From Astrotabletalk. For full post click here http://astrotabletalk.blogspot.com/
On a personal level, it is a time to let sleeping dogs lie, unless you are dealing with a big company that is pissing you around: now is the time to savage them. Or unless you have much Libra or Pisces, in which case it is time to act out of character and be direct with people. Generally, you are good at putting difficult truths to people, because they don’t feel you are against them; but paradoxically, you are the last person to do this because you don’t like upsetting people – and because, coward that you are, you want people to like you! 🙂
If you are not Libra or Pisces and you head on in there, you are likely to meet misunderstanding (Mercury is retrograde until 24th April) and irrational, explosive anger (Mars conjunct Uranus in Aries), either in yourself or another person. Right now, Pluto is stationing in square to Mars and Uranus, so conflicts are likely to be shadow-boxing. If you are prepared to go there, you can learn a lot about yourself if you look at what it is that angers you. With the line-up in Aries, however, it is hard to be reflective, and that may have to come later.
On the other hand… this month is an exceptionally good time for bold, original initiatives. Now is the time to start.
As we reach the halfway mark for the Reach for the Horizon Series for 2011
Carol and Claudia want to say
Thank you for your interest, your participation and for being such great students of the stars
And we want to invite all of you to the Rest of the Series
The next event will be in August 2011 and the next classes are scheduled for September and November
Information below and coming soon—but IN THE MEANTIME visit our site for updates and articles to keep you on your toes as this year’s events unfold.
We hope to provide articles and information to assist you as you travel through these incredibly active and intense times.
Visit WWW.SKYDOGS.WORDPRESS.COM
Register at the site to be notified when a new article is posted
Or ask to post one of your own!
Words and Images welcome!
We’d love to have you join the astrological conversation. Really.
Click here for the Online Brochure and some images from the April Venus/Mars Seminars
IN AUGUST — A VERY SPECIAL FIELD TRIP TO EASTERN OREGON
A chance to be out under the starry sky and be at that horizon where the earth and the heavens meet
We will see the stars and constellations up close and personal
Saturn will set in the arms of Virgo
and Jupiter will be in the stare of Cetus
The next classes will be in September in both Nehalem and in Portland (you can go to either one)
Below are dates and links to enter into your date books
IN SEPTEMBER~Somewhere out there: the transpersonal planets Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and their invisible power in our system.
September 11th in Nehalem 10-4
Registration and birth data due August 28th
September 18th in Portland 10 4
Registration and birth data due September 4th
IN NOVEMBER~ Down to Earth: working with personal charts; questions and answers.
November 6th in Portland 10-4
Registration and birth data due October 23rd
November 13th in Nehalem 10 – 4
Registration and birth data due October 30th
(Note: Register early as classes sizes are limited—a waiting list will be available and deposits and chart data are due two weeks prior to Seminar.)
Contact: Carol Ferris: rficf@easystreet.net
Claudia Johnson: johnson@nehalemtel.net
Cost: $75/session
Non-refundable deposit ($25 per session) and birth data due 2 weeks prior to each session.
More information upon registration.
Field trip info TBA
Questions? contact either Claudia (johnson@nehalemtel.net) or Carol (rficf@easystreet.net)
Mark your calendars and register and know that we look forward to being with you
Visit and register to receive updates at:
(email Claudia at johnson@nehalemtel.net to post something other than a comment—she’ll make it pretty for you and whoosh—you are part of the team!)
If you take a gander at the posts from the previous couple of days you will see references to Neptune and his bride Aphrodite Salacia. I love it when I hear about something and the next day something pops up coinkadinkally (sp?).
All things Neptunian are front and center.
Take a look at Astrologer,Phillip Sedgewick’s post (he calls the posts “cosmic blips” ) this morning April 6 2011 — he writes:
As long as we’re talking Neptune it’s time to surface the recently named Trans-Neptunian Body. The object formerly known as minor solar system body 120347, received the name Salacia. Salacia was the unwilling wife of Neptune, prodded by a trident into agreeing to the marital thing after hiding in the depths of the ocean. She refers to calm waters, salt water, sea weed as well as other things especially relevant given the recent goings on in Japan. If you visit the Eris, Sedna etc. link on my website you’ll find some preliminary keywords for her in there. I’m not exactly sure when the name was assigned. I found it last week on the Minor Planet Center’s website when they did a major upgrade just as Mercury turned.
Salacia – Orbital Period: 274.97 yr. The unwilling wife of Neptune, proded into marital agreement with the trident.
Positive – driven, determined, resourceful, able to work with the unseen, chaste, pure, calm, sensational
Negative – salacious, ostrich-like – hiding to avoid commitment or confrontation, relationship phobic, exaggeration, distortion of facts and visions, projection, hyperbolizing
Mundane – things that take refuge in the sea (submarines?), affiliation with dolphins, seaweed, pearls, hairnets, sea horses, salt water
Ceremonial – water rituals, baptism, water births, rebirthing in water
Beautiful Note from the Ocmulgee Bank of the State of Georgia issued in 1837. This historic document was printed by the Rawdon, Wright & Hatch Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of Hippocampi pulling a shell chariot that holds Neptune and Salacia. This item is over 172 years old.this 10 dollar bill is for sale at: Scripophily.net
Sail on dear friends–Neptune will be in Pisces and with us for a verrrrry long time.
He doesn’t wade into Aries until 2025. (14 years or so)–buy boots.
And this is not a post of a salacious nature. I don’t think. 🙂
Fellini’s La Dolce Vita – strange fish pulled on shore
With all this rain, earthquakes and tsunami warnings, nuclear power plants, radiation being poured into our ocean—I said to my friends this morning that I feel more like I’m being “washed in the blood of the fishes than the proverbial blood of the lamb“.
Marcia wrote and said –and I quote: Heh: your ‘blood of the fishes’ comment actually reminds of the ending of La Dolce Vita (the finale). Remember? Remember when the crowds make their way to the beach to see the huge fish? Remember Fellini? Remember that movie? Whew! The haunting music lives on as well as those incredible archetypal images about Cetus the whale—as in scary archetypal monster from the deep. (a story for another time but oh so applicable to these times)
With all the planets visiting the stars of the fish and with Neptune moving today into the sign Pisces — ok well – I went to see what Bernadette Brady says about those fish. I mean what with Jupiter, Moon, Mercury, Sun, and Mars and Uranus all dancing there in the sky these days. AND Neptune moving into the sign Pisces for the first time since the Civil War!! What was I trying to remember with that statement?
Ahhhh—yes—now I remember—the reason that phrase popped into my head has to do with the ancient sacred rituals of washing away sins, of renewing self and others by being ‘cleansed’ in holy life — blood. The waters of life. Water at Baptism.
I now know that when the Constellation of the Bull (Taurus) was rising at the Equinox, folks were “washed in the blood of the bull”—
The Egyptians also annually slew a sacred bull in atonement for the sins of the realm. The concept was that the blood of one god, or the symbol of that god, could cleanse the sins of many. However, after two thousand or so years the spring equinox slipped from Taurus, the Bull, into Aries, The Ram, and this heralded the birth of yet another new god, this time emerging from the Israelites. They distinguished themselves from the bull-worshippers by using the blood of the lamb as a sacred fluid and symbol. For Moses was leading his people,chosen with lamb’s blood, to a new religion. This was the new world age marked by Aries and thus a new god was required. (Brady, Starlight software)
(Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars p. 312, Bernadette Brady)
Pisces began to receive the lead position in the Zodiac around 2,000 years ago when the spring equinox heliacal rising slipped from Aries the Ram to Pisces the Fishes. However this was never a clear distinction, as Pisces is such a large constellation and its two fish reaching through the sky actually encompass the stars of Aries. The coming of the age of Pisces, the new world order, was eagerly awaited as it was heralded by a triple conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Pisces in the year 6 BCE and Virgil, in his Fourth Eclogue, announced it would be the return of the Golden Age. This conjunction was the astronomical highlight of the time, eagerly awaited and then watched and was later named, in Christian mythology, the Star of Bethlehem.
But the fish was an ancient symbol long before it was adopted by the new god. The Greeks incorporated the Fish as a sacred symbol through Aphrodite in her form as a fish-goddess called Aphrodite Salacia.
She was often depicted as a fertile mother nursing a child and her temples always contained ponds of fish. Her followers would eat fish on her holy day which was Friday. They were known as the fish-eaters and this custom was adopted by the Catholic church who decreed that the eating of fish on a Friday, translated as the abstinence from meat, was a holy act that had to be performed by its followers.
As the spring equinox moved into Pisces, the Ram-god sent his Son, Christ, to save the world, and he became the god of fishes. He was a fisherman fishing for men’s souls. His disciples were fishermen and his miracle, which proclaimed him god, was the miracle of the loaves and fishes where he was said to have fed five thousand on just a few fish. The new religion adopted the sign of the Fish as their symbol.
Read on dear students of the stars–the following is a good cut on what is going on:
Eric Francis writes in his post (April 4, 2011) titled Neptune enters Pisces: The tide is up (for full post click link to his site)
…many forms of creative experience that we were told are useless (as kids) are some of the best that Pisces has to offer. By that I mean everything but social studies and accounting: the stuff you do with your imagination and your hands. Your talents and your desire to express your imagination may be coming under focus now. That would include music (to create the stuff, or at lest to experience some in person), as well as your poetic senses. And what about those paints in your closet? What about the art supply store down the street? You DO have time to experiment and play, and now the astrology is floating you like the tide rising beneath a boat.
Pisces is also the sign most associated with clairvoyance (Scorpio would be a close second, and these are two signs that usually get along nicely). Just wondering — have you been experiencing any enhanced non-physical communication? Any premonitions that have come through, or out-of-body communication? Have these events involved fantasy, imagination or creativity? I’m suggesting here that there may be a connection between what we think of as out-of-body communication and many of the other ideas that Pisces or Neptune represents.
Then there is water, the actual stuff that comes out of the shower nozzle. The same stuff we expect to just be there. We see a lot of water when we fly across the ocean — but that is not the kind of water we need for our individual bodies to survive. Less than 1% of the earth’s water is drinkable fresh water and that is going away fast. It’s also becoming one of the biggest businesses around; the World Bank and many other institutions have been muscling in on this for decades. So Neptune in Pisces is likely to call even more attention to this issue than we’ve been seeing in recent years, here as a nuclear complex in Japan is dumping tons of radioactive water into the ocean and groundwater.
We got our first really big lesson about this last year when — as Chiron entered Pisces, on that very day — the BP oil spill happened. When Uranus left Pisces two weeks ago, the earthquake happened in Japan. So Pisces seems to be sensitive to global changes involving water. Now, we need to get there. Astrology is suggesting that now it’s our turn
Marcia Buchart adds the following to post about May 2011 lineup.
Note to self: Stay Awake
The most magical thing about this multiple conjunction is that it occurs near The Knot of Heaven in the pre-dawn sky.
The Knot of Heaven is marked by the fixed star Al Rescha, in the constellation (not Zodiac sign) Pisces.
Here is what Bernadette Brady has to say about this star:
“This is the joining point…the point of contact between two types of knowledge: the joining of different ideas to create wisdom and understanding, or the marrying of two concepts to create a greater concept. This is a gentle star that indicates a tendency to seek different connections, to look at things in a different light, to join separate concepts in search of a greater understanding.”
BUT WAIT–There’s more
It is also worth noting a striking fixed star involvement with the previous multiple conjunction that Alison Chester-Lambert documents from 29 October of 1910.
The tight cluster of planets was positioned right next the brilliant star, Spica, the star used to symbolize the sheaf of grain held in the Hand of the Goddess Virgo, “…a symbol of her gifts to humankind…The star…shows the potential for brilliance…The word “gifted” applies…and whatever this star touches it will illuminate in some way.” (Taken from Star and Planet Combinations by Bernadette Brady, The Wessex Astrologer, 2008, p. 232)
Spica’s energies added to the previous conjunction underscores Alison’s observation about events of that year: Freud and Jung’s correspondence, successful new regarding flight (Virgo is a Goddess with wings, after all), the birth of a philosophical author whose landmark work would be published when he was only 24!
Brilliance, indeed.
Tight Quadruple Conjunction of the First Four Planets – Last Happened Over 100 Years Ago
from UK Astrologer, Alison Chester-Lambert via Astrologer, Marcia Buchart
One of the rarest and most auspicious planetary alignments happens in May 2011. And with luck we will be able to see it, since all the planets are visible and rise before the Sun early in the morning.
If you didn’t understand any of that, I’ll just explain – the Sun is at the centre of the Solar System. Around it are the planets, with Mercury nearest, then Venus, followed by Earth, then Mars and Jupiter. All of those planets can be seen with the naked eye and actually Venus is the brightest thing in the sky after the Moon. Jupiter is next brightest.
Each of these planets does its own thing in its own orbit, with Mars and Jupiter taking years to go right around the Earth. Venus and Mercury on the other hand, are never more than a quarter of the sky away from the Sun. They trundle along in front or behind it, being seen in the early morning or late night twilight.
However, from May 9th to the 13th May 2011, a very rare planetary alignment takes place. These four innermost planets, (apart from Earth) all visible to the naked eye as bright stars, will group together and rise before the Sun each day, making an incredible spectacle for those with a good view of the Eastern horizon. The last time these four planets were in such close alignment was around 29th October 1910, over 100 years ago. They came vaguely close in 1915, 1955 and 1966, but nothing like as close as they will be in May this year.
What does it mean?
Jupiter is known as the bringer of good fortune and confidence. He joins Venus who represents success, achievement and pleasure plus Mercury who communicates, connects and transmits the energies to Earth. Mars rounds off the quartet with boundless energy and it all happens in the exuberant Zodiac sign of Aries, which hopefully won’t get too out of hand. For this is the most alive and on-fire you can feel! All together, these planets describe an auspicious energy which can bring considerable success. They should be greeted with enthusiasm and joy for the opportunities of personal strength and potency they represent.
So what was happening back then in 1910 when they last met in this way?
Strangely, in 1910, they were in the exact opposite location in the sky from the 2011 event! And I have no explanation as to what this means. With regard to world events, nothing much was recorded, which really confirms my prediction that events like this tend to bring fortune to individuals.
They are a gift of excitement and success from the Cosmos to whomever reaches out for it. Just to put you into the energy of the times, a Google search will reveal that the second air ship to cross the English Channel arrived safely and a man flew 61 miles in 62 minutes, winning the Gordon Bennett cup. Carl Jung was writing letters to Sigmund Freud and a Professor of the philosophy of mind and logic, Alfred Ayer, who wrote `Language, Truth and Logic` was born. Since the quadruple conjunction then was in Libra, the title of his book is no surprise to astrology!
Since these are difficult times generally, and the Cosmos contains much to shake humanity from 2008 until 2016, it is nice to focus on a good omen for a change. I do hope this forewarning can enable you to do something really positive with the energy. Remember it is about feeling vibrantly aware of your fire, potency, eagerness and SELF! You might want to watch how you handle others; things could get a little sharp as everyone wants their own needs met FIRST.
Technical Details: The planets begin the formation at 22 degrees of the Zodiac sign Aries on the 9th May, with Venus, Mercury and Jupiter staying within a degree of each other until they reach 25 degrees on May 13th. Mars is just 6 degrees of arc ahead and still technically closely conjunct.
Very Best Wishes, Alison Chester-Lambert
www.midlandsschoolofastrology.co.uk
facebook: Alison Chester Lambert – all welcome.
Twitter: www.twitter/astrologer2
From a quick post (he calls the post “a cosmic blip” ) by Astrologer Phillip Sedgwick:
Remember, it’s Mercury retrograde time from March 30th through April 23rd. Great time to review things in progress. Not so much for signing new contracts, entering agreements and all documents related to new launches. Check all facts and figures before sending them out the door. However, there’s always the midpoint day in the retro cycle when things can actually if signed on this date and only this date during Mercury retrograde. This time it’s April 9th. Use it well.
Starting at 11:17 GMT on April 2nd through 23:47 GMT April 4th, we have the Moon, Mars, Uranus, Sun, Jupiter, Eris and Mercury retrograde all in Aries! Get clear. Shoot straight. Remember the tendency to react in a hair-triggered, supercharged manner prevails. State your agenda and wait ten seconds before stating it again. Play nice in the sandbox. Avoid badger mentality. Remember, everyone wants to turn the world around to their favor, just like you do.
Skydog Institute 
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