Lessons

The meaning of the Chiron/Uranus opposition

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I recently discovered that I have never written anything specific to this opposition, which is a very important dynamic in the charts of many people born between the early 1950s and the late 1980s. In all, the opposition occurred a total of 41 times, beginning with Chiron in Capricorn opposite Uranus in Cancer in the early 1950s and ending with Chiron in Cancer and Uranus in Capricorn in the late 1980s.

This phenomenon occurs because of the elliptical orbit of Chiron (thanks to […]

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By |2024-11-17T10:16:04-05:00November 17th, 2024|Lessons|8 Comments

New video: Astrology basics for beginners

I created a little video, hopefully the first in a series, to help non-astrologers to understand more about the astrological updates that I post here and which you will find elsewhere.  I hope you will find it useful!  I plan to product more instructional videos so please let me know in the comments what kind of content you’d like to see.  (These videos will not have transcriptions like the ones I post on Mondays, but there are instructions here on how to turn on captions and transcriptions within the video.)

For daily planetary musings, follow me on […]

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By |2020-09-05T10:28:18-04:00September 5th, 2020|Lessons|2 Comments

Questions about “cusps” and birth signs

[A portion of this article is taken from earlier posts.]  The idea that a person was born on the “cusp” originates from Sun Sign astrology.  Your sign as you know it is actually the sign that the Sun was in at the time you were born.   If you pick up a book or newspaper horoscope about your Sun sign, or as some publications call it, your star sign (if you see a publication that refers to star signs, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction), […]

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By |2022-09-01T14:39:22-04:00May 15th, 2017|Astrology, Lessons|5 Comments

Top ten things to know about Mars in Capricorn!

Photo by Bacher Photography Photo by Bacher Photography

Mars often gets a bad rap because it represents the more sordid side of the personality: desires of all kinds, anger, rage.  Mars is named after the god of war, after all!  But Mars also represents inspiration, motivation, the ability to set good boundaries and defend ourselves.  Mars requires action and we generally only see its negative qualities when that action is stifled for some reason.  Mars isn’t necessarily destructive, nor does it necessarily inspire rage in the heart of humans.  But […]

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By |2014-10-26T11:32:26-04:00October 26th, 2014|Lessons, Planetary cycles|2 Comments

Retrogrades: A discussion for June 2014

Mercury retrogradeAs I was writing the Planetary Illuminations report for June (coming soon to an inbox near you if you are on my mailing list!!) I found that the discussion about retrogrades was substantial enough to deserve its own post.

Astrologically is not always astronomically correct because we observe the motion of the planets from our perspective here on earth.  From here, the planets sometimes appear to change direction and move backwards instead of forwards, and we call this “retrograde motion.”

As June begins, Saturn and Pluto are already retrograde, and during the […]

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By |2014-06-01T09:21:10-04:00June 1st, 2014|Lessons|12 Comments

Astrology lesson: The effect of planetary cycles

planetsA client asked this question so I thought it might be a good thing to cover in this column:  Do planetary cycles like the Uranus/Pluto square (see the sidebar) affect everyone the same?

I used this example to explain how planetary cycles work:  When it’s raining in your community, rain pours down on everyone.  But everyone is affected differently.  Some people love being out in the rain and they may be dancing in the streets.  Some people hate to get wet, and they will stay indoors or cover themselves with rain gear. […]

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By |2013-12-07T06:32:58-05:00December 7th, 2013|Featured posts, Lessons, Planetary cycles|0 Comments

Pars Fortuna, Aspects and Energy

FortunaA reader wrote me about the significance of the multitude of Kites, Mystic Rectangles and Yods in her chart but upon closer examination, many of these aspects involve the Part of Fortune and the Nodes of the Moon rather than planets or luminaries. Which brought up an interesting point of discussion: what really do aspects describe, and what points should be considered?

In the birthchart, the Sun represents our essential Self, the Moon our emotional nature, and the seven traditional planets each represent an aspect of our personality. The outer […]

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By |2023-11-18T15:36:09-05:00August 20th, 2013|Astrology, Lessons|1 Comment

Transits and Transformation: Turning Crisis into Healing

Art by Susan Seddon Boulet Art by Susan Seddon Boulet

As humans, we tend to think that happiness is better than sadness, that good luck is better than bad. We may avoid difficult confrontations and pursue more comfortable situations. When tragedy strikes our well-protected lives, we shout out to our god of choice: “How could you do this to me??” We believe that our birthright is the pursuit of happiness, and we spend our lives trying to protect ourselves from sorrow.

The soul, however, has a different journey. The soul travels […]

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By |2019-11-10T20:01:05-05:00August 16th, 2013|Consciousness, Favorite posts, Lessons|5 Comments

About Retrogrades

RxI’m in the process of migrating old articles to the blog platform, here’s a chance to catch up on some oldies but goodies. 

The study of astrology looks at the motion of the planets in the solar system from our perspective here on earth, and because of anomalies in the orbits of the planets, occasionally during their travels around the sun they appear to move backwards. As a planet turns retrograde, it appears to slow down gradually until it appears to be almost standing still. This is called “making a […]

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By |2013-08-12T14:40:43-04:00August 12th, 2013|Lessons, Mercury retrograde|0 Comments

A look at the Imum Coeli

Saturn and Pluto are approaching a transit to this point in my chart so I thought it might be a good time to explore some secrets about this rarely discussed point. The Imum Coeli (IC), or Nadir of the chart is the midnight point and the cusp of the fourth house. It lies opposite the Midheaven which usually gets all of the attention, which is somewhat appropriate since the Midheaven (the cusp of the tenth house) is the noon point at which we project ourselves into the public arena. The IC, or […]

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By |2023-11-18T18:43:20-05:00December 1st, 2006|Lessons, Uncategorized|Comments Off on A look at the Imum Coeli
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