by Bruce Scofield

There are a number of themes that I'd like to keep cycling through this column. Humor, current planetary events and interesting techniques are some of them. Another is controversy. If you find some of the material in this month's column gets you excited or makes you feel uncomfortable, great! You'll have an excuse to examine the issues and figure out why you are so touchy. By the way, what I write is not necessarily what believe.

Well, my car did it for me again! Just as I was reaching an peak of emotional tension last month the good ol' Datsun blew a head gasket. The symbolism was quite interesting. Transiting Pluto in Scorpio (water) and Mars in Leo (fire) were in square, simultaneously aspecting my natal Mercury. What happened in the car was that water from the cooling system was leaking into a cylinder and being blown out the exhaust (Pluto). Water was going where there should be fire! I wound up getting a valve job and not having a car for two weeks. Right after that the tail pipe broke off -- more Pluto problems. Maybe I should write a car repair book on "how to handle your Pluto problems." Maybe I'm in some sort of twisted denial about how I feel -- but at least I'm not getting sick. My car does it all for me and does it well.

*****

The other day while browsing through the magazines at the local newsstand I came upon a copy of a new astrological magazine. It's called "The Martian Astrologer" it comes out twice a year, once when the Sun is in Aries and again when it is in Scorpio. The theme for this particular issue was "The Masculine Face of Astrology" and on the cover was the profile of a Trojan warrior with a velociraptor behind him. I thought I'd do a short review of its contents for those of you who need to get in touch with this sort of thing.

The lead article is titled "Sex and Power: the Foundations of Reality," by Richard Andrew Wilson. Wilson argues that since we are biological creatures, and have been for billions of years, our construction of reality should be built around that fact. What's wrong with feminist thought, he says, is that it fails to account for the absolute priority of the reproductive imperative. All of civilization as we know it exists because the sex drive (and its necessary offshoots like power, ie. pecking order posi_tion to insure that only the top gorilla gets to reproduce) has been harnessed and regulated by social rules, ethics, religion, etc. It's nice to think that we can become enlightened and make the world a nicer place, but in most cases, this means bucking the biological reproductive forces within us. These forces don't go away quietly, however, they will eventually displace themselves to some other level. His conclusion is that we should begin with the assumption that we are domesticated primates and make sex much less of a taboo -- defuse it, so to speak. Among other things, such a shift would completely undermine the advertising industry and change the way television is funded, which in turn would make PBS-like programming the norm.

Another article is "The Part of the Soldier of Fortune," by Bucky Zolar. Apparently, this is a lost part that was used by a particularly Uranian Roman legion composed of citizen astrologers. The part is calculated in the following way: Mars + Part of Fortune - Sun. I calculated this part for my own chart and found that the resulting zodiacal degree coincided with important personal points in the charts of my most opportunistic friends. This is certainly a technique that I will want to incorporate into my astrological practice.

"Are the Asteroids Really Necessary"? by Jerry Hammer argues that all those asteroids with female names are more than we need and more than most can handle when reading a chart. One of his main points has to do with the issue of "sharpness of definition," that astrologers are too prone to assume an asteroid is behind a character trait or event even when such things are obviously shown by configurations involving the standard plane_tary array. For him, blur vrs. distinction, merging vrs. separation, is really the big issue between females and males, and advocates of more asteroids, who are almost always female, are making a big mess of things and upsetting an existing balance. In his article, Hammer also says that with the asteroids we now have more symbols for the purely feminine than those for the masculine, assuming that Saturn, Neptune and Pluto are neuter. In conclusion, he suggests we all work on better understanding these outer planets.

The article by George Demos on the "Mythology and Use of the Martian Moons" was quite good. In it the attributes of the two moons are listed along with some useful interpretations based on the myths. The author says an important part of the male experience has to do with getting in touch with fear and terror, the wondrous emotions for which these two moons are named. According to the author, a more sophisticated masculine energy is what our planet needs now. Both men and women need to move their masculinity beyond the archetypes of Mars and the Sun and seek the various warrior types within them by confronting and wrestling with the dark side ruled by these moons. The author's philosophical position is that since the dark side is actually the midpoint between the masculine and the feminine, it must the bridge to union of the sexes. This is where neither male nor female exists and the Martian moons offer the most direct way to access this level of being.

The lead article was entitled "The Feminist Myth of History" written by Eric Zeal. In it he attacks the notion that until about 5,000 years ago, people on this planet were followers of the goddess and that female fertility was worshiped as a religion. The fact that this notion is based on comparatively few archaeological finds is indeed an arguable point. He suggests that if it were not for the Venus of Willendorf (a small sculpture of a full-figured woman dated to around 12,000 BC) these would-be feminist historians wouldn't have a case. He seems astonished that 40,000 years of history are being interpreted from a tiny clay fat lady. His conclusion is that most likely we'll never know what went on back then so why speculate. "Generalities can be misleading" he says, "all we know for sure is that people were thinking about fertility, and we're still doing that today."

Finally, I also enjoyed the daily forecast written by Aztec de Mars. After an overview of the month's main configurations, he offers some choice bits of advice. His views on the current Saturn/Pluto square I found most interesting. According to him, this configuration implies the need to practice emotional repression. It's through the loss of control over our emotions that things go wrong. He suggests that we all obey the call of this configuration and wait it out like a stoic. If somebody else has to feel what's going on, that's too bad for them. Maybe they should get an old car. Other columns in the magazine include "Transits with Teeth" and "The Plutonian Observer" by Brute del Sotano. Overall, an interesting magazine indeed.

*****

I think one of the most interesting planetary configurations of the year will occur in late October. With Mercury stationing very close to the most recent station of Pluto, and Mars coming up on it a few days later, all hell should break loose in places where such an event is waiting to happen. I suspect the world economic balance will go kaplooey and maybe all these little dirty wars will escalate to the point where the big guns have to go in. On the bright side of a dark alignment, maybe some great archaeological finds will be made or publicized. What a year it's been so far and there's much more to go. I'd say Bill Clinton, who will feel this alignment square his Sun will have more than a few tough choices to make.

Last night I was reading "Magical Blend" magazine, and it occurred to me (for the upteenth time) how Saturnian astrology really is. Compared to Terrence McKenna's bizarre ideas about time and fractals, we astrologers are plodders still trying to figure out what to do with an ancient technology. The majority of the field is just catching up with the pop psychology of the previous decade. Also, most astrologers don't keep up with the other sciences so our subject exists in a vacuum and we are out of the loop. So why do astrologers think that they and their subject is ruled by Uranus? Because they as a group are outsiders and astrology is rejected by consensus reality. This sounds like social failure to me. Only when astrologers get inside the Saturnian establishment will astrology be seen for what it really is, something definitely in the league of fractals, the holographic universe, and morpho-genetic thought.

*****

Now that I've raised the issue of how astrologers compare with other so-called "new age" types, I will enter the forbidden zone and confront the controversial issues of astrological testing and certification. (I can hear the moans and insults already!)

Today in astrology anyone can hang up a shingle and charge money for readings. I can't tell you how many times some student or friend of mine did just that. Most of them gave it up after a few months or so, but during that time they attempted to do readings for clients who probably didn't know much about the subject and were therefore incapable of making a judgment about what they were paying for. The reputation of astrology and all astrologers is affected by these situations, sometimes favorably, but probably more often unfavorably. As a full-time practitioner I know that perhaps only 5% of the general population is going to consider what I do a serious profession. A much, much higher percentage will pay good money for psychotherapy. The psycho_therapists, with almost no exceptions, will not refer their patients to an astrologer. This is probably because unless they know one personally, they have no idea what to expect because there is no way to judge competency. More often it's because they think astrology is either bunk or dangerous. On the other hand, I occasionally suggest that a client go to a psychotherapist. This is not fair. How can we expect to make a decent living as as_trologers if we don't get respect from practitioners in related fields? If we want to be professional, maybe we should look at how other professions operate in the world and perhaps emulate them. And that means certification.

There seem to be two main views on astrological professional_ism. One view is that to be a professional, each individual astrologer has to make it the marketplace. Whether or not they pass tests is meaningless, it all comes down to their ability to meet their clients needs, that is to deliver a good product. In this view, the marketplace will quickly bring the pretenders down and elevate the competent. Now this is a view held by many estab_lished professional astrologers who cringe at the idea of taking a certification test at age 60. By that time they've forgotten how to calculate a chart without help from a computer. So, God forbid, they should re-learn what they once knew, study a few topics they know nothing about and attempt to pass a test. They could even fail! So they say that this would prove nothing, they'd still be great astrologers and still have a huge clien_tele. But others who want in on the action will push their way into the market place with ads and other ways of competing. It could get very confusing to the consumer and not good for astrol_ogy.

Meanwhile, astrology gets more and more commercial. Many who love astrology but don't practice it are busy coming up with products to sell. Ten years ago you were lucky to find a place to buy an astrological calendar. Now you can get personal ones with computer text for each day. If you want astrological jewelry, some new software, one of a thousand new books, or astrological dance lessons, you can find it somewhere! Astrologers advertise everywhere and ads for the 900 phone lines (do you really get to talk to that gypsy-looking girl?) fill up pages in every publica_tion. Astrology as a commercial product has arrived and guess what? With the exception of those within it's walls, it's reputa_tion in the public is probably worse than ever. You don't see lawyers selling little bronze gavels or psychotherapists selling happy face bumper stickers, do you? Let's face it, astrology as a product does nothing for the reputation of the subject with the people who matter. But, and I want to be clear, this doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. It's just tacky.

So the big issue is certification. This is what you get when you pass a test on astrology given by some organization who has decided what you need to know to be an astrologer. (Don't confuse certification with licensing which is when a town or state makes you pay to practice astrology.) What do you get when you pass a test? You get a piece of paper and maybe be added to a list of "qualified" astrologers. The way things are today (in a world that doesn't know that astrologers can be certified) you still have to get out there and promote yourself somehow if you want to work. So it comes down to either "why bother with tests" and let's do our own thing, or "let's do something about making astrology a more respected profession" because trusting the market and the greed-driven economy won't do it. If you choose the first, then you are leaving the field to the more aggressive types, ie. me-first Aries consciousness. If you choose the second you are moving toward building consensus with others, ie. Libra/Aquarian consciousness. This is how I see it and I'm not sure that things will work out OK if we just let them follow their own path. With Saturn in Aquarius, I've been hoping that astrologers (as well as other groups) will police themselves better and maybe get on with the business of being a grown-up subject instead of hiding in the attic. Well, Saturn's almost done with Aquarius. Any big changes in view? The Kepler College in the Northwest is one.

Now I know I've opened a big, hot topic and would like to keep it on the burner. I'd like to bring it to the front now and then and rub salt on it. But before I exit this column I'd like to state for the record that there are good certification tests available to astrologers and I think the NCGR four level test is the best of the bunch. I also want to say that the main obstacle for most people who want to take a certification test is having to cast a chart without a computer. Finally, I say that with a $20 scientific calculator and two trig formulae, it's a piece of cake. You don't need to understand the math, just push the but_tons and get the right numbers for house cusps as accurate as any computer program. Anyone who can push buttons can do it. Maybe I'll include a short "how-to" on rapid manual chart casting for certification tests in a future column -- if there's enough interest.