Dear Astrology Friends:

Newsletter 02-2006

First of all, I need to make sure the whole newsletter does arrive to you intact. I need to know if what you get is not complete or the print is ridiculously large or small or if the start of every paragraph is riddled with question marks (No, I’m not becoming psychotic – if you see a lot of question marks it’s not intentional!)

Here’s the sequence for this newsletter. If you do not get all the material promised just below, please let me know. Technical complexities always abound.

Part One: Planets in February and early March – News of our community – astrology appointments with Joseph Crane – a quick look at Dick Cheney’s chart.
Part Two, in a separate e-mail: a fuller article on Ariel Sharon

The Planets, Right about Now
My purpose here is to help you look at the night (or early morning) sky and be able to correlate where and when you see the planets with how they might look on an astrology chart.

Sun. You would think there’s not much to say, but, in the month before the spring equinox, there is much to say. We have all noticed that it’s getting morelight more quickly, that the Sun goes up sooner and it stays bright later. (As a bicyclist and runner, these are positive developments.)
After the weeks after the winter solstice, it stays dark and this doesn’t seem to change much. For the Boston area, the total amount of daylight on January 10 was just over nine hours, and by January 20 the daylight totaled twenty-six minutes more.
Now see it change more quickly as time goes on. This is not just your perception!.
February 1: 9 hours 56 minutes
February 10: 10 hours 16 minutes
February 20: 10 hours 48 minutes
March 3: 11 hours 11 minutes
March 13: 11 hours 41 minutes
March 21 12 hours 3 minutes

Moon. We all get the chance to observe a waxing Moon once again. On Monday February 27, there is no Moon visible, for it is a New Moon. Notice in the Western sky a sliver of a Moon becomes visible, which reaches farther back and gets larger until March 6, when we have a First Quarter Moon. If you are up late enough, you won’t watch the Moon set until Midnight. The Moon becomes increasing larger and further to the east until it is a Full Moon on March 13, when the Moon gloriously rises in the east when the Sun sets in the west. The Moon then rises later and begins to become smaller until it doesn’t rise until midnight as a Third Quarter Moon. You can see that on March 22, just in time for our next newsletter!
Mercury is now an evening star, appearing – if you can see it – after the Sun sets. It just reached it’s greatest elongation from the Sun and is now beginning to slow down, getting ready to go retrograde. This begins on Thursday, March 2 and lasts a few weeks. If you have to buy a car, upgrade your computer software, or sign a contract, just do it – but be a little more careful. Astrologers needn’t be timid, just occasionally prudent.
Venus is a morning riser, a morning star that rises before dawn in the east. In fact, Venus has been slow of motion since going direct a few weeks ago and is bright and rises well before the Sun. (If you are a morning person, I would go out on a clear early morning to see Venus – it will be more inconvenient as the Sun rises earlier throughout the coming spring.
Mars has finally finished it’s long tenure in Taurus and has moved into Gemini. You can see Mars in the west, further down and fainter to the eye. This is because each day the Sun moves closer to Mars but won’t catch up for several months.
Jupiter, on the other hand, in Scorpio, has Sun moving farther away. This means that Jupiter will rise earlier in the evening – it currently rises about midnight – until it rises at sunset, when Jupiter is “at opposition.” Jupiter goes retrograde on Saturday, March 4.
Saturn in Leo is past its opposition with the Sun – which would be when the Sun was in Aquarius – and now Sun is beginning to move closer to Saturn. Saturn will now be higher in the sky after the Sun goes down.

To help you visualize all this, I supply chart for a recent sunrise and a recent sunset.

Community News

Dorian Greenbaum is constantly working on her PhD program, translating, translating, and translating. (This pleases me greatly, of course.) She returns in a few weeks, will give a Saturday workshop at NCGR in Belmont, Ma., and hopefully will assemble some people together and talk about her latest explorations.

And on the matter of Joseph Crane and his book. with the expert assistance of Nadine Harris (Saturn in the first in Virgo and a powerful oriental Mercury), Rebuilding Astrology will be soon ready to send out as a formal book proposal. This occurrence will make very happy those who share close space with me..
In fact, this stage of the book reminds me of Frodo carrying the increasingly heavy ring of evil up the mountain in Return of the King. There are significant exceptions to this metaphor:
1. I’m not paranoid or psychotic -- yet.
2. There is no dark lord (or anybody else in power) looking for it.
3. The landscape is much nicer around here.
When this cursed thing does go to the publisher, I will provide the electional chart and an analysis of the chosen day and time. Then I’ll send you the results.

And when I’ve gotten far enough, I can turn my attention to getting together the “Progressions and Directions” course I’ve wanted so badly to do.

Enclosed below is a post from Rhonda Chadwick, who has supplemented her astrology work with woimen’s ritual circles and goddess mystery work. As her bio states, Rhonda has studies with another veteran of our program, Heather Ensworth. Here’s her latest offering, which you may want to inquire about.

The Circle is Open

The circle represents creative energy, the union of opposites, the sense of completeness and connection. It is the continuous journey of life, death and rebirth; of separation, initiation and return. We re-create this sacred space in order to separate ourselves from our everyday lives and cross the threshold to that place of mystery – that place where your core self may emerge.

The Circle is Open is a special invitation for women who are new to the experience of sacred circle. Join us for six evenings as we come together to listen, laugh, honor, connect, witness and celebrate as we discover the many manifestations of the sacred circle in our lives. We will explore seasonal cycles and heavenly orbits, mythic wisdom and embodied energy.

Dates: Six Thursday evenings, March 16, 23, 30; April 6,13,20
Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Fee: $120 for six evenings
Location: Natural Ways to Wellness, 2 Douglas Pike, Smithfield, RI
Contact: Mary MacDonald, 508-698-9320, newmac1@comcast.net; or
Rhonda Chadwick, 401- 353-8525, rjchadwick@cox.net

Rhonda Chadwick has a BA in Anthropology and English; she is an astrologer, a tarot card reader, a writer and a business owner. She has sat in many different kinds of circles for many years. When she was fifteen years old she read The First Sex by Elizabeth Gould Davis and has been honoring the Great Goddess ever since. Recently, she completed the Women’s Mystery School, a ten month program facilitated by Heather Ensworth PhD and Sylvan Thorncraft.

Mary MacDonald is an astrologer, writer, energy worker and mother. She has a BA in History and Religious Studies. Her work has ranged from ministry to the poor and homeless to organizational capacity building and resource development. She has facilitated and participated in many different kinds of groups through the years. Her passion for mysticism, mythology, and folklore began in childhood, when the oneness of creation is so apparent. She too is a recent graduate of the Women’s Mystery School.

Appointments with Joseph Crane

As some of you know, I have begun seeing clients in Harvard Square once again on Wednesday afternoons. I am available for full sessions, occasional sessions, updates, and tutorials. Do send me an email or contact me by phone at (401) 527-2035.

On other days of the week I am available in sunny Rhode Island, where the people are all good-looking and the days are all pleasant. Here we get a chance to meet at my regular facilities.
All in-person sessions are recorded on audiocassette.

If distance is a problem, we can always meet by telephone. In advance, I would e-mail you the charts we would be working with, we would record the conversation on a two-way audiocassette, which you would receive a few days afterwards.

In person or by telephone, we can look at your astrology in a modern or an ancient style – or, increasingly these days, I combining the two for you.

A Quick Look at Dick Cheneys’ Chart
I will go into more detail on this chart in a future newsletter. As he’s been in the news lately – at least until the port controversy had moved him from the daily news – it would be good to give a preview of his chart and current situation, from an astrological point of view.

What was going on to his chart for the sad events of early February? Mars, having spent a long time in Taurus, was about to leave Taurus. Unfortunately, on its way out, transiting Mars was conjunct Cheney’s Uranus and Midheaven and square his Mercury. Of course, for any event involving ballistics, one would first look for Mars activity!
Using the modern technique of solar arcs, I notice that the Midheaven degree, moving about one degree a year from Cheney’s birth, corresponding to the movement of the progressed Sun, was conjunct Pluto.
The transit tells me that the hunting accident was a transitory event; the solar arc to Pluto may indicate something more lasting and more damaging.
I guess we will all have to stay tuned.
I will attempt a fuller analysis for the next newsletter.
Hopefully by then I will get a decent birth time for the soon-to-be former president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers.jj

Ariel Sharon: Who Was this Guy?

As we all know, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a major stroke in early January, after suffering a minor stroke a week earlier. As of this writing (February 22), he is out of immediate danger, but with episodic problems. The chances are that he will not recover cognitive capacities and is out of public life permanently.
As a practicing astrologer I learn much from the lives of people in public life and Sharon is no exception.
Modern astrologers often place too great an emphasis on the Sun's position, especially its zodiacal sign, in a natal chart. One may adds a tendency to correlate the natal houses with their "natural" signs so that the twelfth house becomes like Pisces. If so, Ariel Sharon, with Sun and Mercury in Pisces in the twelfth, comes across as quite the mystic. Ariel Sharon is not a mystic -- he is (or was) a man who wages war. I will leave it to others to decide if he has been a "spiritual warrior." Like George Patton, Sharon seems a person most comfortable with a defined enemy who must be defeated.

Where can one find "who one is" in the natal chart? Traditionally one does not ask that kind of general question. For an indication of his behavior or “manners,” (as William Lilly would say), one would begin not with Sun, even for a leader, but with the Ascendant, adding any planets in the first, the lord of the Ascendant, and, last and least, planets who aspect the Ascendant closely.
One notices from Sharon's natal chart both the traditional planet Jupiter and the modern planet Uranus in the first. Lilly considers that planets in the first testify to the " manners" -- the outward behavior -- of the native. Jupiter, the great benefic, gives a grand style and broad reach; perhaps a gluttonous style. Uranus contributes its innovative or unpredictable nature.
The zodiacal sign of the first is Aries so that the Ascendant, which Mars governs. Mars, of course, is the planet of the fighter, the wager of war. No astrologer would miss the status of Mars as in the place of career, the tenth, and in its exaltation, Capricorn.
I add three further considerations to Mars: (1) he is oriental to the Sun and has a stronger expression, (2) is out of sect -- as Mars prefers to be in a nocturnal chart -- and can thus miss the mark by overshooting it, and (3) is in the same sign or zoidion as his Lot of Spirit, which is concerned with matters of initiative and creativity.
Sharon became renowned in the 1960’s and 1970’s as a brilliant and daring military commander, whose actions gave the Israeli forces the advantages. His star dimmed considerably in the 1980’s, when he helped engineer Israel’s ill-fated invasion of Lebanon. He was also heavily involved in Israel’s policy of creating settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza, which served to solidify Israel’s claims of territory in these areas. After peace talks with Palestine failed and Israel became subject to a second intafada, Sharon became Prime Minister as the toughest guy on the block.
Yet there is far more to say about Ariel Sharon.
One may notice his strongly placed Venus in the eleventh in oriental position. Following Ptolemy’s formula, Venus is also the dispositor or oikodespotes for his Moon and Mercury. Venus is the house and triplicity ruler for Moon and the exaltation, triplicity, and bound ruler for Mercury.
In fact, people have been constantly surprised by Sharon’s style at close range. Expecting a strong-willed opinionated and even crude person, people found Sharon not only pleasant but also charming and courteous. It is paradoxical that somebody with a strong Mars activity could also have also Venus in command.
A very interesting feature of his natal chart indicates that Sharon has been idolized and demonized throughout his life. The Lot of Exaltation – the factor of a positive reputation -- and the Lot of Accusation -- the source of a negative reputation, are within one degree of each other, together with Moon, in his second.
Here I must bring in his lifelong pursuit of the Israeli homeland. The house or place that is covers such matters is the fourth. One does find Pluto there, although Pluto in the fourth will show up on one-twelfth of all natal charts. What planet is in charge of Cancer, the sign or zoidion of the fourth? Moon. Moon is exalted in Taurus, suggesting that homeland and heritage are fortunate and strong in his chart. That Mars and Moon are related is clear as the Moon applies to Mars in a trine.

It is perhaps the last few years of Sharon’s life that are the most surprising. Previously his military had taken back much of the Palestine territory, and for some time had Arafat under siege in his own residence. He had put down the intafada During this time he reversed himself on many of his policies to embrace a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the two sides as separate as possible. He pulled out troops and even dismantled many settlements. In 2005 he jettisoned his conservative Likkud party in favor of creating a new moderate party. He was readying himself for parliamentary elections within this new party when his strokes occurred.
From an astrological point of view, can we find indications for this reversal?
Modern methods give much to work with.
In the autumn of 2003, Sharon has a third quarter progressed Sun-Moon phase, which does often signify some kind of recalibration. In his case, as an old man by now, this would include his historical legacy.
His transits in 2005 involved Uranus in conjunction to both his Sun and Mercury. This transit does indicate unpredictability and a change of perspective. This was the case for the entire year. One might add to this the fact that Saturn has been transiting Sharon’s fourth place of homeland, perhaps showing the boundaries of his previous militaristic policy.
Sun, Mercury and Uranus were also brought together by Sharon’s solar return for 2005, which featured these three planets next to one another in the seventh. Opposite was Jupiter conjunct his Ascendant, a feature of his natal chart, and rewarding action taken on his own.
In 2005 Saturn was finishing its transit through Cancer and, in the early summer of 2005, opposing Sharon’s Mars. By this time his fight was not with the Palestinians but his own people, particularly his political allies. One might also see that the long Mars retrograde of 2005, which only very recently ended, involved with sign or zoidion of his Moon, which governs his fourth.

Looking for traditional indications, I find Sharon’s profections for 2004 extremely interesting. As this was his seventy-seventh year, all planets advance five places. This means that his Sun and Mercury advance to the fourth, the place of homeland. Mars advances to Taurus, where one finds Moon. This corresponds to the intense opposition from his political allies. Saturn also advances five zoidia from the ninth – the place of religion – to thie first, where one finds Jupiter. Again one finds the limits of expansion and conquest.

Sharon’s Decennials provide further information. He became Prime Minister during a Jupiter/Sun period, which changed a year later to Moon-Moon, accentuating his aggressively protective policy toward the homeland. However, by May, 2004, this changed to Moon-Saturn. Again there comes a theme of the limits of his policies of self-protection and a recognition of some uncomfortable realities. Moon-Saturn continues until the end of 2006, when Mars takes over from Saturn as specific chronocrator.
What were the faster-moving Decennials for his stroke? In this planetary lord technique, one can go to a fourth division, to look at how planets line up for a particular week and day.
In October, 2005, Sun joined Moon and Saturn. Sun is interesting as it is the planet of leadership, and during this time Sharon faced a revolt within his own Likkud party. This resulted in his forming a new party the following month. Moon/Saturn/Sun would last until February 19, long after his stroke.
Going into a weekly and daily cycle of Decennials, Saturn joined Moon/Saturn/Sun, both luminaries together with Saturn. Mars replaced Saturn on January 5, 2006, one day after his massive stroke