Saturn: Planet of Destiny
Issue 20 Volume 8          12 May 2025

Astrology Monday: Just the facts! 
Sergeant Joe Friday from the hit 1960s cop show Dragnet on American television always insisted on simple truths and pithy statements. Here’s this week’s boiled down astrological forecast:

12 May — Full Moon in Scorpio: 
Allow your emotions to turn inward where your needs are not being met. This is where you hold a falsehood about who you are AND a tendency to create château en Espagne: castles in the air. Stay on the ground and see through the illusion.
All week — Saturn squaring Jupiter in Gemini:
In Vedic astrology, Saturn causes Jupiter’s cheer and optimism to turn inward and practical. This is not a problem as long as you don’t let pragmatism drain you of your lofty intentions and generosity. Saturn relates to survival; Jupiter encourages revival. Let your zest for life guide practical decisions and necessary choices.
17 May — Moon conjunct retrograde Pluto in Aquarius
Beginning with the Full Moon, this week reveals a transformational possibility around needs. Pay attention to your unfulfilled needs and determine whether they deserve your attention. Depending upon your answer, either let them go or come up with a better plan to fulfil them.
18 May — Sun conjunct Uranus in Taurus
Unexpected events at work or through someone you know is pushing you towards more authentic expression. Don’t think you have reached the end of the road; there is a LOT more of you left to discover. 😉

We do not know if, out on the moons of Saturn, you will meet with good or with evil—or only with ruins a thousand times older than Troy.
~ Arthur Charles Clarke (1917 — 2008); science fiction author including 2001: A Space Odyssey
 

Dear Friend;

Poor Saturn. The most misunderstood of all the planets. Just because he devoured his own children does not mean we should not welcome him as a friend. As one of the most beautiful objects in the sky to amateur and professional astronomers across the globe, who do we have to blame for Saturn’s less than stellar reputation?

The Greeks certainly presented Saturn (Cronus) as a bad boy, a power-hungry titan who devoured his own children as a preemptive measure against a prophecy he would be overthrown by his own son. Not exactly an endearing quality, of course, but the Romans were more appreciative of his proactive nature and gave him the role as god of agriculture, justice, and strength who was said to have ruled over a Golden Age of abundance, prosperity, harmony, and peace. They even had a major gastro-busting and gift-giving festival in December (Saturnalia). Sound familiar? Saturnalia was later appropriated for the birth of Christ by Christians seeking to put an end to paganism in the Roman Empire. 

For hundreds of years, at least from the time of Alexander the Great, there was much commerce and cultural interchange between the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians, and Indians. Their mingling influenced many aspects of astronomical and astrological knowledge. For example, we find many instances in classical texts where it is apparent Greek, Persian, and Indian astrologers exchanged knowledge.

In astrology, Saturn is associated with infrastructure, time, karma, and dissolution. As a symbol of death and the inevitable passage of time, Saturn “devours” everything, even his own children. Nothing with a physical attribute will last forever, not even the Cosmos and certainly not our body born of the elements. This is why the scythe which was a symbol in Roman times of Saturn’s rulership over agriculture later became associated with Death — the ever swinging scythe cuts down the stalks of life with stoic indifference. 

In Vedic astrology, Saturn is the planet of death, time, and the cycle of karma that brings us face-to-face with our destiny. Saturn is the inevitable retribution necessary to rectify the karmic debt delivering its results based upon past thoughts, speech, and deeds. Though, he has gotten a bad reputation because of the trials and tribulation he symbolises, Saturn is always just and the force behind the adage “you reap what you sow” and “what goes ’round comes around.”

Saturn in its fall in Aries
On 25 May, Saturn will cross the threshold from Pisces into Aries. In Vedic astrology, the signs actually take precedence over the planets, so when we consider transits, we must ascertain the sign and its  ruling planet. Aries, ruled by Mars, is fundamentally the sign of the zodiac that relates to the unlimited possibility inherent in the “conscious nothingness” before creation. Through Aries, we envision what is possible and conceive plans to make it happen. As a Mars sign, Aries is bold, courageous, enthusiastic, and focused on the goal. It is a fire sign that represents the spark of creation erupting from Stillness and exploding outward in a Play of Consciousness.

Saturn, however, is in its fall in Aries. For more or less the next three years, Saturn’s power as an aspect within us will struggle to find security in the unlimited expanse of Aries. Saturn is structure, security, borders, and pragmatism. In the expansiveness of Aries, it becomes disoriented, uncomfortable, and even fearful. Even in terms of the Earth there may be an uptick in earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and other natural disaster relating to the earth element.

What to do?
For starters, you might fire up the grill, invite some friends over, and have a modern day Saturnalia celebration. This may appease Saturn and get him on your side. Of course, Rome did fall… 

Better, yet, seek to understand the greatness of your own Saturn and appease this aspect of yourself through concrete steps and strong effort. Saturn symbolises Shiva, the aspect of God manifesting truth, authenticity, and identity with the immortal Self. When our Saturn is vibrant and pulsating with duty, dispassion, and dharma, we are organised, objective, embrace routine as medicine, and put forth our best efforts. Now is the time to strengthen the foundation of your physical body and mind and tend heroically to your external affairs and circumstances. Your obligations will one day be seen as your treasure.

We’ll chat more about Saturn in Aries. Stay tuned.

 🤗

David 🔆

astrologyofjoy.com


In this issue:

• Planning forecast and weekly reminder
• Hero’s Journey: Free App
•  

Moon Planner
Has the Moon got you hurried and harried?
 

No worries! The Moon represents your capacity to receive, a feminine quality, and recognising the resources you have available to fulfil your emotional needs.  Too often, we get distracted with what is not ours to have and miss out on the available opportunity, experiencing disappointment and disillusionment… or worse, we become like the poor fellow in the photo.  

Full Moon in Scorpio:
Monday, 12 May: Full Moon in Scorpio (16:58 GMT)
Full moons magnify your emotional mind, good or bad. There is science behind this: just as full moons create higher than usual tides on earth, so there is a natural draw of fluids into your brain. Full moons are a great opportunity to access profound emotions bringing you deeper insights and intuition.

The Scorpio Full Moon can help you understand how your emotional tendencies colour your perception and thus, your world view. Emotions are aspects of our personality which make the experience of life more enjoyable. However, as we witness with so many of the mindless rants in public and across social media, when we allow emotions to hijack our logic and reason, common sense takes a vacation. 

Emotions are not meant to destroy life; they are part of nature’s way of enhancing life. Yet, every day our emotions rain destruction upon ourselves and others because we allow the survival mechanism to influence their expression. Contrary to popular opinion, life is not about “me”; life is a multiplayer game where the only rule is to express yourself as a piece of the Cosmos. This is not selfish; this is about experiencing yourself as a part of everything else.

The bright half of the moon cycle is an opportunity to expand your capacity for emotional expression in a healthy way using the resources available to you. During the dark half, there is a natural drawing down of the attention which is useful for rexamining what you consider is a need. is it a valid need or is it an expression of your fear that seeks survival above all else. Ask yourself what is it that thinks it needs to survive even when you are in the quiet of your home in bed or at the dinner table…

Scorpio is the sign of transformation. Allow it’s energy to power-wash away your false needs and you will step into a you that is more real, more vibrant, and more beneficial to the world and yourself.

Mother’s milk from mother Moon: Gurumayi of the Siddha lineage once shared with us two practical ways to harness the full moon energy. The first is to simply go somewhere quiet and gaze at the beauty of the full moon for an extended time paying close attention to your feelings. Another is to leave milk in a clear, covered glass overnight in a window sill where it will catch the full moon’s rays. In the morning, consume the milk. Milk easily absorbs the positive energy around it as well as neutralise negative energy and is used to purify jewellery of negative energies or unhelpful karmas that may be associated with the jewellery maker or previous owners. You can also do this as a jewellery rejuvenator every six months or so to keep your jewellery energetically fresh. It is best to use organic whole milk, raw if possible.

Put astrology aside for a moment: transformation begins with your willingness to change. Retrograde Pluto in Aquarius thru 13 October helps you push the reset button. Where in life do YOU want to reinvent yourself?

This week’s Sun-sign conundrum:

Transformation Special! If you would like to go deeper into the potential and possibility of the next three months for you personally, I am offering an hourly special: £45/hr online; audio recorded. Contact me here.

Pluto Retrograde: A Second Chance
Issue 19 Volume 8          5 May 2025

“Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.”
~ Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1694 – 1778), French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, abolitionist; advocate of freedom of speech and separation of church and state.
 

Dear Friend;

I woke up this morning in the same room, the same flat, the same town, the same country — but it was also the ‘first time’ I did so. And this made all the difference…

Do you ever feel you complicate your life beyond measure? Do you sometimes look back and wonder when it was that you left the Highway of Joy and found yourself on a meandering road filled with potholes and scattered with boulders and debris? Could it simply be a matter of perception?

Pluto can help you change the prescription of your perception. It pushes you to experience your highest aspiration — to experience your infinite nature. Pluto means transformation and its retrograde status in Aquarius now through 13 October is an opportunity to reinvent yourself along your highest potential and your most cherished dreams. It’s a “second chance” you won’t want to miss and only your contrived opinions and self-defeating notions stand in the way.

Opinions are unique to human beings. In the madness of opinion, however, we confuse what we think is real for what is and thus, we become the agent of our own undoing and the suffering of others. Skilful driving will get you back on the highway, but first you need to stop and survey the road ahead as it is, then decide what you can do with the resources you have. No benefit to “what if” your life away, but please remember the wise words Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Hamlet was right: thinking shape’s our perception of reality. What we call the world is simply a play of light and shadow picked up by light sensitive cells in our eyes and filtered through the brain where it is compared to past experience. Considering we not only have experiences in this life tucked away but countless experiences from innumerable lifetimes lodged in our subconscious, we have quite an extensive file our brain can access. This file is fine as a tool of survival, a mechanism the brain evolved because it got tired of being devoured by sabretooths and Pleistocene wolves, but how many of us need to call upon this tool in our everyday lives?

The survival brain has its use, but somewhere in our childhood we set it on automatic and forgot to take back control. For an observer detached from the consequences, it can appear as if we are intentionally choosing to self-sabotage our life through questionable choices. It’s not intentional, of course, but our “reshaping” of reality can alter the course of life in tragic ways.

Opinions are the castle we hide behind and a primary reason our life is the way it is. Untold amounts of energy and resources are expended in dead-ends and falsehoods. Still, we are going to make mistakes. What can we do if we find ourself in an intolerable situation? Ekhart Tolle addressed this situation in his bestseller, the Power of Now:

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your “here and now” intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Pluto in Aquarius is asking you to rework your life in specific areas. Consult the “noteworthy notes” section below to discover these areas relative to your Sun sign. Then sit quietly. Chances are, you have already felt the stirring of some of these needing to be addressed, of a change you need to embrace so that transformation can begin. 

Now’s the time to rework, redo, and reinvent… it’s the prescription that will make all the difference!

 🤗

David 🔆

astrologyofjoy.com


In this issue:

• Weekly Planning Forecast
• Hero’s Journey: Free App

This week’s noteworthy notes:
Pluto is retrograde in Aquarius for about 5 months (thru 13 October). Retrograde planets are opportunities to redo, rehash, and recreate. Pluto in Aquarius urges you to reinvent yourself according to your highest aspirations. What is it you want? What is it you really want? Be warned: Pluto does not listen to beggars; assume your rightful seat on the throne as a child of God and what is yours will be yours.

Pluto Special! If you would like to go deeper and detail the potential and possibility of the next five months for you personally, I am offering an hourly special: £45/hr online; audio recorded. Contact me here.

Purpose and Meaning
Issue 18 Volume 8          28 April 2025

Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world. Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside. Self-Realization is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage”.
~~ Ramana Maharshi (1879—1950), one of modern India’s greatest sages

© 1999 Charles Schultz (1922 — 2000); American cartoonist, creator of one of the world’s most popular comic strips, Peanuts
 

Dear Friend;

Many of you come to astrology seeking answers to the purpose and meaning of your life… yet, there is no purpose to life!!

Your task is to simply be yourself. This is all life is about. Surprised? Shocked? Depressed? Perhaps you feel relief from all those years of seeking purpose and meaning. If so, count yourself as one of the lucky ones for now you can go about the business of actually living your life as Life intended – joyful, exuberant, and fulfilled.

Vedic astrology offers a simple path to living joyfully: in whatever sign and house your Rahu (North node) is located, make those areas of your life shine like the brightest star. As you do this, the constrictions you placed upon yourself lifetimes ago (Ketu — South node) begin to dissolve. An enlightened you is the you who remains after the conditioned mind has been bathed in the waters of authenticity — an authenticity found through Rahu. As I always remind you when you have a reading with me, your Rahu is the door through which everything you seek will be found.

But what about “purpose”? Don’t we need one?

The spiritually wise tell us that “it is not what you do, but how you do it.” Do you live your life as an expression of love, bliss, and joy? If yes, then you need no purpose to your life; you are living it. Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip once pondered, “My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?” ☺️

The reason we seek purpose in life is simply because we are not happy. Yet, happiness is not even what we really seek. Happiness arises when a desire is fulfilled which brings on a pleasurable satiation, but just like leaving the table satisfied and three hours later you are raiding the fridge, there is always another desire waiting in the queue for its chance to agitate your mind. Can we call such a life living?

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev puts it this way: “Your experience of life itself has not become grand and worthwhile enough. That is why you are trying to find a meaning. If just sitting here and breathing was ecstatic for you, you wouldn’t ask, ‘What is the purpose of life?’” 

Though usually associated with John Lennon of the Beatles, it was cartoonist Allen Saunders who wrote in 1957, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” So true! We are so busy doing, doing, doing and thinking, thinking, thinking, we miss out on the bounty of life all around us and within us in every moment. Indeed, we ARE Life!

Surveys taken from people in hospice care during the waning days of their lives reveal overwhelmingly a regret of not having taken “the other road”. According to Bronnie Ware, a palliative nurse who wrote The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (2011), the most common regret was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, rather than the life others expected of me.” I hear this in many of my astrology sessions along with her other four:

1. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard ( i.e., missing their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship due to their focus on work).
2. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings (i.e., realising too late the importance of expressing their love in close relationships).
3. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends (i.e., letting friendships slip by due to the demands of their busy lives).
4. I wish I had let myself be happier (i.e., they had stayed stuck in old thought patterns and habits and missed out on the joy in front of them).

In one of the world’s great epics from Vedic India, the Mahabharata , the protagonist, Yudhishthira, is asked many questions by his father disguised as the Lord of Death to test his understanding of dharma, right action. One of the questions he asks is this: What is the greatest mystery? Yudhishthira correctly answers, “Though he is surrounded by death, the greatest mystery is that man believes he will live forever.”

Life is short. Let us not leave this world with regrets, but understand, too, that the only way to fully do this is by removing the limitations you have placed upon yourself as an individual. As an individual, how can you leave this world without regrets for will there not always be a “road not taken”? The key, then, is to realise your unbounded nature which has no limitation. Perhaps more than he realised, astronomer Carl Sagan once observed, ” The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

Seeking purpose is not the answer. We only seek purpose and meaning because we forgot who we are and where we came from; all we need do is remember. Seek, instead, your authentic nature. You’ll know you have found it when the question of purpose never arises, and if, by chance, someone should ask, you’ll simply smile and ask them back, “Does the apple tree need a purpose to blossom? Does the wind need a purpose to blow? Does a star need a purpose to twinkle?”

There is no purpose, but there is Love, the fabric of Life… what more do we need?

 🤗

David 🔆

astrologyofjoy.com

In this issue:

• Weekly Planning Forecast
• Eye on the Globe
• Hero’s Journey: Free App

Astrology of the World
It can be useful to examine world events from the perspective of the astrology of the players involved, not just in understanding the forces behind occurrences, but in understanding the tendencies of our own mind. Human beings have similar inner challenges which mundane astrology can help us understand…

Disclaimer: I hold no party affiliation. I aim to offer you an unbiased perspective of world events through the lens of archaeology, astrology, and yoga.

Global Revolution Special! If you would like to go over in detail the potential and possibility of the next six months for you personally, I am offering an hourly special on Varshaphala readings (in-depth look at current period): £45/hr online; audio recorded. Contact me here.

Upholding the Feminine
Issue 16 Volume 8          21 April 2025

I tell you in very truth, Man is the Son of the Earthly Mother, and from her did the Son of Man receive his whole body, even as the body of the newborn babe is born of the womb of his mother. I tell you truly, you are one with the Earthly Mother; she is in you, and you in her. Of her were you born, in her do you live, and to her shall you return again. Keep, therefore, her laws, for none can live long, neither be happy, but he who honors his Earthly Mother and does her laws.
~~ Jesus of Nazareth, Book One, The Essene Gospel of Peace

Justice to the third gender is good but sensitivities of ladies and gentlemen have to be taken into account.
~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, self-realised yogi, humanitarian, NYT bestselling author

Dear Friend;

Easter Sunday
As I look out my window towards the east, the Sun rises in a purple field of clouds, a shaft of golden light piercing through as if God had handed Gustave Doré the task of etching such a beautiful scene. It’s Easter Sunday as I write and rare it is that both the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church celebrate on the same Sunday. On this Easter of 2025, both the Julien and Gregorian calendars align and, for today anyway, the Great Schism of 1054 which divided the Christian Church is healed. 

A Victory for Girls, Women, and Mothers
April 16 was a monumental day for women. Though technically applicable only to the United Kingdom, the unanimous ruling by five UK Supreme Court justices that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act is based on biological sex, not gender identity, was undoubtedly a “market correction” against years-long attempts to “masculinise” the feminine and is no doubt reverberating around the world. Of course, while some are celebrating the “return of common sense”, others are lamenting the decision as a setback and already are plotting to undermine the ruling as evidenced by leaked Whatsapp messages from Labour party ministers. 

Nevertheless, the astrology on April 16 favoured the feminine. Mother Moon was in Sagittarius receiving a strong aspect from wise Jupiter, the planet of equal justice, unconditional Love, and legal decisions. Feminine Venus was exalted in Pisces, a sign associated with the feminine element, water, and the feminine qualities of compassion and empathy. Even androgynous Mercury who takes on the qualities of whoever it associates was only .36 of a degree from Neptune, a planet often considered feminine through its esoteric and ethereal qualities and the one who pushes us (or society) towards unconditional love.

Yet, judging by the large protests occurring in London as I write this, some folks are not happy with the ruling. Do they really know why they are unhappy? 🤔

A strong sense of being man or woman means that you are too identified with your reproductive organs. If you must be identified with some part of your body, try the brains. It could work out better for you and a more healthy social fabric could be woven. ~ Sadhguru

Wise men and women who have reached the ultimate expression of human potential, those exalted souls who carried names like Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Lalleshwari, Ramakrishna, Rumi, Ram Tirtha, Black Elk, St Teresa of Avila, Meister Ekhart, Milarepa, Mirabai, Don Juan, Janeshwahr, Sadhguru, Gurumayi, Muktananda, Mother Meera, and on and on… they all spoke and speak of transcending one’s limited identity, that it is our attachment to our body and personality that is in fact, the root of our suffering. They taught that discarding one’s limited identity means letting go limitations like “I am a man. I am a woman.” These are all aspects of who we are not… they are a role we play and a role we should play well, but like an actor on the stage, it is not who we are.

Have you noticed when you are in a state of great joy, love, or ecstasy, your limited identity naturally dissolves into the Ocean of Presence alive only in the present moment? Our limitations leave without even a whisper because, in truth, our limited identity is a fabrication of the mind and holds no reality beyond what our conditioned past gives it. Consider a time when you were filled with the exuberance of simply being alive. I speak not of happiness, for happiness is born from a desire fulfilled. I speak of the sublime stillness inside you that can no longer contain itself and finally explodes in complete abandon. In that experience, you are no longer a limited being. Man, woman, rich, poor, smart, stupid… in such moments, you have unlocked the cage of your own doing and stepped into freedom, free to soar with the Sun where even Icarus could not. 

Happy Easter.

 🤗

David 🔆

astrologyofjoy.com


In this issue:

• Weekly Planning Forecast
• Eye on the Globe
• Hero’s Journey: Free App

Saturn! Neptune! Revolution Special! If you would like to go over in detail the potential and possibility of the next six months for you personally, I am offering an hourly special: £45/hr online; audio recorded. Contact me here.