February 1st, 2012
The trouble with astrology is that it’s primarily, as Rob Hand puts it, a diagnostic tool. Once you’ve figured out your problem (or problems, as the case may be) you’ve still got to deal with it. Oh sure, there’s a whole host of things you can do to alleviate whatever situation you find yourself in and astrology can help you figure out what they might be. Heck, if you’re into that sort of thing you can even go to a Vedic astrologer and get yourself prescribed some remedial measures – wear gemstones, pray to a specific God, what have you. But at the end of the day no astrologer’s going to fix you, because astrology can’t fix you, it’s not what it’s there for. I’m sure this is why Nick Dagan Best created his tagline, “be your own damn guru!”
The point is, at the end of the day it’s on you to walk your path. Ain’t no one gonna fix you but you. Or in my case, me.
I’ve suffered from depression most of my life, and studying my chart combined with a boatload of therapy has left me with the impression that nothing’s going to help me so much as creating some sort of philosophical discipline. Fortunately with Saturn going through my 9th house and Jupiter transiting my Saturn right now I’m in an optimal position to take up some spiritual / philosophical training. My mum (naturally) found this crazy amazing meditation course for me that’s non-secular in origin, been going on for decades all around the world and is just generally pretty fantastic. So I’m three weeks into an eight week course and so far even when I hate it I’m getting results, so I’ve got to say thumbs up.
We’ve been focusing a lot on creating awareness of physical sensations and the breath as a way into the present moment. This stuff isn’t completely unfamiliar to me, I’ve read a few books by Thich Nhat Hanh and been to a couple different Buddhist mediation classes, but practicing every day (or at least trying to!) is a whole other ball of wax. Often it’s really just torturous, to be honest with you. Especially since really what I want is to transcend my problems and difficulties (cue strings) and this practice is about engaging with them openly and honestly. Blech. Seriously, whatever happened to just repressing crap like normal adults? Oh yeah, that’s why I’ve been depressed since I was eleven. FINE. You see how it is, three minutes in my head and I’m dying for a way out. No wonder I watch so much TV…
So anyway, I’m teaching myself to pay attention to the present moment, to be in the now, not the past or future and to concentrate, really concentrate on what’s actually physically happening right this second. We’re asked to approach our meditations with a “child’s mind,” no matter how often we’ve done it to engage each time as if it were the first time. Which is making more and more sense to me, as something I’ve noticed is that whenever I’m with my nephew, Theo, the practice comes naturally. His focus is so intense, so absolute, so genuine and whole that for moments at a time I will forget about everything else but what it takes to roll a train across my leg.
Rumi said (about the Sufi’s), “A short time in the presence of the Friends is better than a hundred years’ sincere, obedient dedication.” I think I know just what he means…
January 21st, 2012
My mother was a hippy, but she denies that, she says, “I never did any drugs!”
To which I invariably reply, “yes, and I spent the first year of my life in a backpack picketing Safeway’s in support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.”
To which she says, “yes, well that proves it – hippies were anti-intellectual and anti-activist! I was definitely not a hippy!”
“Uh huh,” I’ll say, unconvinced, “and we lived in a log cabin for three years that you and dad built with no running hot water or a bathroom!” Not to mention the Volkswagen bus that took us from Seattle to said log cabin in the woods (well, to the little tin house we lived in until the log cabin was built anyway).
This is usually where she starts to look a little uncertain, so I’ll pounce with what is really the showstopper of my argument, wailing, “Mom, we didn’t have a TV until I was FOURTEEN!!!” And then we both fall over laughing. If there was just one thing I could say about my mum it would be that we spend a lot of time laughing (as evidenced by the picture above with my Gramma – guess we both come by that honestly).
Our most significant Astrological stats are that my Moon is conjunct her Sun (at 20 and 19 degrees Libra respectively) and my Ascendant is conjunct her Descendant (at 9 degrees Aquarius). Plus, with Saturn opposing her Sun natally – and hence my Moon as well, I suppose it’s only natural she’d have a Saturn riddled daughter. In short we understand one another pretty well. It wasn’t always like that, of course, with so much Saturn we didn’t make things easy on ourselves or one another for most of my adolescence. But once I became a nanny to twins in my early twenties and got over myself we found each other again. Since then our relationship has been mostly very, very good. Pretty amazing, really.
But aside from the astrology of it all, basically at heart I just really like my mother. Here she is at Thorung La Pass after celebrating her 70th birthday trekking for three weeks in Nepal. Frankly, I feel really lucky to be over forty years old and have a mother I can still look up to and want to emulate whose good opinion of me matters so much. Of course, she’s always telling me to stop needing her approval, she claims she can’t understand why I would even think that matters, and with Saturn going through Libra right now, I have the feeling this might be the year I actually kick that habit. I just hope she’ll be proud of me if I do…
March 18th, 2011
 On the eponymous TV show, Dexter, a serial killer goes into NA to placate his girlfriend who mistakenly believes he’s a heroin addict. Although Dexter’s there under false pretenses, he begins to fall under the sway of the twelve step program and under their watchful guidance he begins to accept who he really is. I’m only through the middle of the second season so I don’t yet know if that works in his favor at the end of the day, but watching it last night at 1:30 in the morning after promising myself all day I would be in bed by 10:00, I found myself wondering if I shouldn’t try a twelve step program myself.
Hello, my name is Wonder, and I’m a TV junkie.
I listened to an MP3 lecture Michael Lutin gave at UAC recently about “The Power of the Sun,” in which he said that the thing you must do when you lose energy is that thing your sun tells you to do as indicated by sign and house position. Which struck me, ’cause it occurs to me that people with 12th house suns like mine need to lose energy in order to gain it. Basically the whole nature of addiction is all bound up in somehow escaping yourself, which is totally a 12th house need. And Neptune, natch, but let’s stick with the 12th house, ’cause it so neatly aligns with my 12 step metaphor.
Anyway, it occurs to me that once again I’m tempted to blame a problem on my chart, but since the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, I can’t do that. I repeat: my name is Wonder, and I’m a TV junkie. This blog is my methadone, my meeting, and the splenda in my decaf. It’s my escape from my escape.
Stay tuned…
March 7th, 2011
It’s almost a year ago that I got the call. I’d been expecting it for a week or so, ever since my sister-in-law told me her doctor had strongly recommended a C-section due to certain complications with her pregnancy. She waited as long as she could, but finally the doctor said it was either the next morning or wait till Friday and he wasn’t entirely sure the baby would wait till Friday. So Julie was calling to tell me she’d made her appointment for the next morning at 9:30 am.
Of course I ran home as fast as I could to pull up the chart. Imagine my horror when I saw that the ruler of the chart would be in detriment afflicted by an opposition from Saturn and in THE. 12TH. HOUSE. It’s in moments like these that I really really doubt my conviction to practice astrology and start to hate the whole thing, ’cause WTF. I mean, what am I supposed to say to Jules? Reschedule? This time doesn’t work for me, your child will be one hot cosmic mess???
In any event I needn’t have worried. There’s astrology, and then there’s life. But to get back to the story, of course, I did tell her – what was I supposed to do? She asked… I got to the hospital at 9:15 and found Jules, my brother (looking more anxious than I’ve ever seen him) and Jules’ sister, Kelly. Jules was holding court in her hospital bed and the ward was super busy, nurses bustling about everywhere. Turns out there were two emergency Cesareans that morning, (which, HELLO! sounded about right according to the chart I’d pulled up for that time…) so Jules had been put on hold for a bit. While we were waiting Jules asked me if I’d looked at the chart. I’m a miserable liar. I told her everything was fine, but if she could wait till after 9:40 it would be better.
My brother blanched – he hates it when I say stuff like that – so I back-pedaled, said, “but you know, that’s just astrology, this is life… ” Still, I was enormously relieved when they didn’t wheel Jules out of the room until 9:30 am and then I was just crossing my fingers for the next forty-five minutes waiting to hear how it went.
 Turns out it went fine.
OK. Better than fine. So good I have to pinch myself sometimes. Due to some complications during the procedure, my nephew was born a little late – so in addition to having all his fingers and toes and a perfect button nose, Theodore Martin was born at 10:08 am with a Gemini ascendant perfectly conjunct his father’s sun.
Can you tell? 10th house Sun in Pisces with Jupiter in Pisces conjunct the chart ruler AND bonifying a Capricorn moon. He’s only my favorite person on the planet.
Can you blame me? LOOK AT THOSE CHEEKS!!!! Sorry for yelling, but I mean, really, LOOK AT THEM!!! Sigh… Anyway, so the moral of the story is there’s astrology and then there’s life. In many ways the former really is simply a tool for measuring the latter, and while it does seem to offer some beguiling hints at ways to cheat, manipulate, or control the latter, the truth is that’s a fool’s game.
Even if you could see everything clearly around door number 3 why would you want to? Life is for living, not controlling.
I attended a lecture at some astrology conference a few years ago and an astrologer (forgive me, I can’t remember who it was) told a story about how he and his wife carefully plotted out the time they would have the C-section for their baby to give her the best birth. Well the day came and, much like the situation with my nephew, there were complications. The child was born at least an hour later – maybe more. And guess what? Her chart was even better than the one her parents had plotted for her.
In Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy), John Lennon sings to his son Sean, “life is just what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” Astrology gives us a great tool for making plans. But sometimes life has other ideas.
And really, sometimes that might actually be for the best…
December 2nd, 2010
I’ve been thinking a lot about the 4th house and family matters lately. With Saturn transiting my Moon which is ruled by Venus (which Pluto is conjunct right now, thank you very much!) which also rules my 4th house, I guess it’s only natural, but I’ve noticed that every time I’m with my family I’m really really happy. It’s an area in my life I’ve worked really hard at (no joke, with Saturn retrograde in my 4th house natally…) and it’s really been paying off lately. Having a brand-new baby nephew hasn’t hurt either…
Tuesday night I trimmed the Christmas tree with my brother and sister-in-law and baby t. It’s the first proper tree the three of us has had as adults, and the truth is we probably wouldn’t be doing it now if it weren’t for little Theo.
Who makes everything better, not just Christmas… but Christmas for sure is WAY more fun with a child. Who knew? It’s like we’re reliving the best times of our childhood whilst we invent his.
 I mean look at him – it’s not like he’s going to remember any of this. But my brother and Jules and I are really super excited about our tree.
Jules really wanted white lights while JP and I would have prefer colored (we all had colored growing up, but Jules always wanted white whilst Jeremy and I are pathologically nostalgic about our childhood Christmas).
Jules won the light fight though, mostly ’cause she’s super organized and on top of it and did all the shopping at Target and JP and I are pretty much just trailing in her wake. Here she is (sorry the pic is so blurry) wrapping the garland around the tree.
Actually, it’s not just my shaky hand and dim light that makes the picture blurry.
 Jules is also just super fast.
 Like a birdie.
 And what do you know, the white lights look really pretty… Something I’m feeling really hard during this Saturn transit is that the past is always there to be remade, recreated, and reinvented. We can rework even the crappiest scenes from our childhood until they help us make sense of who we want to be in such a way we’re grateful for them. In this way every moment is precious and golden, and the ones that come easy are just cake. Gorgeous, Glorious Cake.
 Christmas Future, my Little Chickadees! Always present, never here! I don’t actually know what that last part means, but suddenly I just feel real good and happy…
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remember! you have a future! 
My name is Wonder Bright. I'm an astrologer living in LA. I like stars of all kinds and I'm especially interested in what makes them twinkle.
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12th house 1st step
Hello, my name is Wonder, and I’m a TV junkie.
I listened to an MP3 lecture Michael Lutin gave at UAC recently about “The Power of the Sun,” in which he said that the thing you must do when you lose energy is that thing your sun tells you to do as indicated by sign and house position. Which struck me, ’cause it occurs to me that people with 12th house suns like mine need to lose energy in order to gain it. Basically the whole nature of addiction is all bound up in somehow escaping yourself, which is totally a 12th house need. And Neptune, natch, but let’s stick with the 12th house, ’cause it so neatly aligns with my 12 step metaphor.
Anyway, it occurs to me that once again I’m tempted to blame a problem on my chart, but since the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, I can’t do that. I repeat: my name is Wonder, and I’m a TV junkie. This blog is my methadone, my meeting, and the splenda in my decaf. It’s my escape from my escape.
Stay tuned…