Weekend Entertainment Guide 5/31/24

NORWAC highlights, more presidential election stuff

This edition of Weekend Entertainment Guide includes highlights of NORWAC 2024, reader feedback about gender dynamics in the astrology community, Hot on Substack, and analysis of the July 15 Mars-Uranus-Algol conjunction in relation to the 2024 presidential election.

NORWAC 2024 highlights

I attended the Northwest Astrological Conference (NORWAC) online last weekend. I am still working my way through all the video replays, but here are some highlights from the lectures I have seen so far.

Demetra George, Asteroid Signatures: Herbalists and Alchemists

One of the asteroids George looked at in the charts of herbalists was Koronis. Koronis, unfaithful lover of Apollo, was ratted out by a crow, so George noted that the stars of the constellation Corvus could be relevant too.

The wild part is, while I was listening to this lecture live from home, crows were coming to the window and aggressively demanding to be fed. What a wonderful synchronicity!

I looked up Koronis and the stars of Corvus in my own chart as shown above. My household has been feeding crows and scrub jays for many years. In this crazy time, it’s grounding — even if every single stupid rumor on the internet came true tomorrow, the birds would still keep showing up to make their demands.

Robert Weinstein, The Astrology of Market Manias and Crashes

I thought this lecture was exceptionally well-organized. Weinstein pointed out that 2035 will have a T-square of Pluto, Jupiter, and Saturn — reminiscent of 2020’s convergence of Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto in Capricorn.

Gray Crawford, Reaping the Imaginal: Saturn and Neptune in Natal Charts

Crawford commented on Saturn-Neptune aspects being associated with a yearning for a lost paradise. This reminded me of my coverage of the currently circulating conspiracy theories about the Tartarian Empire. Although I don’t think the details of their claims are accurate, the longing behind them is probably worth exploring. This kind of stuff could intensify as we get closer to the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in February 2026.

Reader feedback on gender dynamics in the astrology community

Last week’s comments on gender dynamics in the astrology community attracted some feedback from readers. Not all of it was sent publicly, so I will summarize the most important critiques and provide my answers.

It’s not my experience that the astrology community is female-dominated. I think it’s more like my previous experience in the Christian community, where women comprised the majority of the participants, but men comprised the majority of the leadership.

This one really made me think. Once I started looking around, I realized that the rest of my life outside astrology is pretty female-dominated as well. For example, I’m part of a non-religious community service group in my city that is specifically for women.

The email exchange with mostly male relatives that I described in my previous post fizzled out after my grandfather died in 2016. It was probably at its peak when transiting Pluto was going over my 4th house Mars in Capricorn. An outer planet transit to natal Mars makes a lot of sense for a period of time when men were especially prominent in my life.

More recently, transiting Pluto has been going over my Moon Persona chart’s Moon. This phenomenon of transits to persona charts is described in Booby Prize: An Astrological Novel. An outer planet transit to a Moon-related point makes a lot of sense for a period of time when women are especially prominent in my life. My awareness of whatever the women around me are doing, bad or good, is heightened.

I don’t think it is wrong to have a social life that disproportionately emphasizes a particular gender. Maybe you need to work something out for a while, if you’re having a relevant outer planet transit — or maybe it’s just what you find most comfortable in general, if it’s coming from something in your natal chart.

If you have this type of dynamic going on for whatever reason, though, it’s good to at least be more aware of it than I was in last week’s post. I don’t think “You create your own reality” should be flippantly said to everyone about every situation ever, but you do bring yourself to the astrology community, so you may happen to find whatever issues you are already dealing with reflected there.

What do you think about the mingling of astrology and the general inclination that women seem to have developed to ascribe their fault to astrology?

I think humans often try to avoid taking responsibility for their faults, whether they are male, female, nonbinary, or anything else. To whatever extent they draw astrology into this, I would say it’s part of the following larger problem: How do you get wise, mature astrologers? Typically, the answer involves annoying beginner astrologers plus time and experience. Anyone who is truly dead set on finding a scapegoat for all their problems will probably wash out of astrology and move on to something different once Saturn transits become involved, but serious students typically outgrow this phase.

Hot on Substack

Rhyd Wildermuth

, The Mysteria, 12: Hearing Voices

Wildermuth provides several anecdotes about people with schizophrenia making genuinely prophetic statements due to having porous boundaries.

Sunday Postcards

, Rising sign horoscopes for Jupiter in Gemini

Short and sweet recommendations. I have Libra Rising, and I suppose you could say I am “publishing in installments” right now.

Jenn Zahrt

, Effervescence

Heartwarming reflections on attending NORWAC — I was in the Zoom room Zahrt greeted there Saturday night!

Michelle Craft via

Astrologers' Co-Op

, Jupiter’s Journey Through Gemini

Craft analyzes Jupiter being in detriment in Gemini. She also points out that Jupiter’s current transit through Gemini will include a square to Saturn in Pisces.

Caleb J McCoy

via

Astrologers' Co-Op

, Gemini II: The Razor's Edge

McCoy notes that the second decan of Gemini is ruled by Mars, beginning a second cycle of the seven Classical planets. This Mars influence on Mercury-ruled Gemini can lead to a lot of anxiety over making decisions.

Adam Sommer

, Fact Floods

This Kurt Vonnegut quote about writing for an audience of one was influential to me when I was interested in fiction writing during my twenties. I like how Sommer interprets it in his piece on Jupiter in Gemini:

Kurt Vonnegut once said, “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” Even if you aren’t a writer or a storyteller, it remains sound advice. The way I like to think about it is that when I share my ideas, I see them landing in the mind of my younger self. I’d like them to land in “him” and help guide him better than I was guided.

catharine j. anderson

, Carlos Castaneda, Language, and the Limits of the Known

Anderson analyzes the natal chart of Carlos Castaneda with a focus on his struggles to master language. Castaneda has both Chiron and the Moon in the communication-oriented 3rd house.

Michelle Corbesier

via

Astrum Opus

, Sylvia Plath

Corbesier connects Sylvia Plath’s obsession with death to her 8th house Venus and Jupiter, both in Virgo.

2024 presidential election update

I have not spent a lot of time on deep dives into the charts of Donald Trump and Joe Biden this election season. I don’t feel like I need to do that. Yes, it is important to look at the election through an astrological lens, but knowing which charts are worth looking at is key to any astrological process.

Pluto is currently in the process of changing signs from Capricorn to Aquarius. Neptune and Uranus will both change signs over the next couple of years. This is NEW energy, not the energy of an 80-year-old hated by half the country who keeps us mired in the same old conflicts — and the latter describes Trump and Biden roughly equally well.

I think the conjunction of Mars, Uranus, and Algol on July 15 as the Republican National Convention begins will help this campaign season finally break out of its stultifying boredom. As discussed in a previous edition of Weekend Entertainment Guide, both Nikki Haley and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have the potential to benefit from that disruptive transit.

Since that analysis, the picture has become complicated by developments in Trump’s legal woes. Chris Brennan pointed out on X that, when Trump was convicted of falsifying business records on May 30, Mercury and Uranus were conjunct on Trump’s Midheaven — and, when Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, transiting Mars will be on Trump’s Midheaven.

The legal story isn’t necessarily over — Trump will probably appeal the ruling after he is sentenced. Still, at the Republican National Convention, he’ll have the transiting Mars-Uranus-Algol conjunction square his natal Mars-Ascendant conjunction, which isn’t a shining indicator of happiness.

I’m not sure that Biden, Trump’s main rival at this point, will be having a good day either. Biden has Sun-Venus opposite Algol natally (fixed star Algol has migrated about a degree over the course of Biden’s life), but having transiting Mars and Uranus opposite his Sun and Venus conjunction as well sounds potentially uncomfortable.

This makes me more interested in looking at currently minor personalities surrounding the 2024 election, as I think someone is going to get pulled off the bench.

Both Trump and Kennedy attended the Libertarian National Convention this month attempting to gain Libertarian support for their presidential campaigns. However, as reported by Politico, the Libertarian Party ultimately selected Chase Oliver as their nominee.

Oliver was born August 16, 1985, according to Wikipedia (time of birth unknown). This is interesting to me because he is a near astro-twin of Vivek Ramaswamy, who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination but suspended his campaign in January 2024. Ramaswamy was born August 9, 1985, and he has a known birth time on Astro-Databank.

Both Oliver and Ramaswamy have a lot of Leo stuff square Saturn in Scorpio natally, and that will receive hard aspects from the Mars-Uranus-Algol conjunction in Taurus. I therefore don’t see Ramaswamy being the one who gets pulled off the Republican bench at the Republican National Convention, and I don’t see Oliver doing much better.

Tucker Carlson, however, is actually getting some love from the Mars-Uranus-Algol conjunction in Taurus. Yes, it will be on his Sun and Moon in late Taurus, but he has a lot of other stuff late in Water and Earth signs that will receive sextiles and trines from the disruptive transiting conjunction. Meanwhile, transiting Jupiter in Gemini will be closely conjunct his Mercury. Although there has been some speculation that Carlson will leave media to seek elected office, these influences could also manifest in him speaking at the convention or getting really into reporting on it.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place August 19-22, 2024. I will have to look into that convention and its associated personalities in another post.