A fun spin on serious cosmic stuff! Wendell C. Perry has 40 years experience studying astrology and how it impacts personalities & relationships. He's written two books & published articles in astrology magazines. He's happy to share this website so that you, too, can have fun with astrology to help you in everyday life!
At the beginning of this lunation period we were all mourning the loss of life in Buffalo, New York. At the end we find ourselves counting dead school children in Uvalde, Texas. I had predicted that the Full Moon (and eclipse) chart for May 16 (click here to see the article and the chart) was going to give us a “bumpy ride,” but I missed the potential for further violence in that chart. I should have picked up the close conjunction of Mars and Neptune (delusional anger) and the fact that that conjunction is connected to Saturn in the Full Moon chart by a semi-sextile.
The May 16 chart also described dissatisfaction with our leadership. That has been quite evident during the past few days, as it always is after one of these mass murders. People are calling on Congress to institute some sort of sensible control on the proliferation of guns. Apparently, even some Republicans have heard that call. It has been reported that Mitch McConnell as expressed interest in working out a bi-partisan deal on gun control. Whether is a real step forward or just a ploy remains to be seen, but it is still provides us with a glimmer of hope.
Early in the year I wrote a series of articles about the possible ways the return of transiting Pluto to its natal position in the horoscope of the United States might change this country. Pluto is the planet of transformation and when it hits a significant point in the horoscope of a person, that person frequently encounters events and influences that have a deep, transformative effect. It is reasonable to expect this same principle would apply to a nation.
My first article dealt with a possible political transformation. (Click here to see the article.) There are many who see the current political situationin the United States as sliding toward totalitarianism. When COVID was at its worse, it was people on the right who saw mandated precautions against the disease as a step in that direction. More recently, a wave of voter restrictions, unabashed gerrymandering and the conservative majority at the Supreme Court have people on the left seeing fascism on the horizon.
With Pluto, however, you can’t let yourself be distracted with what’s apparent. The truth lives beneath all the noise. What is spurring many of these conservative initiatives is the fact that the white, male majority that has ruled this country for over 200 years is fading away. In twenty years or so, it will be gone. That is the transformation and legislative efforts like abortion bans, “don’t say gay” and restriction on transgender rights are a simply piecemeal reactions to that transformation. They are designed to slow the process down but they could just as easily speed it up.
One of the drawbacks of the current upsurge the attention being paid to astrology is that some people are quoting astrological terms and techniques without knowing a whole lot about them. At the same time a lot of other people are lampooning those comments and concerns as if they were sum total of what astrology is. Perhaps the most common example of this is the concept of Mercury retrograde and the dread it inspires in some astrology fans.
Mercury retrograde describes the period of time during which the planet Mercury, as seen from the Earth, appears to be moving backwards in the sky. In a sense then, Mercury retrograde is an illusion. Mercury is not moving backwards. It just looks that way to people living on this planet. Illusion or not, however, Mercury retrograde is associated with disruptions in communication and in the technology of communication. Concern about such disruptions and problems has multiplied in recent times because so much of our communication is dependent on technology. And, as these concerned increased, so did the attention paid to Mercury retrograde.
The chart for the Apr. 30 New Moon, with Jupiter on the angle, seemed to promise us something to cheer about and, for the minority of Americans who feel that abortion should be outlawed, that was the case. For everyone else, it was the conjunction of the Sun and Moon with disruptive Uranus that called the tune. (Click here to see the article and the chart.) The leak of Justice Alito’s draft opinion indicating that the Supreme Court was set to overturn Roe vs. Wade gave us both a Jupiterian effusion of idealism and an Uranian shock.
When I saw Venus conjunct Jupiter on Descendant of the New Moon chart for April 30 I thought of Jupiter as the Great Benefic, doling out goodies. Instead we got Jupiter, natural ruler of the Ninth House of courts and legal proceedings. Since Jupiter was conjunct Venus, that legal action involved women. The fact that Mercury, the ruler of the chart, was in the Ninth House reaffirmed this connection with the courts.
Of course, the Sun and Moon in that New Moon chart were not in an angular house. Therefore, the leak of the draft opinion has not resulted in any concrete changes. It’s just raised a lot of questions and stirred up a lot of anger and outrage. (Again, Sun and Moon conjunct Uranus.) The answers to those questions will have to wait at least until this summer, when the court is scheduled to issue a ruling, and then until the mid-term elections in November.
