To the Edge and Beyond

See the chart.

Dear Friend and Reader:

DESPITE ALL THAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD, from East Palestine to Ukraine, the lead story is the astrology of March 2023. Of course, you can only really say this to an astrology audience; however, in case you’re new to the topic, I’ll be developing the theme today. Much of what I’ve written about the past two years comes to fruition in the next five weeks or so.

This is some of the most concentrated and all encompassing astrology I’ve ever seen. Even spread out over much more time, the changes we have in March 2023 would be profound. But we are getting a glimpse of their intensity with the world-changing events we are witnessing now.

We are indeed heading right to the edge, and then somewhere beyond.

As this happens, many of us are feeling helpless about what is happening on the planet. As the situation grows worse, there seems to be little that we can do.

It’s not that easy to muster up optimism or to put a happy face on a gazillion pound dioxin bomb going off right in the middle of 125,000 farms (just counting Pennsylvania and Ohio). I will have a more detailed analysis of what we’ve learned this week on my program Friday night.

This is Happening in an Already Stressed Out World

When something like this blights your community, it’s devastating. I experienced what people in East Palestine are going through in a greatly reduced form. Yet I got it at full strength because I was on the front lines of forcing the State of New York to spend more than $50 million (in 1990s dollars) on a cleanup of four dormitories, a theater and a science complex.

When you hear the president of Norfolk Southern say he’s pledged $6.5 million to help residents, remember that cleaning a few dorms and a theater (badly) and an academic building (pretty well, by gut renovation) cost ten times that amount 30 years ago.

This is all happening in a world where nearly everyone is stressed to the max. The people in the immediately impacted region of Ohio and Pennsylvania are on the edge financially and many are taking care of kids, a couple of elderly relatives and their dogs and cats.

They have nowhere to go. A working class family of seven cannot just pick up and relocate. More on that Friday night.

In this article I want to look at the astrology of the next month or so, and get a sense of where the world is headed, and us along with it. Use these links if you need specific information about the dioxin release or the history of the issue (those take you to Substack; please click through the options and you’ll get to my writing). I will have more on Friday’s Planet Waves FM.

Astrology provides spiritual context for events, which makes them a little easier to handle. Studying the chart helps me get below the surface of what is apparent, including situations where there is a well-established fact pattern, but where we need some ideas to tie it together — and the long-term view.

From Investigative Reporting to Astrology and Back

For anyone new in my reading audience wondering how a hard-science investigative journalist also writes about astrology, it happened this way. Studying astrology for me was initially a vacation from my last full-time tour of duty as an investigative reporter on the dioxin issue. After three years of covering a local event in New Paltz, New York, and the world history of a form of dioxin called PCBs, I needed a retreat, and that was astrology. This was in the winter of 1994-1995.

I experimented with a horoscope column (which I still write, see below). Soon after, I began writing about news astrology, which is usually reading the charts for bad things happening: mass shootings, airplane crashes, the Space Shuttle disintegrating, nuclear meltdowns, wars beginning, earthquake/tsunamis, election disasters, hurricanes making landfall and flooding — the whole gamut of what we would rather not think about.

Astrology provides spiritual context for events, which makes them a little easier to handle. Studying the chart helps me get below the surface of what is apparent, including situations where there is a well-established fact pattern, but where we need some ideas to tie it together — and the long-term view.

I cannot stand this any more than you can. I am deeply upset by these events, and I am more stunned at what I am saying each time I do a new interview.

Astrology serves to frame the issues and pose questions that then need to be sussed out. I do not count on any chart as a source of truth, but more like a divining rod to help me figure out what to look for. It can also hint at the meaning of events. I have found that providing even a little meaning and context can ease that sense of feeling powerless and that everything is random or irrelevant.

What is happening now is that because the dioxin story has gone unreported for the past 29 years in the corporate press, very few people know about the basics, and nearly nobody knows the history back to the 1940s — but I do, as does my friend and mentor in this issue, Carol van Strum. We both spoke to the residents of East Palestine earlier this week; I recognize that it’s difficult to listen to the truth and accept the gravity of this situation.

I cannot stand this any more than you can. I am deeply upset by these events, and I am more stunned at what I am saying each time I do a new interview.

Most of how we “deal with” problems in our society is denial. This is ever-easier under digital conditions where you can subscribe to any point of view you like, and then make that your “reality.”

The Planets: Where We Are Today

The chart I am working with today is for the conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and Chiron on Thursday, March 2. This is the last big chart right before everything changes. (I’ve removed a lot of planets to make it easier to see what is happening.) I say big because it involves the alignment of Venus and Jupiter — generally, considered significant of a positive development — with the Chiron factor, which adds an edge of urgency. This arrangement is circled in purple.

In this setup, the Moon in sensitive Cancer forms a tense, 90-degree aspect to Chiron, which emphasizes the “deal with it” factor. Like all things Chiron, this has two edges. The growth implied by Venus-Jupiter-Chiron comes with recognizing the pain of the world. Staying in a state of awareness or self-actualization means being aware of the pain of the world, and one’s own pain.

Most of how we “deal with” problems in our society is denial. This is ever-easier under digital conditions where you can subscribe to any point of view you like, and then make that your “reality.” It does not help that there seem to be no bonus points for investing yourself in seeking sincere understanding.

So let’s take Saturn first. I will give some technical details in this discussion — enough for those who want to follow along.

Saturn entering Pisces will be sobering. While Pisces can take a while to respond to a new transit, Saturn is here to set a boundary on extent of the denial people are capable of.

Saturn Enters Pisces on March 7

Saturn is the reality principle. You can see it right at the end of Aquarius, right at the bottom of the chart. It’s the yellow symbol, circled in green.

The number 29 and change means it’s in the last degree of the sign. Right next to it is Mercury: that says, “get the message.” Saturn enters Pisces Tuesday, March 7. It joins a slow-mover that’s been there since 2011, which is Neptune.

Neptune is the fantasy principle. It’s about denial, delusion and deception, often driven by alcohol, but in our age, the mind-altering substance is digital technology. And this energy is running out of control.

Saturn entering Pisces will be sobering. While Pisces can take a while to respond to a new transit, Saturn is here to set a boundary on the extent of denial people are capable of.

There will be some uncomfortable situations created as people wake up to what they were not paying attention to, or the extent to which they have surrendered their power to others. This could be you.

Saturn entering Pisces is about cleaning up emotional boundaries and getting some containment around the yin energy that is currently running out of control. The perfect expression of the problem is the uncontrolled release of contaminated water. While this may not happen to you magically, know that the energy is available and that you can make changes along these lines. They could influence any aspect of your life.

This is an act of outright fraud that is apropos of Mars square Neptune. Keep an eye out for more. By my reading, the biggest of the diversionary events happens right around this time.

Mars Square Neptune and the Sun on March 14

One week after Saturn enters Pisces, Mars makes its final square to Neptune. I first discussed this aspect pattern in the article Rumors, which will give you excellent background on what is happening now. This is the last of three events of Mars square Neptune that are part of the Mars retrograde cycle that is still working itself out. The other two squares were Oct. 12, 2022 and Nov. 19, 2022.

The third and final square is Tuesday, March 14. This whole pattern is about a series of diversionary events that distract us from more important things. We were distracted from the first week of the dioxin train wreck by a Chinese “spy balloon” and the Air Force allegedly shooting down UFOs.

These diversions can be contained within real events: Trump going to Ohio and bringing his brand of bottled water and cleaning supplies. My god, what an insult. Or how about Ohio’s Gov. Mike DeWine and the regional EPA chief toasting and drinking tap water in an old lady’s home.

This is an act of outright fraud that is apropos of Mars square Neptune. Keep an eye out for more. By my reading, the biggest of the diversionary events happens right around this time. One of the factors that powers up this event is that the Sun is involved: the aspect is Mars square Neptune, with the Sun square Mars. This is like shining a bright light into a fog. You cannot see any better. You just get a giant reflection.

From the final square, it will take Mars until March 25 to enter Cancer. That, too, represents a major event, as the first degree of Cancer is right at the intersection of the individual and the collective (the Aries Point system).

Here is the rub. The social patterns of our era are all under the control of the internet and of digital consciousness. We are transformed beings, whose very thought patterns, sense of identity, and sense of physical reality have been digitized. Digital is not a thing outside of us anymore. It is who we are and the world we live in.

Pluto Enters Aquarius on March 23

This is one of the watershed events of our lifetime. Pluto changing signs affects the structure of society, and changes the cast of our individual lives. Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008, and the moment it got there, Capricorn-ruled institutions started crumbling. This came a few years after the Twin Towers (Saturn in Gemini) met the transnational, unstoppable force (opposite Pluto in Sagittarius) and fell down like marionettes dropped by the puppeteer.

This is also what happened during Pluto in Capricorn: the banks started collapsing, and many sectors of society started crumbling.

Aquarius represents two things: social patterns (in older astrological language, groups) and where the individual meets the group (in the old language, unique people or weirdos). Aquarius is also where the group tries to bring people expressing their individuality under control.

So therefore, Aquarius is equally about enforced conformity as it is about personal expression. We have seen big dramas involving conformity under the influence of Saturn in Aquarius over the past three years.

Here is the rub. The social patterns of our era are all under the control of the internet and of digital consciousness. We are transformed beings, whose very thought patterns, sense of identity, and sense of physical reality have been digitized. Digital is not a thing outside of us anymore. It is who we are and the world we live in.

And into this dimension, Pluto will be entering, with all of its transformative power. We live extremely fragile existences under digital conditions and in many ways are no longer at home on the Earth; no longer comfortable among one another. Without ongoing contact with physical existence, and without real human companionship, it is difficult to trust. It is difficult to conceive of your existence as a physical being.

So Pluto will be the ultimate reality check for these digital lives we have been lured, seduced, or dragged into, even if we thought it was voluntary — we had no choice, as the tide rose all around us.

Yet we remain creatures who exist in bodies. We will finally have to come to terms with the words of the philosopher Eric McLuhan:

“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.”

Will we correct those distortions, or go deeper into them? That is the question.

with love,

WELCOME READERS from Dr. Sam Bailey, Terrain Theory Podcast, Natural News, InfoWars, Perspectives on TNT Radio, Celia Farber, the people of East Palestine, and everyone who has provided me with bandwidth to talk about what is happening right now. Thanks for arriving here. This website is focused on news from an astrology perspective, as well as readings that will reassure you and serve you better than nearly any therapist. Your subscriptions directly support my investigative reporting efforts. You can get a basic membership here. Thanks again for visiting.