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 A new commentary (#8) has been posted for December: "Astrological Patterns in 2013-2014." To read or download the PDF file that contains this essay, simply look to the right in the center column for the top link in the list of 2011-2012 commentaries.
I offer personal astrological sessions over the telephone for clients throughout America and the world. Individual sessions are the main work I've done over the past 41 years, and I'm still passionate about talking with people to reveal the meaning and direction of their lives, especially in the turbulent times that have now begun and will increase in intensity over the next decade. Because of limited energy and chronic pain from the stroke, I'm likely to do fewer sessions per month than in the past, but I am very happy to work with clients again in what promises to be the most amazing decade of our entire lives.
Before emailing me to request a session, please read the Sessions FAQ page, which explains about scheduling, fees, what information you should send me, etc. The About Sessions page has some of my thoughts and feelings about the work I do.
My astrological textbook, Houses of the Horoscope, was re-published in 2007 by Kevin Burk's new publishing company, Serendipity Press (thanks, Kevin, for all your work in getting the book out!). This is the same revised and expanded 2nd Edition that I offer here in an e-book PDF version, now in a wonderful new paperback. The book is priced at $24.95 and is in bookstores now. You can order a copy online now at Amazon. (Order anything else with it to get over the 25 buck hump, and you'll get free shipping.) Here's a link to the book's page on Amazon: Houses of the Horoscope at Amazon.com To learn more about both my books, or to order the PDF versions, click here. 
This site won a "Web Site of the Week" award from Astropro. To read Astropro's review and check out Richard's informative site, click here. |
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2011-2012 Commentaries
NEWCommentary, 14 December 2012: Astrological Patterns in 2013-2014
Commentary, 18 June 2012: To See Oneself in Others
Commentary, 27 March 2012: Approaching Critical Mass
Commentary, 6 January 2012: Adulthood, Maturity, and Wisdom
Commentary, 4 November 2011: The Occupy Uprising: An Astrological Perspective
Commentary, 29 July 2011: Uranus-Pluto and the Murdoch Meltdown
Commentary, 28 June 2011: Clarifying the Timeline for Change
Commentary, 19 June 2011: The Ruling Elites Are Not Like You and Me
 I'm a professional astrologer with 38 years' full-time experience. I've done more than 11,000 astrological sessions, mostly with individuals, but also with couples, families, and groups.
I didn't set out to be an astrologer (far from it), and, though people understandably regard me as an authority on the subject, I'm really not obsessed with astrology itself. Yes, it's an extraordinary, elegant system in the right hands, and the information it provides is endless and often unavailable from any other source. Still, for me at least, astrology is only a means to an end, just a useful tool to explore something else, something much more important.
What I find compelling — what really interests me — is not astrology, but human beings and the incredible, almost overwhelming experience of being human.
We wake up in these bodies one day, and we don't know where we came from, how we got here, or where we're going. But here we are, as long as we breathe and our hearts beat. And while we're here, we have to figure out how our machinery works, how to live in these awkward bodies and difficult personalities, and how to connect with other, equally complex human beings along the way. It is all a bit much, and often more than any of us can handle.
Despite being members of the same species and sharing much in common, we are very different as individuals. Just beneath the ordinary, commonplace experiences of everyday life, we live alone inside ourselves. Our inner realities are custom-tailored, profoundly unique, and often unseen, much less understood, by anyone else. Most of the time, through happiness, suffering, or just normal life, we remain hidden even to ourselves.
I use astrology to explore those differences that make us unique, to probe into the heart of the puzzle, to reveal what can be revealed, and to reach out across the void to make contact, to find a way for us (and for myself as well) to feel not quite so alone.
For those of you who might be curious, I've posted my own chart and provided a little background info about myself.
Being an astrologer does not require any specific spiritual beliefs, nor does it imply any particular social or political leanings. Some astrologers lean to the right, others to the left. Some focus exclusively on the lofty realms of metaphysics; others are more pragmatic, integrating real-life concerns into their work.
For me, all three levels are relevant, and I tend to have deep feelings and strong opinions about each, as anyone who reads the newsletters and essays archived on this site will no doubt see. That said, I can't claim to have achieved transcendent wisdom or even personal serenity in reconciling the contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies of these often conflicting arenas. Spirituality, culture, and politics continue to be an ongoing challenge for me. Indeed, they comprise a significant part of the struggle in my life to understand and mature.
What I lack in certainty, however, I try to make up for in reverence, the feeling of awe and respect for the often unexpected and always profound mysteries of life.
 
Below are the MP3s from my 1994 Celtic Fusion CD, "Beyond the Emerald Isle." The selections include Irish, English, and Scots tunes in traditional and original jigs, reels, hornpipes, and slow airs, plus a lullaby, a lament, and an English madrigal. All the instruments were synthesized, and the music was sequenced and mixed on a Mac. My own little one-man show.
Click on the title links to listen to the cuts, or download the MP3s for free. 1. Old Hag You Have Killed Me, Delaney's, Morrison's … medley of three Irish jigs
2. When the Winds Begin to Sing … permutations of an Irish melody
3. Song of the Chanter … Irish slow air
4. Saucy Sailor … English seafaring song
5. The Weavers, Kail and Pudding, Loch Roag … another medley of Irish jigs
6. The Old Woman's Lullaby … slow air from Scotland
7. Drive the Cold Winter Away … Irish melody
8. Harvest Home, The Little Beggar Girl … two English tunes, the latter by Richard Thompson
9. The April Green, Kasha in the Window … original hornpipe and reel, with an embedded jig
10. Taking Missionary Ridge … original call-and-response marches 11. Oh the Cutters … English slow air 12. Love is Worth it All … original English madrigal 13. The Cruel Brother … rave-up of a Scots lament Why I Stopped Writing Newsletters in October 2010
When circumstances beyond my control in August, 2010, made it necessary for me to stop sending out the monthly email newsletters to subscribers on my own through my web host, I took a month off to decide how to proceed. One option (a good one) was to hire an internet marketing company, such as Constant Contact, to handle the mailings and the subscriber email list. Initially, I leaned toward that option. As I thought through the issue, however, deeper emotions percolated up, feelings of exhaustion and exasperation, making it clear that I needed a break from the discipline of monthly deadlines and public exposure. Being in the public eye — even when one's niche is relatively tiny, as mine is — does take a toll. The cosmic twins of praise and blame both carry a certain onus. One has to live up to praise, while blame is obviously full of slings and arrows. Everybody's a damned critic.
This is especially true when one's role is that of a Cassandra — the mythic bearer of bad tidings — or, in my case at least, astrological information and social opinions that are unsettling to many people and downright terrifying to some. Although the last eight years of newsletters have garnered me much more support than criticism, I've had a lot on my plate health-wise, and I am a little tired.
Also, the whole point of the email newsletters was to reach out to an audience of like-minded individuals, people who understood about the various crises humanity faces and who don't live in denial, escapism, or unfounded optimism. I can't even guess how many of "us" there are in the world, but we often feel conspicuously alone in a civilization gone insane, a world that runs on consumption and convenience, where too many people are hypnotized by the media hologram of advertising and other status quo cultural propaganda, and where some others cling to a Pollyanna point of view. Meanwhile, the institutions of government and megacorporate business now serve only the wealthiest among us, war continues as state policy, and fantasy is considered preferable to reality. Culture has become very bizarre indeed.
I wanted to reach out through my writing, to help "us" feel not quite so lonely and alienated. Within my small public niche, I feel that this goal has been achieved.
Finally, however, the deciding factor behind suspending the newsletters for now was that I have said pretty much all I wanted to say about Phase One of the Great Change (or whatever we want to call it). This initial phase is defined by the Saturn-Uranus-Pluto T-square or "Cardinal Climax," whose effective period is from 2007 through 2011. Phase Two will be the more intense and radical time of the seven exact passes in the first-quarter square between Uranus and Pluto. The effective period of those coming events is 2012 through about 2016.
Phase One in 2007-2011 is a period characterized by head-in-the-sand denial in much of the collective, but especially in the policies and propaganda of the ruling-powers-that-be. It's as if Humpty Dumpty (civilization) had fallen off the wall and cracked the crap out of his shell, and All the King's Horses and All the King's Men (the ruling elites in government and business) were trying to put him together again. They will fail, of course, but they will insist all the while that everything is fine and will soon return to normal.
Phase Two, beginning in mid-2012 and continuing through 2016, will be characterized by the extreme shocks of collective awakening. Denial will fade away as civilization is repeatedly disturbed, hit by a virtual tsunami of cascading breakdowns in institutions — political, social, and commercial. We will likely see instances of both tragedy and triumph, with the best and worst of human nature taking centerstage. Social responses to crisis will be sometimes crazy and other times brilliant. Life as we know it will change, as it did in the 1960s and 1930s before that. This time, however, the change is likely to be even bigger and more profound.
Once this second phase begins, I will have much more to say about the astrological implications. Until then, however, I may live a somewhat more cloistered private (and local) social life. Or I might not. I can't say with certainty. For now, though, I'm choosing to pull back.
During this time of not sending out newsletters, if I happen to feel sufficiently inspired by collective events to write any interim commentaries, I will post them here on-site (on the Essays Page) and announce their presence in the "What's New" column. So check in from time to time.
Personal sessions with clients will continue, of course. Astrological readings have been the most important thing I do for the past 40 years; they remain the central activity at the very heart of who I am and what I have to offer. So, I sure hope that good people will continue to request sessions, since that's how I pay the rent and put food on my table. If you appeciate the quality of my writing, please refer my astrological services to anyone you know who is one of "us." Those who are awake are my only target market now. I really don't want to work with anyone who isn't conscious about what's happening in the world. Time is too precious to waste on those who are asleep.
Thanks so much for your support and understanding.
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