The Saturn-Pluto Mutual Reception Only Strengthens Plutocracy—And It's Only Going to Get Meaner

Saturn, currently retrograde at 10 degrees Scorpio, is still in the Via Combust zone (15 Libra to 15 Scorpio), which brings out the worst of Pluto and Scorpio (namely, plutocrats love to spend your taxpayer dollars, and their tax evasion is largely ignored). Saturn will leave the Via Combust zone in late November of this year.

The Saturn-Pluto mutual reception is simply overpowering the Uranus-Pluto square grossly in favor of Pluto, much like a 2-on-1 barroom brawl (and with essentially the same results). Someone's going to get hurt really, really bad, and it's not Saturn or Pluto.

Therefore, Uranus needs help, bigtime, to gain a foothold against The Establishment. And it's going to get it in two ways:

1) Just before Christmas in December 2014, Saturn enters Sagittarius, which is a horrible place for Saturn to be, especially after all the fun and games with the Mutual Reception. Jupiter, which will be in Leo, will be within 4 degrees of a square with Saturn in Scorpio for most of the Fall of 2014, as well as trining Uranus much of that time. The trine will be separating, and the square doesn't perfect before Saturn ingresses into Sadge. But Jupiter will be retrograde during the ingress, so progress will fall apart, and Saturn's dispositor will mitigate much hope of change or reform. Any gains at that point will be stalled and put on hold.

2) Uranus will conjoin Eris in early June 2016 at 23 Aries, forming a T-square  to the US Pluto-Mercury opposition in the Sibley horoscope of  the USA (7/4/1776, Philadelphia,  PA, 5:10 pm—see below). The transiting Uranus-Eris conjunction within three degress of the US natal Chiron will quincunx the US natal Neptune. The outlet leg for the T-square will be in the 10th house. Translation: The problems at home will be too big and troublesome for the government to ignore any longer, and the fight will be on for economic justice. The wounds of the people will be too deep to ignore.

Saturn in Sadge will put a HUGE damper on all the excess the plutocrats have been hoarding for themselves. Note that this occurs one month after the midterm elections.

So where is all that promise of revolution the Uranus-Pluto square was touted as being the harbinger of? Why haven't the masses, enjoying their escapist comas of movies, television, booze and drugs (thanks to Neptune in Pisces), gotten mad as hell, refusing to take it anymore, and poured out onto the streets in rage and revolution? 

As Bill Herbst pointed out in his November 2011 newsletter: 

"So, during the nine months from  September 2011 through May 2012,  we  are betwixt and between, moving steadily away from denial and toward  the reckoning with breakdown and revolution"" Herbst continues. ""No, this is not “critical mass” yet---that doesn’t  initially occur until  June 2012, and then amplifies,  morphs, and shifts over the three years  that will follow, until it  reaches tidal wave proportions  around the globe  by 2016."

Find out more next month when I post, "Look Out America--Eris is Coming!"  Part 1 of 3: A Look KBOs and the Eris-Uranus Conjunction Square Pluto in the USA Sibley Chart Now and In 2016.

Astrologers: Pluto's Recently Discovered Moons Need Your Help!

Just for fun...

Voting is underway to name the two recently discovered moons of Pluto (quick--can you name the other three?). One of their discoverers, Mark Showalter, is accepting suggestions via online voting, which will then be tallied and presented to the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Help Us Name the Moons of Pluto!

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011 and 2012 revealed two previously unknown moons of Pluto. So far, we have been calling them "P4" and "P5", but the time has come to give them permanent names. If it were up to you, what would you choose?

By tradition, the names of Pluto's moons come from Greek and Roman mythology, and are related to the ancient tales about Hades and the Underworld. Please pick your favorites on the ballot below. 

Go to http://www.plutorocks.com/home and vote early and vote often, because voting ends at Noon EST on Mon., Feb 25, 2013. And then read this to find out the names of Pluto's three other moons. Not because there's a quiz, or because you should use them in your charts, but because the more you know and understand the solar system, the better an astrologer you'll be.

For what it's worth, the two names I voted for because they made the most symbolic sense for Pluto were the two top vote-getters at the time I voted. Great minds (astronomical and astrological) think alike? :)
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UPDATE 2/25/2013: No fair! William Shatner skewed the vote with his Twitter lobbying! The fix is in! :) 

Here's the official results, from the plutorocks.com homepage:

Meanwhile, take this 10-question Pluto quiz on Space.com's coverage of the naming contest results (scroll to the bottom of the article for the quiz. If you go 10-for-10 like I did, send me a screenshot of your results, and I'll pick a random winner on March 15th for a free copy of Open Source Modern Horary Astrology.

Modern Electional Astrology 101: A Perfectly Engineered Fundraising Chart

A querent needed to raise funds for a charity and wanted to know the best time to make the funding request public. The only caveat was that she only had 30 days to raise the funds. She needed astrological help because she knew that early in a new year was the worst time to fundraise, as people are tapped out financially from the holidays, and not so willing to open their wallets.

Electional charts are reverse-engineered from a horary chart (where you take what you get at the time you ask the question), because the intent of electional astrology is to put the planets in the best possible houses and relationships with each other at a particular time to achieve a successful outcome.

Using the methodology as outlined in Chapter 7 of Open Source Modern Horary Astrology, the first step was to peruse the ephemeris to find favorable Moon aspects. In this case, the Moon aspects chosen were excellent:

Next, choosing strong significators for the querent (ASC) and quesited (8th house) was sought. The best-case scenario in electional astrology is to have the Moon, querent, and quesited all in harmony with each other (or more realistically, as much as possible). In this chart, the Moon, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are the strongest planets in strong placement in the chart, so there's a lot to work with. Here is what was chosen, and why:

The Moon double-represents the querent, as it is ruler of the ASC, and the Moon in horary/electional charts is ALWAYS the querent's co-ruler. The early degree rising shows the beginning phases of the project, rather than traditional horary's prematurity or a stricture against judgment, which modern horary ignores to great success. 

Saturn rules the 8th house of the quesited, since the 8th house rules other people's money, and Venus represents personal finance. With Venus applying to conjoin Pluto in the angular 7th house of other people (also ruled by Saturn with Capricorn on the cusp of the 7th), and with Pluto mutually recepting Venus' dispositor, Saturn/quesited, people would rally to the cause and open their wallets. However, it would only be in measured or limited small amounts (Venus in Capricorn), rather than large and generous donations. This was okay, because the amount of money she was trying to raise was only a four figure sum, not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So the significators of Moon, Saturn, and Venus, are all nicely and harmoniously bound together by dispositor or mutual reception, and applying aspects of the Moon. Electional charts are rarely this easy.

The Moon was placed in the angular 10th house for a visible public appeal. Moon in Pisces, dispositing to Neptune (which it recently conjoined), as well as Chiron, showed it was a charitable cause to help the less fortunate. Note the applying Moon (querent) trine to Saturn (quesited), with the Moon 3 degrees away from partile. This gives an idea of timing in the chart, and due to the Moon in a mutable sign, and succeedent, fixed Saturn, three weeks seemed far more likely than three days to come up with the amount. She reached the funding goal in exactly 22 days; three weeks and one day after the project launched as timed by the election chart.

With Uranus and Mars mutually recepted and ruling the 9th and 11th houses, the project received widespread news coverage via the assistance of a sympathetic reporter (Mars in the 9th; 9th house cusp in Aquarius), as well as significant and unexpected support from her friends (11th house ruled by Aries). The message truly got across, as the Sun, in the 8th house of the quesited, rules the 3rd house of communications, and the Moon's last aspect is a sextile to the Sun before going void-of-course.

A key point to remember to be successful in electional astrology (and horary for that matter) is to focus on the noun and not the adjectives of the subject at hand. A beginner would have made the mistake of focusing on what the funding was for (charity/11th and 12th houses), rather than the fact that the subject was fundraising, period (Pluto, Venus, 8th house), regardless of the type or cause.

In Horary & Event Charts, the Void-of-Course Moon Can Be Overcome By Other Factors In the Chart: Two Employment Event Charts

The querent had two job interviews lined up on consecutive days. Both were with the same employer: city government. She really wanted the second job because it paid more, but would be happy with either. Here is the event chart for the first job interview:

In this chart, the significators are Venus = Querent, and Quesited = 6th & 10th houses, because the position is a part-time and temporary nature (6th) with a city government (10th). So the rulers are Mercury (6th) and Saturn (10th).

Venus, the querent's ruler, is in detriment by house. Her only applying aspect is a quincunx to the ASC, showing it won't be as financially rewarding as she'd like. Venus disposits to Jupiter retrograde and in detriment in the first.  Also, the South Node in Taurus in the first and dispositing to Venus shows it's not the best position in the world for her, but it's not that bad either. It also has the potential to progress into something better when Jupiter turns direct at the end of January 2013. This is affirmed by the intercepted Vertex (a turning point) in the 6th house dispositing to Venus.

So with the querent's significator unable to help her much, (and according to traditional astrology, considered void-of-course because Venus won't make any other aspects before changing signs***see note below), let's see if other factors in the chart can.

Via Combust Saturn is in the 6th house with Mercury ruling the cusp. The Saturn-Pluto mutual reception somewhat mitigates the Via Combustion. Mercury disposits to Saturn, and the intercepted (and Via Combust) Vertex (indicating a turning point) disposits to the querent's ruler, Venus. So this is a strong indicator of her being hired. It is affirmed by the Moon in Virgo, dispositing to Mercury, on the 12th house side of the 6th house cusp.

But..but...but...the Moon is void-of-course, you say. Nothing will come of the matter, or the status quo will continue, or the chart is unfit to be judged, the traditional horary texts say.

Ignore them.

The MC is applying to partile trine the Moon, further indicating a done deal. Finally, the Moon is about to progress in the chart into Libra, dispositing to the querent's significator. The Moon is three degrees away from the ingress into Libra, indicating a quick hiring decision will be made.

This is the event chart for the second job interview for a different position with the same employer on the following day:

The significators are Uranus=querent, Quesited= 6th & 10th because like job #1, the position is of a temporary nature (6th house) with a city government agency (10th).

Right off the bat, this chart has problems:

• Late degree ASC with Uranus in the first squaring Pluto in the 11th is bad news. Lunar aspects are a square to the Sun-Pluto conjuction, which is squaring the Querent's ASC ruler, Uranus, forming a separating T-square. (Also note: Pluto is not combust the Sun, because Pluto is a Kuiper Belt Object, not a planet. Therefore, it is too far away for the symbolic concept of combustion to be applied to it, since it can't be seen by the naked eye, anyway. This is true of all KBO's, SDO's, and other objects further towards the Oort Cloud.)
• Uranus is mutually recepting Mars, but moving Uranus to the 12th house doesn't achieve anything for the querent, so the MR is lost.
• Moon in the 7th shows the employers are leaning toward other candidates rather than the querent. (If the Moon were in the first it would indicate they are favoring the querent).

Jupiter, the employer, is retrograde and in detriment by sign and house. The employer is not internally or publicly expected to make the deadline on the project, nor is it expected to be successful (Jupiter quincunx Mercury-Sun-Pluto stellium in the 11th). The querent is actually dodging a bullet by not getting the job. 

Venus in the 10th isn't doing much for the querent except showing that it would be a financially beneficial position. She'd still get paid whether the project succeeds or not.

As far as lunar aspects, the Moon squares the Sun-Pluto conjunction, quindeciles Uranus (querent's ruler), sextiles Venus and then quintiles Mercury and Pluto before going void-of-course. So there's nothing the Moon is doing to connect this job to the querent, and the quindecile shows her worrying about that fact after her interview.

So what was the outcome? Three days after the first interview, the querent was offered and accepted the first job, and went to work the following day after accepting. So yet again,  traditional horary myths (strictures against judgment) bite the dust.

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***Traditional rules are ignored by modern astrology, in this case because Venus/the Querent is still semisextile the MC, and is already in an out-of-sign sextile with Neptune. Venus is also in a grand cross with Pallas, Ceres and the Moon, affirming that the position isn't the best, financially.

Since modern horary utilizes ALL aspects, and the angles (and asteroids, KBOs, and other things traditional astrology disregards, etc.), planets are pretty rarely considered void-of-course. ALWAYS look at what the chart is actually doing, rather than what ancient rules dictate.

Understanding the Roles of Uranus, Neptune & Pluto Simply and Easily in Horary and Natal Charts

Traditional astrologers erroneously believe that outer solar system planets and bodies are not personal, and therefore irrelevant for horary (and sometimes even natal) interpretation. The belief is based on the exceedingly irrational idea that the further a body is from the Sun, the less personal relevance it has. (And yet they will consider fixed stars important, which aren't even part of the solar system.) Many astrologers still think in terms of cycles, and dismiss the outer body symbolism as generational, if they take it into account at all.

They couldn't be more wrong on all counts.

These are the astronomically accurate zones of the solar system:

To be fair, ancient astrologers didn't have the technology to be aware of anything beyond the naked eye. To be honest, there's no reason to continue to utilize such an outmoded system in astrology, because there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it yields more accurate horary or natal interpretations. In fact, the evidence indicates otherwise, as modern astrologers have demonstrated repeatedly in their case studies.

The astrological reality, horary or otherwise, is that if a body revolves around the Sun—a person's symbolic life force (natal) and occasional significator or dispositor in horary—it's a part of the querent's life. As such, below are simple explanations of how the major outer zone bodies operate in a chart—and their deeply personal symbolic effects.

Uranus—Whatever you think will happen, won't. Or as Michael Lutin often puts it, if you count your chickens when Uranus is involved, they are sure not to hatch. It is something which happens that you absolutely never even considered, because you were so sure it was going to be something else.

Neptune—Hope, with its eternal twin, disappointment. Disillusion often helps us find ourselves again, and gets us back on track. 

Pluto—Not a planet, but a Kuiper Belt Object. Pluto's symbolic effect is to embody the thing(s) you are positively, absolutely sure you can't live without, and then are grateful to be rid of when said thing(s) are inevitably annihilated from your life.

Eris—Another Kuiper Belt Object, bigger and as important as Pluto in a chart. Eris shows long-term strife and discord based on the house, aspects and sign it occupies, and especially when affecting a significator (horary/electional) or the Sun and Moon (natal) or an angle (both). Eris is very different from Neptune's apathetic discontent; Eris is an active and fiery agitator of the chronic issue (based on house and aspects) that just won't go away.

Chiron—A Centaur that shows where in life the person feels most like a leper. It is a person's own deep and personal inferiority complex, either real or imagined. Especially pay attention to Chiron in relationship horary charts, and particularly now, since it's conjunct Neptune, which drives the wound(s) deeper.