Dear Readers,

March, 2006 Newsletter – Astrology Institute –
By Joseph Crane

Topics: Classes, groups and appointments – manuscript submission chart -- Stellar events – Daylight savings time – Russ Feingold’s chart

Hello Everybody Again

Happy equinox! Of course in New England we have this between season condition of neither winter nor spring, or maybe a little of both. This is a “double-bodied” time of year!

It was so good to see many of you in Belmont on Saturday, March 25 to see Dorian do a full day on temperament.

A Note on Classes:
As I approach the finish of my book, I am becoming ready to host a
new course on progressions and directions. I am looking to start in late
May or early June for six weeks on a weeknight, possibly in Arlington, Ma.
I need to pay more for the space and need some certainty about class size.
If you may be interested in taking this program, let me know! I need not a
commitment but a “leaning.”
I still plan on presenting material this year on Plotinus and
Astronoesis.

For those on Rhode Island and Southern Mass.
Perhaps it is time to restart the astrologers’ get-togethers once again.
Several people have approached me about this and I’d like to help this get
started. Perhaps we could meet once a month, not simply as a social but
be interesting and informative. We would meet about once a month at
different locations. Please let me know if you’re interested.

*I continue to meet with clients and students on Wednesday
afternoons in Cambridge, Ma. Let me know if you would like to schedule
an appointment.

On the book – the first six chapters are out, and the process has
evolved from being like Frodo taking the ring up the mountain to
Humphrey Bogart pulling the boat carrying Katherine Hepburn through
the jungle. That’s in The African Queen. We’ll see what next month brings.
I submit the chart of my submission of the first six (of fourteen)
chapters, without comment. You can figure out what will happen next.

Stellar Events
Happily, Mercury went direct on Saturday, March 25, in the early
afternoon. The station is at 13 Pisces (conjunct my Mars – perhaps a good
time not to talk to anybody, especially if they’re disagreeable.)
On Wednesday, March 29, Pluto goes retrograde at 26 Sag. And on
the same day there’s a solar eclipse at 08 Aries.
There are two solar eclipses (and two lunar eclipses) a year. We
know an eclipse is coming up when a New Moon or Full Moon conjunct a
North Node or a South Node.
Saturn goes direct at 04 Leo on April 5.
Here’s the graphic ephemeris, which tells us about these things.

I have penned in some things that might be useful. This is a
ninety-degree ephemeris, so that the first thirty hatch-marks (beginning
with OC) are planets in all the cardinal signs, OF marks those planets in
fixed signs, and OM is not a mantra but the beginning of the mutable.
You can see Pluto go retrograde and Saturn and Mercury go direct.
When the lines meet, the planets are conjunct, square, or opposed.
You can see that in March Jupiter was stationery retrograde in Scorpio and
Neptune hopping along in Aqurius.

When the lines going down flatten and start to go up, planets are
stationery going retrograde; when the lines going up flatten and then go
down, that’s stationery direct.

I also circled the eclipse, around the transiting node (going
retrograde in a straight diagonal line) and the symbol for the New Moon –
a blackened circle.

To know how your natal planets are affected by these events, one
would place flat lines in the degrees to designate natal positions. At the
end, I apply this to Russ Feingold’s chart.

On the fixed star side of things: as the Sun moves through Aries, the
fixed star Spica – the image of the sheaf of wheat held by the virgin in the
constellation Virgo – is beginning to set in the west when the Sun rises.. As
the Sun moves closer to 23 Aries (opposite Spica’s position) the star would
be seen last to set after sunrise. On 4/10 Spica will rise exactly at sunset
and from them on. If Spica were a planet we would call this planet at
opposition, when the body is actually brightest it gets during the year.
Previously, from last autumn until now, Spica has been like an oriental
planet, appearing before the Sun rises in the morning. As autumn changed
into winter and now into spring, Spica has been higher in the sky and
above the horizon progressively longer during the night.

Beginning next month, Spica will begin to act more like an occidental
planet, appearing in the sky after the Sun has set. Gradually Spica will
move closer and closer to the Sun each evening until, six months from
now, it will be a faint flicker that appears above the Sun as it sets, then it
disappears into the Sun’s rays.

Daylight Savings Time – An Astrologer’s Ambivalence
On April 2, we “spring forth” and lose an hour before waking up on
Sunday morning. If we go to sleep at midnight and sleep eight hours, the
clock will read 9 AM. When we notice that the Sun is higher in the sky
longer during the day, we might really like this. I do also, especially
because I like bicycling home from work when the Sun is still above the
horizon. We will have summer evenings longer in daylight and
everybody likes this.

“Morning people” who like a lot of daylight very early in the
morning will have to stay in the dark longer after they get up. Those of us
who have gotten up early to see Venus rising before the Sun rises now
won’t have to get up so early.

My ambivalence is simple: I like to watch the more gradual changes
of the rhythm of day and night throughout the year. Switching back and
forth when daylight savings time begins and ends makes these transitions
too sudden. Dane Rudhyar’s book on the astrological signs, The Pulse of
Life, gives a lively sense of how the observed sky helps us with a deeper
understanding of our astrological symbols. Since first reading this book in
the mid-1980’s, I’ve been more in tune with the changing daylight
throughout the year.

Next month we will look at time zones and how our legal way of
telling time has evolved.

Profile of the Month: Russ Feingold
Two weeks ago, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin made news by
submitting a resolution that President Bush be censured for his policy of
electronic surveillance without warrants. He had been known previously
as the co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold bill to limit soft money
campaign contributions. (I must note here that in the long campaign for
this bill, it was John McCain, not Feingold, whose face was consistently in
from of the microphones and cameras.) Feingold only dissenting vote
when the Senate approved the Patriot Act in 2001. In other words,
Feingold has a knack for putting both Democrats and Republicans on the
spot. His resolution of early March, which has the chance of the proverbial
snowball in (a hot) hell, instantly made him the darling of the progressive
movement inside and outside the Democratic party.
Here is his chart.

(Lot of Spirit and Exaltation are 21 Taurus.)
Well, one could say that, with Sun in Pisces and Moon and
Ascendant in Libra, here is a sweet and sensitive guy. But alas…
It’s hard not to miss Neptune and Saturn on his Ascendant -- one
could call this “practical idealism” or perhaps a willingness to make
personal sacrifices, although I haven’t quite seen this yet. However could
never call this combination makes Feingold cynical or opportunistic.
The planet in charge of all this in the First is Venus in Aries, keeping
company with Mercury and a dignified Mars in Aries. Maybe we could
call him a nice guy with a flair for verbal combat.

Sun in Pisces in the Sixth looks kind and humble – notice, however,
that the distance from Sun at 12 Pisces to 0 Aries is the same as Mars
backwards from 17 Aries to 0 Aries – they are contra-antiscia, or midpoint
to the Aries axis, which further ties the Sun and Mars together. Noting
that Mercury is at 00 Aries, a combination might look like this:
0 Aries = Mercury = Sun/Mars
(The Lot of Fortune is also at 00 Aries.)
Perhaps we can thank Feingold’s Moon and Saturn in the First for
him coming across as determined and thoughtful and not as shrill or
mean-spirited.
I return to a traditional perspective, for I cannot resist looking at two
Lots.
His Lot of Fortune is with Mars, Venus, and Mercury in Aries. That
its lord Mars is also co-present with the Lot of Fortune makes Mars a much
more vital planet for Feingold.
Feingold’s Lot of Spirit is conjunct by degree his Lot of Exaltation.
Except by Democratic party leaders, Feingold is admired for acting
entirely on his own. Both lots are with Jupiter. Jupiter is also the Sun’s
dispositor; this ties together Sun with these three important positions.
Because Jupiter is out of sect and the Eighth from the Ascendant, Feingold
would probably not have enough stature to make him the leader of a
movement, a “mover and a shaker.” Yet his independent spirit can help
him make a difference in public life.
What are the predictive indicators of his current visibility and
notoriety?
We could begin with Uranus conjunct his Sun, which I correlate, in
part, with the suddenness of his notoriety. Mercury’s current station is
also very close to Feingold’s Sun position. Sun, strongly affected by these
transits, is a planet of leadership and prominence.
The eclipse mentioned above opposes his Moon in Libra. Moon also
governs his Tenth place of career. So far he has been somewhat immune
from political attack, as he has been thought of as interesting and eccentric
but not very important as a national figure. Now he enters a period of
personal and political uncertainty.
Below is the 90-degree graphic ephemeris with Feingold’s planets
put in. You can note the transit of Uranus, the eclipse opposing his Moon,
and the impact of the current Mercury station.
If you look at Feingold’s yearly profections, everything advances six
signs or zoidia. That brings Ascendant, Saturn, and Moon onto his Sun –
and this brings his cadent Sun into visibility. The positions in Taurus – the
Lots of Spirit and Exaltation and Jupiter – all advance to his First and his
Ascendant. If there is any chance for Feingold to become famed, this is it.
I add Feingold’s decennials. Only a month ago he ended a ten-year
period in which Mars was the major chronocrator; now he enters a long
period in which the planetary lord is Venus. Venus is in weaker condition
than Mars but she is the lord of the Ascendant. Again one sees a
indication of great public toward greater visibility and importance.
If you’re wondering whether he might actually run for President or
otherwise become an important figure over the next few years, there are a
lot of changes of planetary lord for the various Hellenistic predictive
techniques. This would point toward a lot of activity and change in the
years ahead. A cursory glance of modern predictive techniques doesn’t
seem to yield the same results, however. I may have to look through them
further.
I close with the same graphic ephemeris as above, but with the
horizontal lines representing Feingold’s natal position. In this way we can
easily see his transits and the eclipse coming up.

I close at this point. Hopefully by the end of April not only the
clocks but the spring itself will spring forward. Here in New England we
all know that the true beginning of spring is not until the Red Sox home
opener.