ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!
Astrologer Discovers Day is Missing Each Week!

You’ve been told all your life - and odds are you’ve believed - that there are seven days in a week. But have you ever stopped to count?

That’s what astrologer Artie Jessup did a few months ago while working an overnight shift as a reception clerk at a local Hampton Inn - with stunning results: Jessup discovered that there are in fact only six days in the week. Now, after exhaustive mathematical tests by NASA scientists, the astounding discovery has been confirmed.

“This changes everything,” said NASA Public Relations Director, Pinky Bluemon, in a telephone interview. “We had no idea that there were any more discoveries of this magnitude to be made,” he added, “and frankly we’re a little embarrassed that it was an astrologer and not one of our astronomers who made the discovery.”

According to Jessup, the insight came in a flash, after months of calculations and long hours pondering time. “You see,” he said, “I work an eight hour shift every day, but for the life of me I could never account for more than five hours. So where did the other 15 hours go each week?” With such a large chunk of time missing, Jessup wondered if other pieces of the week might be missing, and sure enough, they were.

“We all know how weekends just fly by,” Jessup explained, “and I calculated that we lose about four and half hours out of both Saturday and Sunday. Now, add that nine hours to the fifteen from the week, and what do you have? A full day!”

Not everyone is happy about the discovery. The National Retailers Association has complained that the government should have issued a warning to employers before publishing the results of their study, afraid that they will wind up paying for an extra day off for workers each week. At the same time, union organizers are also concerned that their members have been cheated out of weekend time. One union executive who wished to remain anonymous said that he believed that U.S. workers are now owed a total of six hundred million days off. The four major television networks in the U.S. also have their hands full, trying to adjust their schedules, and ESPN has learned that “Sunday Night Baseball” has never actually existed.

If the Libra full moon conjures up images of balance and harmony, you may be surprised by this year's model.

Libra is about balance and harmony, of course, and at the full moon the sun and moon sit opposite each other, perched like two orbs of equal size on each of the zodiac. At sunset, you can see them balancing on the Western and Eastern horizons. But let's not forget that the sun is actually millions of times larger than the moon, and is in fact providing not only its own light, but the light we see reflected from the moon as well. In other words, the balance we see is an optical illusion. (For more on this, pick up Eric Meyers' excellent book The Astrology of Awakening).

On many Libra full moons, however, the illusion is maintained, and balance and order prevail. The individualistic, independent power of Aries is reflected back by our societal norms and conventions, as well as consideration of our friends, family, and partners. Independence is tempered by consideration. If we've been too selfish, the Libra full moon can shine the light on the mess we've made. If we've been too humble, the scales are balanced in the other direction and we are encouraged to assert more individuality. That's why we say that the Libra moon throws light on relationships.

This year, however, the scales are likely to be found way out of balance, or be pushed over entirely. We come into this full moon shaking off long moon voids (and we'll go into them again, too). Under the surface of the moon's void fiery hot aspects have been forming all week (extending from Friday the 22nd all the way through the end of the month). Mars has been aspecting not only the revolutionary energy of the Uranus-Pluto square, but also the awkward Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto yod.

Lots has been said about the Uranus-Pluto square (click here for my video, for example). The yod is shorter acting, but not without significance. Saturn and Pluto have been cooperating to keep the status quo, favoring the powerful and well-connected, at least for a time. Jupiter, looking from across the zodiac in Gemini, stirs up tensions by representing a more progressive, democratic energy.

We can see that progressive social and political causes have a great deal of energy, but are not finding a lot of expression. Perhaps the best example - appropriately an issue with the moon in Virgo - is about Monsanto being protected from litigation in the U.S., but many news stories show the tension. In our personal lives, too, we can feel a building tension that affects our relationships with others - not just our partners - and which also exists as a psychic tension within ourselves.

This full moon is an opportunity for the pent-up energy of the past few weeks and months to come roaring out. Rather than being considerate of the other person, we're likely to take aim at them, making them the target of our anger. The restrictions others have placed on us, no matter how benignly, are likely to be fought off during the last week in March. Expect another peak of energy on the 29th, as the sun aspects these same points. Venus gets into the act after the full moon, so we may see that personal partnerships (and finances) are indeed part of the picture.

So, don't expect a placid full moon on any level. This is an opportunity to express ourselves, and the frenetic energy of the full moon will be evident. But while this is an opportunity for expression, don't expect everything to come out now - that will have to wait until Jupiter is more overtly in the picture, beginning in August.

If you would have a thing shrink, first you must stretch it
If you would have a thing weakened, first you must strengthen it
If you would have a thing put aside, first you must set it up
If you would take from a thing, first you must give to it

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

You may have noticed how well things are going this week.

Depending on who you are, that is. There's an awful lot of agreement in the air, and if you happen to be a power broker, things are generally on the uptick. Saturn and Pluto have your back.

The stock ticker, for example. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high this week, closing at record levels two days in a row - despite some rather glum economic news and worries about how the U.S. "sequester" may affect the economy in the future. Although there is always both encouraging and discouraging news that moves the markets, this week's push upward seems to come from a belief that the status quo will be maintained.

Maintaining the status quo is also the theme in Rome (or at least part of it), as the College of Cardinals has decided that a media blackout is necessary for their conclave to pick the next pope. The cardinals had to enter their deliberations earlier this week under the shadow of Scottish Cardinal O'Brien saying he had engaged in sexual misconduct. Secrecy must seem like a good idea to the red hats, considering.

Taking a cue from Venus and Mercury, who have been in easy aspect to Saturn and Pluto, President Obama has decided to take the Senate and Congress out to dinner. Finesse may work better than threats when challenging entrenched positions - a lesson we may all want to keep in mind this week.

There are more stories that speak of consolidation of power, on many levels. It doesn't go well for everyone, of course. Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi is going to jail for a year, and Microsoft was fined a record amount for not living up to their agreement to offer a choice of web browsers on Windows systems in Europe.

Yes, Saturn and Pluto may have the back or the rich and powerful, but with those two behind you, you may feel a sharp pain between the shoulder blades. Ultimately, these two outer planets are working to transform our economic and political systems, but change happens through a process.

The two outer planets are in each others' signs, Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn, and the planets themselves are in exact sextile (an easy, cooperative aspect) on Friday March 8th. Things couldn't look more chummy between these two very different planets, and they seem to be very much favoring the status quo. Scorpio and Capricorn are the signs most associated with government, power, and money.

Yet we frequently see that change comes about through more of the same. Pluto, especially, often works through inflating a bubble until it bursts, rather than taking the air out slowly (that's more Saturn's style). So the status quo may not last that long, after all. But don't expect change to look the way you expect - or want - it to look.

In the long run, Saturn and Pluto aren't taking sides.

Of course, you know by now that an asteroid "the size of a football field" (are we talking American football or European? Soccer pitches are way larger, I believe) will graze by the Earth today. But we were surprised when another bit of celestial debris crashed through the atmosphere earlier today - a meteorite exploded over Russia, injuring more than 500 people.

Like most contemporary astrologers, I don't really know what to say about comets, crashing meteorites, and such. I take it that back in the day they were considered omens, and it seems like they were not especially good omens, at that.

I checked the chart for the 1908 Tunguska Meteor Event, and found no real correspondence with today's charts. Tunguska is an interesting chart, though, with an incredible stellium in Cancer, just past of solar eclipse.

Perhaps we can relate today's small hit and near-miss in the context of the upcoming Saturn station to retrograde, this Monday, the 18th. Saturn has been rocking through Scorpio, making it all the way up to 11 and half degrees of the sign since October. Among his activities has been a constructive sextile to Pluto in Capricorn, helping to transform (and consolidate) power. Capricorn is the sign of structure and institutions, and Scorpio is associated with transformation and -eventually - healing.

It could be that we should indeed see today's celestial events as warnings: to do so resonates nicely with the Saturn/Scorpio theme. We're being reminded of the fragility of our planet, and the tenuousness of life on our own small rock. We have yet to really accept the massive environmental problems we face, and have done very little to address them seriously. No doubt Saturn in Scorpio will remind us that we need to see life with the awareness of death, and to recognize the cost of what we create in our limited environment.

Ed Koch, perhaps New York's most New York Mayor, died yesterday at the age of 88, just shy of his third Saturn return. Stories about the Mayor and his popularity are all over the news, and an in-depth analysis of his relationship to New York City would take longer than any decent blog post ought to be (I will point out that he lost his bid for a fourth term for Mayor as Pluto crossed over his Saturn in Scorpio back in 1989).

But it is interesting that he died on the very day that a movie about him was released. Koch premiered last October, but it's date for general release was February 1, 2013. Now that's doing up your third Saturn return - you check out and let the film carry your legacy forward. (Oh, and the bridge - a couple of years ago the 59th Street - or Queensboro - Bridge was renamed for him).

To me, it all looks pretty complex... there are several different charts for the Netherlands, which after all has a long history. But the abdication of Queen Beatrix on January 28th has some interesting resonances with the chart for the coronation of King William I in 1815, which Nicholas Campion says is the chart many Dutch astrologers use.

Most prominent for me is that the sun on January 28th was at 8 degrees of Aquarius, conjunct the coronation chart's Saturn. Now, what really grabs me about that is the Queen - royalty, a Leonine quality - abdicated at a time when the sun is in the progressive, democratic sign of Aquarius, which is in many ways the antithesis of Leo (it certainly is opposite in the zodiac!).

It makes sense that the Netherland's Saturn is in the sign of the Water Bearer. The country is known for being tolerant (generally) and politically progressive. It's appropriate that the Queen would publicly call it quits when the sun was in a sign associated with democracy, and as it passed over the government-oriented Saturn. It's a way of royalty bowing to the people - and royalty is not famous for bowing to anyone.

The abdication also comes just days after the full moon at 7+ degrees of Leo, essentially conjunct the country's Saturn. And Saturn now stands in Scorpio, square to that full moon (the square to the sun is exact on January 30th). In other words, the full moon "lit up" the country's Saturn, and placed pressure on royalty. And at the time of her speech, the moon was on the IC (opposite the midheaven) of the country's chart.

All in all, it looks like a tough week for Dutch royalty. But the Queen made the best of the pressures - it must be bittersweet to abdicate the throne, but Beatrix made the most of it. We'll have to see what the new King's coronation chart looks like.

But hey, it's the Netherlands, and I bet it's all good.

When we look through a chart, astrologers tend to put what we call generational aspects into the background. Generational aspects are aspects of slow-moving outer planets to each other - they move so slowly that an entire generation (or at least everyone born for a few years) will have the same aspect at the same time.

No big deal for any one individual, right? Everybody in your third grade class has the same aspect by transit, so it can't be too important.

Well, yes and no. Aaron Swartz, the 26 year old web developer that killed himself of Friday, would seem to suggest a different story. Although I don't know his birth time, the major planetary transits he was experiencing are really very much generational.

Okay, he had a Pluto transit to his Venus, too. But there is no indication that he killed himself over a love interest.

And he has a Scorpio sun, so even if he wasn't in the midst of an exact aspect, he was feeling that, too, as Saturn is now in his sign. Many Scorpios are having a hard time of it to one extent or another.

But what really seems to describe his relevant transits at this time is a conjunction of transiting Saturn to his natal Pluto in Scorpio. Now again, everyone born in 1986 has more or less the same position of Pluto, so they'll all be undergoing this transit this year. Not everyone is going to have such a rough time of it. Yet we can look a little deeper and see why Aaron may have been in the crosshairs of this transit.

Saturn is the planet we associate with authority, rules, and regulation. Pluto is power and power structures. Saturn is the Cosmic Cop, Pluto is the Celestial Power Broker. When transiting Saturn aspects Pluto, the "book" says that it's a bad time to try to get away with something that breaks the rules. No judgement implied - it's just that you're likely to get called out on your violation. It's not a good time to pad your tax return with fake deductions, for example.

Swartz was in real trouble, facing prosecution for illegally downloading academic journal documents from MIT. He was facing trial this week, and was apparently looking at six months of jail time. However, even the database that he stole from didn't want to prosecute, and it seems odd that the government was going after him on such serious charges when he essentially snuck into the library.

But that's Saturn and Pluto. The Plutonian energy is no-holds-barred and Saturn is a stickler for the rules. And Aaron Swartz was a smart, inventive, creative, Scorpionic iconoclast. A danger, some might perceive.

Because he was well-known, Swartz didn't get to hide his Pluto the way many others can. Being in the public eye can take those generational planets and make them very personal. That's especially true if you use your Plutonian energy to transform the way people relate via the internet, as Swartz did.

Then there is the question of suicide. It seems an extreme response. On this we'll have to wait and see, because the Pluto-in-Scorpio generation is young and just coming under such pressures. There does seem to be a kind of nihilism that runs through this astrological cohort, a group that finds vampires (dead people) sexy and seems ready to accept death as part of life at a very early age. For better or worse, the group that was born in the era of AIDS and Chernobyl doesn't seem ready to buy into the idea that everything will be okay, and may be quick to reach for the Escape button.

This probably won't interest nonastrologers, but the moon is void, so why not?

The Seastreak Ferry crash in lower Manhattan this morning has interesting resonances with the 2003 crash of the Staten Island Ferry as it approached the dock on Staten Island.

The ascendant degree and midheaven are virtually the same (2 Sag 06 MC in 2003, 3 Sag 15 MC today). In 2003, Neptune was in the 12th house, just two degrees off the ascendant, while today's Mars is within a degree of the 2003 ascendant (and hence conjunct the 2003 Neptune. Neptune today is at 1 Pisces 19, just a bit more than a degree away from the 2003 Mars.

The moon of today's crash is just a smidgeon past the 2003 Pluto. Mercury was square Saturn in the 2003 crash, and it is opposite Saturn today. There are also interesting correlates to the May 2010 crash of the same ferry boat as the 2003 crash, available in this archived Astroblog.

Tags: Neptune, astrology, Mars, Ferry

The Uranus-Pluto square that dominates the years 2012 - 2015 gets aspected strongly from late December 2012 through the first week in January 2013. While holiday spirit was not entirely dampened, there has been enough going on in our personal and collective lives to keep an anxious eye on tense matters even as we celebrate the New Year.

The sun and Saturn both got into the mix in late December, heating up power issues. The wrangling over the Fiscal Cliff deal and gun control in the U.S. was prominent, but Russia's decision to ban U.S. adoptions and Egypt's adoption of an Islamic constitution were also signs of the times: the need for change countered by consolidation of power.

As we race through the first week of January, the feel becomes more erratic and electric. Now it's time for Mercury, the Cosmic Messenger, to stir up the Uranus-Pluto square. Although Saturn continues to help the powers-that-be maintain a lockdown on the status quo, Mercury pushes us to express the truth (at least as we see it). And sure enough, we can see some significant examples of speaking the truth to power:

In an almost amazingly Uranian rupture of the powerful Republican Party in the U.S., New Jersey Governor Chris Christie openly blamed the Republican-led Congress and (Republican) House Speaker John Boehner for failing to bring to a vote an aid package for Hurricane Sandy. New York Congressperson Peter King said that Republicans from around the country who come to New York to raise funds for their campaigns should stay home: "Anyone who donates one cent to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined," King, a staunch conservative and Republican congressman for 10 years, told CNN.

Other Mercury-Uranus news includes the sale of liberal Current TV (a U.S. television station) to Al-Jazeera.

The erratic world of Mercury-Uranus-Pluto also includes the arrest of a Brooklyn man who was arrested for being naked in front of a Connecticut church on Wednesday (and hey, he went all the way to Connecticut - Brooklyn is known as "the Borough of Churches").

And finally, French actor Gerard Depardieu was granted Russian citizenship - he has been protesting a tax on millionaires in France. Everyone's gotta have a cause.

For those of you with a real head for astrology, Argentina is honoring the Saturn return of the Falklands War by asking Britain to return the islands.