Articles

by Jodie Forrest

Four planets are retrograde all month (August 2009):  Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The Earth temporarily overtakes them in its orbit, so they temporarily appear to be going backwards in the zodiac. As above, so below--retrogradations of the outer planets are times when their energy goes "widdershins," or backwards. I like the fanciful term "widdershins" more; it implies there is a purpose to this energy doubling back upon itself, a method in this reversal of motion. What's ruled by a retrograde planet is commonly supposed to go haywire during its retrogradation. I suspect that's more likely to happen if we either don't pay conscious and reflective attention to the affairs of that planet, or if we try to push its affairs forward too fast without such reflection.

Read more: Planetary Retrogrades

An excerpt from Yesterday's Sky Chapter 5 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE LUNAR NODES

If you are a nerd, welcome to paradise. If you slept through science, but were wide-eyed when English class turned to the Romantic poets, you will probably make a very fine astrologer—but you might want to skip this chapter.

So, what exactly are the nodes of the Moon? Obviously, they are not planets. Since they are the foundation of Evolutionary Astrology and the gateway into karmic analysis, let’s take a little while to understand them rigorously.

Read more: Mean Nodes Vs. True Nodes

As defined by Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Wolf Green

Evolutionary Astrology embraces paradigms and methodologies which specifically measure the growth of the soul from life to life. These methods invariably focus on the planet Pluto and its relationship to the Nodal Axis. While it is composed of a set of specific formal methodologies, evolutionary astrology is ultimately characterized less by a technical approach than by a set of philosophical principles defined by natural law.

Read more: What Is Evolutionary Astrology?

An Interview with Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Wolf Green
by Hadley Fitzgerald, M.A., M.F.T.

This article first appeared in The Mountain Astrologer (TMA), and is reprinted by permission. For Ms. Fitzgerald's bio and contact information, please scroll to the end of the article. For Steven and Jeffrey's definition of Evolutionary Astrology, please scroll to the end of the article, or go to our Evolutionary Astrology page.

In ancient times, as cultures appropriated one another's deities, the Romans latched onto a god named Pluto as their correlative to the Greek god Hades, lord of the underworld. This god's realm gradually became synonymous with "hell" down through the ages in repetitive cross-cultural mistranslations. We've forgotten that the Greeks commonly referred to Hades by his more popular epithet, "Pluton," the name used in the mysteries to designate the wealth-giver.

Read more: The Pluto Brothers Measure the Night

by Steven Forrest, copyright 2000.
This article first appeared in The Mountain Astrologer

PLEASE NOTE: STEVEN NO LONGER DOES RECTIFICATIONS HIMSELF.

FOR RECTIFICATIONS BY JODIE FORREST, Email Jodie. You can also visit our  DIRECTORY OF ASTROLOGERS TRAINED BY STEVEN FORREST.

"I don't know the time of my birth." Any working astrologer hears that line a few times a month. In rectification—the craft of discovering the true Ascendent of a birthchart—the first rule is never accept an "I don't know" statement on face value! Always, without fail, make a strenuous attempt to discover the recorded birth time...which is often actually available, many times quite easily. Don't let a client's hesitation to search compromise your work!

Read more: The Craft of Chart Rectification

by Steven Forrest

The Forrests have published a radically revised and expanded edition of  their synastry classic, Skymates. Please visit our Skymates page for more information.

When is the following declaration the saddest, bitterest thing you've ever heard? "I will always be your friend."

Sweet words, most of the time. Real friendship is precious. But most of us have felt that terrible sting--the word "friend" when it comes out of the mouth of someone with whom we are in love in a romantic, mating way. Being downgraded to "friend" means rejection. Something upon which we have staked a big piece of our lives is taken away. We know it and our lover knows it too.

Read more: Love Handles: Practical Synastry in Action

The Runes were the letters with which the ancient Norse wrote until approximately 1000 A.D., and they can be seen carved on Runestones across Scandinavia to this day. They also had oracular, mythological or psychological import. The chief Norse god, Odin, was said to have been voluntarily wounded with a spear and hung for nine nights on the nine worlds of Norse cosmology's axle-tree, Yggdrasil, in order to obtain knowledge of the Runes' meanings and magical uses--a kind of Norse shamanic initiation.

Read more: Norse Runes

by Jodie Forrest
(First published in THE MOUNTAIN ASTROLOGER)
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's painting, 'The Sun,' shows a huge, radiant solar disc rising over a fjord, where a diminutive house clings to a rocky cliff overlooking the water. Munch's sun emits kaleidoscopically multicolored rays of pulsing, almost animate, light, all streaming out from that immense central core, illuminating and virtually setting fire to the landscape below. The original hangs in the Festival Hall at the University of Oslo. A print hangs in my office and often stops first time clients in their tracks.

Read more: Solar Deities in Norse Mythology