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 end of my article on the Full Moon chart for election day, Nov. 8, I wrote that expectations would be overturned. (Click here to see the article and the chart.) I didn’t expect it to be my expectations, but, thankfully, it was. The election occurred without disruptions or violence and even the “election deniers” who lost politely conceded. Though many of the contests were extremely close, the overall feeling is that the election represented a return to sanity.
That sanity, unfortunately, did not extend to everyone. This lunation period brought us three mass murders in three different states: Virginia, Idaho and Colorado. All three were senseless and none of them had anything to do with politics or the election. In the Nov. 8 chart Mars was square Neptune and, as I’ve said a couple of times, Mars brings the crazy out of Neptune. This aspect was a feature of the Oct. 25 lunation chart (remember the loon with a hammer who attacked Paul Pelosi) and we’ll see it again in the Dec.7 chart, indicating that there’s more crazy to come.
The horoscope for the New Moon on Nov. 23 is a tricky beast. (Click on New Moon to see the chart.) At first glance it seems to be a salad of nice trines and sextiles, with the Sun and Moon in a peaceful configuration with Jupiter. And then you take a second look and see the snake in this garden of Eden.
The planet Jupiter, associated with expansion and the favor of the gods, is currently blessing Kevin McCarthy. The midterm elections seem primed to create a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. As the current minority leader, McCarthy would be the top candidate to become Speaker of the House, a position that he has long coveted.
Right now transiting Jupiter is opposed to McCarthy’s Mars. (Click here to see a horoscope done for noon on McCarthy’s date of birth.) At the same time transiting Uranus is conjunct McCarthy’s natal Jupiter and opposed to his natal Neptune. It’s hard to argue with two Jupiter aspects like that. Though there’s still some hope that Democrats will pull off a few miracle wins and hold their majority in the House, these aspects indicate that McCarthy will be the one waving the gavel next year.
Or will he? The fact is that many members of this soon-to-be Republican majority find McCarthy woefully insufficiently in his loyalty to Donald Trump. Never mind that the midterms elections were a major blow to Trump’s control of the Republican Party, these Representatives may still be looking to replace Kevin McCarthy with someone more responsive to the ex-president’s direction.
The New Moon chart for Oct. 25, 2022 featured Mars square Neptune. (Click here to see the article and the chart.) I had said the Mars tends to bring the “crazy” out of Neptune and, of course, it did. The attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi, was carried out by a crazed man armed with a hammer who somehow thought that if he could break the knees of Speaker Pelosi, the world would be made right again. When that plan fell through, he bashed in the skull of the 82 year-old Mr. Pelosi.
That was Mars square Neptune, but the Oct. 25 chart also featured Pluto on the I.C. The last time we had Pluto on the I.C. we had a devastating hurricane. This time Pluto brought us a hurricane of hatred. The attack on Paul Pelosi was recast by the Republican faithful, who believe that all Democrats are sexual predators, as a sexual assignation gone wrong, while Democrats cast Republicans as SS soldiers intent on instituting their version of “Gilead” from “The Handmaid’s Tale.” A lot of this, of course, is election year politics, but it’s election year politics on LSD, (or on Neptune if you’re an astrologer.)
The Full Moon and eclipse chart for Nov. 8 is one that astrologers around the country have been looking at all year. November 8 is, of course, Election Day in the U.S. and this Full Moon occurs at 6:02 AM EST, two minutes after the polls open. What could go wrong? Plenty, if you look at this chart. (Click here to see the horoscope.)
During the middle ages one of the complaints raised by the Catholic Church against astrology was that it threatened free will. The Church needed free will. It just didn’t seem right that a just God would condemn a person to eternal damnation if what they did was determined by their horoscope. In response to this complaint, and to avoid being burned at the stake, astrologers began incorporating free will into their use of astrology.
Psychological astrologers in the 20th century revived this practice. They decided that astrological indicators only provide the psychological motivation for certain behaviors. It was up to the individual to choose how to direct that motivation. “The stars incline but do not compel” was their motto. This trend has persisted and it remains a central theme for most western astrologers, including myself.
With this in mind, you can imagine how shocked I was when I read that modern philosophers have ruled that free will doesn’t exist. The basic idea, as expressed by contemporay philosopher Galen Strawson, is that you do what you do because of the way you are. The way you are is the product of genetic and environmental factors over which you have no control. Therefore, you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do. You cannot presume to have free will.
