How To Do It . . .

When it comes to learning astrology, or even some particular aspect of it, I'm sure many folk approach the task much like the man in this image...

Sure, astrology helps us get down into the human psyche but, personally, after about four decades of doing it, I've come to the realization that we're much better off approaching the art of astrology not from the bottom, up but from the top, down...

This realization is what drove me to spend three of those decades conceiving, creating, and field-testing the system of interpretation that's the centerpiece of this blog. And, this blog was born to show the system off and seek my readers' opinions, feedback, thoughts, feelings, and even disagreements. The original book about the system was written four years ago and there are ten more volumes of Astrological Repair Manual yet to write...

I know the system works. My clients for the last ten years have voiced their approval of the system. But, now, I feel I need a much wider base of opinion to help me shape the content of the rest of the books in the series.

Since my system is so unique, I created a special companion site that has many (and will have many more) tools to help guide those interested in the operation of the B.I.D.E. Interpretive System. It's called, simply, Information Site, and can also be accessed with the red link in the right panel of this blog. Here are the tools you can find and use over there:

> B.I.D.E. Interpretive System - A Simplified Guide
> The Original Book - A Free Download
> Creating A Chart
> Why This System?
> Astrology Predicts Meanings, Not Events
> Detailed Example of Using the System

Next post, we'll use the B.I.D.E. System to explore Oprah Winfrey's Chart...

Galactic Visitors

We've arrived at the last chapter of my Free-To-Download book, Astrological Repair Manual. But the adventure of revising and expanding the single book into a ten book series has barely begun...

This blog will now take on a life more infused with speculation, yet firmly grounded in the major Truths of astrology I've shared so far.

Let's get way out There where the power of astrology was born:

"The last chapter may have been a bit weird for some people: planets not forever circling in stable orbits, catastrophes that ravaged our ancestors, plasma that powers the stars...

"Let’s take that last fact. If plasma does make the Sun glow so ferociously, where does it come from? Well, it’s pretty much all over the place when you look at things from a universal perspective; ninety-nine percent of all the stuff there is. So, it comes from the space that surrounds the solar system. All those atomically-small charged protons and electrons that make up the plasma that’s streaming into the system and lighting the Sun are the most obvious and most continuous Galactic Visitors there are.

"But astrologically, just like the case of the hordes of small bodies we considered earlier, in this perpetual stream of particles, it’s not the particles that concern us; it’s not the particles that can be used to give meaning in astrology; it’s the Stream itself—the patterns and convolutions and dance of the plasma stream have meaning.

"Naturally, since humans have only been considering this plasma in any serious way since the space age dawned, there isn’t a heck of a lot of considered opinion about what this Galactic Visitor means. Except, maybe, this:

"The universe is literally teeming with a tenuous and yet powerful substance that can create stars and galaxies—a substance that has the characteristics of a Cosmic Mother.

"In early Egyptian mythology there were the archetypes of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis: Atum, the first god, and his descendants: Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nuit, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Nuit was the sky goddess, in contrast to most other mythologies, which usually had a sky father. So, just maybe, we can consider Nuit, as Cosmic Mother, contributing the essence of her body to our Sun. This causes the Sun to burn with Purpose. The Sun gives birth to the planets and (with the help of the plasma streams the Sun itself creates) our home Star brings about a dance that we, creatures of this system, have lodged in our unconscious minds. This internal Plasma Dance resonates with the one in space and, we, if we let ourselves, see the synchronicity and wonder of it all, can draw maps of these cycles, attribute psychological meanings to the interactions of the cycles, bring meaning into our lives...

"There isn’t much more to say...

"And also, I could go on forever attempting to describe the insights I’ve gained in the past four decades of courting my sweet lover, Astrology. Back when I first met her, I really wasn’t capable of appreciating her beauty and strength. I misunderstood her motives, misinterpreted her signs, attributed things to her that were all my fault. But she hung in there; she loved me enough to not leave while I went through many convolutions of perception and understanding.

"She remained, always, so attractive that I could never abandon her to the people who would try to pimp her secrets on the newsstand.

"But she was much more mysterious than they could imagine.

"She let them do whatever they wanted, completely unconcerned about her 'reputation'...

"How could the Spirit of the deepest unconscious archetypes worry what a few mortals said about her?

"How could the daughter of the Sky Goddess trouble herself over people that not only didn’t understand her but actively tried to pretend she was something else...

Transpersonal Awareness

Were up to Chapter 5 (for the first time since I'm sure we'll be jumping back to discuss previous chapters quite a bit) in my freely downloadable book, Astrological Repair Manual. This chapter is the book's first pause to consider what's gone before—Xena and her Horde of deeply unconscious astrological functions, Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus. We're headed toward Saturn but that journey demands a huge transition in consciousness. I'm including most of Chapter 5 in this post and do hope it spawns a discussion in the comments!

"Our world has been and is full of some very oppressive and negative people and institutions. Our world has also been evolving toward being, slowly and steadily, a freer and more creative place. If you doubt that last statement, I urge you to look further than you have and to take a small but important piece of advice: what may look bad on the surface or at the beginning can be the most powerful indication of something good. One example that may be close to home for some of you: A child at two years old is always getting into trouble. They’re almost totally unruly by ten and their teen years are full of crime and filth. Then, they hit their personal brick wall, they come up short on luck, and end up behind bars. True, many people like this stay bad and end their lives still in jail or dead in the street. For most of humanity’s existence this has been the general rule. 'Lately', though, there have been more and more examples of folks starting out headed down, coming to a radical turning point, and being given some help at that point that turns their lives around and permits them to grow to become exemplary citizens.

"Why is this happening more now than ever before? What could be happening that has such power to turn lives around?

"I feel it’s the steady growth in society of the awareness that we are not just passive cogs in the wheel or just a bunch of angry individuals. We are both individuals and social beings and we have a need to nurture both sides of our being.

"This is where a knowledge of the cycles of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and their symbolic meanings, can be of immense aid in speeding the development of a safe and sane society. It's important to consider the lengthy durations of these cycles that apply to the slow yet steady transformation, elevation, and regeneration of our world.

"It’s only been a little over 300 years since Uranus was discovered and humanity had a conscious symbol for a method of getting at the ultimate truths with more to show for it than a collection of fables and myths. And, the conscious awareness of ways and means to raise the level of our dreams and visions (Neptune) and to find the proper ways to purge and regenerate society (Pluto) have been available for even shorter times. Let’s give ourselves a break and stop being pessimistic about the future. If you look closely enough at recent history and compare it with the eons of time humans have been struggling on this earth, you’ll come away totally amazed at the glorious potential we hold in common! I used the word 'Transpersonal' in the title of this chapter for very conscious reasons. '-Personal' because humanity’s growth ultimately depends on more and more individuals getting it right. 'Trans-' because it means to go beyond or through or across. If our personal awareness of life can go beyond the personal while not letting our individual views disappear; if we can see through the merely personal to what lies beyond and is so important for a full life; if we can get across the bridge of the personal and see that it leads to wonderful vistas of creativity and freedom; if each of us does these things, we will be bringing what many see as the dark forces of the unconscious into the bright light of day and using them, very consciously, to accelerate human evolution beyond the hatreds and terrors that are still too much with us. The Instructions [in my freely downloadable book] have suggestions for where to go to get your own birth chart as well as a method for beginning to interpret your chart factors. If you feel adventurous, go there now and find the house and sign for your Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Realize that this first step in using the knowledge from this Repair Manual is only that, a first step, even though it may be one of the most important first steps you’ve ever taken!

"As you ponder the meanings of these factors in your life, don’t forget to look at them as a three-step process of Transpersonal Awareness and also consider them as a sequence from Pluto to Uranus and also from Uranus to Pluto—the first direction is the one that brings large-scale social factors into your personal life and the other direction is you injecting yourself into the flux of society's largest concerns.

"If you do this exercise and end up totally confused, you can count on the fact that your unconscious mind is very happy with your ego. In fact, without you knowing it, your unconscious can arrange to give you dreams that help you understand, or 'mysteriously' lead you to find another individual that helps you understand. Or, you may be the type of person who just stands there and charges against the wall till it falls down and lets you build a bridge. Whatever happens, we still have a ways to go till we reach the Earth and find out what this astrology stuff is all about...

"I'll let you in on a secret here: what you’ve read so far and what you can gain from trying to interpret you own Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto is far and away more knowledge of True Astrology than many practicing astrologers have! Believe it..."

Hello World!

This is the first post in an exciting adventure!

I'm doing the research to revise and expand a book about astrology that I wrote three years ago. It was the result of 40 years of study, counseling, and teaching but it was only a beginning...

You can download the book for free from Lulu.com.

This blog's purpose is to create a space to explore the concepts in the book and stimulate discussion that will feed into my personal efforts to make my statement about astrology as helpful and productive as possible.

I'm actively seeking your thoughts, feelings, opinions, knowledge, and experience!

I'm extremely open to accepting your comments!!