Photo by the author.

Tu B’Shevat, which is known as the “birthday of the trees” or “new year of trees” in Jewish custom, began at sundown tonight. It’s long been my personal favorite although it’s quite a minor holiday; I’ve always chalked this up to my midheaven Moon in Taurus (Mom’s a horticulturist and master gardener) giving me a bit of a tree-hugging dirt worshipper streak, but the sheer magnitude of Pacific Northwest geography instills a degree of love of nature and place in most people here. Today, being the new year of the trees, I’m going to shamelessly wax local a bit.

I spent some time “dowsing” for a new book in my friendly neighborhood woowoo bookstore a couple days ago, and was pleasantly astonished to find this:

Douglas Todd’s Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia: Exploring the Spirit of the Pacific Northwest is a collection of essays by regional and other authors that explores the unique threads of northwestern culture. I’ve hunted down many books that look at the area from a philosophical rather than a pop-culture viewpoint, but Cascadia, thankfully, is one of the few that does it without going too dryly academic.

Cascadia’s fifteen essays are divided among four areas: spirituality and values, history, nature, and culture. The overall point of the book is that here in the northwest these things are irretrievably connected, our soaring treetops and snowy peaks inspiring near-religious devotion and creating a sense of place that transcends even international borders.

One of Cascadia’s more famous/infamous statistics regards what godless heathens we are. Oregon, and Washington even more so, sport the lowest rates of religious identity in the entire US. This is still very much a spiritual place though- but collectively we’re as likely to get religion at the edge of the Pacific, atop a mountain, or under a canopy of Douglas fir as we are in a church or a temple. If you want to look at it in more irreverent terms, out here G-d’s architecture trumps man’s, hands down. Says historian William Cronon:

Wilderness fulfills the old romantic project of secularizing Judeo-Christian values so as to make a new cathedral not in some petty human building but in G-d’s own creation, Nature itself.

Mark Shibley’s essay finds local spirituality to be driven by the three clusters of apocalyptic end-timers, neo-pagans and assorted New Agers, and earth-based spirituality; he declares the last most central to the regional ethos, evoked locally in literature and secular movements as well as religious traditions. Shibley writes:

None of these spiritual practices is unique to Cascadia, but in the absence of a dominant religion, they define regional culture and identity more substantially than they do elsewhere. Put differently, “alternative spirituality” is more center-culture than counter-culture in our region.

I found this to be true even when I was in high school, where we had more students who were Wiccan or pagan (legitimately raised as such by their parents, not kids who read a few Anne Rice novels and got “inspired”) than Jewish. Nature and earth and trees and a certain level of reverence are woven into the fabric of everyday existence here. Take a look at this photoset from my daily commute from a couple years ago:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I didn’t walk a step out of my regular path for this, and this is in a fairly dense area of Seattle. Especially on the western side of the Cascades, there is an undercurrent of primal, even primordial, energy in green spaces. That primordial air is found in all corners of the northwest- places as geographically diverse as the coastal forests of southeast Alaska, hiking trails of the Olympics, Oregon’s Cannon Beach, the Columbia Gorge, and even the city parks of Vancouver, B.C. all evoke the same twinges of reverence that feed local souls.

Cascadia is a very readable set of essays, with several sets of maps and photos that nicely convey the regional ties. The book as a whole takes a more analytical, higher-altitude view of local environmental and spiritual practice than many locally-focused books, while retaining an authentic voice through its authors. Natives and curious outsiders alike will find it an engaging and worthwhile read.

Now that I’m all caught up with local fervor, I’ll leave you with a few of my other photos from the area. Enjoy!

Gasworks Park, Seattle

Mt. Index, Washington

Juneau, Alaska

Skagway, Alaska

Stanley Park, Vancouver B.C.

Lower Dewey Lake, Alaska

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Photo by Alan Turkus (cc)

After Monday night’s mishap I’ve restored about 98% of the site here successfully. I won’t bore you with nerdy details but as a PSA, let me just put it out there to have more than one backup of your files before Mercury goes retrograde… my regular database backup was corrupted and if it weren’t for a stray file from early December (which normally would have been overwritten by the new one) I probably would have lost everything here.

So, sadly, I can’t restore most of the comments from after December 3rd, but it’s a small price to pay. I also need to rebuild the blogroll and resource links but otherwise everything is fully functional again. Thanks for the well wishes, and for you Wordpressers and other self-hosted bloggers, remember to back up your site and database files. And have more than one copy of each, as I’ve now learned.

Wordpress Codex: Backups

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Photo by Capture Queen (cc)

This post is part of an occasional series about the Ascendant in your horoscope.

The Mars retrograde hullaballoo is bulldozing right over my ascendant, so I’ve been paying attention to the changes as it moves around my chart lately.

I have Mars in late Leo in the 1st house, so Mars had crossed my ascendant and was within a few degrees of its return when it turned and began marching back again. Here’s an assessment of the practical effects of this set of transits so far:

The symbolism of this transit is self-assertion with regard to others. It is not enough that you are yourself and able to do your own thing. With this transit, you may have to show other people that you are someone to be reckoned with.

I noticed that my temper definitely rose during this period, and I was a lot less diplomatic than usual. However, being aware that I might feel this way seemed to head off the more negative effects, and any anger I expressed to people tended to clear the air and make things slightly more productive because I was more direct than usual. I also had more nervous energy, so I was cleaning the house more and going out to do small errands more often than normal.

Thomas David Kehoe writes in his Astrolog summary:

Martin Luther King had this when he was arrested for leading a sit-in demonstration, and courageously refused to post bond, thereby refusing that he’d committed a crime, and so he was thrown in jail. Ernest Hemingway had this when he blew his brains into his orange juice. …Pay attention to [people's] feelings and win them over to your aims, rather than trying to dominate them and creating anger.

I visited the Hemingway Home in Key West last spring so I reflected on this, bought another orchid, and resolved to lay off the proverbial rum for a while. And combined with the current Saturn in Libra action, I feel I was able to mostly sort out some personal issues using the self-assertiveness boost from this transit.

• Stay away from the knives!
• Oh, and watch your mouth.

The last line of the Planets entry is:

It is a good idea to avoid sharp instruments and cutting tools right now, because Mars signifies steel and cutting in general.

Thought I dodged that one because it wasn’t a problem on the direct first pass, but at work I have cut, burned, and poked myself in the hands more in the last week than I have in years. In the bakery I’ve casually passed off all my regular cutting work to co-workers until at least the end of January, when Mars is “comfortably” deep into my 12th house again.

Bakery machetes- normally an everyday part of my job, but I’m staying the hell away from them for a couple more weeks now. (That’s a bagel for size comparison.) At my current injury rate, I’m afraid I’ll lose a finger the day this transit is exact.

My temper has ramped up again too, but the distinct difference between the first pass and this retrograde one is that now, the subject of my ire is misunderstood or misinterpreted. Every time. Granted, right now Mercury is retro too so it can be hard to separate the effects, but Mercury is retrograde in my chart so I’m used to being misunderstood… this is a whole different level, and only when I’m angry about something. Not at all how it was on the direct pass.

I’ll update this post with some more observations of the second and the coming third (direct) pass, but even now I find it striking that both experiences are very Mars-like, and yet very different from each other. I’m curious who else has transiting Mars on an angle right now, and what shape that’s taking.

Related posts:

1. On the Ascendant: See the World Your Way
2. Moon Transit Adventures
3. An Odd Expression of Mars on the Midheaven

My site has been thoroughly borked, Mercury Retrograde-style, so we’re a little thin on archives here right now. While I nuke the database and put everything back together, please subscribe to my RSS feed for updates, and check out some of my favorite sites:

Astrology Expressed

Big Sky Astrology

Elsa Elsa

Jo Tracey Astrology

Libra Seeking Balance

Molly’s Astrology

Sky Writer

Cheers!

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1. 5 Astrology Blogs You Need to Follow

Have a great weekend!

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Photo by Jose Francisco Del Valle Mojica (cc)

A peek at my monthly book heap, now with 100% more annotation! These days I’m winding down, in alphabetical order:

Astrology in the Kitchen, by Maria Kozslik Donovan

A subject near and dear to my heart! After I bought this, I realized I already have a copy of it in storage with my cookbooks… I think I will have to review it later as I could not find a single review online, so I’ll refrain from commenting on the substance of it for now. Out of print, but used copies are easy to find.

The Curious Researcher, by Bruce Ballenger

An undergrad research guide, but I like it because it provides structure to the research experience. If you like this kind of thing, you might enjoy the phinished.org website as well.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

This novel is the first in a crime trilogy by the author, who sadly passed before they were published. FANTASTIC. Enthusiastically recommended. The one vaguely astrological reference, since this is an astrology blog, is to a very Plutonian character’s birthday being on Hallowe’en. Read it anyway; no one should only read astrology tomes all the time.

Old Souls: Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives, by Tom Shroder

A look at the academic research of reincarnation. The author (an accomplished journalist, and Dave Barry’s former editor) follows the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist and research professor at the University of Virginia; this work is skeptic-friendly rather than preaching to the choir. If you’re not a fan of Brian Weiss, this book may be more up your alley.

Twin Flames: A True Story of Soul Reunion, by Antera

Another book I’ll probably have to review. Valuable for its content, but the writing style was painfully amateur at times… read it only if you’re already into the topic. Lots of woowoo new-agey stuff so you’ll have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Related posts:

1. The Planet Series: 8 Classic Reference Works
2. December Bookshelf
3. The Plutonian Bookshelf

Photo by Alfonso Benayas (cc)

I have a dear friend with an aspect that puzzled me for a long time. This person has Mars exactly conjunct his midheaven, at 13 Leo. I scratched my head over this for a while because he didn’t seem to exhibit many of the usual traits or issues that traditionally accompany this aspect. The usual connotations of Mars conjunct MC are:

• Often comes across as assertive and dominant, even pushy
• Has difficulty submitting to authority
• Not so good at working with other people (but excels at team sports)
• Prone to making rash decisions, especially when angry
• Happiest in a career that involves a lot of physical labor or energy

The last bit is true for my pal; he cheerfully works in a shipyard which is about as old-school laborer as you can get on the west coast here (except Bering Sea fisherman, perhaps). But he’s also a Libra with Venus conjunct ascendant and Sun in the twelfth, so he’s far more easygoing about most things, and generally isn’t interested in making waves. But the strength of the aspect—6 minutes—made me wonder if there wasn’t some other way for Mars to manifest itself.

On a couple of occasions we talked at length about his work, and I asked him all kinds of questions trying to ferret out other possible expressions of this. And then we hit on a candidate:

• He can lift ridiculously heavy objects with ease.

I was then treated to a long series of anecdotes describing how his coworkers—and mind you, these are all salty old riggers, so feats of strength that will impress them are rare—were completely astonished at things he could move, lift, and haul without a second thought. I do chuckle to myself at the thought of my terribly innocent-looking (Venus rising) friend moving metaphorical mountains while slack-jawed union bosses look on in disbelief.

As I thought about it, he has quite a vigorous manifestation of Mars conjunct midheaven; all the Venus activity he has just seems to squelch the more common negative expressions of it. This aspect is often described in relation to professional sports, but rigging is by definition a physical team activity as well.

But one case does not a definition make, so I tried to think of anyone else I knew with a talent for heavy lifting.

I have another Libra friend and coworker who immediately leapt to mind, with Cancer rising and Venus in Libra square ascendant… he too has that innocent air about him. A look at his chart shows Aries on the midheaven, with his north node within one degree. Mars? Well, we find it in late Virgo opposing the MC. Not identical charts by any stretch, but we’re racking up some similarities here. In this case I am the astonished coworker who regularly watches him, a guy not particularly large or muscle-bound at all, lift entire 120lb. batches of dough from the mixer in our bakery without breaking a sweat. He doesn’t have many aggressive tendencies either, but all his (many) jobs are quite physical: baker, apartment maintenance type, and theater technician. The last makes up the bulk of his work and involves a good deal of lifting heavy, fragile objects and scaling multiple-story ladders.

So if you have Mars on the MC or a Mars-ruled midheaven, you might surprise yourself in the gym even if you’re the peaceable sort… or maybe especially so. Alas, I have Libra and Venus but my MC is at 0 Taurus; I’ve barely missed the Herculean boat. But it sure is fun to watch.

Related posts:

1. On the Ascendant: Transiting Mars and Mars Retrograde
2. Friday Time Clock #2
3. Moon Transit Adventures

Photo by José Luis Mieza (cc)

I’m the sort of person who is a fan of finding significance in events- surely this is part of why I’ve become an astrologer. For me the new year’s season has always been personally exciting in an intellectual way, since I find the experience of tying up loose ends and taking stock of things satisfying.

Unfortunately getting things down onto the page has proven to be far more difficult than normal lately, with even the simplest of topics taking a ridiculous amount of effort; my normal end-of-year roundup, which involves a trip to 43 things, cleaning up various online profiles, and generating a fair bit of writing, has been thoroughly disrupted. I did spend New Year’s Day working on a major facelift for my site here, which I’m pleased with (temporary banner notwithstanding).

I’ve still thought all the thoughts quite readily, it’s getting them down that has been vexing.

Astrologically, Pluto has moved on to 3° Cap so the trine to my moon is now waning; this was quite a productive transit for me so I’m a little sad to see it go. The detox stellium is still shuffling along opposite my Mars, which has proven to be quite an energy drain over the long term. Mars recently crossed my ascendant, and will retrograde over the top of it before going direct again (and directly into my Mars return) this spring. Natal Venus returned at the beginning of December, so it seems I’ll complete all my personal planet returns over a span of six months. It definitely feels like I’ve hit the reset button on things lately. The Mars and Mercury retrogrades have me on a tactical retreat overall, but Merc Rx is business as usual for me so I’m looking at the whole timeline as a regrouping strategy.

Since the eclipse in Cancer this summer, which fell at my north node in the 12th, I’ve been focusing a lot on moon/Neptune exchanges in my own chart and in the people around me. Neptune is one of the few planets whose energy I have yet to make peace with, if not resisting it at every turn. The colossal amounts of Piscean energy I’ve attracted in the last several years could possibly stem from this… just possibly. And so recently I have retreated, mostly by chance and by instinct, into not only a mental monastery, but a rather odd physical manifestation of my twelfth house as well. The outward version I’ll discuss later, but the shift in thinking that accompanied it is the main thing.

Normally I’m a very detail-oriented and logical thinker… an illustration of my brain would probably be some hulking piece of steampunk machinery, with extraneous gears and possibly a set of aviation goggles for style. But the sheer austerity of my thought processes over the last several months have been the most noticeable shift for me; it’s not that my thinking is dulled, but that I’m making connections in a very organic, rather than methodical, way. My brain has slowed from its racing, third-house pattern to a very unfamiliar info-dredging style.

In a lot of ways I feel that I have a lot to think, and a lot to read, but not yet a lot to say. Or that I have quite a lot to say, but the expression just isn’t quite coming yet. And so I’ll continue to ruminate in my little monastery until I can get it all out in a way that is more articulate. Is this what Mercury in Pisces feels like? It’s like being on another planet from my usual self.

Related posts:

1. Haha, Very Funny… The Mercury Return
2. Moon Transit Adventures
3. A Conversation with the Pisces Moon

Photo by Lin Pernille (cc)

I have a very tall stack going next to my reading chair these days. At the moment I’m chewing on:

• Cosmic Karma by Marguerite Manning (I won this on the radio!)
• The Art of Chart Synthesis by Tracy Marks
• The Curious Researcher by Bruce Ballenger
• Karmic Astrology: Retrogrades and Reincarnation by Martin Schulman

I also have a copy of the new NCGR study guide, which is excellent. I’ll be reviewing that soon, and I’m starting a study group here in Seattle after the new year for it. I’m also considering starting a free phone study class for it, if there’s enough interest.

Related posts:

1. January Bookshelf
2. October Bookshelf
3. The Plutonian Bookshelf

If you’re ready for a reading, get more information on my consultation page.

For more about Lifelong AIDS Alliance, the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, and the Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit, visit their websites.

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1. Seattle Divinatory Salon – Thursday, August 27
2. On the Ascendant: See the World Your Way