And those of us with SN/NN Capricorn/Cancer will feel the shift most acutely, correct?

Very informative! Change is in the air. Theo’s article is insightful. Thanks for sharing!

Joe, I don’t think those of you with Capricorn/Cancer on the nodes will feel the shift more personally than others. But it DOES mean that you are due for a nodal return or reverse nodal return sometime in the near future! A course correction and adjustment.

Very interesting and well crafted piece by White. The list of passings is joined by Mollie Sugden, Gail Storm and Karl Malden over the past few days. As opposed to Vedic practice, and maybe some ‘traditional’ thought, as a practicing astrologer it is my belief that ‘predicting’ death, anyone’s death, is out of order with Universal Law. In the past I have posted the distinct possibility of some kind of transition with certain notables ( last year Charleton Heston to the day ) but hesitate to identify death since the soul has free will, and chooses to depart this plane of existence on its own terms. The changes that White pre-sages though, may not be positive ones, and the specter remains that souls are departing before collective karma reins amok.

Againsorry. The above is a Chiron posting.

I have to protest your very one-sided and biased view on traditional astrology.
It is clear you have not studied the subject and merely use it to promote your very modern and one-sided view.
You state quite clearly that it is one-sided as you say: “In my personal theology, the chart is the karma that we are given, and our dharma, or soul work, is to maximize the potential of the chart and integrate the individual pieces that are often in conflict. As we begin to make conscious choices rather than using reactive impulses in our day-to-day life, we are able to change our destiny and create a magnificent life. This has been my experience as someone who has Saturn conjunct the Sun, Moon conjunct Pluto squared by Venus and Jupiter, and lots of other “bad” stuff in my chart, and this is what I teach my clients and students.”
I’m quite sorry to hear that you teach this. It is your right of course, but it flies into the face of astrology proper. Astrology is much more than merely a tool to promote new-age views,
Interestingly enough, your view of astrology is just as fate-wrought, as the things you blame tradition astrologers for.
Most of all, you seem not to be able to take an objective position. Why should your personal theology decide how astrology works? What you indicate is that you merely choose to view astrology from one perspective alone… your perspective.
Now that is a big problem. Your clients do not come to you for your personal view on things, they come to you for info on their charts, not to hear a sermon about how they have mismanaged their infinite potential thus far, and need to be set straight by you, or your take on their charts.
Traditional astrologers do not indulge in death predictions, I have never found many that do. But I do find that astrologers like yourself tend to paint a dreary picture of the art from whence came the very fabric of what you purport to teach.
Shame on you.
Viator

Martien, several comments here. First of all, I HAVE studied traditional astrology. Second, nowhere in any of my writings or client consultations will you find any sermons of any kind, much less sermons about mismanaging a client’s potential. My work is empowering and uplifting and designed to inspire and not cause a client to feel that they are doomed by their “bad” chart. Third, traditional astrologers certainly do practice death predictions. My esteemed colleague Nina Gryphon does it all the time using horary consultations. Vedic Astrologer RIchard Houck wrote a manual on predicting death before he himself passed over. There are many valuable tools in traditional astrology that are well worth preserving, but just as traditional science has not become stuck in sixteenth century thinking, so should astrology, in my opinion, move forward as human consciousness progresses.

Lynn, several comments in return.
First if you have studied traditional astrology, the questions is what kind. The stuff from before 1700? That’s the real deal, not the stuff that came from after that period. You should then be aware that the difference is what I would call ‘more realistic’ astrology, as opposed to the new age worldview that merely views a chart as a potential. However satisfying that worldview might be, both to you and your clients, it flies in the face of actual circumstances and facts in the clients life (that bring them to you as clients in the first place). Suggesting traditional astrologers are simply about doom, is quite unfair. Using Jungian speak I would say that traditional astrology is ‘the shadow’ of your modern practice. You clearly haven’t integrated this shadow, because you’re demonizing it.
Second, your ‘sermon’ might not be in your consultations Lynn, it is there in your astrological worldview. Whenever a planet is viewed as ‘potential’, the possible expressions of it are limitless, also implying that whatever the client has done so far, it can always be done better. It is the-American-dream-astrology: everything is possible, for anyone, anywhere. This is not reality.
Suppose someone’s Venus – or whatever – is implying that the client will never have satisfying relationships, what are you gonna do? Now, whenever I suggest such a thing, modern astrologers get very annoyed, saying that this is not true astrology, or it is the result of my limited and unenlightened worldview. But when Venus is seen as merely a ‘potential’ to use/exploit at will, then yes anything is possible in love, even satisfying relationships. The client merely has to ‘learn to express Venus in a different fashion’. This flies in the face of the ancient astrology, which made much effort to establish how a planet would function.
This simplistic worldview results in very poor astrology, as a science. All the circumstances needed to ascertain how a planet will ultimately function and realize itself in a chart, can be discarded as so much nonsense. Which is mostly the stance of modern astrology. It is astrology-by-association, it is judgment-based-on-intuition, or judgment-based-on-personal-worldview. The biggest objection is that you as an astrologer are then no longer led by the science, you impose your worldview on it, which is quite un-enlightened. It is hubris.
The human consciousness argument doesn’t fly. It is always used as an excuse. Prove in which way human consciousness has progressed?
Kind regards
Viator

I would argue, Viator, that astrology is not a science. But then again, I believe that science itself is not a science in the sense that it behaves the same way over and over again as the new quantum physics is proving. The same aspect does not manifest the same way in all people.
For example, you write:
>
This is the perfect example of where traditional astrology does not serve the client. I am the perfect example. I have Venus in Scorpio and it is squared by Pluto. With Mars in the 7th house. Now obviously traditional astrologers would not be looking at the Pluto square, but it is there nevertheless. I expect that you would tell someone like me that I will never have satisfying relationships. And certainly this was true for the first 40 years of my life. But now I have been married for 10 years, in a very satisfying relationship.
Perhaps it is because the human life span is longer now, and we have an opportunity to work through the difficulties of our chart. When you do readings for older people (over 50) you often hear them say “yes, I was like that when I was younger but I’ve learned a different way.”
Also, I have never written that traditional astrology is all about doom. Traditional astrologers are just as likely to say that someone will have a blessed life because of a Grand Trine and a prominent Jupiter. Yet in my practice I have seen that such a glorious chart can lead to a life of laziness and self-indulgence.
Humans are evolving and so, in my opinion, should astrology.

Lynn
That astrology is not a science is an opinion that modern astrologers entertain. But traditional astrology is a philosophy of humanity, and is a science that puts this philosophy in practice. It does so with the horoscope.
You say (and by the way, thank you for being candid)
“This is the perfect example of where traditional astrology does not serve the client. I am the perfect example. I have Venus in Scorpio and it is squared by Pluto. With Mars in the 7th house. Now obviously traditional astrologers would not be looking at the Pluto square, but it is there nevertheless. I expect that you would tell someone like me that I will never have satisfying relationships. And certainly this was true for the first 40 years of my life. But now I have been married for 10 years, in a very satisfying relationship.”
First of all, this is insufficient data to be able to explain why your relations where unsatisfactory for the first 40 years of your life Lynn. Venus in Scorpio is just one of the possible significators for relations, Mars in the 7th is yet another, but to be sure about its influence we need to know the sign; we need to know whether or not you are a day birth, etc., etc.
This is what I mean when I say there is a lot of technique out there needed to ascertain this. Venus alone is not enough.
But the main question is whether or not you can account for the reasons why after 40 years of unsatisfying relations things turned out better. I think there would have been several events happening over a period of time – and these can be inner events – that would have marked the period where you moved into your better relation.
Now I’m fine with you claiming you had all sorts of fantastic insights into yourself that made you change your way of relating, but as an astrologer, you need to be able to pinpoint the caesura. Should you have consulted an astrologer, (s)he should have been able to say when it would change. And no, transits are insufficient as a stand-alone technique in this.
Again, often clients need to hear when the situation changes, not what they are doing wrong in order to explain why things aren’t working out the way they want it.
Again you claim humans are evolving, yet you offer no proof. You’re merely saying people learn from their experiences. That’s not evolution, that’s learning.
Viator

Oh yeah, one more thing, about astrology as a science.
The resurrection of traditional astrology has quite convincingly shown that the traditional tools of astrology where not only more in number, but also much broader in their scope and more demanding than their modern counterpart. IN that sense chartanalysis in de traditional sense, resembles more of a science project. You have to work the chart, quite intensively, before you can make judgments about it.
The loss of these tools, and the resentment and resistance they meet as they are reintroduced, is quite remarkable.
As a science, the question is, when you have eliminated – say – 80% of the methods of evaluating how a specific planet will conduct and behave in a chart, how can you ever hope to have a complete picture of astrology and the ramifications of the impact of planets in a chart?
What I’m saying is, when you don’t have a radar, nothing will show up on it. Your flying blind.
Many modern conceptions – when they’re not invented for the sake of merely sounding interesting that is – rest in the foundations of the tradition. Or as Robert Schmidt put it: ‘ What does work in modern astrology, was most often thought up by the Hellenistic astrologers.
Viator

my sister almost died back in 2007, with a sudden subdural hematoma. no one saw it coming. i have been looking for various signs in her chart reflecting this. and the node thing seems to be the closest explanation.
looking at her natal chart and transits on the day of her accident, i see:
- transitting north node conjunct natal jupiter, and
- transitting pluto conjunct natal north node

Hi Cindy
You cannot simply correlate transits, of any sort, with events like these, and then hope you have found the explanation for them! This is not astrology.
You have to – at least – go through a procedure to determine what factors in your sisters chart correlate to the events your sister suffered, from which she was luckily delivered.
After that you have to time the events that perspired. You have to check how the factors that promise these events for your sister are being activated by prognostic factors.
Prognostication is not something and does not show events that come out of the blue, it is the fulfillment of what the chart ‘promises’, it is not a astrological crystal ball in which you hope to get a glimpse of what will perspire. The chart will tell you what will happen! You as an astrologer must be able to assess what happened and how it eventually went.
So the transiting north-node conjunct natal Jupiter in itself says nothing. Nothing at all! It has to be qualified. Either the north-node or Jupiter has to indicate severe illness and the threat of death, and the deliverance from it. You cannot hold these transits responsible for these facts. You need the analyze the chart and determine what planet has what role in the chart: which planets is the ruler of illness? Which one is the ruler of death? What planet indicates deliverance from death?
Viator

Cindy the correlation of the opposition of Jupiter and Pluto is interesting with your sister having almost died (Pluto) and then having been rescued (Jupiter), potentially to fulfill her destiny (Nodes). I’m sure that as Viator says there were other factors involved but in the context of this comments section not everyone is an experienced astrologer, and we like to give these people an opportunity to experiment and discuss things without jumping all over them.

My goodness ! So much to comment on here, and another interesting choice for an article.
Seems like Viator is trying to *apply* ‘traditional’ parameters to the ‘modern’ version of astrology…which is probably not a very useful exercise. Comparisons may be educational, but trying to *apply* sounds futile.
I like to say that modern astrology is an art / science because I think it is more or less that. But that’s just a label. No matter what you call it, or claim it to be, the real test for your choice of astrology (which of course may be a mix of types and methods, hopefully mixed with awareness) is empirical. On that score I can say with confidence that with modern astrology, it is possible to predict the event of death in a human life, just as it’s possible to predict the death of anything else…the life of a building, a pet, a relationship, and so forth (although ‘predict’ is a loaded term and needs to be qualified).
This prediction, however, may not be possible when one merely ‘thinks’ one wants to do it. It’s a matter of whether Fate *allows* one to do it. The entry of Fate into the picture of astrological prediction is the entry of a special dimension into one’s practice.
To change the subject…for relationships Lynn has some real tough natal aspects, for sure. Of course she cannot provide in the context of a short online article all the data needed to prove the point cited re. the life of relationships with her close others. But to create a brief scenario here as an example…if a person has had ‘unsatisfactory’ relationships of the significant kind for 40 years, and by the end of this period transit Uranus has come to the cusp of the 7th House, you can pretty well say there will soon be a change to that particular status quo (and time it to boot), especially as the native’s own Uranus will be at / near the Ascendant if the Uranus opposition is also present…in which case there may first be a crisis of personality. And depending on other accompanying factors, and if the native does not at the time have a significant other, you might well be able to add whether the entry of Uranus into the 7th will bring a new relationship and whether it will be more promising than those of the past (because, e.g., there is a chance to make it so with a renewed personality and the more hospitable accompanying energies).

Thanks Yoshi, these are excellent points. I’d also like to add that the choices that the individual makes in a lifetime has tremendous bearing on how the chart unfolds. For example, a client has Mars conjunct Pluto and has experienced abuse in her life. She repeatedly attracts situations and relationships that will play out this dynamic of abuse. Once this pattern is called to her attention, she can make the choice to change that pattern in a conscious way, and delve more deeply into the fears that keep her locked in the negative pattern. Or she can continue to react instinctively from the emotion of the chart and remain stuck forever. THIS is where free will comes in. The karma is in the chart – that is fated. But what we do with the chart becomes our destiny.

Yes, Lynn…it’s true…choice is important…if we are living in our normal dualistic world.
Things cannot be left to slide on their own without untoward consequences, usually.
My feeling, though, is that so-called ‘free will’ is not actually as free as we like to assume. Everything is all determined as to what takes place…our choices, or lack of them, and the consequences…yet we must choose (by choosing to play the game of making choices…and our choices may lead to more or less acceptable results and thus we may experience some satisfaction, or even happiness). This predetermination is revealed by accurate predictions of the future made in the present moment (by prophets, clairvoyants, etc).
This does not make sense from a logical point of view, but only if we bring in paradox.
Otherwise, how would something like ‘wu wei’ work…the way of not-doing, of not imposing our ‘will’ to act, our effort in making a difficult choice ?
Wu wei only works if one lives within the dimension of paradox. And if it works, then paradox must be a reality…a dimension of existence, so to speak.
The reality of paradox will always be a mystery…and a mystery is essentially unexplainable. As they say it is with life as Tao / Tao as one’s life ( whereby astrology might become unnecessary…fancy that !!! ).
A little late in the life of this article maybe, but wanted to get back
to set this down…thanks !!!

Hi Cindi and Yoshi
As a final comment: the method shown here is merely playing tags.
An event perspires, some transits are active, conclusion: they must be responsible for what happened! Somebody almost died, hey, that’s Pluto! But she didn’t die: hey that’s Jupiter! It must be her destiny; hey that’s the nodes!
Nobody has to be an experienced astrologer, but you can at least show some respect to the métier you’re presenting here.
Don’t make it a game of tags and then claiming that’s proof of anything.
Now I’m of to France.
Fare well
Viator