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"This universe of ours, what is it really? Here we are, centres of consciousness, surrounded by a buzzing confusion which we must try to understand. But we are of the selfsame stuff of the universe -- perhaps ultimately a cloud of energy interacting with other clouds of energy -- and on that account we are in the role more of participants than observers. We cannot distance ourselves from our ambient, hold it at arm's length for impartial scrutiny. This fact has been heavily underlined by modern physics since it sets limits to our knowledge. What we experience is not external reality per se but our interaction with it, so that in a very real sense we are constructing our universe from ourselves."
"Astrology is an art, rather than a science or a system of religious beliefs. But what, then, is art? The artist mediates between different dimensions of life. The images, sounds, words and forms which the artist utilises are languages which can communicate the meaningful patterns of levels of reality which would otherwise be incomprehensible or incommunicable to the rational mind. When we are affected by art, it is because the work speaks to us on many levels: intellectual, intuitive, emotional, visceral."
"People who dismiss astrology do so out of either ignorance or rationalism. Rationalists have their place, but their limited assumptions and methods must be kept out of the arts. Interpretation of poem, dream or person requires intuition and divination, not science."
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A Bit of a Bio:
Astro Inquiry is published in Washington State -- beaming out from Vashon Island. When I was 14 years-old, I made the dogged effort to write to as many astrologers in California as I could, seeing which, if any would take me on as a student. I lucked out with my teachers Ivy Goldstein Jacobson and Margaret Latvala, and studied with them through my high school years. A year later I became a member of Llewellyn George’s Educational Astrology organization in Los Angeles. I helped write, edit and publish the group’s quarterly newsletters... continues
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Consultations
Redefining the Oxymoron: Sex and Marriage
The revelations related to the vicious hack of the Ashley Madison website (the cheating spouses’ watering hole you’ve read about everyday for the past week) have — once again — shocked puritanical America. In the way puritanical America is always shocked whenever it discovers that people are having sex outside the confines of the missionary position (and sanctity of marriage).
Recently, several of the Scarlet-Lettered individuals — publicly exposed victims of the hack — Â have committed suicide. I’m very sad about the suicides (I’ve experienced that shock first hand to understand the impact). These extreme reactions point to a gigantic schism within the culture’s attitudes about sex. Judeo-Christian prohibitions that inextricably link sex and shame, forever and ever, until the end of time.
To sustain porn star-like passion within a monogamous relationship is sorta oxymoronic. It’s not impossible (there is now Viagra and Addyi — female Viagra), but the misconceptions people project onto monogamy — the levels of romantic passion they expect to be constant, over time, aren’t germane to the natural arc of a relationship.
Those sustainability dreams are borrowed from the realms of fairy tales and online porn. Symbolic idylls meant to instruct or entertain. But people being people, we literalize what shouldn’t be made literal.
This delusion hasn’t been helped by New Age, Oprah-esque goofiness: If you dream it — goddamnit you’re entitled to it.  Think hard enough about a new car and you’ll either win the lottery or the death of your spouse will free up his life insurance policy so you can buy one.
The Ashley Madison hack is throwing the epidemic of romo-sexual magical thinking into high relief.
Astrologically the events surrounding the Madison hack mirror the slow-building Saturn/Neptune square…
• The Truth About Mercury Retrograde
• Planetary Ennui: The Nostalgia for Samsara
• How To Make Facebook Your Slave and Preserve Your Creative Drive
• The Power, Beauty, and Wonder of the Horoscope’s 12th House
• Imbeciles at the Gate: How The Internet Destroys Astrology
• How To Escape From the Torture of Self-Help Hell
• Depression and the Solar Consciousness
• Secrets of the Heart: Love is an Action Not A Feeling
• Create Your Own Archetype & Call It You: An Escape from Evolutionary Astrology
• Redefining the Oxymoron of Sex and Marriage
• Death is the New Black
• How To Write About Astrology (Especially How Not To)
• Astrology, Ants, Hives, Essence, and Types: A Gurdjieffian View
• Final Notes About the Life-and-Culture-Changing Uranus-Pluto Square
Critter Rescue: Meditate Like a Mouse (or Lion)
Gone are the days of celebrities helping us reconnect to the necessity for some kind of connection to our bodies (and minds). (Remember Cher‘s workout video?… OK, nevermind.)
Cartoonist Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne) has created this whimsical (but incredibly wise) animal-filled animation that just might bring you back to the meditation practice you abandoned years ago (or last week). Read more