Your Milky Way Horoscope Aug. 17-23

Mercury is conjunct Venus on Thursday morning. This should be good news for the stock market because sellers and buyers agree on a price that reflects a decent value (a Venus word). Volume should be up. Venus buyers generally buy to hold, or at least till they have made a profit. The conjunction is in the sign of Virgo, who is usually a very discriminating shopper, so he or she probably has set a limit on how much he’ll pay for a stock. Actually Virgo prefers to work for their money so this conjunction may say something about labor agreements or the unemployment index. See also the Earth sign Grand Trine under Taurus horoscope.

Planets in Late Degrees — What Do They Mean?

Sometimes I refer to planets that are at the very end of a sign as having an extra oomph. It certainly seems like people who have their Sun in the last couple degrees of a sign are all packed and ready to go in this lifetime — meaning that they have an unusual ability that could not have been developed only in this lifetime. Maybe they have spent several lifetimes, in fact, perfecting how to play a violin or mastering the laws of science.
The fact is that the royal fixed star Regulus is believed to be at 29 degrees of Leo and whose prominence in a birth chart promised a life lived among the socially prominent. This only adds another layer of energy to the late degree phenomenon.
So let me lay out some information on what you can expect from seeing a planet in the late degrees of a sign. A strict interpretation of ‘late degrees” means the last degree only. But practically speaking, the last three or four degrees are almost equally potent. If you see a Sun, Midheaven, Part of Fortune, or chart ruler in those degrees, then the career should have a measure of fame. But any planet in a late degree is going to throw more weight than you might otherwise expect from the placement or aspects.

August Astronomy Notes From Around the Local Galaxy

Mars Could Be Between Ice Ages
After examining stunning high-resolution images taken last year by the Reconnaissance Orbiter, researchers have documented for the first time that ice packs at least 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) thick and perhaps 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) thick existed along Mars’ mid-latitude belt as recently as 100 million years ago. In addition, the team believes other images tell them that glaciers flowed in localized areas in the last 10 to 100 million years - a blink of the eye in Mars’s geological timeline.
Have I Mentioned the Coolest Animated ‘Planetarium’ Online?
For a little astronomy and astrology fun go to Shadow & Substance website. They have the coolest animations of solar and lunar eclipses plus the Perseid meteor showers and Comet Holmes. The website is http://shadowandsubstance.com/. Everything is free; they even have links where you can download the software for an animated image of the night sky from wherever you are located.

Your Milky Way Horoscope Aug. 10-16

A Lunar Eclipse occurs at 2:23 pm EDT Sat. the 16th at 24 degrees Aquarius. It is closely conjunct Neptune and the North Node. This is probably a good time for a film to open, so make a note of which films do so. Aquarius is a techie sign, so there may be some announcement or rollout of more innovations. This is especially true if the said gadget or software breaks down barriers between people in far-flung area of the world. With Neptune there, I would still take any claims made for the gadget with a large grain of salt, as the company may be sugar-coating any bad news. Another possibility is a breakthrough in understanding diabetes (Neptune), with hopes for better control and even a reversal of the condition. Readers with a natal planet within five degrees of 24 degrees Aquarius should clearly feel a boost from this eclipse.

Your Milky Way Horoscope — Aug. 3-9

Hope you enjoyed the fact that we had a Solar Eclipse late last week — at 6:13 am Eastern Daylight Time Aug. 1, 2008, at 9 degrees Leo. I will do another post with something about eclipses in each sign and whether it contacts (conjuncts) a planet in your own chart. For now, it is enough to know that this eclipse is in Leo, and will probably affect both Pres. Bush (ascendant Leo) and Barack Obama (Sun-sign Leo). In addition, the United States’ North Node is at 7 degrees Leo — so we will all feel some effect from this eclipse.

The Sabian symbol for the eclipse degree (from Dane Rudhyar) is: “Early morning dew sparkles as sunlight floods the field; the exalted feeling that rises w/in the soul of the individual who has successfully passed thru the long night which has tested his strength and his faith”. In general, many large companies have incorporation dates near the date of an eclipse. They are hit hard tho by negative transits over those “birth charts”. But in an election year, one should pay particular attention to the statements made by candidates within three to six weeks of an eclipse. The same goes for debates or speeches or other significant campaign events like endorsements.

Eclipses are neither good nor bad by themselves, but they tend to boost those who have been working long and hard toward a goal — and tear down those who have been breaking rules and generally lining their own pockets at the expense of millions of others.