Let’s put this under Saturn in Virgo, where the reality (Saturn) of our healthcare system and personal health routines (Virgo) are tested. People who adopt four healthy behaviours — not smoking; taking exercise; moderate alcohol intake; and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables a day — live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviours, according to a new study. Everyone knows these things are good for you, but add... Read more

Mrs. Clinton has had a rough couple of year from the planetary perspective, with transiting Saturn running rampant over her Leo and Scorpio planets and transiting Pluto tearing up the square in her chart from Uranus to the Moon. But she is one tough lady. I for one was glad to see her appear human on the last day of the campaign, where she revealed a softer side than we had seen previously. Michael Lutin has a nasty article at... Read more

It appears that many of my fellow astrobloggers have gone on to find other things to do, so I’m going to clean up the blogroll and remove any sites that haven’t been updated in the past couple of months. If you are one of those blogging compadres whose link I have removed and want your blog to still be listed, or if the address has changed, please let me know in the comments. I want to be sure that these... Read more

Rich is the scientist in our family, and he was commenting after reading my post on the new sunspot cycles that since these cycles alternate between positive and negative, perhaps each 11- year cycle is actually one-half of a larger 22-year cycle. An article on the site of the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR) by Jackie Slevin told the story of John H. Nelson, who is called the “patriarch” of sunspot research: An amateur astronomer since boyhood and radio... Read more

art stolen from Quinn McDonald Mercury passed yesterday from practical Capricorn into innovative Aquarius. This marks a transition in the way we process information and communicate with each other (Mercury’s domain), and Mercury will be in Aquarius longer than usual (through March 14) due to its retrograde period from January 28 to February 18 which will take it back. Today’s New Moon features the Sun and Moon conjunct in Capricorn. We have had a strong Capricorn influence since the Capricorn... Read more

If you have any question about where the balance of power in the world is heading, check out this article from Mother Jones entitled “The Last Empire: Can the world survive China’s rush to emulate America’s way of life?” The grander astonishment is the most massive and rapid redistribution of the earth’s resources in human history. In a mere two and a half decades, China has awakened from Maoist stagnancy to become the world’s manufacturer. Among the planet’s 193 nations,... Read more

(Disclosure: Obama is my pick for President in 2008). One year ago I wrote an astrological profile of Barack Obama when it appeared he had some real staying power for the Democratic party. Previously he had been little known other than as a junior senator from Illinois and for an exceptional keynote speech he delivered at the party convention in 2004. It appeared possible that Obama was more hype than substance, but a year on the campaign trail has dispelled... Read more

Portrait of Benazir Bhutto by Daisy/Lapata I have not had the time to work on the profile of Ms. Bhutto which I promised some of my readers, but Jessica Murray (author of Soul Sick Nation) has done it for us on the About Astrology site (thanks Molly!): The Jupiter-Pluto conjunction that we have mentioned before — see Neptune and Oil Spills — provided the most obvious piece of the backdrop of Thursday’s tragedy. It’s job was to take the darkest... Read more

According to this article: A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late yesterday when the cycle’s first sunspot appeared in the sun’s Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said. “This sunspot is like the first robin of spring,” said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “In this... Read more