six months of glow-y ol' you!

Mercury is this morning in the last degrees of Cancer and by tomorrow will move into the sign of Leo. This is so important, folks.

But first, a word or two about ol' pussy cat Leo.

The energy of Leo, at its best, shines an aura of unforgettably wonderful love and creative ju-ju. A good Leo is generous and noble and kind, the sort of the person who lets you feel as if you've just been kissed by blue skies and summer morning sunshine. The sort of person who doesn't keep accounts because how could anyone ever measure themselves against the true strength of the Sun? Keeping accounts is just too small for Leo, and a good Leo knows this.

Bad Leos, unfortunately, take all that sunshine upon themselves and there's no end to their need to hog the spotlight, conversation, or project. It's all about them, them, them. Instead of live-giving warmth, they feel like a bad sunburn after boring picnic.

I say all this because we will be thinking Leonic thoughts very soon! What kind of Leo in your brain do you want to be, then? Wise, noble, generous, creative, life-giving, heart-enlarging, playful Leo? Or diva, self-absorbed and upstaging Leo?

And why are all these thoughts important? Because in mid-October Mars will move into the sign of Leo and stay there for about SIX months. That's a heck of a looooong time for one of the inner "personal" planets, folks! Usually, we see them pass through a sign with the period of a month or so. The duration of this visit is in part due to the retrograde motion Mars will take up the week of Christmas. This retrograde will continue until March, when Mars will finally turn direct and finish its path through the last degrees of Leo.

So whatever part of you life gives way to Leo's themes will get a MAJOR workout all fall and winter, nay even unto early spring.

Mercury brings us thoughts; Mars puts those thoughts into action. Mercury will arrive in Leo July 18th; Mars will arrive in Leo October 16th. Consider this now: What thoughts do you want to spend six months doing something about? Because by October you'll be putting thoughts into real action.

Here's an example: say the theme of Leo rules your work life, so in your everyday work you really need a chance to "perform" in some creative capacity. When I say creative, I don't necessarily mean paintbrushes and canvases. Creativity is fundamentally an act of self declaration: "Joe Schmoe was here!" And that creativity could equally apply to starting a new business or having a baby. See what I'm saying here? You create something. You put yourself out there. You get something new, something that hasn't popped out of your fabulous head and hands yet --into the world.

This is just one example. There are loads more I could offer, but what's most important is that you think with your heart right now, wherever it leads you to be more generous, gracious, life-affirming, creative, playful, sexy and fun.

Now is the time to be ruminating, discussing, debating, playing around with your personal form of creativity and heart-fire in words. By fall, those thoughts will jump into ACTION.

So, you know: think about it.

Photo credit: Robert Miller.

an invitation to frequently ask questions

I’ve been contemplating a series of entries,  a sort of Frequently Asked Questions theme centered on my personal whys and hows of astrology. Strictly personal, nothing handed down from God, or Robert Hand (who's a close second), for that matter.

I think this is important; at some point everyone plying a trade or pursuing an interest/study has to defend why they’re committed all this ________ (whatever) on us: artists have to make a statement about their work, teachers have to declare a philosophy of education, ministers and priest have to commit to a creed. My (whatever) for the moment is astrology. Somehow I need to think about what I’m thinking about --and question what I'm thinking about.

Again, my goal is personal: I want to explore my own ideas and I want to articulate them. As potentially damaging as it could be to think aloud on this site (and find my developing thoughts googled into the ether), I do feel this thinking aloud process is the most human presentation I can make for astrology.

If you have questions about astrology --how or why it does/does not work-- feel free to email me them. I may not be able to answer them all but I do want to know what puzzles you about the craft.

Thus far I’m imagining these topics, which are the typical comments I hear:

If you’re an astrologer, what/who do you worship?
Do you know how to get rich/when you will die?
Why do astrologers always hype things to be such a big, damned deal?
Why didn’t I get a date like my horoscope said I would?
How can 1/12th of the human race all be alike?
Are we all just programmed? Or do we still have choices?
Can you tell by my chart that I slept with my cousin when we were 15?
Er...and what do you do with the information in my chart?

You're perfectly welcome to send me one of your own questions!

Photo Credit: Vantiani, etsy.

wish moon soon

Write your wishes on the door and come in.
Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon.
--Carl Sandberg, poet

Blessing. Like sweet summer fruit laden on the tree, this moment is ripe and ready for the eating.

Longing, compassion and synthesis --the blending of self and eternity. The contrast of self against the backdrop of eternity. The complicity of an unending thread of DNA leading to your back door where the work of a dozen generations have left basketloads of uneaten harvests.

This a month for wishes; this is the turning point of the year.

Wishes can be scary things: they embody our deepest fears, even when we think we’re envisioning our highest hopes. There is a duality in wishes that deserve our respect. We deny them as much as we believe in them.

Wishes can also be inherited things. We think they’re ours, but they’re not. Inspect a few and you find that many of your wishes are like baskets of overripe zucchini left on your back porch by a weary parent or grandparent with an over-abundance of desire and need, and nowhere to make use of them.

Out of duty or compassion we take in the zucchini wishes and preserve them for hard times. We’re not much for canning, but maybe these wishes of grandma can get us through hard times, we think. Or maybe we can just can ‘em and forget ‘em. The basement is dark enough for forgetfulness. Some of us have enough old wishes set up in our cellars to last us through the three nuclear holocausts.

That said, I suppose it’s also a good time to remember the old saw: if wishes were fishes we’d all be well fed. Which means a wish is only a ghost --the ephemeral glow of a full harvest moon or a dying moment-- if we don’t dive into the moment and come up with something alive in our needy hands. Alive, not left over, unwanted, pickled and preserved. Wishes don't have to be scary and burdensome.

Do you feel alive? Or left-over, unwanted, pickled and preserved?

Do you feel the moment building? I do. It scares the hell out of me, but I do.

It's the scrape of hard fiberglass board beneath your feet and your toes edging over, nervously playing with the thin hot summer air. You are nine miles high in the sky and your best friend waves at you, feebly, like an ant in the far distance. You cannot hear her but you can hear your heart. Everyone can hear your heart.

Behind you someone shouts, “Just do it!” Then a shrill shriek from somewhere. You?

You dive. Your is brain falling faster than your stomach, which is still six miles behind you unable --and unwilling-- to catch up. Your brain is shrieking something in Kazakh; you don’t even want to know-- You clutch your head. A concrete wall rushes up to you and you slam into it like a sledgehammer as your stomach lands right on your disappearing ass.

You broke through.

You are still you. You are wet and quivering, but whole. And you are the something alive in your own needy hands.

You are the wish.

Write yourself on your door. Come, stand out in the moon.

(Keep this in your pocket, sweets.)

Photo credits: (first) Laurent Lavender; (second) Mark Surman.

Mal-apropo: Palin finally gets it right

Editor’s note: the following piece is written by Shanna Philipson, a recent addition to the Planet Waves blogging team. Her first piece, Yer-Anus: Astrology Comes Out of the Closet, was published on Monday. –RA

 Nov. 1, 2008

“Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me.” – Sarah Palin, at a Republican rally in Tampa, Florida, regarding the controversy of her campaign wardrobe.

Sarah Palin waves as she arrives in Pennsylvania on Oct. 8, in one of her new expensive outfits paid for by the RNC. Her bag reads: "Real Women Hunt Moose." Photo by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.

Dear Friend and Reader,

THIS HAS GOT TO BE my favorite moment from this week. When it comes to politics, I’m a bonafide cynic, and for years I’ve maintained that, outside of professional theatre, there’s nothing more staged than a national political convention — or the rallies that follow the nominations. 

I happen to have a BFA, was trained as a costume designer and worked a few years in professional theatre, so I know the score. And I see political campaigns for what they are — theatre.

So when Sarah Palin got up before a campaign rally this past week and declared, in essence, that her clothes were just costumes, and every campaign event was staged like a theatrical performance, I had myself a good, long laugh. Yeah, sister — you preach it! Tell it like it is.

Of course, this totally pissed off the McCain people. The reaction according to Dana Bash on CNN was particularly ugly and personal, the sort of gross generalization and ad hominem attack that typically spikes my cynicism about politics. Bash quotes an “adviser” from the McCain camp about Palin’s independent statements, like the campaign wardrobe defense:

“‘She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone…She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

Palin may be a “diva” and America’s next great emerging narcissist of national politics, but she’d only be filling the role of possible Savior that hundreds of politicians before her have also played. So why attack her? Because she dared to breach the fourth wall of political illusion that depends on faith. Yes, faith.

Both religion and politics depend on faith, which in this case I’ll define as a willingness to look beyond material reality to the hope and promise of what might be. Living, as I do, in the south, I see this openly demonstrated by the religious faithful, but (not being especially politically active) I had not encountered it in the politically faithful until about a decade ago, when I returned to Yankee territory to attend a high school reunion.

It was there that I ran into my old ninth grade Physical Science lab partner. She and I weren’t especially chummy back in junior high, but we were all in the advanced track, which meant her primary interest at the lab counter wasn’t blowing up our test tube vials, a fact I appreciated as I frequently watched my classmates try to burn the school down. I don’t remember much about her except her name and that she giggled a lot while I did most of the work as she flirted with the boys next to us and occasionally wrote down necessary data.

Fourteen years later, she was still giggling like a girl totally in love. This time, though, her passion had turned to a career in politics and she gushed like a woman in the throes of a recent religious conversion: John McCain, her Lord and employer, was the promised Messiah. We smiled and listened to her as we stood around, beers in hand, and reaquainted ourselves with one another. But, like most conversations with the recently converted, it was one-sided and awkward. At each turn in the conversations that night she attempted to inject a little of McCain’s aura onto each subject, and it was clear her enthusiasm for the senator dominated her whole life.

I was both annoyed and amused. See, my ninth house (the house of belief) is ruled by discriminating Virgo, a practical earth sign, and it’s there where my Pluto resides; moreover, that Pluto trines my Mercury in Capricorn (another grounded, practical earth sign) in my second house (the home of values and possessions).

This configuration grants me extra sensitivity to the beliefs people value — and I’m particularly attuned to ideas that aren’t grounded by modesty, reason and the intellectual equivalent of “sweat equity.” To put it bluntly, I can smell bullshit from at least fifty paces. And my practical perspective has long seen that no politician is gonna be the Messiah, and anyone who’s got their chips invested on that number is eventually going to lose the bet — or rather, their faith. Sorry.

After reading this recent Palin story, I remembered my old lab partner, the True Believer, and I imagined her still laboring for her beloved Prophet of American Destiny — fuming at the implication that what they were doing was anything less than genuine, derived only from the best notions of what would be good for the country. To suggest artifice would be heresy: how dare anyone doubt The Ascended Master McCain! How dare anyone imply this is just a show.

When December comes around and we’re tallying up the year, I’m going to nominate this moment as one of 2008’s Saturn-Uranus’ Top Twenty Greatest Hits. How else would you attribute this unusually forthright statement about our political traditions? How else would you explain Palin’s Uranian “rogue” outbursts at odds with McCain’s Saturnian (and fearful) control-freaky campaign handlers?

However you think of her, I’m loving the idea that Palin upset the McCain apple cart by stating what everybody knows is obvious, but no one in either campaign was willing to admit aloud: the Emperor just wears costumes.

Yours & truly,
Shanna Philipson

There's a problem with Yer-anus! My one thesis about astrology.

Below is my first contribution to Planet Waves Astrology News, a unique independent journalism project that emphasizes an interplay of art, astrology, and political/cultural commentary and analysis. I am grateful to be invited into the process, and I hope you take a moment to visit PWAN and see what's posted today.

*****

Editor’s Note: Today we are introducing a new contributor to Daily Astrology & Adventure, named Shanna Philipson. I won’t try to describe her writing; but she is doing something with astrology, casting it in her own unique light. Welcome Shanna. — Eric Francis

Dear Friend and Reader,

There’s a problem with yer-anus!

Sorry to pull out my third grade humor on you, but around here that’s how they say it.

Yer-ayyyyy-nus! None of that dignified Ivy League tea and crumpets ur-ah-nus for us. No, I live in the South and we’re pretty much the anus type in these parts.

Actress Joanna Belloni during the filming of Louis & Anne, a film by Austin Alward. Photo by Danielle Voirin.

We also like our astrology neatly buried in the back of the local indie paper where it’s read in private, in the john, even at the funky independent local coffee house. I know this because, while I never see anyone openly reading the weekly horoscopes, they do keep showing up in the bathroom of my coffee house–always on the little table next to the spare toilet paper rolls.

I don’t know who does this, but I imagine a church-going, middle-aged mother of three who, ashamed of her addiction to Rob Brezney, must satisfy her curiosity about her weekly destiny in the quiet confines of the women’s room. All this sneaking around shouldn’t surprise me. The South, sadly, lives up to its reputation for repressive conservatism: we do a lot of things in bathrooms we would never admit to our coffee buddies. But I got a strong suspicion we’re not much different than most of America.

Which is why there’s still a problem with Ur, uhm…anus. And no one wants to know about it. Or rather, if they did know about it I’m pretty sure they’d get up a petition and campaign to demote Uranus from planet status like poor ol’ Pluto. Why? Because yer-ayyyy-nus is about to start a revolution.

Or rather, a reformation. On the eve of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, it’s important, I think, that we not forget Reformation Day. If you haven’t been to church in a while, or if you come from a non-Protestant background, you may not be familiar with Reformation Day. It comes each Oct. 31st and it marks the day Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Church.

Yes, Oct. 31, 1517 all hell (or heaven, depending on your position) broke loose on the Official Church. And Luther precipitated a true Scorpionic transformation that hinged on death — what later became the 30 Years War and the death of many, but was initially built upon the objection that the Church could buy and sell indulgences like lottery tickets or Get-Out-of-Hell-At-A-Price cards.

All Saints’ Day, as the Roman Catholic Church calls it, was back then a true 8th house head-trip. All Saint’s Day was the one day of the year where, if you could get to a church and press your way past the sea of smelly peasants and then merely glimpse the bones of a dead saint, you could negotiate the terms of your time in purgatory — for free.

Doing business with Death with the relics of death — how much more Scorpionic is that? It was on this day that Luther used this official chaos to declare his objections on the public bulletin boards that were the church doors. Anyone with an basic education in Latin would be free to read his declaration. Turns out, lots of folks had basic Latin.

With a psychologically compelling mess of an election ahead of us (politics is getting out of hell for a price), the unusual Saturn-Uranus opposition beginning, and the once in a lifetime advent of Pluto into Capricorn, I think this Scorpionic Reformation Day is particularly auspicious. So I’m going to propose my own thesis. I don’t have time (and you wouldn’t have the patience) for 95, so I’ll satisfy myself with just one.

So here’s my declaration:

Astrology isn’t sinful — or weird. So stop reading it in the john. Stop reading it on your laptop when you think no one is looking. Stop blushing when you try to share something you read at Planet Waves. Come out, I say! Declare yourself.

It’s just a language, folks. Okay, it may be a lot of other things to other people, but at heart, it’s just a different language we need to express the human experience. Yes, we need it. Just as we need trees, and flowers, and streams and purple mountains’ majesty, we need the planets and the stars and nebulas and a Galactic Center to describe and enjoy our life here on earth.

An old songwriter once said it this way:

The heavens declare the glory of G-d,
The skies proclaim the works of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
Night after night they display their knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.

The skies speak to everyone — everywhere. But for too long you and I have looked away and buried our noses in the alternate proof-texts of our lives — the statistical data, the spreadsheets, the social-networking pages, the TV docu-dramas, the mail-order catalogues that consume our ideas of what “real.”

It’s time we looked up and out. The heavens declare the glory of God, man.

Happy Reformation Day.

Yours & truly,
Shana Philipson