Dear Friend and Reader:
Eric McLuhan was not kidding when he warned, “The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”
Eric McLuhan was not an astrologer. He did like my environmental approach to the topic. But he may as well been talking about the transits to Aries and Aquarius with that statement.
We continue to move through these uncertain and even tumultuous times, all driven by the disembodiment created by total overexposure to digital technology. Life would be easier if we could find our bodies, and remembered what they are for.
I have more to say about that as it relates to the current astrology — but first some in-house updates. Note, realtime astrology updates are at STARCAST.
Metamorphosis is Underway; Check out The Dharma
This is the week I am getting underway with the 12-sign autumn video readings, called Metamorphosis. I’m also working on the Full Moon / Libra Equinox horoscope, which will also serve as the October monthly. (That is planned for distribution Friday evening.) The title and concept for the project come from degree 30 of Aquarius in the Sabian symbols:
“Deeply rooted in the past of a very ancient culture, a spiritual brotherhood in which many individual minds are merged into the glowing light of a unanimous consciousness is revealed to one who has emerged successfully from his metamorphosis.”
To give you an idea of my video work, we have removed the password from the wildly popular Dharma readings from May 2020. Anyone may access them free, including all charts and materials. I consider these readings some of my best work and aspire to do as well with Metamorphosis.
My goal as an astrologer is to make the highest-quality astrology available to you for the lowest possible cost. I could make an excellent living doing only private consultations, yet these are out of reach for most people. I am here to put actual astrology and spiritual analysis within your reach, both financially and intellectually.
The ease of accessibility takes some real preparation: study, drawing and reading charts, and rethinking and rephrasing the topics until I am satisfied I am coming across in a helpful way. The low cost is only possible based on economy of scale: i.e., participation.
The Destabilization of Society by Digital
Right now we are in the most massive upheaval of world society since, well, I don’t know when: probably since around 1940. This upheaval is both feeding, and emerging from, profound transformations in individuals, and where the two meet is our subject area.
To my knowledge, nobody but devoted students of McLuhan are even considering the possibility that the chaos of the world is the direct consequence of living under full digital conditions: the result being deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture.
In a few words, this relates to events in Aries (Chiron and Eris) and Aquarius (Jupiter and Saturn on their way through and out, Pluto on its way in).
The binary options are emerging as a choice between being a functioning, thriving individual in the new society, or getting drawn into irrevocable changes over which we have very little control. We do have a choice in this, as individuals and as we consider our intentions together — if we stay awake to notice.
These changes are being driven by the consciousness and structural reforms brought on by digital technology. The source of the chaos is the rug getting pulled out from underneath the previous structure of society. Yes, at first it seemed like a lot of cool devices, until their use and absorption into our lives changed everything from world travel to buying pizza in your neighborhood. Relationships and how we form them has changed. How we speak has changed. How we think has changed. How we think of ourselves has changed.
Digital changes our relationship to our physical bodies: it pushes us out of body, which feels like fear, chaos and confusion that seem normal. It is so serious that people are voluntarily giving away all of their power and privacy.
If you want a taste of the shadow side of the potential, watch a few episodes of the Netflix series Black Mirror. Technology does not make us better people. In fact it tends to bring out some of our darkest instincts — which manifest individually but also collectively. This is my profound concern about Pluto in Aquarius.
The Individual and the Group Collide
The overwhelming theme of the charts in our time is the relationship between the individual and the group. There are some sub-themes (hangovers from the Pluto in Capricorn era), which I will address last. We are watching many people adapt by simply doing what they are told — and this is not working.
It will certainly not work for those on a growth path or seeking self-actualization. Part of the pressure is conning people out of a spiritually grounded approach to living and wellness.
The individual and the group mainly relate to one another primarily in two places — Aries and Aquarius.
Chiron and Eris in Aries form a conjunction in May 2025 that is now gradually approaching full force and effect. It is becoming increasingly daring to be yourself; to some it feels like an impossible, even terrifying challenge. Yet there is a potent draw to actualize, to become, to grow.
Yet this meets rather strenuous resistance due to events in Aquarius — resistance from the culture itself, which is pretending to be some kind of “collective” whose job it is to ensure that “we are all one” and that nobody has any freedom of choice, privacy or movement.
Aquarius, or the Borg?
Aquarius is the sign of groups, though in its darker manifestations, it tends to absorb people like the Borg. The growth work of Aquarius is to individuate and relate to others as your own person. Groups do not swallow people and take away everything they have, and everything distinctive about them. Cults do. Groups do not take away sovereignty over our bodies — cults do.
I have worked with a few people on “deprogramming” projects after they exited various cults, and have heard from others who have gone through this. The influence of groups is insidious, and most people are not that strong.
Countless psychological experiments, using staged juries, the famous Milgram experiments where people were pressured to inflict pain on others, the Stanford Prison Study and many others, reveal that most people generally just go along and submit to the pressure.
In this life, all you have is yourself, and your discernment. Anything else you may seem to have comes from being in possession of yourself. And that is what the astrology of our moment is about.
With any luck, I will be back with you by Friday with a horoscope and article.
Faithfully,
