Steven Forrest Evolutionary Astrology Podcast

The fabled Age of Aquarius – does it mean anything at all? Ever since the musical Hair was first performed back in 1967, there has been a vague sense that the Aquarian Age had something to do with hippies or free love or world peace or . . . something. Anyway, from that Boomer point of view, the Age of Aquarius probably ended about fifty years ago . . . that is, unless you bring up the subject among a group of astrologers. Then what you will typically see has very little to do with a song about “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding . . .” Then what you will typically see is closer to World War Three. Opinions on the subject of the astrological ages tend to be trenchant – and the general thrust of them usually runs down the road of claiming that the hippies had it all wrong. The Age of Aquarius is real enough, but that it is still far off, lying somewhere in the distant future. I disagree. I think we are in it now. I think we have already been in it for over a century. In this newsletter I want to make my case that the beginning of the Age of Aquarius dates back to 1903-1905. Let’s start with science class.

After spending eight years in the sign Aries, on June 19 Chiron finally dipped its toes into Taurus – but it will only be there for about twelve weeks before returning to Aries on September 17. We’ll have to wait until mid-April 2027 before Chiron settles in for its seven year passage through the sign of the Bull. It first touches Gemini in July 2033, but soon returns to Taurus, and only arrives solidly in Gemini on May 5, 2034. Chiron’s journeys through Aries and Taurus are long ones, especially when we remember that its total orbit only takes a little under fifty-one years. Divide that number by twelve, and you get an average duration of its passage though each sign of about four years. One key to understanding why it spends so much time in Aries and Taurus is to remember that this planetoid’s orbit is highly elliptical. Its motion is slowest when it’s in Aries. By the time it gets into Libra, it’s halfway around the zodiac. That puts it a lot closer to the Sun and the increased gravitational pull zooms it along a lot more quickly. There’s a second complicating factor: compared to the “real” planets, Chiron’s mass is low and so it gets kicked around a lot by their gravity. That’s why when you Google “Chiron’s orbital period,” you don’t get the kind of precision we’re accustomed to seeing with, for example, Mars (686.98 earth days.) Some sources give Chiron an orbital period of 50.7 years, while others say 50.45 years. That’s because of gravitational interference, mostly by massive Jupiter and Saturn. Sometimes Chiron is closer to them and it’s pulled harder, other times it’s further away and they’re less of an influence, so it all becomes a tangle of ever-changing variables. One practical takeaway is that while we take Chiron seriously, we should never confuse it with the major planets. Chiron would fit between New York and Boston or just about cover the Shanghai-Hangzhou metroplex in China. Even relatively tiny Pluto – the smallest of the real astrological planets – is about twelve times Chiron’s diameter. So, cutting to the heart of the matter, what can we expect from Chiron’s passage through Taurus?

That title got your attention right away, didn’t it? Many people would rather talk about anything if it meant that they could avoid a true heart-to-heart discussion about death. Even astrologers aren’t immune. We learn in our early days of study that death is the domain of the 8th house, but discussions about that house often quickly veer off into the safer territory of symbolic deaths – endings making way for new starts in life, psychological epiphanies, and so forth. That’s all valid astrology too – and far more comfortable emotional terrain for most people. Let’s keep perspective. The 8th house does in fact cover a lot of ground that has nothing to do with mortality. There are twelve houses in astrology. Into those twelve boxes, we divide everything that has ever existed or could ever exist. Naturally, they are big boxes! It’s quite legitimate to relate the 8th house to many other subjects – deep psychological work, the mysteries of sexual bonding, profoundly honest conversations. It is even legitimately taken to represent “other people’s money” since it’s the 2nd house from the 7th – and that line of thought quickly leads to investments, inheritance, and similar subjects. All of it flies under the 8th house banner. Still, from ancient times, astrologers have primarily connected the 8th house with death. Of all of the points on its wide spectrum of meanings, none rival death and dying for sheer “emotional relevance.” In thinking about mortality, it’s helpful to note that we’re not just talking about your own death or any brushes you might have with it – we’re also talking about the impact of other people’s deaths on you: bereavement in all its forms from parents to pets to partners.

Back in 2020 when Covid ruled the earth, Michelle and I adopted a kitten named Benny. We only knew the approximate date of his birth, but naturally we wanted to come up with a chart for him. What astrologer could resist that temptation? Normally when astrologers lack a time of birth for someone, they employ the technique called rectification – a technical process which involves working backward through known dates of big events in order to create a chart that would have predicted their timing. We then presume that to be the accurate chart. The trouble was that with Benny, we really only had one such known date – the luckiest day of his life, which was when Michelle and I became his devoted servants. Working with only one date is a big no-no in rectification. I usually recommend at least ten, plus I want them spread out over several years. That was impossible with a twelve-week-old kitten. For fun, I dived in anyway and fiddled around with the possibilities. I also added some synastry based on the connection between my chart and his. After a while, I came up with a tentative chart. I took it all with a grain of salt, but I wrote about the rectification process in my November newsletter that year. If you’re interested, you can still read it on my website:

My online school, The Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, is blessed to have Mister Sagittarius himself, Ryan Evans, as one of our tutors. True to his Sun Sign, Ryan is an ace at asking the really big questions. A few months ago, I got the following email from him. In it, he raised an issue that could not possibly lie any closer to the heart of evolutionary astrology: I have a question regarding the astronomical understanding of the south node. Do we consider it to be “the past” primarily due to the notion that south equals “down” equals “past” or is there more of an astronomical correlation than just that? I’ve got a scientist here asking astronomy questions. I should start by saying as clearly as possible that I have no definitive answer for Ryan. Why should the place where the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic heading south pull us toward old, outworn attitudes and behaviors? All I know for sure is that the observation is robust. It works reliably. But why?