Thursday, September 26, 2013

Knowing When to Turn the Tap On and, More Importantly, When to Turn it Off

Mercury enters deep, dark Scorpio on September 29 (6:38 a.m. CST), and our mind, our communications, and our connections are filtered through the penetrating, unwavering gaze of the scorpion.

Creepy.

Mercury in Scorpio wants to see what lies beneath the surface. It wants to know what's really going on. It wants some validation for that sick feeling in the pit of its stomach, for the crawling of its skin, for the tingling spidey sense. Mercury in Scorpio is a researching mind, an uncovering mind, drawing uncomfortable tidbits of information up to conscious awareness for integration into the broader scene.

The festering stink-pile of corruption and lies on Planet Earth is one of the prime targets for this laser mind, this Mercury in Scorpio. And there can be no doubt, really, about the state we're in on this planet. We're teetering at the point of no return, led there by generations of materialist mass murderers masquerading as our leaders. We're close to the point of energetic impossibility.

And let's not be silly about this: we'll be making some life-or-death connections throughout this Mercury transit of Scorpio (September 29 - December 4, 2013). It's that serious. Messenger planet Mercury has some reality-based information that we must digest over the course of the transit, and it's in our best interests to heed every last squirmy detail.

Mercury will retrograde in the sign of sex, death, birth, healing, X-Ray vision, and hardcore soul drive from October 21 to November 10, travelling backward in the zodiac from 18 to 2 degrees Scorpio.

This is the third and final Mercury retrograde of 2013, all of which have been in water signs.

As Mercury transits Scorpio, it will conjunct the North Node and Saturn three times, reactivating the obscenely powerful and intense Venus-Saturn-North Node conjunction, which occurred at 8 degrees Scorpio on September 17/18. That conjunction occurred exactly sextile stationing and inky-potent Pluto at 8 degrees Capricorn, which turned direct September 20.

Those unaffected by the intensity and energetic demands of the week of September 16 - 22 were fortunate. There were exhaustion, breakdowns, meltdowns, and acute stress involved. At the end of our ropes and beyond. We processed a massive amount of energy through our bodies and through our relationships during that week - and we're still processing it. We'll be processing the energy of that week and integrating its lessons for some time to come, including during the transit of Mercury through Scorpio.

We set a whole new, soul-driven tone in human relationships that week, and it was no joke. The way energy is distributed in our relationships, the underlying power dynamics, the allotment of that precious, supportive, soulful Scorpio energy are all under a state of reconstitution and reconstruction, continuing with the Venus retrograde in Capricorn at the end of the year (December 20, 2013 - January 30, 2014).

With restricting Saturn involved, we had to pull the reins in on a number of relational fronts. To continue in the old dynamics brings depletion.

We're working with restricted energy, particularly emotional, psychological, sexual, and psychic energy. At times during the transit of Saturn through Scorpio (into September 2015), this will be severely restricted.

We need to invest our precious time and energy oh-so-wisely now in order to make it through the next couple years successfully.

So heading into autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, we went through a very extreme Pluto station, a very extreme Venus-Saturn-North Node conjunction, and an over-the-top Harvest Full Moon in Pisces.

We now get a little breather with the Sun in Libra working to rebalance our upset energetic systems.

But it won't last long.

Mercury enters its retrograde shadow at 2 degrees Scorpio on October 1, just in time for the Libra Sun to enter a cardinal Grand Cross formation ahead of the Libra New Moon October 4.

In other words, kiss that harmonious Libran equinox breather goodbye, and prepare to play your 'A Games.' If you were expecting an easy breezy Libra season, you're in for a surprise...


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What is Mercury retrograde?

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Getting Crystal Clear on What's Hurting & Sickening Us: A Pisces Full Moon Re-Post at This Harvest Moon

Photo: Willow


The Moon is currently growing full in dewy and sublime Pisces, opposite the Sun in late Virgo, and it touched wounded healer Chiron in Pisces early this morning on its way to the peak.

This late-Pisces Full Moon (exact at 6:13 a.m. CST on September 19) is the Harvest Moon, the Full Moon closest to autumn equinox, so named because farmers could work well into the night under its light. The Harvest Moon, along with the Hunter's Moon and Beaver Moon in following months, rises earlier and sets later than the Full Moons in other months, providing more moonlit hours.

This Harvest Moon in Pisces has end-of-era themes radiating from its moonbeams, as well as an impetus to get much clearer on the things that are hurting and sickening us on this planet.

This is a re-post of an article I wrote for last year's Pisces Full Moon. The themes continue to apply, maybe moreso than ever. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan continues to unfold, two-and-a-half years after the initial event, and genetically modified alfalfa has just started contaminating the natural crop in the United States.

"A Chiron-Infused Pisces Full Moon, Pisces for the Aquarian Era, and Shifting Ideas Around Healing and Health" from the last Pisces Full Moon August 25, 2012:

"When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied."

- Herophilus, some 3rd/4th century doctor dude who fancied himself a philosopher

I read this quote recently on the back of a $13 package of smug hippie cereal that comes from the Canadian West Coast. There are a lot of smug hippies out there. The thing is, though, a lot of times, the smug hippies get it wrong.

I've been ill (though improving) for almost three years now. The military industrial complex disguised as Big Pharma disguised as an inexperienced doctor in a walk-in clinic slipped me poison in the form of an antibiotic called Cipro, and it devastated my system.

That said, I have to refute the quote by the good doctor up there. The best astrological work I've done has come during the time since I was poisoned. Since then, wisdom has revealed itself more fully, art has been expressed more richly. Not only was I able to fight, I was Plutonically strengthened to fight. Fighting those to-the-roots Plutonic fights gave me almost otherworldly strength at times, even as my body and physical system were weakened. Even as I was picking out words on the keyboard with a pencil in my mouth because my arms and wrists were not fully functional. Intelligence was most certainly applied. I don't think there can be any doubt that cosmic intelligence is coming through loud and clear.

People often say, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything." I really wish people would stop saying that. It's kind of an assholish thing to say, especially to people who have compromised health.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Douche of the Day at Willow's Web Astrology - Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart

That's a whole lot of assholes.
Photo: Willow

The first case of GM alfalfa contamination is now being investigated in Washington state in the U.S. after a farmer had his alfalfa crop rejected for export because it (unknown to him) contained genetically modified material.

This is the first case of what will be many.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready GM alfalfa is the first genetically modified feral perennial ever planted in North America. Pollinated by insects and the wind, this highly tenacious plant used for livestock feed and organic fertilizer, among other things, spreads like a weed. In fact, if you do not want alfalfa in your field, it is extremely difficult to eradicate.

As seen in the initial case in Washington state, genetically modified alfalfa will inevitably cross-pollinate and contaminate the natural crop.

Currently, 93% of Canada's alfalfa crop is unsprayed. This means, farmers and ranchers do not have to pay thousands of dollars to apply chemical herbicide or pesticide to their alfalfa crops. These crops are natural, non-genetically modified, and unsprayed.

Monsanto would like to change that.

There are ongoing plans to introduce genetically modified alfalfa in Ontario and Quebec in order to set up an export hay market (talk about unsustainable). This hay would be sold to countries that desire 100% weed-free hay and are willing to purchase genetically modified, heavily chemically-sprayed alfalfa in order to achieve that.

Since Canada's federal Conservatives are as pro-GMO as you can get, the next step in appealing to our so-called leaders is at the provincial level. Municipal governments in British Columbia have passed laws making their areas GMO-free, and there is no reason provinces cannot do the same.

I wrote a letter recently to my home province's Agriculture Minister, Lyle Stewart, appealing for a moratorium on the sale, planting, and growth of genetically modified alfalfa within the province's borders.

What I got back was a very robotic and ill-informed letter from a very robotic and ill-informed Lyle Stewart of the Saskatchewan Party (AKA provincial Conservatives).

In the letter that he more than likely did not see or write, our boy Lyle passed the buck to the Federal government and denied there are any concerns over GM alfalfa at all.

"Lyle" went on to say: "The Government of Saskatchewan takes a science-based approach to promoting research, commercialization, and marketing of all aspects of agricultural biotechnology. We are committed to working with the industry to ensure farmers and ranchers have the latest advancements in agronomic and production tools available to help them remain competitive."

In other words, the Government of Saskatchewan is pro-GMO and (falsely) believes farmers and ranchers need GM alfalfa in order to "stay competitive."

Now, y'all, if Lyle knew his ass from page eight on this subject he'd know that farmers and ranchers in Western Canada - yes, including in his own province - have already rejected GM alfalfa wholeheartedly.

He would know there is actually zero benefit to going from an unsprayed, natural crop to a heavily chemically-sprayed GMO crop that costs thousands of dollars more to produce. And farmers and ranchers know this. Anyone with common sense does.

Our boy Lyle would also know that, rather than making farmers and ranchers "more competitive," the unintentional spread of GM alfalfa will actually destroy export crops to any country that does not allow GMOs within its borders. This is the entire European Union, which happens to be a big importer of Canadian alfalfa.

He also touts the science. But what science would that be, Lyle? The Seralini study showing increased incidences of cancer, organ damage, and premature death in lab rats fed GM corn and glyphosate, the primary ingredient in the chemical herbicide Roundup?

Or would it be the suckling pig study that found stomach inflammation and fertility damage related to diets of GM corn and soy?

Or is it the study that found Roundup toxic to dairy cattle?

What, exactly, is the science you're using to support your pro-GMO claims, here, Lyle?

Because the science I see says GMOs cause health damage in animals, and what causes health damage in animals will certainly cause health damage in human beings who eat animals or animal products.

For the fact that the provincial Agriculture Minister in prime livestock country, Saskatchewan, is ill-informed on the issue of genetically modified alfalfa, for the fact that he is not listening to the farmers and ranchers in his own province, and for the fact that he is implementing policy that puts the entire food supply at risk:

Lyle Stewart is Willow's Web Astrology's Douche of the Day!


Congratulations, Lyle. It isn't just any old douche who makes it to such a high level of douchery!


Get your "Stop GM Alfalfa" bumper sticker from Willow: $5 each or 5 for $22.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Grumbling, Fuming, and Mental Stress As We Move Through the Week Ahead. Pace Yourselves.

We start the week on Monday morning under a Scorpio Moon conjunct Saturn, with both bodies forming a square (hard aspect) to Mars in Leo.

This is the sweet and sensitive, feminine Moon - already uncomfortable in the sign of its fall, Scorpio - in aspect to the two Bad Boy malefic planets, Mars and Saturn.

By Friday morning, the Moon is in Capricorn (the sign of its detriment), conjunct stationing (ie. very potent) Pluto, just as we head into another tense and highly-strung cardinal Grand Cross formation, exact September 14 - 19.

It's going to take a very strategic game this week to not come out emotionally shredded.

Find your emotional sustenance where you can - just don't broadcast your sources. People are going to be a little crusty, looking for a sticking point they can latch onto and pick apart. (We are in Virgo season, after all.) Though Mars in Leo may be urging us to be expressive, boisterous, fun, and generous, the square to Saturn in Scorpio indicates that even well-intentioned efforts on that front could have some karmic bite-back.

As we start the week, war drums are being beaten as the United States government and its allies attempt to manufacture consent for yet another brutal war to secure long-term oil interests, this time in Syria. The media blackout related to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan is starting to crack around the edges. The "green shoots" of economic recovery in the United States and around the world (if they ever really existed) have officially withered and died. Saturn in Scorpio requires that we keep in mind the very serious context of the times in which we are living, and you do so to your own benefit this week.

Maintaining the right tone means you will not get caught on any Saturn in Scorpio bramble bushes.

As the workweek begins this Monday morning, the mood is sombre, touchy, irritated, under-appreciated, and a little burnt out. People are not in the mood for any shenanigans or for any forced joviality, either. Emotionally, we're playing our cards close to our chests, gathering our energy to us, despite the urgings of Mars in Leo to radiate our fabulousness for all to see, to fight for our rightful attention and acclaim.

You can fight for what's rightfully yours this week. Just do it in a matter-of-fact way - no blowing your own horn, no overkill - and then withdraw from the proceedings.

If you are passed over this week and can fly under the radar, consider yourself lucky.

As was mentioned in a previous post, the Mars in Leo square to Saturn in Scorpio has been restricting our wills, our actions, and the expression of our fun-loving personalities since the beginning of September.

However, this square that has been so peeing on our Leonine parades is exact at 6:06 a.m. CST on Monday, September 9. This means, as we wake and get our Mondays underway, the discomfort, restriction, and frustration indicated by this square has reached a peak. We are dealing only with the aftermath of this aspect, the denouement, throughout the week.

This is not to say that the Mars-Saturn denouement will not be feisty, challenging, or action-packed. Its potentially pissy, frustrated themes reverberate throughout the upcoming week.

It is in our best interests to keep our big, bold personalities in check, or Saturn in Scorpio will do it for us.

Further adding to the fun is an uncomfortable quincunx between Mars in Leo and Pluto in Capricorn on Wednesday, September 11. Power issues continue to simmer within the hierarchies as they exist, as we continue the shift from a Pluto in Leo world that we all just live in (love you, Pluto in Leos!) to a stronger Pluto in Virgo-led scene.

One saving grace is communication planet Mercury, which shifts into congenial and sociable Libra on Monday morning, as well, until September 29. This does help to maintain a modicum of social decorum under all these emotionally spicy and feisty layers.

However, Mercury in Libra also moves into the cardinal Grand Cross formation by the end of the week. Lovely Libra is going to have its work cut out for it keeping the peace under these conditions.

There's some definite subtext and some underlying charge to our social interactions through the next two weeks. Honour this. Don't be phony about it. Understand that the things you say and the tones you take with people - even in brief moments of frustration - could have enduring social and professional ripple effects, with Mercury in tight-as-a-drum cardinal Grand Cross.

Love, money, and relationship planet Venus in Libra first activated the cardinal Grand Cross involving Uranus in Aries, Jupiter in Cancer, and Pluto in Capricorn at the end of August (exact August 23 - 27). This set a new tone in relationships while testing them under intense pressure. New social leadership was initiated under that configuration, particularly involving new era-oriented leadership in our personal and professional relationships.

Now, as communication and intelligence planet Mercury enters Libra and re-activates the cardinal Grand Cross September 14 - 19, we start to wrap our minds around the social, professional, familial, and interpersonal shifts underway. We're gathering information and attempting to find our own social context within these pressurized and changing circumstances. We're working to maintain social continuity and right human relations during times when those things are too often being shoved to the side as unimportant.

Relationship-ruler Venus enters the sign of its detriment, Scorpio, on September 11, indicating human relations will have their sticking points through the end of the transit October 7. The relationship planet transiting the sign of sex, death, regeneration, secrets, and emotional suppression indicates our relationships are more tricky, complicated, and complex than we would prefer. However, a trine between Venus in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces, exact September 14, indicates that there is a whole lot we can transcend, give up to the universe, or see under a spiritually-compassionate lens on the relationship front.

The combination of the tail-end of the Mars-Saturn square, the Moon conjunct stationing Pluto in Capricorn, and the Mercury-triggered cardinal Grand Cross indicates that people could be quite fed up, past their breaking points, by weeks end. You will hear it in their tones, as the sociable Mercury in Libra convos show strain.

Big egos that are used to getting what they want with a free course could be particularly fuming, uncomfortable and perplexed as a new pecking order emerges.

Women in the workplace could also reach an "enough's enough" point, as it becomes too much to maintain the nicey-nice social façade, as well as the invisible and often unrecognized social work so often expected of females in the workplace.

This week is a bit of a minefield, though it's not impossible to navigate. Pick through carefully, and don't allow temper tantrums, shitty remarks, or desperate passive aggressiveness to throw you off course.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Willow on Ask the Astrologer with Matt Savinar This Thursday, September 5

I'll be a guest on Matt Savinar's community radio show, Ask the Astrologer, tomorrow (Thursday, September 5) as we open out of the Virgo New Moon.

Fittingly for a Virgo (analysis, health, hard work) New Moon opposite Chiron in Pisces (wounds and pain that affect us all), we'll be talking about Fukushima, media blackouts, and the importance of independent citizens doing the job that governments should be doing in protecting and informing us.

The collective can't seem to fully grasp the lessons of Pisces at the end of the era. People, en masse, don't get that what affects one, eventually affects all as Aquarius pulls them into extreme individualism and technology/science as God.

Let's see if we can assist on that front, shall we? Fukushima and its nuclear fallout are pretty good illustrations of the point...

The show is on KOWS 107.3 FM, out of Occidental, California, and starts at:

10 a.m. Pacific time
11 a.m. Mountain and Central Standard time
Noon Central Daylight and Eastern

You can listen to the show live online here. Look to the right part of the screen for the link: KOWS 107.3 FM

Or the show will be up at Matt's YouTube channel a little later.

Monday, September 2, 2013

An Alchemical Social and Professional Mix Percolates As We Head to Equinox

Photos: Willow

As we move into September, the Grand Water Trine summer of 2013 is officially winding down. The good vibes that buoyed us from Jupiter and the personal planets in Cancer, Saturn in Scorpio, and Neptune in Pisces have now mostly dissipated, and we are left with a more challenging series of cardinal Grand Crosses to navigate between August 2013 and April 2014. I hope you soaked up all the water magic you could this summer - we're going to need it!
 
We're now in the thick of Virgo season, harvest time, with the Sun and Mercury travelling through the sometimes persnickety sign of the virgin. Our focus for most of this month is on work, diligent effort, and attention to detail in preparation for the long winter ahead - physical and/or metaphorical.

A Virgo New Moon at 13 degrees, opposite Chiron Rx in Pisces, occurs September 5 (6:36 a.m. CST), and we open into new work, new roles, and a newly streamlined modus operandi. We're honing, purifying, and perfecting our skills as we move through this New Moon doorway, increasing effectiveness and eliminating unproductive efforts.

However, we also have to ask ourselves how we are so-very-effectively directing our personal efforts at this time.

(The Nazis were highly effective, too, after all. Efficacy is not always a good thing - Pluto in Virgos, I'm especially looking at you right now.)

The opposition to wounded healer Chiron in Pisces at the time of the New Moon indicates that we're working to heal the gaping psychic/spiritual wounds carried forward by humanity at this time, or we're working to support systems and ideas that cause further damage, tossing more salt in the collective wounds.

This New Moon is a time to get very clear on which effort you would like to support with your own time, focus, work, and energy. The condition and orientation of our souls at this crisis time on the planet are of utmost importance. We don't have as much time as we may have thought.

As we move through this clean-and-clear Virgo New Moon portal, small adjustments to our courses can create lasting improvements, particularly for physical and psychic health.

If there are changes you know you need to make in lifestyle or mindset, there's no better time than the present to implement them, propelled by this New Moon.

In light of recent information coming from Fukushima, eliminating certain foods in an effort to decrease the possibility of radioactive contamination may be wise.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

What You Should Know About the Ongoing Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima, Japan

Click to enlarge.


This is a graphic showing the current crisis at the Daiichi nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan. As was reported in the New York Times on August 6, 2013, tons of radioactive water are now being released into the Pacific Ocean every day from these reactors. 

Officials at the Tokyo Electrical Power Company (Tepco) have said the leak started sometime between December and May of 2012. (Just a guess, guys?)

What has always been a global emergency has now become an acute, immediate global emergency.

How I understand it: The groundwater flowing under the nuclear site has become radioactively contaminated and is flowing out to sea, despite efforts to contain it. 

The nuclear cores from the reactors have breached their containments and are somewhere in the ground beneath the site, contaminating the soil and groundwater.

Since the beginning of the disaster, water has also been pumped through the nuclear reactors to keep the ongoing radioactive reaction - still kicking off massive amounts of radiation - as cool and contained as possible. This has been going on since the start of the reaction in March 2011, endangering the lives of many workers who are pumping the water.

The radioactive water used to cool the reaction is now being stored in storage tanks. Some of the storage tanks have sprung leaks and are also releasing water containing radioactive isotopes into the ground beneath the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.

This appears to be an escalation of the nuclear crisis, with Japan now asking for international assistance to contain the situation. Previously, it had refused offers of international assistance.

As ever, we need every brain and every set of eyes in the world on this issue, coming up with a solution to contain or stop it, evacuating people, teaching people what to do to protect themselves from contamination by radioactivity, providing equipment, and educating people around the world about radioactive food, milk, water, etc.