happiness Archives - Lynn Hayes astrology readings and writings

Psychology corner: The sadness of a happiness expert

I found this article about a happiness expert who took his own life strangely compelling. I had never heard of Philip Brickman, but as an astrologer whose Mercury (mind) is in Scorpio, I am an avid researcher of the nature of happiness and depression especially as it shows up in the natal chart. Brickman is apparently best known for this study in which accident victims and lottery winners were compared to see who was happier in their later lives:

The study […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2022-09-13T12:47:01-04:00December 7th, 2020|Life|12 Comments

Tell me something good.

It’s human nature to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Nobody wants to feel bad, or go through difficult situations. I have been an astrologer for more than half of my life now, so it’s hard for me to remember what it was like before I knew about planetary cycles that were likely to bring challenges that required adjustment and change, but I imagine that it is pretty confusing. Life is going great, and then all of a sudden here comes a curve ball and suddenly I’m feeling depressed for apparently no […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2023-11-27T14:16:43-05:00August 28th, 2019|Astrology|3 Comments

What we need to learn from the death of Saoirse Kennedy Hill

One of the granddaughters of Robert F. Kennedy took her own life the other day at the age of 22 after a long battle with depression. I wanted to write about this because Saoirse was of the Pluto in Sagittarius generation – the generation (born 1995-2008) that tends to be fixated on the perfection of the heavily curated Instagram life. Sagittarius is associated with media, optimism, and a search for meaning that can sometimes disappear in the haze of today’s world of instant gratification and the superficial happiness of things. A look […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00August 3rd, 2019|Life, Psychology|5 Comments

The Leo New Moon offers an opportunity to shine

Art by Larry Landolfi

The Moon is new in Leo, the first lunar event since the eclipses of July. Leo is the sign that celebrates the Self – the healthy Ego, open-hearted, generous and full of life and an ability to embrace joy. Many of us have been having a very difficult time under the planetary conditions of the past couple of months, and this Leo New Moon offers an opportunity, should we accept it, to look for the silver thread that lines every cloud.

The New Moon […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00August 1st, 2019|Moon|2 Comments

Sunday inspiration: Life is a Rhythmic Dance

Art by Lincoln Harrison

Inspiration from my friend, astrologer Robert Wilkinson:

Each of the parts of our lives, inner and outer, has a rhythm of its own. Our bodies, feelings, mind and higher Self all have their rhythms of appearance and disappearance, increasing and decreasing, ebbing and flowing. Our relationships have their own rhythms of coming and going, merging and doing one’s own thing. There is no part of our lives that doesn’t have fluxuation, except for our Inner Flame. Astrology is the […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00July 6th, 2019|Inspiration|2 Comments

The astrology of Baby Sussex

Embed from Getty Images

And a baby was born unto Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the world celebrated. I’ve made no secret of my unabashed admiration for Meghan and happiness at her marriage to Prince Harry, and was excited to look at the baby’s astrological chart.

Baby Sussex (as of the time of this posting a name had still not yet chosen) has a pretty exceptional chart. Born just after the New Moon in Taurus, he has the Sun at 15 degrees Taurus which is a power point in the zodiacal reference, being halfway between […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2020-12-12T17:39:02-05:00May 7th, 2019|People|3 Comments

An astrological review of “The Happiness Curve”

click to enlarge

It can be somewhat frustrating to read articles about questions that are easily answered by astrology. Astrologers know that beginning at around age 40, we humans experience a series of planetary cycles that I like to call the “midlife crisis transits.” This series begins at age 37-40 with the Pluto Square (transiting Pluto forming a stressful square aspect to Pluto in the natal chart), and continuing at age 40-43 with the Uranus Opposition (transiting Uranus opposite Uranus in the natal chart) and the usually simultaneous Neptune Square where transiting […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:04-05:00March 9th, 2019|Planetary cycles|3 Comments

The astrology of Alexander McQueen

Embed from Getty Images

I just watched the documentary McQueen about fashion designer Alexander McQueen on Netflix and was struck by both his exceptional genius and his turbulent personal life and apparently fragile psyche.

McQueen was born on March 17, 1969. (Geeky astrological details: Astro.com has provided a birth time of 10:45 am but this is not an accurate birth time – apparently his mother is quoted as having said his time of birth was sometime between 9:30 and midnight. The ascendant is the most visible piece of an astrological chart since it reflects the persona and the style of […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00February 12th, 2019|Death, People|4 Comments

How to use summer’s final eclipse at the Leo New Moon

photo from Flickr. On August 11 we will experience the last in a series of three summer eclipses at the Leo New Moon. This is not a particularly powerful eclipse astronomically as it is a partial eclipse. It’s also not as powerful an eclipse astrologically since the lunar nodes, the points in the sky which turn a New Moon into a solar eclipse, will be thirteen degrees away from the lunation unlike the July 27th solar eclipse in which the nodes were very close to the […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00August 9th, 2018|Moon|1 Comment

Low esteem and materialism go hand in hand

updated from 2007.

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.

“By the time […]

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By Lynn Hayes|2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00July 18th, 2018|Life|1 Comment