TO MY FRIENDS AND READERS

Here is the new “Astral Reflections.” It will be different from the old in many ways — for instance, this blog allows you to add your own comments, or email me. For now, very little is pinned down or structured. I might add to my blog at any time; the blog might even change daily sometimes. It will also reflect more of my thoughts on the world in general. One thing: I have “essential tremors,” which makes it very hard to type: so please forgive any typos — I correct most of them.

Right away, I’ll give you the current “Start Nothing” periods, and I’ll re-start the “Luck Forecasts” soon. YOUR SUN-SIGN WEEKLY FORECAST IS BELOW, UNDER THIS LONG, LONG PREAMBLE.

START NOTHING: (Beginning May 26): 3:22 a.m. to 2:28 p.m. Sun., 11:40 a.m. to 2:48 p.m. Tues., 4:57 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thurs., and 9:30 p.m. to 11:33 p.m. Sat.

PONDERING THE LINK BETWEEN THE 2010 “CATASTROPHE SQUARE” AND THE PRESENT HUGE/LONG “START NOTHING” PERIODS, AND MANKIND’S GREAT SHIFT.

As most of you know, the “start nothing” periods mean just that: don’t start important or new or large projects (nor buy anything big and new, clothes or cars, etc.) — reserve these times for routine chores, God, rest, contemplation, or soaking up nature. These are good social times, as long as you’re not starting a new relationship. I once bought my first (and last) three sheep during a “start nothing” period. About a month later, coyotes jumped a 5-foot fence and ate every one of them.

The “Start Nothing” (SN) intervals are very similar to Mercury retrograde periods, except that the Merc. retro is “milder” and lasts 3 weeks, not several hours.

A great shift happened a few years ago (summer 2010) when Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, all entered new signs and squared each other. The “square” is an aspect of conflict and difficulty. It occurs when two or more planets are at 90 degrees from each other in the sky. For good measure, the Sun, Moon and Mars also briefly joined this square. Such a massive square probably only occurs every ten thousand or even hundred thousand years. (I don’t know how to run a program to narrow this down.) At the time, many astrologers were predicting huge cataclysms — one was that the magnetic poles would shift, wiping ourt humanity just as an earlier shift was supposed to have destroyed the dinosaur population. I was reluctant to join this chorus, because the planet of fear, Neptune, was not involved in that massive square. How could you have a cataclysm without fear?

But great shifts did begin. The most dramatic acually preceeded the massive square by about a year — this was the world-wide credit freeze, during which many major stock markets fell by 50 %. We can also point to the rise of China and the decline of the U.S.A., or the slow “wipe out” of both communism and democracy, to be replaced by a third, as yet still amorphous, political structure — a phenomena I forecast back in the 1980’s and ’90’s. This shift, too, began before the massive square, demonstrating that events can occur before the planetary aspects that “cause” them. (My theory is that the planets are like flags — they don’t cause, they just roughly coincide with, or “signal” the event. This theory depends on the associated theory — or faith! — that the universe is interconnected, and that a pattern in one area is “reflected” by a similar patter in another area — in other words, the entire cosmos changes in an orderly, interconnected way, so when we see one familiar pattern, we know it is occurring in different forms elsewhere. A simple example: when we see leaves fall, we know the weather will turn cold. We “predict” winter in this way every year. Or, when the leaves of a maple tree turn upside down, we know it will soon rain.)

It’s easy to see the formation of the “Third State” in China, where capitalism has joined with autocracy to create a kind of freedom-laced dictatorship. The same shift is occuring in the U.S., but backwards: the Patriot Act that allowed the government to spy on its citizens, or the mass murders that now tumble through the news like spilled oranges. Or the IRS committing crimes — or in Canada, the national police force’s (RCMP’s) immoral and criminal activities. Canada, one of the most innocuous, peaceful nations on earth, and a stalwart of democracy, is now governed by a PM who orders special police units to herd and harm middle-class, peaceful protesters (the recent G-8 in Toronto) — and the electorate approves! . Democracies are imploding into regimes of “might is right” while dictatorships are growing more and more open, accepting and — gentle! At some point, these will merge, or one will dominate, to produce the new world-wide political system. This will “arrive” by 2024. However, it is possible that this new system will then encounter two decades (2024 to 2044) of extreme revolt. (Elsewhere in this blog, I will write an article placing these small historic phases in our present era. We pass through eras of about 250 years, and mega-eras of 3,000 to 5,000 year durations. (We began the last era of a mega era in November 1983. So the two centruies ahead are an ending phase, a winding down and consolidation, before the next mega-era begins in about 2232. The next mega-era, oddly enough, will be ruled by Neptune, the planet that did not partake of the “Great Square” of 2010 that will dominate our present era. But more of that elsewhere.)

For us common folk, that “Great Shift” of 2010 meant that many planets were (and two, Uranus and Pluto, still are) at the beginning of their signs, so the “start nothing” periods can be very long — sometimes almost 2 days! — versus pre-2010, when the typical “start nothing” period was mere minutes to several hours in length. (The present week, May 26-June 1/13, is an exception in that it only contains about 17 hours of S/N in total.) Many weeks now contain almost 3 full days of SN’s. In the last half of 2010 (right after the Great Square) many weeks were S/N more than half the time — over 90 hours of a 168-hour week. It’s a progression: at present, about 2 to 3 days per week can be “lost” to S/N; whereas 5 years from now, the S/N periods will fall to near normality. In the early 2020’s, SNs will almost disappear, indicating humanity will be on an almost frantic tear.)

This has tremendous implications. In the past century only a total of, say, 10 to 20 hours per week was “useless for progress” (i.e., were “start nothing” periods). Now, almost half the week — sometimes more — is a “twiddle your thumbs” (i.e. “start nothing”) period. What does that say about humanity’s progress? That it slows. That everything takes longer. That many projects fail (because the uninformed 99 % of humanity will still start things during an S/N period). And we can see this. It took the IRS almost two years to process my last few tax returns. George Bush and FEMA, through delays, totally botched the “rescue” of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. In politics, the GOP and the DEMS can’t pass laws, can’t co-operate. Twenty per cent of America is under or unemployed. Interest rates have fallen to zero, and deflation threatens. (Deflation essentially reflects a lack of progress, or a nation-wide or worldwide “exhaustion” or rest period.) All this can be tied to the vast increase in the amount of time the S/N periods now absorb. On the good side, this phenomena also means that we are “at the beginning” of a huge step, a huge shift or creation in Mankind’s progress, one that will take the next 10 to 14 years to establish and flower. It might (only might) flower into a great war, about 2023 — but more of that another day.

I brought up this “Great Shift” because I seem to notice — I’m not sure yet — that the planets are diverging from their traditional indications. Jupiter, for example, is famously known as the planet of great good luck. Yet it has been in Gemini since June 2012, almost a year, and my emails are dotted with Geminis complaining that this has been one of their worst years. Hmmn. Food for thought. (I know I should be convincing you that astrology works, but a little scepticism never hurts.)

We’ll struggle on and see what happens. For now, let’s shift focus to your Weekly Forecasts.