Note: Astrology is one aspect of A.K. Reader.
2/28/17: On this page I plan to archive some of my old astrological essays, most of which were published in a wonderful now-defunct magazine, Welcome to Planet Earth, and composed from personally processing then-current planetary configurations. Unlike many astrological writers, I seldom write “from on high,” assuming an outside “objective observer” perspective. Instead, for me, planetary signatures gain their meaning directly through my own lived experience. Stay tuned!
Here’s the first one. This is the introduction that I used to present in person to each new client. Now I just refer each person to this essay, asking them to read it prior to a first reading with me, since it situates us both in the same world-view. Think of this essay as an evolutionary approach to “what it all means,” with widening cycles of influence/understanding imprinting us in more and more expansive frameworks of reference as we hurtle through the trajectory of one lifetime.
INTRODUCTION TO ASTROLOGY: A PHILOSOPHICAL PRIMER
primer.pdf
This essay is a fuller treatment of the primer, that was offered as a tape to each client that I used to see back in the 1980s.
https://www.exopermaculture.com/2020/11/11/celestial-navigations-introduction-to-esoteric-astrology-as-a-path-of-self-mastery/
The next essay was first published in a book of international tributes to Dane Rudyhar in 1996, edited by Tees Reitsma. I still notice this essay, floating around the internet. It is one of the most remarkable pieces that I ever composed, and written in a white hot heat, as I recall. I love the subtle swing back and forth between the toxic “dizziness” of Wittgenstein and the healthy “dizziness” of Rudhyar . . .
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, DANE RUDHYAR, AND ME 1995)
It turns out that the following predictive piece pretty much nailed it. Somehow, for me, knowing that “the stars” are in alignment with what is happening “down here” is comforting, lends meaning and support, if we but attune to the dynamically unfolding oneness.
TRANSITS 2007-2016: “Take heart! This shift is natural. All things have their seasons. Destruction is the prelude to creation.”
GAMBLING ON THE UNIVERSE: From Saturn to Pluto (1992)
Excerpt: “In December 1962, when I was 19 years old, transiting Saturn opposed natal Pluto from the 2nd to the 8th house. I was in a dilemma. Two men wanted my hand. Which one would I choose?
“The crisis came one Saturday night. I was sitting alone at the kitchen table of the apartment I shared with three other college girls. The moment was crucial. This would be the last decision I would ever have to make. Marry one of these young men, and from then on he would be responsible, my life yoked to his.”
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Beginning in 1991, I published a series of essays with the lead title: PERSONALLY PROCESSING PLUTO. Here are some of them (not in order).
• PERSONALLY PROCESSING PLUTO (1991)
Excerpt: “There it is again, the relentless internal pressure. But now I am accepting its actual reality, rather than cathecting it to the surface, where in denied form, it shows as a general irritability.
“Yes, I realize. Now. Now is the time to tell him. This secret I have been carrying for centuries. This heart’s aching burden. This foul pestilence. No! No! my subconscious cries out in fear. Why change the status quo? Why introduce something which has the potential to destroy everything, leaving me abandoned forever?”
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• PERSONALLY PROCESSING PLUTO, Part V: Monster in the Basement (1993)
“I went out for my evening walk, as planned, and attempted to talk mysel fout of what I was feeling. Arriving back at the house an hour later, I found myself going up the steps somewhat reluctantly, despite my internal pep talk. I walked in and went to the room with the easy chair. Suddenly, the door to the basement burst open, and there was a strange man, moving fast, towards me.
“I was shocked. Rick was the sleazy man in my dreams. Not only did he look like him, he moved like him, head down, furtive. And he was coming up from the basement into the heart of my privacy, the hall off which were the doors to the bedroom, the room with the chair, the kitchen, the bathroom.
“He was coming up from the basement. He was the “Monster in the Basement” that I talk about to clients undergoing Pluto transits. The monster that, I tell them, ‘is coming up the stairs now, and no matter how much you barricade the door, he’s going to break through it.'”
• PERSONALLY PROCESSING PLUTO (November 1992): Pain in the Neck
Excerpt: “November 18, 1992. I sit here stiffly at my office desk, neck supported by a brace. I can still feel the inflammation in the large muscle in the back of the right side of my neck, though it is subsiding and the chiropractor, whom I see twice a week, says the muscle is no longer rigid. I asked him how long he thinks it has been rigid. “Oh, a long, long time!” he said. I keep the brace on because, for the past two months or so, my neck has become so unstable that it “goes out” again within hours of a chiropractic adjustment. The brace makes me feel safe, secure, enclosed. This surprises me; I thought it would feel strangulating.
“Ten days ago, the muscle inflammation and spinal instability were joined by a terrible sore throat. Today is my second day back in the office after that latest siege.
“In the in-box sits a letter from the doctor who checked my thyroid gland a month ago. I had been feeling low, no energy. My acupuncturist thought the gland was enlarged. The doctor says no, it is normal sized, and smooth, but much firmer than usual in a woman my age.
“Also in the in-box sit recent letters from my family, unanswered. The last one from my father. Within hours of receiving my father’s letter my throat was raging.”
• PERSONALLY PROCESSING PLUTO II: Katy and Me
Excerpt: “I found out about Katy’s return the day before I drove five hours to see her. All the while wondering what was driving me. When I learned about Katy’s whereabouts, I was in the midst of sorting through the million details of my burgeoning life, determined to get at least a few things done that day — and instead, the insane idea popped into my head that I must see Kathy. Now.
“I wrestled with this idea the rest of that day, feeling alternately excited and burdened by it. That night, having set the alarm for 7 A.M., just in case I did want to go, I woke up at 2 A.M. tossing with indecision, unable to go back to sleep. I thought, “Well, OK, that means I won’t go. I’ll just be too exhausted.”
“At the first beep of the alarm I was up, alert, filled with the familiar excitement that comes into me at the start of any journey. My body, it seemed, was deciding things this day. There was no question. I was going.
“There was to be a mini-class reunion for Katy at 1 P.M. at a hotel. I wanted to arrive in time for that, as well as see her afterwards alone, returning to Jackson the next day.
“Katy was in town to care for her dying father. In the 31 years since we had graduated from high school, I ahd seen her but once, ten years ago. My visit to our hometown had coincided with one of Katy’s rare visits home from Australia, where she had married and become a wealthy Sydney matriarch, rearing three children and showing Andalusian horses in dressage.”
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The next three pieces contain long commentaries before they actually begin . . . Thank this blog for that! Both published in Welcome to Planet Earth.
MY SEARCH FOR THE SOUL IN ASTROLOGY
and
THE URANUS/PLUTO GENERATION (1962-1968)
I wrote the above article in 1986. It was my first published astrology piece, and is considered by some a “classic.”
THE PLUTO IN LEO GENERATION (1938-1958)
Yep, this is us, the “me generation.” Published in Welcome to Planet Earth in 1987
“OPENSPACE” IS A VERB
Published in Crone Chronicles, 1999. My manifesto, one might say.
HOW A PHILOSOPHER GOT INTO ASTROLOGY (1991)
Speaking to an audience of academic female philosophers, I both tell my own personal story and show how astrology deepens our understanding of space and time.
THE MYSTERY OF TIME CYCLES BEYOND SATURN (1999)
Once we live long enough to move beyond Saturn’s cycle of 29-30 years, and especially beyond Saturn’s second cycle (age 56-60), we enter a world of mystery, due to the fact that the next cycle out is that of Uranus, and it doesn’t return to its natal place until we are 84 years old. Beyond that lies Neptune, 165, and Pluto, 248 years . . . Because we cannot understand cycles that we have not yet completed once, then while we can serve them, we cannot control them.
“The harmony of the spheres lies within me as I sit, tail rooted into rock, linking the Heavens and our Earth” (1999)
A breathing meditation that I still use; in fact it has become automatic, and helps center me, no matter what.
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A series on Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius, that ranges from philosophical, to sociological, to personal, and back again. (1987)
Introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V
Saturn/Pluto in Leo Sub-Generation (born 1946-1948) (1987)
In which I consider the mandate of those born when Pluto in Leo (1938-1958) was at its most potent.
Saturn/Neptune in Libra: An example of “generational astrology” (1989)
I look at this original Saturn/Neptune in Libra placement for those born during 1952-53 in 1989, when Saturn and Neptune were once again conjunct, but this time in Capricorn, lending this conjunction a very different quality.
The Marriage Between Sun and Moon (1996)
How I managed, over decades, and messily, usually through lessons learned via projection in primary relationships, to finally integrate strong fiery mutable Sagittarius (Sun) with earthy, security-oriented, stubborn Taurus (Moon).
My Journey into Astrology (1986)
“And you?” My teacher looked up, his left eyebrow arched, pencil poised. “I want to do a paper on the concept of ‘time,’” I mumbled, timidly. “Time?” He sniffed. “I wouldn’t touch the subject. Too difficult.”
Shocked by his refusal, and how it made me, for a moment, the center of a scornful audience of his other pet graduate students, my cheeks burned. Shrinking into my seat, I agreed to change my topic to something smaller, more manageable.
That exchange occurred twenty years ago. I find myself remembering it now, as it was an early clue in my thinking process to what would eventually become a passion for astrology. Back then, my teacher wouldn’t have touched the subject of astrology either. Not because it was “too difficult” (actually, sometimes I think it is!), but because, he told me over lunch one day, it was “nonsense.”
My Chiron Return (1993)
My lived experience during the first return at 50 years of this cycle that, when worked with consciously, heals the original spiritual wound.
Saturn and the Aging Process (1986)
In which I discuss our lived experience of the three archetypal 30-year cycles of Saturn.
From Venusian Grief to Neptunian Joy: I Stretch Wide, through Ambivalence (2005)
I document, step by step, the difficult emotional process of letting go of a tumultuous personal relationship.
MEDITATION ON THE UNABOMBER: Ted Kaczynski and the Paradox of Saturn/Uranus (1996)
In which I both investigate Kaczynski’s astrological chart and struggle to comprehend the nature of this man in my own generation (born six months prior to me) who would seek to deliberately kill, no matter how lofty his reasoning, over and over again, for 17 years.
NEPTUNE AT THE MIDHEAVEN, A Personal Journey (1999)
Placing Neptune at the Midheaven, I had to learn, from an early age, how to navigate the path that this strange, subtle planet set me upon. Even in 7th grade, I knew that something was very very off about “what I was supposed to become when I grew up.”
Tempest Over A Tea Pot (2002)
How a powerful astrological aspect pattern involving a fixed cross with Moon/Mars/Mercury/Uranus unconsciously triggered me and my friend — big time!
IS THE UNIVERSE FRIENDLY? From Saturn to Pluto (2000)
A personal story plunges the reader into recognizing the essential difference between these two planets and what they portend in our lives.
Astrology Deepens our Understanding of Time and Space (1988)
An old piece on transformation of my world-view paired with a new introduction about today’s ongoing red-pill transformation.
“CONCRETE, IRREVOCABLE SHIFTS”: The ‘feel’ of Capricorn (1989)
Pluto entered Capricorn in early 2008, and will remain through 2004. Saturn entered Capricorn in December 2017, and will remain until December 2020. The current intensely “Capricornian” phase reminds us of the last time Capricorn was prominent, beginning in 1989 through 1996.
MY MOON, MY MEDUSA (1991)
I investigate the origins of the Medusa myth as transit Pluto begins to transit over my Moon . . .
YOU’D THINK WE’D GET CYNICAL (1989): Saturn’s Dance with Neptune
Stories from my generation’s way of processing through the Saturn/Neptune conjunction of 1989-1990.
THE SIREN SONG OF NEPTUNE (1999)
Con-sider Astrology (Before it’s too late) (1985)
Time as a series of points on a line vs. time as a series of interpenetrating cycles.
