Forecast for Wednesday 1 October 2015

Thursday 1 October 2015

}Finding Peace as Foundation{

Moon in Taurus-->Gemini

|Karmically challenging or sobering third| of this week continues ** |

/moon goes void-of-course at 3:45a PT | 6:45a ET | 10:45a UT   * / |

until it enters Gemini at 1:05p PT | 4:05p ET | 8:05p UT   * |

Mysterious things are happening. There can be exaltation followed by depression followed by exaltation. One feels that one's career is under a cloud or is being re-established. Communications seem tricky or failed. What people say may appear contrary to what they mean. It takes a stretch of the mind and the emotions to be patient with people.  A grand square in common signs is unusual and intense. Combined with Mercury retrograde it might result in utter confusion or else withdrawal. When at peace wonderful internal consolidations may eventuate. Finding peace under these conditions requires high spiritual awareness.

The red triangle on the road has been turned around, backward,

As if to guide all vehicles toward danger. Some look dreamily

Toward luxurious hotels with stunning gardens. Others notice

Eight-squared, sixty-four, purple signals, coded mystical secrets.

They rush and come and tumble toward an end that's premature,

Unless this gallant man with warning sign can prevent their

Suicide. If they would turn they could hear a troubadour

And accompanying cascade near an ancient-looking inn. 

The dreams and outlooks of the inner self show the sleeping man

A huge building set on pillars, of which he must be the founder.

Before attempting that he must plow an endless plain, 

Turning up earth, remnants, reminiscences, hopes, designs.

{Thursday}  {Finding Peace as Foundation}

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Wednesday 30 September 2015

Wednesday 30 September 2015

\Growing Things and People/

Moon in Taurus   ***

|Karmically difficult or sobering third| of this week begins at 10:31a PT | 1:31p ET | 5:31p UT   ** |

I present evidence for astrology here frequently--perhaps every day, though I realize it is not always easy to see the exact correlations between planetary positions and events in one's own or others' lives. Still, they are remarkably accurate so frequently that it can't be due to mere chance and gullibility, such as astrology's critics believe (and shall continue to believe no matter what evidence is presented). Here is today's evidence, of a fascinating sort:

On Monday the moon was in Aries, conjoining Uranus there. This is not an easy aspect. Aries rules the head as well as young males. A reader of this forecast reported to me that Monday afternoon-evening she had a blowup with her son, a young male, and I also had such a blowup with a young male friend. Now, on Tuesday, I find that on the front page of the New York Times there is an article--written or at least posted on Monday--about concussions which West Point cadets sometimes endure when in their freshman year they are required to take a boxing course. There is a photo of a cadet in the ring. Some are suggesting that there should be alternatives to that training. (It is hard for me to see what boxing really has to do with most aspects of warfare.) The article then considers also the fact that concussions on the football field are moving many school districts to change their approach to football. Here is a classic case of "what is on the public's mind" and the mind of the editors of the New York Times being exactly a reflection of the day's planetary aspects. Moon in Aries the sign of young males and also of the head--and conjoined with Uranus, often a violent planet which "shakes people up"--what could be more accurate? The article came out in the Times while the moon was still in Aries and it remains there as I write this Tuesday morning. 

The editors of the Times do not believe in astrology and they refuse to report anything at all which might suggest that astrology is real or worthy of consideration. When it is mentioned it is always put down immediately, often with a joke or derisive comment. Yet the editors of the Times are just as much subject to the influence of the moon as anyone else, as evidenced by this wonderful synchronicity. One wonders if they will ever wake up. This morning I read in John 12:40-41 Jesus's quotation from Isaiah: "He has blinded their eyes and dulled their minds, lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their minds, and turn to me to heal them." Exactly why the Lord has "dulled the minds" of the so-called learned, and the editors of the mass media, I do not know, but He must have His reasons. Perhaps it is so that a few of us, like you and I, shall have the privilege of this magical knowledge to ourselves. I for one am very grateful for it.

Monday looks like a good day for growing things, organic farming, houseplants and the like. It could also be good for managing money and for prosperity through career. The early hours of the |challenging third| merely make things a little more serious, not necessarily morose. 

Friends close to your home base, or who come near it, may be valuable. Study about finance, in your headquarters, may not yield absolute rules or methods but could give satisfactory results. People may seem to be a little off-center because of unusual, unsuspected, hidden suppositions in their thinking. Pleasures are subdued to some degree by practical matters needing attention. A peculiar incident with a companion involving communications may still hang in the air but calm down gradually. People want the straight truth about things and have to go to the spiritual plane to find it.

An African-American and a European child play together, pretending

Strife, trying to spank each other. When things get out of hand a parent

Intervenes. Their intimacy takes the color of mutual envy, so that each

Tries to outdo the other in a popularity contest with invisible judges.

The swimming pool's design is triangular, its color blood red.

It's cleaned and decked out with standard equipment.

The boy whose parents own it has innumerable parties round it,

Turning to orgies til his mother's influence steadies everything.

The fireplace left blazing while the family takes an excursion becomes 

A worry to the neighbors. What to do? Two heads of households disagree.

Then, above the flames visible through windows, a flamelike being,

Angel if you will, unrolls a scroll impossible to read. All are astounded.

{Wednesday} /Growing Things and People\

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Tuesday 29 September 2015

Tuesday 29 September 2015

\Love as More than Possession/

Moon in Aries-->Taurus   

/moon goes void-of-course at 0:46a PT | 3:46a ET | 7:46a UT   ** /

until it enters Taurus at 6:58p PT | 9:58p ET | 1:58a(W) UT   ***

I feel I failed to report on a difficult phase in the afternoon and early evening (in the U. S., later in Europe and India) of Monday, relying too much on Luna's trine with Venus in late evening. I was not looking at the moon's minor aspects. Indeed, to do that every day would be a real chore, and they tend to be specific to a few-hour period so I would have to indicate them for all three time zones, an almost impossible task unless I were being salaried to do it. But I see that in the afternoon of Monday there were intense minor aspects of the moon with both Saturn and Mars, and in my own experience this was intense, a blow-up of anger. I did feel the beneficent moon-trine-Venus aspect in the evening, especially late, but it did not have enough power to overcome the underlying Saturn aspects. We have to do that ourselves through our spiritual growth into the sort of love Saturn cannot spoil.

Anyway, we do what we can. Saturn at point focus is the bogeyman. Venus's square with him is beginning to be serious. I started to feel it yesterday when it was at about the 8 degree orb position; today it is slightly closer. It can be worries about love, a feeling that "nobody loves me, I have lost my best love, where can I turn, where go, whom call, to feel wanted or needed?" We have had plenty of that already, but Venus's retrogradation and then forward motion means that it is "Deja Vu all over again" to quote the beloved man who passed on a couple weeks ago (Yogi Berra). Or, as he also said, "The future ain't what it used to be," that is, the future of your love life may not seem as rosy as it did a while back. I saw that in people's faces last night, and felt it in the atmosphere. 

Differing races have fun with one another in the schoolyard.

A boy stands alone, gazing toward the girls playing their silly

Games, without sympathy. He stays away from them. He'd rather

Laugh with the other boys, even be the butt of jokes, comedian.

The chickenyard is attacked by hawks unless its owner

Takes protective measures. The endless battle threatens to

Disintegrate the business. The woman proprietor, however, 

Knows besides the ways of fowls the ways of love miraculous.

The woodland life includes the cutting down of trees, sometimes, 

But the woodman's heart is kind despite the rudeness of his

Labor. A rainbow appears beyond the hut that he has built,

Wherein his son is molded by his mother's hopes and aspirations.

{Tuesday} /Love as More Than Possession\

Cosmic Piper

"Love is a passion and it seeks for two things, eternity and intensity, and in the relation of the Lover and Beloved the seeking for eternity and for intensity is instinctive and self-born. Love is a seeking for mutual possession, and it is here that the demand for mutual possession becomes absolute. Passing beyond desire of possession which means a difference, it is a seeking for oneness, and it is here that the idea of oneness of two souls merging into each other and becoming one finds the acme of its longing and the utterness of its satisfaction. Love, too, is a yearning for beauty, and it is here that the yearning is eternally satisfied in the vision and touch an the joy of the All-Beautiful. Love is a child and a seeker of Delight, and it is here that it finds the highest possible ecstasy both of the heart-consciousness and of every fibre of the being. Moreover, this relation is that which as between human being and human being demands the most and, even while reaching the greatest intensities, is still the least satisfied, because only in the Divine can it find its real and its utter satisfaction. Therefore it is here most that the turning of human emotion Godwards finds its full meaning and discovers all the truth of which love is the human symbol, all its essential instincts divinised, raised, satisfied in the bliss from which our life was born and towards which by oneness it returns in the Ananda of the divine existence where love is absolute, eternal and unalloyed." 

--Sri Aurobindo

Forecast for Monday 28 September 2015

Monday 28 September 2015

^Other-Dimensional Endowment^

Moon in Aries    ***

Little Things . . . 

You may be tired of my rattling on about Mercury Retrograde. But I find that each time it happens I get new insights into it while it seems to dominate life for me. The implications and depths of it are just not suspected by anyone, including astrologers! So I go on and on about it. Often I leave out the "little things" but here are some from my own life as of Sunday morning, when not only was Mercury remaining retrograde but the moon was void-of-course:

Got up not too late but dawdled in bed, not sure whether to go to Unity Church here or not (have never been to it). Finally decided to go but knew that by then I would be late. Felt that it didn't matter, I would go. 

Then, going online, I noticed that no one had commented on my forecast for Sunday. That rarely happens. So I double-checked and found that although I had emailed it to the Yahoo groups, I had not posted it on Blogspot or in Facebook. I had forgotten to do that last night when, of course, Mercury was retrograde and also Luna was void-of-course, as she was in the morning when I finally posted the forecast hours late. We can be forgetful and late during the M-R periods. We seem compelled to do things "out of pattern" part of the time. 

Just as I was almost ready to head out the door to church I noticed that the jacket I wanted to wear had, inexplicably, some dark gummy stuff on its collar. Where did that come from? I have no idea! So I took it into the bathroom and rubbed hand soap into it until it came out. This made me even later of course.

I decided not to rush. M-R plus moon void made me feel, "This is just the way things are happening, let it be." I felt good dawdling. But then I saw my bus coming into the station, so ran like crazy to catch it. I did catch it but as I got change out of my pocket a quarter fell off the bus onto the curb. The driver waited while I recovered it. I apologized. This is the first time ever that I have dropped change onto the curb while getting onto a bus. You will notice such "firsts" -- usually not ones you are proud of! -- at these M-R times. It was also the first time I had found some weird gummy stuff on the collar of that jacket I have owned for 24 years. And this was the first time I ever had gone to the Unity church in Seattle. It seemed a good time because the pastor, Karen Lindvig, was returning from her Sabbatical that week, according to the website. "Re-turning" is also something that happens a lot during M-R times. I was re-turning to a Unity church for the first time since I used to visit them in New York City decades ago.

The bus ride was fine. Not everything goes wrong during M-R. A sweet-looking young lady in black sat next to me and was fiddling with stuff in her purse and with her cell phone, seemingly worried, perhaps late to something as I was. I felt like telling her, "Don't worry, it's just Mercury retrograde and the moon void-of-course," but most people are not ready for such useful information. She chatted sweetly about other things like the bus route. 

As I walked into the church the usher informed me I was not really late; the announcements had just ended. Good, I find those utterly boring usually. I picked what looked like a harmless pew, but before long someone sitting behind me saw fit to keep bumping the pew somehow with his foot or knee. I was furious because this is one of my pet peeves. If it happens in a theater I will turn around and say out loud so everyone can hear, "Please stop that." In a church I didn't want to do that so, while Rev. Karen was just getting into her sermon, I got up and moved down to another pew. All eyes were on me, including hers. "What is this guy doing?" I didn't care. Fortunately the new pew was free of kickers behind it but the lady off to my left was a weirdo, singing loudly and swaying to the music. OK, I can deal with that by looking the other way. Well, you can see that during retrograde I accomplished another "first"--I re-pewed myself. 

The sermon was surprisingly good. I liked Rev. Karen, as I thought I would from her photo on the website. She was recalling things that happened during her Sabbatical summer in Italy. Now here comes another Mercury-retrograde phenomenon, Synchronicity. I have had a strange synchronous relation to Italy lately, in that so many people I know either have been there, are going there, or talk about it. And then, of course, the Pope from Rome has been a hot topic all week. Rev. Karen ended her talk by showing photos of Michelangelo's works including the Sistine Chapel paintings. Oddly enough, two weeks ago I found a book left downstairs, William James's Varieties of Religious Experience (deservedly a classic) and picked it up. On the cover is the most-famous part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, G*d the Father extending his hand toward the hand of Adam the first man. I now see that book every day lying in my living room for me to read when I can. And Rev. Karen ended her presentation with exactly that painting on the screen behind her. Yes, during the M-R times we experience amazingly meaningful synchronicities. Let's be alert to them. (Was this intended to tell me that I ought to read that book? Maybe.)

Sorry, I'm not done with the "little things." I took the bus home and got off at the Safeway to pick up a few items. I loaded them in a bag and started home. Be it noted that I "reverted" (another M-R phenomenon) to buying some stuff I have avoided for months, maybe a whole year, some carbohydrate-high salty snack foods. I was ashamed of myself for buying them but I felt I had a right to indulge. We "revert" to old habits, good or bad, during M-R quite often. But then on the way home I stopped in my tracks, realizing I had forgotten an important item. I turned and walked back two blocks, re-entered the store, re-walked to the back of it for the item, re-checked out, and told the very courteous attendant I had forgotten something. I then re-walked those two blocks, sat down to rest in a place I had never sat before (another "first"), and continued home.

Boring? Yes, but it seems to me that everyone's life is taken up with a lot of these "little things" which seem out-of-pattern, crazy, peculiar, incompetent, or just disturbing or time-wasting, during every M-R period. You will not find them catalogued by the statisticians who say astrology is bunk, but they happen to everyone. 

There, enough of that! I am reporting it to help you recognize these things in your own life. It helps to know that they are not just flukes or incompetencies, but part of the universal order, somehow or other. It is quite fascinating, as if some other dimension were trying to enter this one and as a consequence strange things happen or we forget things or . . . Wonderland. The Mercury-Retrograde periods have, for human beings on Planet Earth, some amazing metaphysical-ontological reality no one has yet comprehended intellectually. But we can sense it, feel it, and work with it, which is why I am writing this. 

Monday: I hope some of the Full Moon (also an eclipse) remains with us, for Sunday evening as it was exact I felt a flood of spiritual energy and fulfillment. I believe we can hold on to that, to some degree at least.

Luna spends the day moving toward a trine with Venus very late at night, and that makes it a fairly lucky day at least for social matters, perhaps also for household matters and purchases of clothing or housewares or spending on friends. (Of course with Mercury retrograde one might make a bad choice, but not necessarily, and sometimes surprising items turn up at such times.)  

Venus's conjunction with Mars continues, though they seem to be moving at the same speed, very rare because Venus is the faster except when recovering from her retrogradation as now. This is a long-drawn-out flirtation! What does it correspond to in your life? Come now, you know! Well, it should get better, maybe even today or tonight, if not in reality then in perception and understanding.

He was high-minded enough to consider his friend's deep needs

And the friend began to reciprocate. Two angels noticed and came

To help them forward. When one met with an accident, the other

Took care of his wife and children. With recovery came laughter.

She labors hard and long each day in a job paying little. 

Her misanthropic boss is acquisitive and self-centered, afraid

Of loss. He warns others to save and beware; but no one

Warns him to relax, trust, confide, appreciate,give.

The blue star over the clear lake doesn't go away. Its blessing

Floods the sky with a panorama which to the smart turns into

A magic carpet they jump on. Then they become flexible, kind

And inventive. All points to a supernormal endowment.

{Monday} ^Other-Dimensional Endowment~

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Sunday 27 September 2015

Sunday 27 September 2015

^Full Intelligent Moon^

Moon in Pisces-->Aries

/moon void-of-course   ** /

until it enters Aries at 12:30p PT | 3:30p ET | 7:30p UT   ***

The void-of-course period, with Luna at the end of Pisces, final sign of the zodiac, could be a good time for spiritual realizations or enlightenment through meditation or deep pondering.The outer directionlessness of Mercury retrograde can become an inner sense of immortal direction.

We have the Full Moon in late evening, influencing the whole day, a time of expanded consciousness. It is all right to be fluid and somewhat indecisive about some things because everything goes into a semi-chrysalis state during these Mercury-retrograde periods.

The white cross upraised above the multitude overshines

A man on horseback rushing to meet a company of armed

Men. One of them seems more concerned with his regalia--

Jeweled sword, purple robe, brass helmet--than the battle.

A red triangle sputters fire while the man wearing it sputters

Calumny. But a beautiful woman catches his eye, sitting

Enthroned as a Greek goddess, her hands in her lap, exuding

Harmony. A shepherd in the distance eyes all with wisdom.

A pale blue star shining over a lake illumines the pages of a

Book with cameo portraits of heroic patriots. 

One of them lifts a hand from the page, pointing upward

To command the armed men, the goddess, the shepherd.

(Command is internal, from the G*d concealed within each, who is one G*d no matter what the outer differences.) 

{Sunday} ^Full Intelligent Moon^

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Saturday 26 September 2015

Saturday 26 September 2015

~Reaching for That which Saves~

Moon in Pisces   ** |

/moon goes void-of-course at 9:33a PT | 12:33p ET | 4:33p UT   * / |

|Karmically difficult or sobering third| of this week continues 

until 1:48p PT | 4:48p ET | 8:48p UT   ** /

In a word, Horrid day!

Or, well, just make it something good. See The Mother's comments, from her amazing life of spiritual experiment and advancement, later in this report. She did say that astrological aspects apparently had a meaning and an "influence"--I have the proof of that, from her Agenda. But she also taught that, of course, we can transcend them. Which is a large part of the purpose of her and Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga. 

My intention here is to point out the astrological conditions, easy or difficult, to help you to rise beyond them. It's hard (or perhaps impossible) to steer around an obstacle in the road if you don't see it. I am trying to provide that vision. If you were perfect in the Integral Yoga, perhaps you would see and steer around the obstacles without the help of astrology. But I am not convinced of that, since astrology in its realness is a part of the Integral Yoga--has to be, since all real human knowledge is part of it. And so please do not blame me or astrology for pointing out the obstacles. We are trying to help.

In accord with the Mercury Retrograde period, I feel like talking about yesterday (Friday) rather than today (Saturday). That is, we reminisce at these times--we recall, retrogress, review, even repent. I have to hand it to the Pope, he faced Friday with real panache, real spiritual strength (as well as physical). I felt like chilling out all day. I blamed the moon's presence in Pisces close to Neptune, opposing Mars in Virgo, plus Mercury retrograde, plus Mars very tightly square Saturn. I'm sure the Pope felt all this too but like the spiritual warrior he is he pressed on. It must not have been easy.The moon in Pisces is very much aware of dependence on the Supreme (even if some of those who have it might be atheists; they do it somehow or other), and the general public was glad to take that dependent role by calling Francis "papa." That was easier for them than it was for him.

Today the |difficult third| of this week ends at the time above but it is replaced by a /void-of-course period. We will behaving more of those in the near future than we have had for a few months because Saturn has left its "catcher" position at the end of Scorpio and will not be "fielding" the moon, or catching it when it is no longer forming aspects to any other planets.

Part of the reason for my "horrid" assessment is Mars's square with Saturn, which I seem to be feeling big-time. Combined with Mercury retrograde it is a feeling of how hard everything is, how complex (Mars in Virgo), how hard to understand (Saturn in Sagittarius)--and so why not just give up? That is what John Boehner did yesterday. I do not condemn him; it might have been time for him to step down. As I have remarked here at least ten or twelve or twenty times since 1999 when I started this report, there are more resignations during Mercury retrograde times than other times. That can be a correct response to a situation, sometimes, but I usually recommend that people wait until the end of the retrograde period, or even the whole Dark Hermetic Epoch, before quitting a job , to be sure they are not just succumbing to spinelessness.

Much effort seems required today, just to get through it. Then more effort if you want to transcend its limitations. Then more spiritual effort if you want to reach the skies of Ananda (spiritual bliss in the midst of work and activity). Spiritual reading and prayer are essential for me, and maybe for most; and the spiritual reading can be effective even if one has to force oneself to do it for a half hour or more, until one feels the power of the Word lifting one up. One has to prime the pump of inspiration by reading those words, perhaps aloud, as if one didn't believe in them until finally understanding or inspiration breaks through and one is lifted skyward. 

Here is a remarkable experience of The Mother (of the Integral Yoga with Sri Aurobindo), from May 14, 1966 (her Agenda, lengthy and wonderful conversations with her disciple Satprem):

The other day I had an extraordinary experience, in which all the pessimistic arguments, all the negations and denials came from all sides, represented by everybody. And then, those who believed in the presence of a God or something – something more powerful than they and ruling the world – were in a fury, a dreadful revolt: "But I want none of him! But he spoils all our life, he ..." It was a dreadful revolt, from every side, a truckload of abuse for the Divine with such force of asuric reaction from every side. So I sat there (as if Mother sat in the middle of the mêlée), watching: "What can be done?..." You know, it was impossible to answer, impossible, there wasn’t one argument, not one idea, not one theory, not one belief, nothing, nothing whatsoever that could answer it. For the space of a second, the impression was: it’s hopeless. Then, all of a sudden ... all of a sudden ... It’s indescribable (gesture of absolute abandon). There was that violence of revolt against things as they are, and, mixed with it, there was: "Let this world disappear, let nothing remain, let it not exist!" All that, which at bottom is a revolt, all that nihilist revolt: let nothing remain, let everything cease to exist. It reached a height of tension, and just at the height of tension, when you felt there was no solution, suddenly ... surrender. But something stronger than surrender – it wasn’t abdication, it wasn’t self-giving, it wasn’t acceptance, it was ... something much more radical, and at the same time much sweeter. I can’t say what it was. It had the joy and flavor of giving, but with such a sense of plenitude!

 ... Like a dazzling flash, you know, suddenly like that: the very essence of surrender, the True Thing. 

It was ... it was so powerful and marvelous, such sublime joy that the body started quivering for a second. Afterwards it was gone. 

And after that, after that experience, all of it, all the revolt, all the negation, all of it was as if swept away. 

If one could keep that, that experience, keep it constantly – it’s there, it’s always there; it’s there, of course, but I have to stop in order to feel it. I have to stop – stop speaking, moving, acting – in order to feel it in its plenitude. But if it were here, ACTIVE ... it would be All-Powerfulness. It means becoming "That" instantaneously. 

{Saturday} ~Reaching for That which Saves~

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Friday 25 September 2015

Friday 25 September 2015

~Patient Resilience~

Moon in Aquarius-->Pisces

|Karmically difficult or sobering third| of this week continues (until Sunday)  ** |

/moon goes void-of-course at times late Thursday given yesterday   * / |

until it enters Pisces at 12:45p PT | 3:45p ET | 7:45p UT   ** |

"Out-of-pattern" factors prevail. I had a lot of them Thursday, not all bad but all distracting from my usual routines, so that I am late writing this.

That is a big part of Mercury being retrograde. We feel compelled to try new things, or old things we return to, in ways which interrupt our usual schedules. This can be good and creative, or futile and pointless. Sometimes it can appear to be both, so that while we gain something from an experiment, it is basically a failed experiment and we think our time might have been better spent elsewhere. That has happened to me over and over again. And sometimes we are not sure--"Was the time I spent with that person worth while, even though it is probably not going to happen again?" It seems that we are out-of-time, out-of-space, in a Wonderland world or different dimension. Curiouser and curiouser.

We seem to need these strange experiments, failures or otherwise, at these times. Or, when they are not wanted, they seem like annoying irruptions into our lives from some cosmic perversity.

Hurrah! Venus's long-term conjunction with Mars is getting a little closer by the day, as Venus speeds up, to reach its culmination in November. Mutual attractions will turn up when least expected. 

But they have a lot to overcome, for not only Mars but now Venus, as of today, is square Saturn by ten degrees and getting closer. This could be, symbolically, a pair of star-crossed lovers facing the world's (Saturn's) challenge to their love (Romeo and Juliet) and rising above it (we hope). Alternatively, it could be love of a romantic nature (eros) meeting obstacles or just naturally fade-dissolving into love of a spiritual nature (caritas). 

Such concerns are mixed with questions of health today--many may need extra rest. Luna conjunct Neptune in Pisces is comforting and uplifting if we allow ourselves to experience that rather than force ourselves into struggles of an unnecessary sort (Luna also opposite Mars in Virgo). Work is good and necessary when accompanied by the natural rest of a calm and peaceful inner consciousness, and this is possible when conscience is assuaged, that is, when one feels one is doing the right thing.

{Friday} ~Patient Resilience~

Cosmic Piper.

"I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O Lord; for it is good."

--Psalm 54:6

Note that this is a free sacrifice, offered gladly. It does not have to be enforced by the Lord or the Cosmos because it springs from a natural recognition of His and Its kindness. And note that we praise the Lord because He is good, not because he is a monster holding us in chains so we have to praise him to get a little freedom. All these awarenesses are included in that simple sentence, if one repeats it over and over until one feels its essence. That is why scripture is scripture.

C. P.

Forecast for Thursday 24 September 2015

Thursday 24 September 2015

}Connections Restored and Re-Restored{

Moon in Aquarius

|Karmically difficult or sobering third| of this week begins at 1:00p PT | 4:00p ET | 8:00p UT

/moon goes void-of-course at 9:03p PT | 0:03a(F) ET | 4:03a(F) UT

There is an intensity of desires. Mercury's square with Pluto, while retrograde, brings up passions we didn't know were there or of which we were only partially conscious. We see into others' peccadilloes and either feel titillated or revolted, or shrug them off. When on the move people feel thwarted or as if they need to pull back. It would take something serious or deep to convince them to travel very far. 

Mercury's retrograde period, until October 9, can be confusing or enlightening. I don't know if you have gotten those ridiculous calls from scammers pretending to be Microsoft technicians. I have had five of them in the past week. I know who they are by now and dismiss them but the calls are typical of Mercury retrograde. (I received almost none of them before that period.) One of its aspects is "barking up the wrong tree," which these scammers are definitely doing. And of course were I to take them seriously I would be the one falling a false lead. Then there are delays and carelessness. A friend slept through the period in which he could have gone to a temporary job, yesterday, and the problem was compounded because his phone was not working for the person picking him up to awaken him. Very typical of  Mercury-retrograde disturbances. On the good side, there can be chance meetings with old or new friends which seem as if "planned by the gods." These happen frequently during the retrograde phase. "Out of pattern" events and meetings can be godsends.

On Thursday gains in finance would come from very conservative moves or non-moves (sun sextile Saturn). The mysterious side of people may be not chilling so much as fortifying. At a point of focus in your consciousness is a friend whose problems seem to be yours also. They involve transitioning from the nebulous or unreal (and therefore deceptive or dangerous) toward the practical and the real. The loved one's worries become yours indirectly. However, songs of optimism and hope can ring out definitively. Personal freedom is yours as well as your friend's. We are picking up the pieces and putting them back together, over and over, and the process can be game-like and friendly or even exhilarating rather than tedious if we get in the right spirit.

{Thursday} {Connections Restored and Re-Restored}

Cosmic Piper

"God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God."   --Psalm 53:2

"Our works are part of an indivisible cosmic action; they are put or, more accurately, put themselves into their place in the whole out of which they arise and their outcome is determined by forces that overpass us. That world action in its vast totality and in every petty detail is the indivisible movement of the One who manifests himself progressively in the cosmos. Man too becomes progressively conscious of the truth of himself and the truth of things in proportion as he awakens to this One within him and outside him and to the occult, miraculous and significant process of its forces in the motion of Nature."

--Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 177

Forecast for Wednesday 23 September 2015

Wednesday 23 September 2015

}Hopeful, Quiet Rebalancing{

Moon in Capricorn-->Aquarius

/moon void-of-course   ** /

until it enters Aquarius at 10:52a PT | 1:52p ET | 5:52p UT   ***

The Autumnal Equinox! It occurs at 1:22a PT | 4:22a ET | 8:22a UT.  In other words, the sun enters the sign (not the constellation) Libra. We Western astrologers use the signs based upon the solstices and equinoxes, not the star-fields or constellations which once were in alignment with the signs as they remain named. This is not confusing except to those who cannot realize that our solar system is a self-contained system of energy and that we have little or no connection in a dynamic living sense with other solar systems or stars remote in space, any more than those stars can give us heat and life as our Sol does. 

I tend to feel that the ancient Hebrews got it right in making this autumnal equinox the beginning of the year, although as an Aries I like having that Spring sign as the first sign of the zodiac and of the astrological year. It just seems that social life, as in schools, colleges, and the social seasons of clubs and the like tends to restart in the autumn while it is actually winding down in the spring for a summer recess. Take your pick. 

Let's hope there will be some good luck and good feelings while Luna trines Sol just after the equinox. At the same time both will be in good aspect with Saturn, which makes things heavier or more serious and contemplative--appropriate in terms of the Pope's presence in Washington. There seems no escape for human beings from self-examination and self-improvement. It came with the contract when we agreed to be born as babies once again. Doing it as best we can actually keeps us happy, while evading it makes us miserable.

Mercury's retrogradation (September 18--October 9) makes things harder in some ways, or perhaps easier, spiritually, because it challenges us to go deeper into ourselves and others and transmute our thinking and feeling to harmonize with other dimensions than the ordinary. It can be a magical time just as much as a disturbing one. Slowdowns and delays seem designed to make us more reflective or to get us to think of things in new,  more living ways. We do things "out of pattern" and try different ways of scheduling things and sometimes we retry ideas or attempts from the past and find that on the second or seventy-second attempt there are new and wonderful gains from them.

"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually." --Psalm 51:1  This is a good mantra to use (yes, repeat it over and over in your mind; memorize it) when thinking of politicians, rulers, bosses, CEOs and the like. The goodness of God is destined to overcome all their foibles.

"As a child of God you cannot have a habit of hurting or torturing people by your speeches or actions. You cannot have a habit of being jealous. You cannot feel easily offended. [As a child of God] you cannot resent the way people act with you. You are not envious of anybody. You are not filled with eagerness to be praised. You are not cowardly about being blamed. [As a child of God] you are not penurious. You are not glad to know that your enemies are unfortunate. You do not feel discouraged when you have tried and do not succeed.

"It is one duty we seem to have laid out before us as a race, that we reject the idea of the absence of Good by the word of truth boldly spoken concerning Good as omnipresent. This teaching goes forth from the mind in a mysterious influence. . . . Tell now that you reject the common feeling of the absence of Good. As God is not absent, Good must be here. 

"We do not need to wait to be free. As God is free now, so we are free now."

--Emma Curtis Hopkins, Scientific Christian Mental Practice, p. 47

{Wednesday} {Hopeful, Quiet Rebalancing}

Cosmic Piper

Forecast for Tuesday 22 September 2015

Tuesday 22 September 2015

\Overcoming Impatience/

Moon in Capricorn   ***

/moon goes void-of-course at 4:14p PT | 7:14p ET | 11:14p UT  ** /

(until afternoon of Wednesday)

I was interviewed for a radio show, thanks to its host Suzanne Montalalou, a couple weeks ago, and thought I might broach the subject of the "astrological generations." These I regard as marked out by the transits of Pluto through the signs. Here is a sketch I worked out for the program:

Pluto in Cancer   June 1914--June 1939    Current ages 76-101

Pluto in Leo         June 1939--September 1957    Current ages 59-76

Pluto in Virgo     September 1957--October 1971     Current ages 44-58

Pluto in Libra     October 1971--November 1983     Current ages 32-44

Pluto in Scorpio   November 1983--November 1995   Current ages 20-32

Pluto in Sagittarius  November 1995--December 2008   Current ages 7-20

If you ponder people born in these times with the meanings of the signs occupied by Pluto you will get amazing insights. I do not have time tonight to spell them out.

Then, three weeks later, I saw, yesterday, in the New York Times, the following:

"Generational study being more art than science, there is considerable dispute about the definition of Generation Z. Demographers place its beginning anywhere from the early ’90s to the mid-2000s. Marketers and trend forecasters, however, who tend to slice generations into bite-size units, often characterize this group as a roughly 15-year bloc starting around 1996, making them 5 to 19 years old now. (By that definition, millennials were born between about 1980 and 1995, and are roughly 20 to 35 now.)"

Please notice how closely that non-astrological, commercially-demographically determined demarcation of the generations fits the astrological demarcation I worked out above! The so-called "millennials" are the Pluto-in-Scorpio generation, and the so-called Generation Z are the Pluto-in-Sagittarius generation, now in grade school, high school and early college years. 

My only remark about this at a meeting of Seattle astrologers last Saturday was, "I hope the Pluto-in-Sagittarius kids will invent a cheerier kind of music than the morose, death-dealing lamenting and wailing of the Pluto-in-Scorpio generation," which are all the rage in popular music at the present time. The only new singer who has Pluto in Sagittarius, of an immensely popular sort, whom I have discovered so far is Lorde, the teenager from New Zealand. Her songs are not exactly all cheery (she has the sun in Scorpio, somewhat muddling the characterization) but some are quite pleasant and uplifting in tone. 

For Tuesday: The moon in Capricorn hits a snag when it squares Uranus, and then goes void-of-course (at the time given above). This is not till evening in the east of the U. S. Still, the square with Uranus is not comfortable, so all day we may need to beware of lashing out at people or being overly sensitive. People need to be themselves and will not want their particular characteristics, tendencies or habits questioned or ridiculed.

Personal relationships could thrive, to some degree, on a somewhat professional level, that is, as related to work or projects one or the other is focusing on at present. Differences of viewpoint might be intense, yet could expand the minds of the disagreers by the very friction created between them by differing orientations.

Mercury retrograde has been intense for me recently. Computer problems and delays, none of them fatal but time-consuming; sidepaths which take too much time away from main interests; and so on. A friend on Monday bought a tool to take care of a problem; it was expensive and I wondered if he should buy it but he was in a hurry; he took it home and could not make it work. Just one example of the sorts of things which happen over and over while Mercury is retrograde. I went out for a few hours and forgot to take my smartphone; this was not fatal but an inconvenience, and I have not done that in weeks but the time I did it was, of course, the Mercury retrograde period. We stumble, catch ourselves or fall, and pick ourselves up again.

{Tuesday} /Overcoming Impatience\

Cosmic Piper

P. S. "The rules which the intellect of men lays down cannot apply to the liberated soul,--by the external criteria and tests which their mental associations and prejudgments prescribe, such a one cannot be judged; he is outside the narrow jurisdiction of these fallible tribunals. It is immaterial whether he wears the garb of the ascetic or lives the full life of the householder; whether he spends his days in what men call holy works or in the many-sided activities of the world; whether he devotes himself to the direct leading of men to the Light like Buddha, Christ or Shankara or governs kingdoms like Janaka or stands before men like Sri Krishna as a politician or a leader of armies; what he eats or drinks; what are his habits or his pursuits; whether he fails or succeeds; whether his work be one of construction or destruction; whether his life and deeds are approved by his contemporaries or he is condemned as a misleader of men and a fomenter of religious, moral or social heresies. He is not governed by the judgments of men or the laws laid down by the ignorant; he obeys an inner voice an is moved by an unseen Power. His real life is within and this is its description that he lives, moves and acts in God, in the Divine, in the Infinite."   ---Sri Aurobindo