Brass Rings and Loons ~ March 4, 2004


Today Jupiter and Earth have a close encounter. Can you feel it? It’s that sense of an increasing pressure - the kind of tension that might accompany a developing thunderstorm. Indeed, it is there. Over the next couple of nights you can watch as the Moon closes in on the brilliantly shining planet displaying all its promise and absorb the awesome sight in your very own eyes.


Astrologically, Jupiter portends opportunity, rapid irrational expansion (both good news and bad news), fulfillment of a great wish and Divine Providence of one’s beliefs. In theory, it is like some brass ring dangles ahead as you ride the multicolored carousel of life. If what you have always wanted is there and available, grab it as if there is no tomorrow. It’s not going to be this close again for a while. Jupiter effects last but the wink of an eye. If you’re not ready, oh well.


Suppose you’re one of those (and I know there are many) who do not see the brass ring, don’t know where the carousel is located, nor have a ticket to ride the silly thing. There is another approach. Jupiter is backing up as we see it; also it is in Virgo. You could start by deleting those things that do not work and no longer serve. Let go of what doesn’t feed the plan of life. Sounds easy. It’s not. You first stubbornly want to squeeze every living hope out of it. Pretend it’s the proverbial turnip (or stone); see if there’s blood in it.


Since timing and adherence to planetary patterns creates ease in life, let’s include another one of the big ringed ones also making a spectacle of himself in the night sky - lord Saturn. Saturn turns direct on Sunday the 6th of March (at least on this side of the International Date Line). Promising a return to order, this looks like the stop loss point. At some point, you say, “that’s enough.” This is one of those times. All those things that do not support your mission in life get to leave you alone now.


This prescription will work. Like most medicines it may be hard to swallow. But as soon as the run to the psychic dumping bin is complete, someone will point the way to the carousel, and if you’re lucky, hand you a ticket.


Then what? A few of you wrote in asking me to comment on NASA’s proclamation a few days ago that sufficient water to support life once existed on Mars - so says the Opportunity probe. I have no idea what this might imply. Nor do I talk to Martians anymore. I think they enjoy trying to scare people and that seems to work against psychic well being. Anyway, the late Percival Lowell comes to mind.


Percival came from a wealthy industrialist family in Massachusetts (yep, Lowell). Having the Sun in Pisces (as it is now) and three other planets in Pisces, plus the lofty and philosophical Jupiter in Aquarius, Percy was what I like to call a whack job - a real loon. There are good whack jobs - people with grand ideas that bend the linear view of humanity into an enlightened warp. Then, there are not so great whack jobs. These folks hand out flyers on the street corner telling you of the end of the world from political mismanagement, the Anti-Christ, an asteroid or Planet X catastrophe and offer VIP seats to Hollywood’s latest fear based disaster movie. How can you tell the difference? I’m not really sure. I like to think it has something to do with the look in their eyes, but that’s something the Martians taught me as I recall. Anyway...


Lowell took a huge load of family cash and headed to Arizona. In 1894, near the sleepy town of Flagstaff, he founded Lowell Observatory, Mars Hill and set up a very cool telescope to fulfill his brass ring visions. Lowell was convinced of the presence of water on Mars. His theories were condemned, his optics criticized, and he was known as a bit of a whack job. However, science fiction writers loved him. They took his ideas and scared the crapola out of Earthlings promising attacks from the little green men from Mars. So, time passed - like until 2004. Now we know Lowell was right.


As an aside, Lowell Observatory was the discovery place of Pluto, the confirmation of external galaxies and an expanding universe, and now seeks out solar system debris that could threaten Earth. The observatory is conveniently close to the famous Barringer Meteor Crater near Eagle’s song notorious Winslow, Arizona.


And the rambling, “I know we’ll eventually get there,” Pisces point of all this? Now it’s time to seek those inspired ideas that seem just a little out of focus with the times. Find the greatest, wildest vision you can and bring it down to Earth - and in a good way. I’d like to say, perhaps it’s okay to be a whack job - a good one that is. Like they say, “it takes one to know one.”


Pardon me now, but I gotta go. I have a wagon load of turnips to squeeze.