The Whirling Rainbow Year

For an understanding of how traditional Daykeepers and native elders of North America regard the end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, check out my ebook Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Authentic Myths & Mysteries for 2012. It is a swift, powerful and penetrating look at this era from the vantage of the wisdom traditions that have been anchored on this land for 20,000 years or more. The book explores how these traditions may bear upon the present in a helpful manner.

You can read the eBook on any Smartphone, iPad, Nook, Kindle, Smartphone computer, or whatever — 10 different eformats.

Review from Amazon.com: “Tales of the Whirling Rainbow is a stunningly powerful little book. It puts the whole 2012 story in a new, more authentic, and vastly richer and more hopeful context. By seeking out the traditional keepers of medicine wisdom for our era, and having traveled the road of adventure with them, Steven McFadden has assembled a matrix of powerfully intersecting tales, all true and all with immediate relevance. I loved this amazing little ebook.”

Blasting into Overdrive

On March 11, 2011 the planet Uranus will enter the tropical Zodiac sign of Aries, and immediately begin to mirror a new and electrifying epoch of human history.

Uranus

If you feel the pace and fervor of personal, national, and international events has been intense, they take four deep breaths, center yourself, and step forward boldly in the directions you need to move.  Everything is about to get exponentially more intense — as reckoned by the classical themes of the planet Uranus and the sign Aries.

Uranus, aka Prometheus, bears the energy of revolutionary electric ethers, the fifth element symbolized by the two parallel wavy lines. It is said to rule lightning, electricity, technology, airplances, space ships, computers, smartphones and all devices digital. It also symbolizes conditions of awakening, enlightenment, upheaval, revolution, and insight, and sudden reversal.

Aries

Aries is the first of the 12 Zodiac signs. Its symbol is the ram, and it’s a field of energy noted for being active, yang, and conducive to swift, straight-ahead action.  Aries does not sit and contemplate in quiet when something new is thought necessary. It just lunges forward in an effort to make it happen. Consequently, the Aries impulse can often express itself without a plan or a strategy, and so find itself butting head on to immovable, or at least seemingly immovable, obstacles.  Aries is the initiator.

With Uranus entering Aries on March 11, the fiery, intense, inspiring waves and bolts of energy will — for the next seven years — surge through the ethers and be part of our lives on personal, social, cultural, political and technological levels. We are blasting into overdrive.

Jupiter Jumps into Aries – 2011

The pace of life is about to intensify for all of us for about the next several months as the planet Jupiter completes it’s journey through the last sign of the Zodiac, Pisces, and enters the fire sign of Aries on Sunday, January 22, 2011.

The startlingly swift and symbolic transit of gas-giant Jupiter through the fire zone of Aries will last less than 5 months until June 4th, 2011. It may seem as if life on earth has combusted: bigger, faster, more intense for everyone, both individually and collectively.

Aries is the starting point for the 12 signs of the Zodiac, so Jupiter’s entry signifies beginnings. Many opportunities now arising will arise One Time, and One Time only.

While Jupiter is racing through Aries, the planet Pluto will continue its epic plod through the sign of Capricorn (11 more years until 2022). The interplay of Jupiter and Pluto will symbolize a more direct focus on basics such as food, clothing, diet and health. For it’s part, Jupiter is offering, for a limited time, opportunity to take actions that have real promise. What can you get started right now to ensure that you, your family, and your community can master those basic realms?

The cardinal fire sign of Aries is associated with impulse, directness, initiative, strength, courage, and the positive polarity. As the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries represents a field of energy  understood to symbolize the start of things,  beginnings.

Jupiter’s transit in Aries can expand your potentials and help you to move forward in connection with the House in your personal Horoscope that Jupiter is moving through, as well as the House in your chart ruled by Sagittarius.

The planet Jupiter is visible to the naked eye in the night sky and can occasionally be seen in the daytime when the sun is low. Thus, the planet has since ancient times been known as an auspicious day star to observers of the firmament.

A sculptural image of Jupiter at the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

For the Babylonians, this great celestial marker was personified as their god Marduk. Babalonians used the roughly 12-year orbit of Jupiter along the ecliptic to define the constellations of the zodiac, and that conception has come down to us today in the art of  astrology.

In their time, the Romans of antiquity called the planet after Jupiter, the principal god figure of their mythology. This Roman name, in turn, derived from Indo-European terms denoting “Father Sky-God.”

When this mammoth planetary factor comes prominently on to the scene, as it is now, and when its potentials are understood and acted upon, great opportunities can become grand realities.

The Rise of the Morning Star

Today the Planet Venus begins to rise ahead of the Sun. It will assume for a time the configuration and the character of the Morning Star.  Early risers who look East to the horizon will behold her in the hour before the Sun makes its appearance.

In Greek mythology, Hesperus is the Evening Star, the planet Venus in the evening, and  the brother of Eosphorus (also called Phosphorus, and Lucifer), the Morning Star.

In this phase of her journey through the sky Venus is said to evoke the more assertive facets of the feminine, so assertive in fact that the Mayan culture associated this Venusian phase with war. Venus as Morning Star is eager,  spontaneous, resilient, and open to new experiences.

Although the significance of this celestial event differs for each person depending upon their personal horoscope, in general it signifies a surge forward in the primal force of eros-desire, which individuals can channel into creativity in art, love and finance — matters of value and aesthetics.

Star*Talk 2010 – What Lies Ahead

Star*City Astrology will present  STAR*TALK  2010 – On Thursday evening, January 7, 2010 from 7-8:30 pm, at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso, 1624 South Street, Lincoln, Nebraska.  This will be a big night, with lots of important elements to explore.  2010 promises to be a doozy of a year.

Come enjoy your favorite beverage, visit with friends, and listen to veteran astrologers Steven McFadden and Elizabeth Wolf discuss — in plain English — the astrological forces at play in the sky, in the world, and in our lives over the coming year.

The presentation will take place just one night after Epiphany — which marks the end of the annual Christmas Festival. January 7 falls in the depth of Winter when the stars are especially clear.

Steven will report on the astrological forecast for 2010, endeavoring to bring glimpses of the celestial portents to Earth with precision and wit.

As always, the talk is free, but donations are welcome. We encourage you to support Meadowlark — enjoy their savory food and drink. All are welcome. Info: 402-802-7053

N.B. – The Star Talk concept was first created by my friend and colleague Arielle Guttman in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thank you Arielle.

Notes from the first Star City Star*Talk

Side by side, Elizabeth Wolf and I inaugurated the Star City Star*Talks the evening of November 5, 2009 at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In keeping with classic Star*Talk* form, before a relaxed coffee house crowd of about 20 people, Elizabeth and I each took a turn at the coffeehouse’s center stage. After she introduced me and welcomed me to Lincoln, I offered some observations on the movements of the planets, and their portents. Here are some of my notes:

Saturn

Saturn has been in the Earth sign of Virgo since September 2007, but now has moved on. It entered the Air sign of Libra on October 29 until April 2012. Saturn in any sign tends to bring the issues symbolized by the sign into focus. Its presence in Virgo highlighted not only the imperfections in life, but also the areas where we can learn or enhance skills. If people worked in synch with the energy, they were able to not only see what is wrong, but to take practical steps to accomplish something real and good.

Open Harvest Coop is a good example of this. Located right next door to the Meadowlark café, the coop recognized a couple of years back that they needed more space to bring clean food to the people of Lincoln via the coop tradition which is such an integral part of the Midwestern way.  Working step by step over the last two years, Open Harvest arranged a lease for more space and built out to create a large, modern coop market. The project was completed – with the Mayor cutting the ceremonial ribbon – with Saturn in the final degree of Virgo. Mission accomplished.

Likewise, on a broader national scale, over the last two years the movement toward local and clean food has firmly established itself. Even the White House has dug up its lawn to plant an organic garden. These are all positive expression of Saturn in Virgo.

Now as Saturn begins a new phase in the sign of Libra above us, so below do we human beings. Libran themes of fairness, justice, and relationship will require direct attention.  Libra is symbolized by the scales, and the defining force of Saturn will put those scales to work seeking balance in every realm of life.

Saturn Square Pluto: Saturn and Pluto, the two heaviest planets in the Zodiac, line up to form a square (90-degree angle) from Libra to Capricorn on November 15, 2009. Dramatically different times are swiftly coming upon us as a nation, as a planet. This Saturn-Pluto pattern will confirm and solidify the reality of radical transition, testing us and impacting virtually every sphere of life. Be prepared for intensity, even fanaticism, on a level collective as well as personal. What will we do with our power – in whatever form we may have it – when the pressure is intense?

Every pattern has a positive purpose and meaning yet some, like this one, are bound to test us before yielding desirable results. Saturn and Pluto are with us through the rest of November, perfecting on the 15^th. They will square off two more times — January 31 and August 21, 2010 – but the forces they represent are strong throughout the whole of the 10-11 months ahead.

Saturn and Pluto are two Bad Boys who mean business. This stark reality came home the very day of our first Star*Talk. Just hours before we took the stage, an Army Major, a psychiatrist, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas went berserk. In his rampage he shot and killed seven people, wounding 30 others. This could well be a seminal moment for America.

Nationally, we are still divided between making desperate efforts to support and salvage the failing institutions of the past dealing with the economy and the environment that the economy is built upon, and making furtive, hopeful efforts to create new institutions and forms for the future.  Saturn and Pluto will force us all – individually and collectively – to choose. We have no time to waste.

Uranus

Saturn opposite Uranus  – This configuration manifests about every 40 years. It signals just what it sounds like: opposition. Tugs o’ war, right and left, up and down, vast seemingly unbridgeable differences. The Saturn-Uranus oppositions – which will happen five times — began in November 2008 as Barack Obama was elected President. They will continue through July-August, 2010.

Saturn opposite Uranus signifies the opposition between the status quo and the forces of change, and since they are both outer planets they theme also plays out in every realm of human experience.  The new very much wants to come forward, and the old very much wants to stick around and stay the same.

One of the larger-scale facets of the Saturn-Uranus oppositions is a concern with social justice. Imbalances between different groups of people – economic and class distinctions — tend to be exposed during these periods.

The Saturn-Uranus oppositions personify a conflict between the real and the ideal. Their combined forces stimulate the idealistic and freedom-loving impulses of our psyche and pit it against the pragmatic, responsible, and limiting aspects.  In response to the tension symbolized by Saturn-Uranus, both willingly and unwillingly many people will change their lives radically, abruptly.

A useful visualization exercise for this is first to conceive of the ideal circumstances of your life. How would it look if everything were perfect? Where would you be living, and what would you be doing? Place the image and the feeling of this ideal in your left hand. Then focus on your real life. Get a picture and the feeling for your actual circumstance, and place this in your right hand. Feel the distinctness represented in each hand. Breath into the hands and the images associated with the ideal and the real. Then – suddenly – clap your hands together. Experience the fusion, and feel it radiate throughout your psyche and your life.

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The next Star City Star*Talk is set for the evening of January 7, 2010 at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso House in Lincoln, Nebraska.  We will take a wide-ranging look at the astrological forces bearing upon the whole of the year ahead.

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* The Star*Talk concept and form was originated by my friend and colleague Arielle Guttman.

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Star City Star*Talk Set for November 5

Star*City Astrology presents STAR*TALK* – Thursday, November 5, 2009 from 7-8:30 pm, at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso, 1624 South Street, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Come enjoy your favorite beverage while listening to experienced astrologers Steven McFadden and Elizabeth Wolf discuss — in plain English — the astrological forces at play right now in the sky and our lives.

With wit and precision, Steven and Elizabeth will endeavor to bring glimpses of the celestial portents to Earth in a useful manner.

The talk is free. All are welcome. Info: 402-802-7053

N.B. – The Star Talk concept was first created by my friend and colleague Arielle Guttman in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thank you Arielle.