On my Mercury Retrograde page, I’ve said that trying to complete projects with normal efficiency during Mercury retrograde is like having a picnic in a rainstorm.  You may want to go through with the picnic, because it’s what you planned, but if you’d realized it was going to storm that day, you would have planned the picnic for another time.

Knowing Mercury retrograde is coming is like being apprised of a Details Storm, an occasion where the wind picks up and swirls office details, communications and electronics equipment functionality into eddies of confusion and mess.  Sometimes it’s best to simply batten down the hatches.  There is no way to know in advance exactly what form it will take (a fax breakdown just when you needed to get those papers to your loan officer?  A heart-stopping letter from an ex?  A life-altering, unexpected wipe of your hard-drive?)  Your best strategy is to be prepared for anything.  Clear your mind.  Clean your desk.  Take a break.  And when the emergency strikes (as you know it will!), approach it calmly, with a clear head and an open heart.

Mercury has now been retrograde for 20 days.  You may even have known that.  Are you still trying to picnic in a rainstorm?

Mercury’s retrograde stint finishes tomorrow (Oct 15), but don’t expect things to get smoother until later in the week.  In the meantime, continue the practice of taking yourself off the hook, relaxing and cultivating mental stillness.  Have that picnic next week.

Libra is one of the Cardinal signs.  Cardinal means active, motivated, driven.  Cardinality is the quality of beginnings.  This means that Libra is a motion-oriented leader, a sign that starts things.  But how can that be?  Everyone who knows something about Libra knows that Librans are famous for their inability to make decisions.  It’s hard to move forward on something when you feel the need to carefully think through every possible argument for and against it before you take action.  Why on earth is such an inherently indecisive sign also a Cardinal sign?

Libra is all about what’s fair.  This sign, above all others, is motivated to create balance and to give in measure equal to what is received.  Libra is highly sensitive to imbalance.  But it is not really possible for one human being to see into every level of both their soul and the soul of another person and to see what really, truly is fair.  Thus the dilemma:  Libra cannot truly judge what is fair and must deliberate for a long time, asking herself what is the right thing, the fair thing?

So Librans get paralyzed in indecision, unable to make a choice because they are longing for that still point of perfect balance to be struck.  But perfect balance, even if it is reached, cannot be maintained for long.  And here we find the answer to our question, because what Libra excels at is not static balance (the noun), but the act of balancing (the verb).  Balance is not a static state to be achieved, but an action, continually in progress.  If you think balancing is not active, just try the yoga “tree” pose right now and notice how active and busy your muscles are.

Since Libra is both a Cardinal and an Air sign, the (cardinal) action takes place in the (airy) mental realm.  Libra loves debate, a favorite phrase being “but on the other hand . . .”  The continual search for ideas, arguments and perspectives that will bring a discussion into balance is consummately Libran, very active and very Cardinal.

There stands Saturn, one of the old, established ones.  Perhaps he’s a corporate type, perhaps he’s a banker, perhaps he represents government.  In any case, he is the ultimate authority figure.  He steps into the ring and puts on his boxing gloves.

Opposite him is Uranus, the Rebel, the Revolutionary.  Uranus has come to make changes, very big changes.  Uranus won’t be happy until all of Saturn’s rules and regulations have been broken down.  Uranus will enjoy the reconstruction process.

Both are grinning at the thought of this fight.  They’ve been waiting a decade for it.  The last time they met in the ring like this was in 1999, when Uranus threw Saturn into an uproar by suggesting that Y2K was going to cause all the computers to break down and plunge the modern world into chaos.  Saturn had the last laugh in that battle:  we made it through to New Year’s Day 2000 just fine and now the episode seems silly, even though it was a serious concern at the time.

What tricks will Uranus have up his sleeve for Saturn this time?  It’s an election year and banks are failing.  Saturn’s traditional edifices (banking and government) are due for some changes.  If you favor a cause, agitate for it, donate to it and vote.  This year, because Uranus is awake and in fine fettle, anything could happen—anything at all.

When Venus, goddess of love and beauty, claimed Librans for her own, did she curse them to give too much and perpetually be taken advantage of in relationship?

It’s true that Librans are relaters.  It’s true that someone with strong Libran influence would rather be in a relationship than not.  It’s true that a Venus-kissed individual can lose themselves in love.  But why?

Libra loves the sensation of being in love.  For Libra, falling in love and being in love is never having to worry about what’s fair.  People in love are inherently generous and thoughtful when those happy chemicals are swimming around in their brains.  Fairness is not an issue when you’re in love.  This solves a lot of problems for the Libran individual, who can be over-generous and too thoughtful all the time, whether they are in love or not.

Libra has a strong sense of fairness and balance to begin with.  A Libran type will often give too much in order to correct a perceived imbalance.  In doing so, the Libran can violate their own boundaries and drain away their energy, all in the name of doing the “right” thing, or being kind or being nice.  If Librans are continually drawn to relationship, but then lose themselves in it, what to do?  Librans are at their best when in relationship (whether romance or friendship) with people who give and take in fairly equal measure.  They also do well with people who are inherently generous because the Libran themselves will balance the situation by giving back.

The best thing for Librans to do is to be selective about who they relate with and to keep an eye on their own boundaries.  If that best friend keeps taking advantage or that boyfriend keeps crossing your boundaries, think again.  It may not be love or friendship operating there and you may need to hold a stronger line.  And knowing that you go into the situation with a tendency toward giving and a fascination for romance can equip you to keep taking care of yourself even when the hormones are raging.  And when you give to others, don’t forget to give to yourself too.

Be Afraid—Be Very Afraid!
In astrology’s infancy, about four to five thousand years ago, eclipses were a terrifying phenomenon. The experience of day suddenly becoming night, of the moon covering and temporarily hiding the sun and the sun inexplicably disappearing brought terror to human beings. Early astrologers sought to understand and ultimately predict this phenomenon. They did become able to predict it, and ultimately became able to manipulate kings and peoples with this knowledge. Their ability to predict an upcoming eclipse and to predict also the rise and fall of crops and nations gave them unprecedented power, power which was rooted in their understanding of the natural world, but which ultimately became political. If there is a reason why astrology is hated and feared today, eclipses may well be wrapped up in it.

Interpretations of ancient astrologers were highly fatalistic, focusing on physical events to come and predicting human behavior, even death, with surprisingly consistent accuracy. But that’s not how astrology is used today. Modern western-world astrology is much less fatalistic and much more psychological. Today it is about human motivation and a person’s inner experience. We have all but lost some of the most ancient predictive techniques because of their extreme fatalism. Modern people do not want to know the date of their death, even if an astrologer today could predict it, which is not likely. It’s possible that a Vedic (Indian) or a Chinese astrologer could, but not a Western one.

The interpretation and use of eclipses has changed with the times. Although astrologers who focus on politics do continue to use them to predict the fates of rulers and nations, eclipses are more commonly used to interpret personal, individual experiences in psychological ways. And eclipses today generate more fascination and less fear.

What Is An Eclipse?
The Sun and Moon are by far the brightest objects in our sky; thus they are called the luminaries or “lights.” An eclipse is an occasion when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up so precisely that one of the luminaries becomes shadowed, and therefore goes dark.

A solar eclipse is only possible during a new moon. During a new moon, the Moon and Sun are on the same side of the Earth, so close to each other that the Moon fades from sight. This is a familiar phenomenon—it happens every month, and gradually. A solar eclipse is a special type of new Moon, one where the Moon and Sun are not only in the same general area of the sky, but also in exactly the same plane. From our view on Earth, the Moon covers the Sun and hides it from us, darkening the sky. Compared to the new Moon, this is a sudden and rare phenomenon.

It is not, however, as rare as you think. A set of eclipses, usually including a solar and a lunar, happens every six months. Not every eclipse is visible in every area of the world. This is one reason why the ancients found eclipses so fearsome—they seemed to occur at such irregular intervals. Astrologers today interpret an eclipse as having more effect in the areas where the eclipse can be seen.

A lunar eclipse is only possible during a full moon. During a Full Moon, the Moon and Sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, and the Moon is at its brightest. A lunar eclipse is a special full moon where the Earth is in the same plane with both luminaries and the Moon is therefore shadowed by the Earth. This too, is a relatively sudden and rare phenomenon and not visible to everyone on Earth.

What Is The Shadow Agent?
Sometimes during an eclipse, another planet will be close by (within 5 degrees of arc), close enough to be drawn into the themes of that eclipse. I call that planet accompanying the eclipse the “Shadow Agent.” It assists the eclipse by pointing out your shadow in its area of life. For example, Mercury points out your shadow by means of communication while Neptune points out your shadow by means of dreams and spirituality.

According to Wikipedia, the shadow side in Jungian psychology is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. Jung developed the idea of the shadow to represent that side of a human being which is held back and not consciously expressed. Some aspects of a shadow can be positive as well as negative, as some human beings repress positive traits. Jung said that the shadow, if ignored, is often projected onto other people. He also said that it can be brought up into consciousness and integrated with the rest of one’s personality.

One way to describe an eclipse is “a luminary is occluded such that we see a shadow.” Psychologically, eclipses represent the appearance of the shadow and the occasion of an eclipse contacting something in your natal chart is the perfect opportunity to get a good look at your own shadow. The shadow is, by definition hard for you to see, because it is behind you. An eclipse can bring it out and make it easier to see, thus giving you a chance to stop projecting it, own it, accept it as part of yourself and integrate it with the rest of your personality. This is uncomfortable, but it is also a gift. Much human energy is wrapped up in avoiding, projecting and hiding our shadows. When you integrate your shadow, you reclaim that energy.

The Shadow Agent is a planet (or planets) which is an agent of the eclipse and is therefore asking you to look at your shadow. It will do so according to its planetary nature. Sometimes a person in your life may take the role of the Shadow Agent for you, acting out the agenda of this planet and forcing you to look at things or areas you don’t ordinarily look at.

How Do You Know If An Eclipse Will Affect You?
You’ll feel an eclipse if it falls within 5 degrees of one of your natal planets. A good astrologer can tell you that. An eclipse’s effects are also likely to be stronger if you live in the part of the world where it can be seen directly. And an eclipse will be stronger if it is total, rather than partial. These things taken together and with a few other factors added in, will tell you the generic nature of the eclipse, the area of your life where it’s likely to affect you, and the strength of the effect. A strong eclipse is likely to be felt, at least in a background way, for six months until it is replaced by the next same-type of eclipse (solar or lunar). According to Georgia Stathis, a San Francisco Bay Area expert on eclipses, there is also likely to be a resurgence of the eclipse’s themes during the same-type lunation (New or Full Moon) three lunar cycles after the eclipse and a foreshadowing of the themes of the eclipse will happen during the same-type lunation three lunar cycles before. More on that another time.

Does the Shadow Agent make life uncomfortable? Yes. Will human beings ever enjoy looking at their shadows? Probably not. But the gift of energy returned to us when we embrace our shadow and the gift of conscious self-knowledge and acceptance are great, when we are courageous enough to accept them.

Newspaper horoscopes: Everyone has seen them. Everyone knows how ridiculous they are. You pick up the newspaper and read a short paragraph under your sun sign. You go there for a laugh or maybe you go there secretly hoping for guidance, but the result is the same. You’ve been shafted.

It is the astrologer’s perennial frustration: the impossibility of distilling astrological archetypes into anything specific that will actually mean something to everyone every time. Newspaper horoscopes don’t seem any more prophetic or synchronistic than a fortune cookie. As with a fortune cookie, I read them for entertainment only. Yes, even I, myself an astrologer, do that. Most newspaper forecasts by other astrologers are oblique to me. It is not at all obvious why they are saying what they are saying. Where did the writer get their ideas? I can’t always tell, which makes me suspicious.

Astrologers face a dilemma—to be taken seriously, they have to be noticed. To be noticed, they have to spend some of their valuable time doing “pop” astrology, in an attempt to appeal to the masses. Newspaper astrology forecasts are the ultimate dumbing-down of an otherwise useful medium of human understanding. They are popular but stupid.

Astrology is capable of generating very detailed information about human existence and human experience. Imagine that all of existence, absolutely every aspect of it, could be organized into 12 and only 12 categories. Each category would have to hold a lot of stuff, gathered under a central theme, but each theme would be so general that it would be hard to even put that central theme into words. Visualize each category, or zodiacal archetype, as a vast tree. The trunk of the tree represents a single theme, which is so grand as to be virtually incomprehensible. As the tree branches extend outward from the trunk, bits of experience get individualized and expressible, but as they continue branching out into twigs, it becomes harder to see their connections to the trunk of the tree, or to each other. They seem unrelated and it begins to seem like a stretch to group them together at all. Why would this twig, off this branch emanating from the north side of the tree have any relation to that twig over on the south side? Thus, if today is a Jupiter day, I could end up describing one side of Jupiter’s nature and you could be experiencing a totally different side, which is still Jupiter but which you didn’t know was Jupiter and therefore could not identify as such. So my focus on Jupiter might be relevant for you, but my choice of what to say about it might not.

This leaves astrologers to generalize, hoping to hit something that will be useful for most of the people, most of the time, when what people really respond to is zingers—interpretations that hit on something very specific. When you get zinged by an astrological forecast, you know it. You feel like the page you are reading is speaking to you personally.

For every interpretation an astrologer makes there are many others he could have written instead. And yet to be exhaustive would be. . . exhausting, both to write and read. Who knows how to choose which one is the best? There is no way to know. An astrologer has to simply choose. In newspaper horoscopes, the results often look random, as if they were pulled out of a hat.

Here is another thing to consider: there are other cycles we are subject to, besides astrological ones. Women are subject to menstrual cycles which can affect mood, energy level and physical ability to do things. An interpretation suggesting a strong workout that lands on a day a reader is experiencing PMS is not going to seem very pertinent! Another cycle we live by is the cycle of the work-week. An interpretation suggesting that romance is in the air on a Monday morning is not going to be of much use to a reader who has to go in to work with a sharp focus and put their social life on the back-burner for an eight-hour day, whereas such an interpretation falling on a Friday would be easier to make use of. But the planets don’t care what day of the week it is and sometimes they align in ways impossible for humans to take advantage of in real life.

I avoided the problem of forecasts for years, for over two decades of my astrological study. At this point I’ve finally succumbed and am writing a blog forecast page. I do this because people have repeatedly asked for it, but it still fills me with ambivalence. My solution to the dilemma has been to avoid writing forecasts for the sun signs. This evades the problem of arousing expectation in the reader that what I’m saying should apply to her life, personally. Instead I write a short interpretation for each day that has planetary activity, just a brief sentence or two about the astrological weather of the day itself. This enables the reader to notice the days when planetary activity triggers something in his own chart—such interpretations will stand out and feel synchronistic. The reader can then skip over the interpretations that do not call to him. This will usually be most of them.

Ultimately I’ve decided to regard my forecast “blurbs” as fortune cookies and to embrace that fact. When you read one, imagine yourself opening the cookie and reading the fortune inside. That’s how seriously you should take it (i.e. not very seriously at all). Naturally I do my best to get to the heart of the matter in each one, but I acknowledge that the medium is and forever will be imperfect. Therefore, my disclaimer: each blurb is a brief, light look at the sky at that moment. It may or may not apply to you, out there in your real life. On the rare occasions when it does, I hope it zings you a good one and adds a little synchronicity to your day.

Learn about yourself while playing silly astrology games like “Meet the Archetype,” “Soap Opera” and “Astrology Mad Libs.”

Astrology Games will be held monthly at the Church of Soul in Oakland, California, beginning this month on February 20. Everyone is welcome, from novice to professional. For details, click on “Upcoming Events” here or in the sidebar on the right.

See you there!

It’s in the right-hand sidebar.

-Jamie

In my previous article You’re Not Just Your Sun Sign I pointed out that human beings are too complex to be reduced to a single sign of the zodiac.  I hope also that I made it clear that it’s possible for a person to be a pretty strong type by virtue of having several planets in a given sign.  One way this can happen is if Mercury and Venus are in the same sign as the sun.  Because of the way the solar system is arranged, this is not at all unlikely.  Here’s why:

In our solar system, Mercury is closest to the sun.  Venus is next in line, followed by Earth, then Mars, then Jupiter and so on.  This means that from Earth’s point of view (which is what matters in astrology, because Earth is where we live) the sun, Mercury and Venus will always be in the same quadrant of sky.  You will never see Mercury opposite the sun in a birth chart and if someone tells you that you have that, they’re pulling your leg because it’s physically impossible.  Mercury will always be found in the sun’s sign or one sign ahead or behind the sun.  Venus ranges a little further, but it will never be further from the sun than two signs ahead or behind.

So in any chart, relative to the sun, Mercury has three signs it could be in, while Venus has five.  This significantly increases the statistical chances of Mercury, Venus, or both doubling up in the sun’s sign, which will intensify the sun sign traits.  This is why some people are purer types than others and it’s also why some people may identify with their sun sign very little.  If you are a solid Capricorn sun, but you have a flirtatious Aquarian Venus and a loquacious Sagittarian Mercury, you won’t feel much like a Capricorn unless you have some other planet there (or at least in another Earth sign) to back it up.  However, your Capricorn nature will out eventually, probably around the time of your Saturn return, when you are approaching 30 and find yourself suddenly taking life more seriously.

It’s fairly easy to find out where your Mercury and Venus are.  If you are curious, go to http://www.astrodienst.com.  Click on “Free Horoscopes” and then look on the left for the place to enter your birth data: “Please Click Here.”  That takes you to the page where you can enter your birth data.  If you have your accurate birth time, use it (otherwise, just put in noon).  Be sure to enter the correct city of birth.  Once you’ve done that, you’ll find yourself on a page where you can choose the type of chart you want.  Look in the Horoscope Chart Drawings section and click on “Chart Drawing” under it.

Here, at last, is your birth chart.  Your Ascendant will not be accurate if you do not have the correct birth time, so if you don’t know your birth time, just ignore the sign listed next to “Ascendant.”  In the box on the left you’ll be able to find your Mercury and Venus signs.

While you are there, look to see if a single sign appears three or more times.  If it does, that is probably your strongest sign, whether it is your sun sign or not.  If you enjoy reading the silly newspaper “horoscopes,” then this is the sign you should look at, not necessarily your sun sign.

Check out the new forecast page for July (look in the right-hand sidebar under “Pages”).

Jamie