Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, has challenged President Bush to a live TV debate. Bush has denied any attempt that Iran has made to communicate with the US, so this is not likely to occur; however, it does make a textbook example of the dynamic between Mars and Pluto. Mars represents the will of the individual ego to assert itself – it operates as our individual drive and aggressive instincts. Pluto acts from the deeper instincts beyond the ego, and... Read more

Last week I saw a client (let’s call her Sylvia) whose birthchart demonstrates the power of Pluto. Sylvia’s Sun is in the hard-working sign of Capricorn: Capricorns typically have a difficult life when they’re young but because they’re such hard workers (ruled by the Celestial Taskmaster himself, Saturn) they can be quite powerful as they age and incorporate life’s lessons. She also has a Grand Trine including Mars, Jupiter and her Moon, bestowing a sense of inner trust (Jupiter/Moon) that... Read more

The square between Mars and Pluto won’t be exact until tomorrow night, but the past few days have seen increased violence around the world. From the news today: Bombs were set off in two Turkish resort towns. Baluch separatists rioted for a third day in Pakistan. Killings surge in Iraq with over 100 dead just today as Shiite militia battled Iraqi security forces. A suicide bombing yesterday in Afghanistan killed 17 people and injured many more in the worst day... Read more

Mars is approaching an exact square to Pluto on August 29, a stressful conflict between the personal will (Mars) and the will of the higher self (Pluto). Power conflicts are highlighted now. If you find yourself involved in conflicts at this time, utilize the outlet of physical activity to help to release some of the energy that builds up during the faceoff of Mars to Pluto. On the positive side though, there is a tremendous amount of power that can... Read more

Image from Gaian Tarot This is one of the questions astrologers are most frequently asked. We would all like to imagine that life is like a bus tour, with a preordained set of stops along the way. When do we arrive in Paris? When do we land in Cairo? We feel that if we only knew WHEN we would find our soulmate/ our true calling/ success in our business/ conceive a child then we could relax and stop worrying. Unfortunately,... Read more

I wondered what a “meme” really is besides a way for bloggers to get to know each other, so I looked it up: a neologism that first appeared in the 1976 book by Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Though Dawkins defined the meme as “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation,” memeticists vary in their definitions of meme. The lack of a consistent, rigorous and precise definition of a meme remains one of the principal criticisms leveled... Read more

My first thought when astronomers began the discussion of declassifying Pluto was “they don’t know who they’re dealing with.” Anyone who has been through a transit of Pluto across their natal planets and seen the devastation and transformation that Pluto inspires understands the awe in which astrologers hold this tiny planet. Nancy Waterman subscribes to the view that Pluto has been dissed: Various countries and cultures have frequently been given the rulership of one or another astrological sign when a... Read more

Eric Francis has a hilarious takeoff on the recent news articles demoting Pluto: Today’s session of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) general assembly had yet another surprise outcome, as astronomers voted overwhelmingly that the Earth is not a planet. “We are just following the laws of science,” said Prof. Melvin Peabody of Yale University’s Bush Observatory, announcing the vote at a hastily convened news conference. There were several discussion points on the Earth issue. First, it was established that no... Read more

Astronomers from 75 countries today voted to remove Pluto’s status as a planet. Pluto will now join Ceres and “Xena” under the classification “dwarf planets.” Pluto’s change of status won’t affect the way it operates astrologically; however, the new classification is very interesting and perhaps in this way gives Pluto an independence of operation that it didn’t have before now that it has its own classification along with Ceres and “Xena.” The fact that both Pluto and Ceres are tied... Read more

The Washington Post reports: Bad news for all those baby boomers starting to pile on the pounds as they go through middle age: You don’t have to be obese — just a little overweight — to increase your risk of dying prematurely, according to a large government study. The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found that those who were just moderately overweight in their fifties were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the... Read more