What’s happening for you in your section of the Zodiac Lounge this week, July 30?

Peek here to find out. Enjoy!

6 Ways Astrology Confirms Why I Can’t Stand Mitt Romney

A few weeks ago, I outlined some of my reservations and thoughts about synastry, the astrological art of comparing charts, here.  So now I can focus on what compelled me to write that piece in the first place:  to use astrology to better understand why I can’t stand Mitt Romney.

It’s both baffling and kind of not. It’s kind of not, because there’s more than enough footage and ink spilled on why I could come to think of Mitt as an opportunistic liar and flip-flopper who’ll do anything to get in the White House.  I mean even if I didn’t know or read all of that about Mitt, as an animal lover, how could I like a presidential candidate who’ll put his own dog in a dog crate on top of the car roof for a cross country trip? But is there an astrological correlation to my bias?

That question leads more to the baffling and more qualitative part. This is not one of those astrological posts that has any pretense of objectivity. In fact, just to be clear, I don’t really believe a chart ever just speaks for itself, objectively. So I won’t be looking at my chart or Mitt’s with any sense that our charts spell out unequivocally why I can’t stand him.  They don’t. Our charts don’t make something so as much as note something as so. But the astrology does mirror the nearly bottomless well of rancor that I have toward a man I’ve never met and his prospects as a presidential candidate.  And that’s the baffling part. There are only a few people I’ve never met who, for one reason or another, I can’t stand.  Romney is one. (For the record, Morgan Freeman is another. More on him another time.)  So I decided to look to astrology to see if there are some clues as to why I can’t stand a man I’ve never met and who I have only observed via video and what’s written about him.  Before I start, here’s our info and our two charts combined.

Mitt Romney–March 12, 1947, 9:51 am, Detroit, MI vs. Samuel Reynolds–November 22, 1967, 1:19 pm, Buffalo, NY

Here’s a breakdown of the various glyphs for the planets and signs we’ll be referencing:

I won’t be using all of these glyphs. In fact, I don’t use half of them.  But you’ll have a reference point. Yes, so don’t feel bad if you don’t know what Pholus and Nessus are, for example. I don’t either, and I’m okay with that.

1. His Saturn sits right on my Moon

Mitt has the inner wheel (my only deference, since he’s older) and I’m on the outer wheel.  My Moon lines up with his Saturn (referencing the chart above) by the same exact degree, 2 degrees Leo…almost to the minute.That’s significant. Here’s why.

First off, Saturn isn’t happy in Leo. (He does better in the opposite sign, Aquarius, where he has a home.)  Saturn is the planet symbolizing authority, discipline and how one fulfills one’s role in your society.  Mitt badly wants authority and feels like he’s not given his due. My Moon in Leo sees him as a wet blanket that I’m sitting on at an otherwise pleasant picnic in the park. And given that my moon and his Saturn are in the same degree, the blanket is sopping wet.  Had his Saturn been 6 degrees, for instance, then I’d still have a wet blanket, but it wouldn’t be as wet. My moon will never recognize his authority, because his Saturn in Leo struggles to get some rather than honoring the authority that he rightfully got from his father, another thing symbolized by Saturn. So I guess I’ll always see him as a petty ruler.

2. My Sun-Neptune can’t get with his Moon and Jupiter

My Sun-Neptune combo suggests a lot of things, but one of the things it suggests is that I’m fairly idealistic.  However, because of other factors in my chart, that idealism has taken a serious knocking over time.  So I like to better describe myself as a recovering cynic.  Mitt’s partile (same degree @ 27 degrees) moon-Jupiter combo takes me out of that recovery process.  A word about his Moon first.

His moon in Scorpio is miserable.

Mostly because the Moon THRIVES in its opposite place, Taurus.  So, again, Mitt feels like he never has his due. This gets magnified by the great expander, Jupiter. Now, fortunately, Jupiter is chillin’ in Scorpio.  He neither loses “dignity” nor does he gain any.  He just hypes up Mitt’s Moon. This partly signifies Romney’s extraordinary fortune.  It could also suggest what could be his greed.  There could be argument that the chilaxin’ Jupiter would make my Sun feel good since he’s pretty close to it. And that would have been true if my Sun didn’t have to fend off his greedy, contentious Moon. I’m pretty sure that if Mitt and I were ever in the same room, he’d have a complaint about something or another that would piss me off.  Probably just at the moment I would have a thought like, “Oh, he’s not that bad.”

3. His Mars hits my Ascendant, my gateway to the world

With his Mars in stealthy Pisces on my ascendant, how I experience the world around me, I can’t help but be suspicious of him. Mars represents how we express our desire in action, not attraction. That’s Venus.  In Pisces, Mars can’t be as straightforward as he’d like to be.  That’s pretty much how I see Mitt.  But that offends me deeply for some reason.  You’d think my Pisces rising would understand that or have compassion for that. But it doesn’t.  I think I know why.

4. Mitt’s Mars also has a tug of war with my Jupiter, the patron of my ascendant

In all fairness, my Ascendant’s patron, Jupiter, is in an inhospitable place, Virgo.  In Virgo, Jupiter’s normal grandeur and ebullient faith gets too focused and analytical. So I can only fulfill the demands of deep faith and compassion of my Ascendant through analysis and focused intent.  That explains my cynicism.  That also explains this post and the other one. (Ahem.)  Anyway, a Mars-Jupiter face off like what “Mittens” and I have could be inspiring. If we were somehow on the same side, my Jupiter would “uplift” him and his Mars would provide action and focus for our jointly shared ideas.  Only one prob: his Mars is on my Ascendant. So he pisses me off or angers me (Mars) somehow. Then my Jupiter picks up the cue and symbolically analyzes it, possibly even exaggerating the slight.  Oh well.

5. Mitt’s Sun is opposite to my Pluto

Pluto likes to probe into the depths of something, and I’ve certainly probed Mitt’s chart more than any presidential hopeful that I’ve known. (Yes, even more than Barack Obama.)  If we had the hope of being a couple, this aspect could signal two “interesting” options: an obsession or lots of fights for control. Since we’re not a couple (Allah be praised!), I think it signals that Mitt gets in my craw something fierce and I spend a lot of time trying to figure it out and get the bile it creates out of my system.  One of my favorite astro sites, cafeastrology.com, describes the aspect this way:

“You draw out each other’s dark sides, and there can frequently be battles of will between the two of you. There is a compulsive quality to your partnership that can be unnerving at times, and exhausting as well. Your connection certainly runs deep, and the very nature of your relationship makes it an especially significant one.”

That sounds about right.  But I’m never exhausted by digging into Mitt Romney.  He “powers” up my Mars-Pluto connection (seen below):

That means that when it comes to the dislike I have for this dude, I’m indefatigable. I could beat on the man all day long. I guess the only reason I don’t is to have some semblance of a life, a career and pleasure.

6. Romney’s Uranus faces off against my Midheaven

My midheaven represents what I aspire toward as the highest calling of who I can be in my society or community.  Uranus represents the most unique aspect of one’s identity and how youerupt out of the hardened Earth of conventional thinking to express your sense of truth.  So does Mitt’s individuality oppose my highest calling of who I can be? Perhaps and this could be the most interesting dynamic between me and Mittens.

There’s something about him that shakes up my worldview. It’s not that hard to figure out: his Uranus in Gemini means that he might be original, but he’s not necessarily a straight shooter (the Gemini part).  Although I’m a recovering cynic, I still believe in Truth, somehow. That would be my MC in Sagittarius (the seeker of Truth). I don’t like to admit my belief in truth, even to myself.  And if you know me personally, you might even hear me disparage belief in Truth. But it’s there. I just don’t believe it is all that we think it is. With Mitt, though, I get a better sense of Truth, because I see him as the opposite of it.  I may not know all that Truth is, but I know he’s not true or truthful.

However, I wonder if another Uranus-like disruption I experience with Mitt is a deep seated fear that my country (from my 4th house of native soil and where Mitt’s Uranus lands in my chart) is so resistant to Obama and his ideas for change that it would elect him President. That bothers me–deeply and true to Uranian form, I find that unsettling.  He’s dangerous enough to be the nauseous squall that tears my tattered flag of idealism and liberalism right off the flagpole of my MC. That’s the symbolic implication that keeps me wondering and stoking my wrath on Romney.

So, as I say frequently on twitter, eff Mitt Romney. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure he’s never gonna be President of the United States. And I won’t stop.  I even have the charts to confirm it.

Mercury Retrogrades and Ramadan…

The other day I received this musing from a friend of a friend:

“I was wondering the implications and the power of Ramadan taking place during Mercury Retrograde.  Any insight you could provide is greatly appreciated.”

This is a really interesting and thorny “question” for multiple reasons. First off, the common take from most Sunni Muslims is that astrology is haram or forbidden.  Actually, despite the fact that I am both an astrologer and a Muslim, I can understand why, but in a far more limited fashion than most Muslims would with only a popular understanding of astrology.   But we’ll get to that another time.

The fact is that most observant Muslims would draw no parallel between Ramadan and Mercury Retrograde.  Yet Ramadan, a holy month of fasting to observe when the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) first received the words that would become the Qur’an 1400 years ago, is based on literally seeing the crescent of a new moon. It is an astronomical event, not an astrological one.

However,  Mercury retrograde is fairly straightforward astronomical event too. Mercury “retrogrades” because Mercury can do in 88 days what takes the Earth 365 days to do–make a complete revolution around the Sun (and through the Zodiac). So Mercury goes toward a rebirth or new moon when it appears to be behind the Earth. It catches up, gets ahead of the Earth and when it gets too far along the Zodiac (meaning close to completing its “year”), it begins another retrograde cycle. This happens about three times a year.

So there’s an immediate parallel between Mercury retrograde and Ramadan as new moon cycles.  That does have astrological significance because we attach meaning to the new moon. It’s a time to begin new intentions and renew ourselves. This matches the overall intention of Ramadan: to renew and deepen one’s faith and living.

Also a week before Ramadan ends, Mercury makes his heliacal rise as a forward moving, future-oriented Morning Star. This means it rises before the Sun. At the start of Ramadan, Mercury was an evening star, setting after the Sun at night. That’s a more reflective, soul-seeking Mercury..and a perfect symbol for our posture toward Allah and the cosmos at the start of Ramadan. At the end of Ramadan, we should be thinking about how we will absorb the lessons of the last 30 days into our lives to create a more fulfilling future.

It’s also worth noting that Mercury is known among astrologers and esotericists as a spiritual analog for the angel Jibreel, also known as Gabriel. This is the angel who brought the holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

So though there’s no direct connection between how Ramadan links up with Mercury retrograde other than the happy “accident” of calendrical science. It is kind of interesting that the next two Ramadans do line up during a Mercury Retrograde. So it’s the reinforcement of a message: listen in and receive words of wisdom, just like the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did so long ago in the holy month of Ramadan.

New Zodiac Lounge horoscopes for 7/23-29…

A twitter follower posted this recently:

“i always go back and review the previous week before looking at the new scopes. great for planning ahead & reflection!” –@jameyhatley

That’s how I would use them.

Enjoy!

Also, do you know about the Zodiac Lounge talks? They’re recorded talks at the Live Zodiac Lounge. Get them while they’re still free.

Samuel

Leo roars in…

Here’s what I tweeted about #Leo today. Enjoy!

What I discovered while writing “6 Ways Astrology Confirms Why I Can’t Stand Mitt Romney…”

This started off as a post about “6 Ways Astrology confirms why I can’t stand Mitt Romney.” I will still write that post, but I’ve allowed this post to become something else.  It’s a little essay on synastry. I guess I had to get some things off my chest about synastry before I do a biting piece on my synastry with Mitt Romney’s chart.  That piece  is going to be a strange piece because most times people look at why they like someone or explore whether that person also likes them. My piece on Mitt will be an example of how synastry attests to human connection, whether that’s eternal love or antipathy.

Synastry is the branch of astrology that examines how charts and people mix together.  It’s also my least favorite branch of astrology. There are various levels of reasons for this. One major reason is that the general population isn’t taught enough about how astrology works in relationships. So many will come to an astrologer with something like this, “I’m a Scorpio and she’s an Aries. Will we get along?” Here’s what an astrologer hears by translation,”I’m a Brit and she’s a Croatian. Will we get along?” Yes, that question is so immensely vague, vacuous and useless as that’s almost a literal translation.  It’s one thing to talk about how signs get along; but if you want a nitty-gritty answer for how two people will get along, then an astrologer will most likely need to work with some charts, based on birth date, time and place.

The other problem with synastry is a little more complicated.  I believe synastry can only tell you so much and often people want to know more than what two charts blended together can yield.  I do believe that an experienced astrologer can look at two charts (visual representations of real people) and discuss how those two people could get along. But I don’t think that dictates the relationship wholly or the nature of the relationship. It does depend on the biography and actual life experiences and inclinations of each person.  For instance, Mitt Romney and I will most likely never be lovers.  There’s not only an astrological reason for this. There’s a real-life reason for this: I’m not into men. This means that a parallel notion is also true: even if two charts could sing “The Body Electric” together in complete harmony for all time, it does depend on whether the two would be inclined to connect in person despite or because of other factors–orientation, class backgrounds, culture, geography, etc.  Compatible charts does not automatically mean compatible people in any kind of relationship.  Context matters. Many astrologers seem to forget this.

Synastry most often can’t dictate what will happen in the relationship itself. I could tell you that you’re compatible with your lover, but if she walks out, for whatever reason, you most likely want to know whether she’s gone for good or coming back.  Compatibility won’t tell you that. In fact, I might argue that you won’t get enough info on that from yours or your lover’s natal chart either. Or her transits and progressions. Or yours.  Or the transit and progressions of your combined charts. For that, it’s best to look to another form of astrology called horary.  Horary astrology is when you ask an astrologer a question about a meaningful and usually personal issue and she casts a chart for when she understands the question. The chart, then, allows the astrologer to divine whether the heavens has a poetic and fitting answer.

One last reason why I cast side-eye toward synastry is that as a branch of astrology it’s on the shakiest ground historically. Although there are loads of books on it now, ranging from Linda Goodman’s ever popular “Love Signs” to Steve & Jodie Forrest’s “Skymates”, it’s really the newest form of Western astrology.  There’s more history  in Indian/Vedic astrology. But if you want to torture yourself or any seasoned astrologer, ask her/him to document or discuss synastry in the West before 1900.  There’s not much there, so a lot of our current techniques and thoughts about synastry are pretty new. It’s not that new is bad necessarily, but it’s certainly not tested enough. It’s also not necessarily thought out as well. We get more into celebrating the novelty of synastry than the actual full utility of it.  Of course, I’m not saying synastry isn’t useful. I’m saying it’s useful in a context that may be a little more limited than we’d like to admit.  It’s a better tool for understanding than expecting or determining what’s to happen in a relationship. In fact, that’s why I discourage my clients from getting synastry readings when they just meet someone. It’s better to let the relationship have legs on its own merits than use astrology to determine whether you’re “meant” to be together with someone.  Ain’t that too much pressure?  Ugh. I’d rather know how to better be with someone after I’ve gotten to know him or her (depending on the relationship) rather than set up a determinism.

I know I can’t get with Mitt as my President or anything else in my life. His chart testifies that he might not like me either. But we haven’t met. However, so far, our astrology does help me explore why I feel such antipathy.  Stay tuned for that.

Zodiac Lounge: Your Retrograde survival guide for this week, July 16-22

Check out the Zodiac Lounge online and live for this week!  The Zodiac Lounge also has a Facebook page now too.

Stay cool.

 

All retrogrades are not created equal…

Although Uranus goes retrograde today, I wouldn’t make a big ta-doo about it for individuals. When Mercury (as it does tomorrow), Venus or Mars goes retrograde, it’s a bigger deal for most individuals because these planets are more personal (based on their visible distance from the Earth.) It’s different for Uranus.  Unless Uranus is close to a planet or point in your birth chart, you might not “feel” the retrograde the same way.

For instance, I’m fairly sensitive to the transits of Uranus because the Uranus I was born with, my “natal” one, is in one of the best seats in my chart–my 7th house.  So I usually “feel” some measure of significance and challenge with relationships during that time. It also helps that this retrograde will bring some side-eye to my Saturn in a few months.  That usually suggests some revolutionary (and possibly satisfying) changes in one’s life.  I’m game for that. (Or so I think.)

However, we can expect some setbacks and revisions in a more global context. As I’ve written elsewhere, Uranus is a wake up call for the Uranus in Scorpio generation. So we can expect more talk about the disparity between the have and have-nots.  We might also feel the general shocks of rebellion. Lynn Koiner does talk about how this could affect people who were born with Uranus retrograde as well.

But a retrograde that doesn’t hit a particular planet or point in your chart, generally, is not as powerful or eventful. If you know your chart, then you probably have a sense of when and maybe how a retrograding planet will manifest in your life.  If you don’t know your chart, then you might consult with an astrologer to get a grip on that.  Of course, ahem, you could start with this one, but you can go to one who resonates with you or who has been recommended to you.

#UranusRetrograde & #MercuryRetrograde on tap for this week…

Check the #ZodiacLounge here

My twitter thoughts on #Cancer (Storified)…

Thanks to my friend Amanda Michelle my tweets on the first day of #Cancer this year have been preserved. You can find them here. 

People ask why don’t I blog more. Or, at least, blog my tweets.  It’s simple. As someone with a moon in Leo, twitter can offer me something that no blog site can offer: live performance. I guess this is a suitable compromise that I will pay more attention to. At least until I can think of blogging as fun or as interactive.  My experience with it has never been, so… we’ll see.