Astrology, Etc. by Terry Lamb

I thought you might be interested in a little background on Friday the 13th.

The 13th is considered unlucky because of a smear campaign from the early Church. Fridays were always blessed because they were the day of the goddess Venus. This was cause for great celebration and feasting, which the church fathers felt undercut their authority. Way back when, before the church, the months were determined by the moon cycles - so in the most ancient of times the 13th of the month was also the day of the full moon, when there was extra feasting and enjoyment (a double goddess day — the Moon goddess and Venus). After the calendar was regularized to fit the solar year, the months no longer matched the moon cycles. Fridays were then taken over as a fasting day, so you couldn’t engage in your regular weekly revelry. And the Friday the 13th, the old pagan doubly-blessed Moon and Venus day, was considered especially unlucky and bad - a day to be afraid and probably pray.

So, jet crashes notwithstanding, I always think of the 13th as an especially lucky day.

It’s Yule, the Winter Solstice or “sun station”. This is a big event in the astrological calendar, since it truly is the start of a new year. This is the first of three posts I’ll be doing on the new year and how to celebrate it personally in order to get the most out of 2009.

I was among those San Diegans who attended the annual holiday party put on by the San Diego Astrological Society (SDAS). We are very fortunate to be blessed with the talents of astrologer-poet Deborah Parker, who put together the following invocation to bring in the new year. Before the invocation, Deborah found someone (whose sun sign is that sign) to read each sign’s declaration. Then, from a master candle, the candle of Capricorn was lit and Capricorn’s declaration read. Capricorn then lit Aquarius’s candle, and so on. It was a very powerful event, and the words were deeply evocative of the energies of the signs. I encourage you to do the same.

THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE LIGHT THROUGH THE SIGNS AND SEASONS
By Deborah Smith Parker

I, Capricorn, use my stone walls for sacred space to guard the flickering spark of Light at its lowest point so it may thrive to climb to its highest destiny.

I, Aquarius, know Light must be freed from every prison to illumine the lamp of knowledge in every mind.

I, Pisces diffuse the Light throughout the depths of my sea, shimmering seductively.

I, Aries, am the Light always rising in the east, a blazing path into the dawn sky lighting the way for others to follow.

I, Taurus, catch the Light as it touches earth to make fire in the mud that nourishes all new growth.

I, Gemini, seek each intersection of the Light, every divide, for there are always choices and all paths must be explored.

I, Cancer, nourish in my womb the quickening by Light of each seed conceived in all unions.

I, Leo, radiate Light from the heart of every matter as freely as a child gives love.

I, Virgo, carry in my hands the sacred Light that nurtures each grain of wheat, each tiny seed, for they must be perfectly ripe before being offered as flour for the bread.

I, Libra, witness the Light in all its extremities, and no matter what its distance or destination I give testimony to its one source.

I, Scorpio, bear the Light into the darkest regions that all fear but all must know.  When they know at last, they carry the Light into death.

I, Sagittarius, soar high in screamingly ecstatic blazing dissolution into the dying of the Light.

© 2003 Deborah Smith Parker

A NEW WORLD CULTURE is being born. We find ourselves on irreparable imbalance in justice, freedom, economic opportunity, and our planet’s health. Our rescue of ourselves could be just as miraculous. Let 2008 be written as the year when we were shocked to our senses, and without that shock we would not have developed the will to change.

With so many challenges thrust on us at once, life is more obviously full of unknowns than it was before. It has led many people to pull back into whatever safe zone they can create. Now we search for what we can do to make life more stable, to protect ourselves, to live closer to our needs instead of our wants.

It is out of this urge that a union of truth and reality occurred. We spent the last nine months in gestation, and now the new child-culture has emerged. It is full of potential but dependent on us to maintain its viability. The beauty of the new culture is how rich it can be in inward prosperity, to know that we are living in the security of being in balance with the earth, that we are helping each other in a symbiotic inhale and exhale of care for each other.

We must conceive of a world with more “we” and less “me”, or we . . . Go to www.terrylamb.net for the rest of the forecast.

OCTOBER WAS A LITTLE LIKE Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride if you have any connection to the stock market. Outer events always reflect what is happening inside us, and our personal world may have been rocked in other ways as well. Mercury has been moving forward for two weeks, and it’s evident that Mercury is not the bad guy. How was the truth brought out in your life?

No matter what your answer is to that question, this is only the beginning of the process. With so many planetary shifts coming, including Pluto’s for-good entry into Capricorn, we’re all in adjustment mode.

This is a good thing. Even though there’s plenty of pain and suffering going around right now, and we all need to do things to help each other, the phenomena of economic change are all good, and there is a way out of the challenges. In a Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria, “There Is a Silver Lining”, he sees the current economic crunch as blessing in disguise. If it gets us out of the costly credit-driven economy that we’ve been virtually forced into by the slow bleeding of the working and middle classes, it will have the best outcome. It is simply time for us to say, “No more!” to the seduction of (more)

There are two new posts on Astro-Pol to help us make sense of the economy, astrologically speaking. Check them out now at http://astro-pol.blogspot.com/.

I had written the first half of the forecast in mid-September, before the crisis hit. Since then, everything has changed — or perhaps we could say it’s the same, only more so. The economy is making a (big) much-needed correction. Since the 1980, we’ve been working under a deregulation philosophy: Let the market do what it will and the wealth will trickle down to the masses. The problem with the “trickle-down” theory is that it doesn’t work; what happens is what has happened throughout history under similar circumstances — the wealth goes up the chimney to the top rung of the economic ladder. The giant whooshing sound is what you hear when all the wealth being squeezed out of the workers to be enjoyed by those at the top.

Regulation is meant to counterbalance that most natural of human expressions — greed, and that most common of public conditions — financial naivety. Good regulation arises from the . . . for more, go to www.terrylamb.net.

I couldn’t resist putting in my two cents on the upcoming, momentous election. So I’ve started a new blog with progressive political commentary from an astrological viewpoint at Astro-Pol. While my own viewpoint is progressive, I attempt to make my astrological perspective as objective as possible.

My first post is: Obama-McCain: Who Will Win the Town Hall Debate?

I hope you enjoy it!

More Wiggle Room
The August 2008 Forecast

A  few days ago, I attended a lecture given by Steven Koonin, Chief Group Scientist of British Petroleum, sponsored by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He was speaking on “Energy Trends and Technologies”. Quite an articulate speaker, he had an impressive array of statistics that made the energy future of the planet look both better and worse than it appears now. Although his statistics might be challenged (I haven’t fact-checked him), several undeniable factors stood out: First, the problem with availability of energy and the fuels that bring it from existing fossil supplies isn’t below the ground — it’s above-ground, in the form of delivery and cost issues (below-ground problems are not far off, though). (In other words, the market is being manipulated in many ways.) Second, while there are reserves to last for many years into the future (enough time to switch to alternate sources), the planet can’t afford for us to continue with, as he put it, “business as usual”. We need to reduce our current usage by at least half worldwide, and at present the rate is going up 2-3% per year (worldwide). Third, it is unlikely that governments and politicians have the intestinal fortitude to do what it takes to create the climate for the necessary changes, so the people must spearhead the effort.

This had the effect of reducing my energy angst. This is not because the situation is not serious, because it is; rather, it is because somebody could put boundaries on the problem. It’s not a bottomless, unsolvable, dire, and immediate problem with no solution, as it may seem by listening to the media or watching gas prices go up with no ceiling in sight.

My point is that “knowns” are always easier to deal with than unknowns.

For the rest of the forecast, go to www.terrylamb.net and click on “Forecast”.

I’ve finally been able to get this and my other two blogs functioning! My ISP “upgraded” their platform in February, and to my dismay, my blog listings were all backwards! Well, my time constraints and their poor customer service conspired to keep me from addressing the problem until this week — and they’re all finally fixed!

I’m going to be changing the focus of my forums and blogs. I will continue, of course, to write the monthly forecast (coming out this weekend) that will be posted on  my website and announced in all of them. However, the rest of what I contribute to the forums will be educational more than forecast-oriented. I’ll answer your questions and post new articles and passages there that you can use to learn more about the subjects on this website.

I’m going to use the blogs to do personal updates that will have more of the “forecast-y” stuff in them, but there will also be more whimsical entries. I won’t promise to stick to a particular schedule, but I will post more often to everything again.

So come back and visit the forums and blogs frequently. If you look at my website (www.terrylamb.net), you’ll already find a new look. I’m still working on improving the navigation process - due shortly. I have also scheduled a series of new events, and I will be adding more, so check out “What’s New” on my website, as well as the forum calendar.

Many of the events will be recorded both on CD and DVD, so even if you’re not in town, you can attend. And watch for free on-line presentations, as well as courses in the near future. Details of this are also on the “What’s New” page.

I HAVE TO ADMIT, I’ve been feeling the squeeze. Saturn is returning to forward (direct) motion in early Virgo (where it contacts my chart), and people have been laying down the law. It seems like with Saturn we’re held to a higher standard. We get the bad news first, and then we get to see if we’ve done enough to prevent repercussions. Are our previous actions to prevent difficulty enough to actually do so?

Saturn’s Story
Here’s our Saturn story for this cycle. In early September, we realized that we had to look at something a little differently. Relying on old ways of doing things wasn’t working. We had to find some new ways to manage this area of our life. Wisely, we made plans and put them into motion. Around November 30 we got a chance to see how well these plans might work for us, and by December 19, we had a well-defined set of tasks to complete by a particular deadline. This deadline is imminent, around May 2, as Saturn moves into the closing phase of its cycle.

Saturn Rewards Us If We Do the Work.
Saturn rewards hard work, but it has to be meaningfully applied — the right work. Now we get to see if our work has been effective. If the gifts we have created for the world will be well-received, or if we need to make further adjustments.

The reward period is upon us, although how much is determined by where Saturn is in your birth chart. If you are in a reward period with respect to Saturn’s 30-year cycle through your chart, you may gain very big rewards indeed. If you are not, the rewards will be palpable, encouraging, but not the full wagon load you can expect when you reach the right stage.

More in the May forecast.