Journal

The Great Wake-Up Call

Late last year and earlier this year I saw more than a few astrologers talking about the wonderful coming days of a Great Awakening, or a Great Reset – always painted in golden tones as if we were on the verge of a Higher Consciousness and an era of true Peace, Equality and Love.

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius… “

After spending time examining the Ingress charts of the quarters of this year, and watching the news roll by – I think we might indeed be on the verge of a Great Awakening of a different kind.

It’s the kind of awakening you get when you wake up one morning and find out your spouse has been having an ongoing affair for years with your best friend. There is the horrible shock, the sinking feeling in your gut and sense of vertigo while your sense of security collapses, and that horrible realization –

“I’ve been lied to. The people I have depended on the most have been lying to me and have betrayed me.”

Something like that – except this time it’s not a spouse or a friend that betrayed and lied to us. That’s our coming Great Awakening – what I’m calling, The Great Wake-Up Call. It’s not pretty.

The Libra Ingress 2021

The observations I am making here are coming out of examining the Ingress chart for Libra this year. This is part of a larger project I am doing of reading ingress charts in a way that that applies to the whole world – leaving out the local Ascendant and Midheaven, and using the cardinal points, 0 degrees of the four cardinal signs, as being like axes or angles for the entire world. Continue reading “The Great Wake-Up Call”

This post is an experiment.

Some things are more easily explained in a video, by showing and talking about them, then by a blog post. I want to try combining the two here.

I just posted a video that I titled, Midpoints and Traditional Astrology.

Here I want to briefly summarize the main points I make in the video. Continue reading “Midpoints and Traditional Astrology”

The World Angles and the World Chart

In this post I want to share a train of thought I’m pursuing regarding the importance of the cardinal points as acting like world angles for a world chart. These are based on notes that I made as I was thinking this through. I will keep that order since I want to share my thought process here.

I want to make the case that what I am presenting here is not something new or modern, but goes all the way back to some of the earliest roots of our astrology.

This whole argument is based on two premises or points; everything else follows logically from these. Continue reading “World Angles and the World Chart”

Spiritual Support Systems – Bhagavad-Gita

This essay is part of a series. The first is a post on the psychological effects of the lockdowns, and it is followed by this posts on Stoicism  and a brief post on Stoicism, victimhood and empowerment. I want to start here by recapping the purpose of the entire series.

The past year and a half, with the covid pandemic, lockdowns and unprecedented civil unrest, are enormously stressful for most people. We went into an emergency threat mode at the start of the panic, and for many if not most people we are still locked in emergency threat mode.

At some point I think we need to turn our attention from external threats, and start to deal with the emotional and spiritual effects of the sustained lockdowns on our psyches. The first post talked about that effect, and how we are dealing with a collective trauma and shock. I see it in my own life, and I am increasingly seeing it in the lives of the people I work with as astrology clients.

I think it is time to own responsibility for our interior spiritual and emotional well-being. That is a big part of what I try to do with my clients, and what I am wrestling with in my own life. Putting my life on hold until a return to normal that may never come is just not a satisfying and meaningful way to live.

There is an overall point to all of the spiritual systems I am covering in this series: To really be able to deal with the stress of sustained bad fortune, trauma and stress, just having some tricks or peppy sayings to put yourself in a better mood is not sufficient. You really need a way of looking at the world – a philosophy, a religion, a spiritual system – as an overall framework to make sense of your experience. Continue reading “Spiritual Support Systems – Bhagavad Gita”

Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment

This is a short sequel or postscript to my previous essay on Stoicism. In that essay I talked about the tools that the stoic system gives for dealing with difficult times. In this essay I want to talk about how Stoicism is a kind of natural antidote and corrective to a tendency in some political circles for people to view themselves primarily as victims of an unfair system or of other groups.

When you understand stoicism, it is obvious that people with such a victim mindset are giving their power away.

That is what I want to consider here. Continue reading “Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment”

Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism

In the previous post in this series about dealing with effects of the lockdowns, I looked at some of the psychological and spiritual effects of the lockdown measures on us – not covid, but the lockdowns. I think it is time we become aware of and own these psychological effects so that we can start to heal from them.

This post will be the first of several looking at what I am calling spiritual support systems – ways of looking at the world that give us mental and spiritual tools for dealing with bad fortune, or situations that are outside of our control.

In this essay we will look at Stoicism.

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Stoicism is a school of philosophy that goes back to our Hellenistic and Roman heritage. It has been very influential, and its teachings have had a profound affect on what came after, including a formative influence on the young Christian tradition. Some of the writings of the early Church Fathers sound like they could have been taken straight out of a Stoic manual. It is a useful philosophy and set of psychological techniques for dealing with misfortune, or better, for the ups and downs of fortune.

The modern cliche of stoicism, as a hard and unfeeling philosophy that is all about gritting your teeth and bearing with pain and not allowing yourself any pleasure, is a misleading caricature. Done correctly, stoic techniques can help you maximize positive states of mind, including pleasure and good fortune, and minimize the effects of misfortune by taking control of your reaction to it.

I want to recommend some classic Stoic writers and texts that are well worth researching and learning from. Continue reading “Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism”

Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns

Being an astrologer, paying attention to the issues that people bring to a reading can give me a sense of the sorts of issues that are common in our culture at this point in time.

Based on what I am seeing, I think it is time that we start to address the problems caused by the lockdowns and other measures being taken to deal with the covid pandemic.

Let me be very clear here: I am not making ANY statement about covid-19, or how dangerous it is, or what treatments or preventive measures do or do not work.

I want to look at the psychological and spiritual effects of the measures that our cultures have put in place to deal with the disease.

So how does it affect people, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, when you do these things?

• Wearing masks and other facial coverings when around others.
• Being around other people who are all masked.
• Keeping outside of the range of touch. Essentially forbidding touch.
• Avoiding visiting with people outside of your household.
• Frequently washing, disinfecting, taking other measures to deal with an invisible threat.
• Constantly testing to see if you have an illness you may not be able to detect.
• Constantly monitoring disease statistics; focusing on that one subject.
• Having news and other media that is constantly reminding you how horribly dangerous the situation is.
• Shutting down “non-essential” businesses and gathering places.
• Replacing face-to-face, in-person meetings and activities with online virtual connections.
• Effectively shutting down churches. If you are Christian, shutting down communion, sharing the common bread and cup.

We have been so focused on the disease, that we have neglected to pay attention to the effects of what we are doing to ourselves, individually and as a culture, to deal with the disease.

And remember, the majority of us have been dealing with these measures for over a year now. It takes about a month to establish a new and permanent habit. That means the effects of the lockdown measures on us are now our regular routine, our way of life. They permanently affect how we think, how we feel, how we function.

From what I am experiencing myself, and seeing around me, the effects are severe, detrimental, and very stressful.

Continue reading “Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns”