Perhaps the most basic premise of astrology is that time has a changing quality described by the positions and interrelationships of the planets. Even though each of us interacts with our time differently because of our unique birth charts, we all share certain common conditions and effects. We live our lives in this Celestial Weather.

After studying, teaching and counselling for over 40 years, I use my understanding of astrology to guide my plans and activities. Professional astrologers consider "sun sign" astrology to be a nearly useless simplification. Human life is much more complicated.

Celestial Weather reporting analyzes time's quality from a professional astrolgoer's POV in terms intended to be understood and useful to the average reader. The information presented here is intended to be a useful guide to planning, scheduling, and living.

Celestial Weather Bulletin for February 19, 2012

Surf’s Up!  This week brings us all into the Piscean ocean now charged with Neptune’s full and subtle force.  With Tuesday’s New Moon in Pisces we have Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus all swimming with the fishes in the non-material world.  The lunar cycle that begins Tuesday will show us some of the ways in which we’re all connected, all affected by common forces in our ecology.  We’ve learned we need to dog paddle hard in digital oceans and media frequencies to maintain perspective -  or we can escape from the cell phone towers and cable links to the deep wilderness.  And there we can discover that we share the air we breathe, the weather we’ve made hyperactive, and get closer to the inner well of being at our core.  It’s time to start constructing our individual filters to control the electronic pollution that washes over us every connected day.  We can still push the “OFF” button and only connect to those voices that feed our strength and expand our vision.  

Take a toxic inventory on this New Moon.  Ask yourself how you feel while watching yet another gruesome murder on episodic TV.  Ask how you feel when talking heads pontificate about the downward toilet bowl spiral of modern times.  Ask how you feel when the media uses fear to increase its ratings and profits.  We can still push the “OFF” button.  

All New Moons signal inner events in our minds: new ideas like pebbles dropped into a pond.  If we’re still and observant, we can see the ripples that form.  Create a calm place for yourself Tuesday afternoon/evening and experience the expanding inner ocean.  The optimal experience might be from a mountaintop hot tub looking out over the ocean in the distance with the wind rustling the trees with crisp unpolluted air.  If your mountaintop is unavailable just now, a candlelit bath with musical favorites playing will do nicely.  The important elements are water and peaceful solitude.

We first enter the waves Saturday night as the Sun enters Pisces and we’re swimming in the deep by midday on Sunday when the Sun aligns with Neptune.  Go for the good stuff.  Enjoy music and be with a joyous crowd if you can.  The highs are higher and the lows are lower this weekend.  But we still haven’t reached full immersion yet.  The Moon is in cool Aquarius Sunday and into Monday so our inner bird watcher can observe and keep some distance.  This may be the best time to observe how your mental food affects you.

We have this contemplative mood Sunday and Monday, but expect that to change Tuesday morning at 9:31am/12:31pm when the Moon enters Pisces and moves to join the Sun and Neptune at the New Moon at 2:35pm/5:35pm. This is the first Pisces New Moon with Neptune in Pisces since the 1840’s.

On Wednesday the Pisces Moon goes Void at 6:24pm/9:24pm aligned with Mercury moving to oppose Mars.  By now many of us will have enough “sensitivity” and be snapping at those who irritate us.  This may be a healthy defense mechanism to create some breathing room, but there may also be a more than a few princesses wrestling with peas.  Give each other space and grace this afternoon.  Give and ye shall receive.  All this Neptune/Pisces energy strips away a layer of our shell leaving us tender and feeling exposed – which we are.

This Void Moon period extends 24 hours until the Moon enters Aries at 6:48pm/9:48pm on Thursday.  We’re still a bit zappy snappy with Mercury exactly opposing Mars early Thursday morning.  Remember Mars is still retrograde and impulsive aggression is likely to come back and bite.  During this long Void Moon period, don’t take anything too seriously.  This is a day to coast even if the road is bumpy.

Friday morning the Moon gives us an early foreshadowing of June’s Uranus - Pluto square as she aligns with Uranus and then squares Pluto six hours later at midday.  We may feel like a mouse caught in an elephant stampede, dodging and weaving, and definitely not in control.  On the other hand, the Aries Moon brings quick reflexes and recovery.  

When the Sun connects with Jupiter on Saturday hidden financial opportunities may be available, but you have to dig a little.  This Sun – Jupiter energy caps off what has been a religious theme all this week as the Sun’s connections moved from Neptune to Jupiter.  Both Neptune and Jupiter operate to expand our POV to connect with greater worlds outside our personal life, Neptune through magic and mystery and Jupiter through social institutions like established religion.  Jupiter can help us ground Neptune’s subtle and mystical flashes by bringing us back to earth from his Taurus position. 

Long Term

Mars retro from January 23, 2012 to April 13, 2012

In Virgo, expect questions about jobs and dharma. How do we create meaningful work for skilled labor whose jobs have shifted elsewhere? It’s not possible to re-train them all to be knowledge workers or web programmers. The broad question is about the work ethic in an economy becoming automated. There isn’t 40 hours of work for all who want it; we only need so many Wal-Mart greeters. We can’t continue a consumer based economy without destroying our planet, so making more cheap replaceable goods is no answer. This Mars retrograde period in Virgo is an ideal time to review how we use resources including ourselves.

Expect a military retrenchment and/or re-structuring. France is making noise about pulling out of Afghanistan. Perhaps the U.S. can admit defeat, withdraw, and stop the waste of “blood and treasure”.

Personally, it’s time suited to re-activating your gym membership and actually using it. Review and revise your diet and food sources. Look for a surge in micro farming and a desire for local produce.

Neptune in Pisces February 3, 2012 to January 26, 2026

None of us have lived under Neptune in Pisces except for a brief taste last year from April 4 through August 4. Neptune was in Pisces last time in the mid-nineteenth century (April 1847), just after being discovered astronomically in 1846, and remained there until February 1862. That period included the Irish Potato Famine, major trans-Atlantic immigration, the U.S. Civil War, and wagon trains west.

Each planet has a sign or signs where their energy flows freely and naturally. Mars is home in Aries for example as he was last spring during the political explosions in the Middle East. Neptune’s home is Pisces, land of dreams, music, karma, mass-media. Pisces is about the loss of boundaries as when we merge with one another into a group mind or shared experience. It’s about the assumed realities we “stand” on. The Pisces symbol is 2 fishes swimming in opposite directions but still touching each other. Consider the dividing line between air and water. You see it all the time on nature shows. Depending on your angle either world can be invisible hidden behind a mirror surface, but if the water surface is still the depths can be glimpsed. When Neptune/Pisces is activated new depths are revealed, then hidden, then perhaps revealed again in a slightly different form. Our grasp on consensus reality is loosened and we may come to understand a larger unifying magical reality of which day-to-day is just one aspect.

Individually, Pisces is our land of dreams, music, and magic. With Neptune in Pisces we can expect more of those multi-leveled dreams where you wake up only to be in another dream and when returning to waking life, it seems unreal. We have more power over our co-created reality now and that comes with greater responsibility to imagine creatively and positively.

Telepathy may become commonplace over this 14 year Neptune home stand. The Large Hadron Collider may give proof of the Higgs Boson particle which in turn would support a unifying theory of the laws of the universe. Nano technology will become increasingly more widespread. Exploration of the most minute levels of reality will have broad impact on large scale culture.

Uranus Square to Pluto – June 24, 2012 and September 18, 2012 continuing through 2015 and completely over by Feb 2018

More on the Uranus square Pluto in 2012 An Astrologer’s POV. We have entered a historically dynamic and challenging period.

In the Night Sky

The bright object in the Southwest evening sky is Venus, Jupiter is overhead. Mars and Saturn rise late at night and are overhead just before sunrise. Look for the 3 stars in a row overhead late evening. They form Orion’s Belt, and you may be able to see his sword hanging down from the left end of the belt. The famous Orion – Horsehead Nebula is in that belt.

Copyright 2012, Rich Humbert www.celestialweather.com

Turning Points Articles - Celebrities' lives transformed

These are a series of technical articles for students of astrology. However the non-technical reader can skim the astro jargon to see how clearly the astrology shows dramatic change. The first is about Elvis. Elvis was born with Uranus square Pluto, a condition coming for all of us this Spring! Download