Mid-life Values Voters, Plus Some Notes and Updates

IIt's been eclipse season and a time of transition for ThirdAge, for me, and for lots of folks. I feel I've been a bit out of the loop here lately, and I feel like posting a few updates on various matters.

First, a shout-out to the inimitable Elsa P. who has incorporated Astro News into her site. Lynn Hayes has also moved her blog to BeliefNet, and you can check it out here.

On another front I get to say I-told-you-so. I predicted in June that oil and gas prices would come down, at a time when virtually nobody was contemplating such a thing. A few people even told me I was an idiot to think the price of oil would or could ever go down. Since then, oil and gas prices have gone down considerably, although not exactly to comfort levels. (I personally don't think they will spend much if any time at the comfortable levels of the 80's and 90's during the next 15 or so years.)

Oil and gas prices are still volatile and likely to remain so, but in contrast to what a die-hard 'the price rises were all rational responses to supply and demand fears' would say, the market isn't reacting in any predictable fashion to things like the Russian invasion of Georgia. I'm not saying the rise in oil prices wasn't rational (it was because people were making money on it) or that the market doesn't react to supply and demand forces (it does, because it's been reacting to the fall in demand around the world). I'm saying the simplistic view that oil demand can only go in one direction and oil supply can only go in the other is … exactly kind of the kind of mistake so-called rational analysts typically make because they aren't actually any more rational than your garden-variety astrologer -and maybe a little less so.

I also have to give myself props for taking my own advice on Mars in Virgo energy and weight loss. I've lost 8 pounds, a bit more than I was shooting for by this point. The process has been remarkably easy, and I'm contemplating keeping up my routine at least through September. I've also cut my grocery bill by about $100 a month. Mars has just entered Libra, though, so perhaps the grocery bill cost-cutting impulse will wane. Overall, I'm more than happy with my progress, I'll admit.

Eclipses in the news, Aquarian celebrity news that is: As many of you know, comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres officially wed her girlfriend this month (on the date of the lunar eclipse if I'm not mistaken). Ellen is an Aquarian, and the eclipses in Leo and her own sign fall across the sector of the Aquarian solar chart that govern marriage, committed relationships, and personal milestones or major life changes. I think that by getting married, Ellen managed to hit on the themes of the August eclipses quite nicely. It's both a personal milestone and culmination of a long process in her life, as well as the beginning of her marriage.

Jennifer Aniston, meanwhile, opted for the opposite side of the eclipse energy. Aniston is also an Aquarian, and she coincidentally or not broke up with John Mayer. Mayer is apparently a Libra (and his dating record does reflect some rather Libran tendencies to get around) and the eclipses fell along a different axis in his solar chart: the axis governing dating relationships and friendships. So if one was to analyze the eclipse energy affecting that relationship in the most basic terms you would get – John was thinking dating and Jennifer was thinking commitment. What eclipses do is supposedly bring things to our attention. So the eclipse politely informed the two of them that they were not on the same page and they went their separate ways. For the moment anyway. It's not always prudent to consider an eclipse breakup permanent until you're safely into the next cycle.

Yet another Aquarian to feel the eclipse, perhaps in a way that was a relief, was Mark Spitz. The lunar eclipse meant the end of a very long era in Mr. Spitz's life, one in which he was the sole holder of a particular type of Olympic record and glory. Lunar eclipses can be bittersweet, a mixture of gladness and sadness. I would imagine that is some of what Mark Spitz feels for he knew the day when his record was broken would have to come some day.

On another note Astrology Mundo has a nice post on "Pluto in Virgo for President." The poster does a good job of pointing out the core values of the Pluto in Virgo generation, namely jobs, affordable health care, healthy food, and clean air. The Pluto in Virgo generation (born in the 1960s and late 1950s) is now at mid-life, and I've personally always associated this generation with the need to do something serious and transformational about the environment. Virgo is an earth sign, and it is also a sign that as far as I can tell puts more emphasis on purity and health than any other sign. To me that means Virgo wants to do things like clean up pollution so the earth will become more 'pure' and healthy.

It takes about 40 years for a generation to come into power, give or take, so the Virgo generation has only had a shot at running the show for a short period of time. Indeed, we haven't had a Pluto in Virgo president yet; Barack Obama is the first from the generation to run. It is an odd measure of the way that generations collide that jobs, health care, and the environment are currently considered more 'youthful' or even 'liberal' values than the values of John McCain's generation. McCain's generation has Pluto in Cancer and it is a rather angry and traumatized generation in the aggregate, one that was born into and has survived some very tough times. Patriotism and national security or even national pride are more compelling values to the sign of Cancer.

Finally, here's a link to an opinion piece on astrology that I thought was interesting. I tend to agree with it, in the main.