DEAR LIGHTWORKERS,

Thank goodness it’s June! I have not been a big advocate of astrology — until now. I think that the mechanics of astrology are too complicated for a simple boy from the hills of Kentucky to understand. All those celestial bodies transiting through a bunch of houses in opposition to one another or ascending, descending, eclipsing, and whatnot challenge my remaining gray cells. I strive to describe the dynamics of everyday life in terms of spirituality and metaphysics as simply as I can. I also secretly harbored the notion that, because of the complexity of astrology, astrologers could find whatever they wanted within anyone’s chart. Not any more.

For those of you over the age of 40, you may recall a former comic strip in the US called "Li’l Abner," a hillbilly ostensibly from my native state of Kentucky. One of the characters in the strip had a certain way of looking at people that stunned them. It was called the "double whammy." When another character received a double whammy, he was stopped in his tracks.

I recently got an astrological double whammy. I know that the last few weeks of April—May had very tumultuous astrological effects on many people. I am one of them. My dear friend and PlanetLightworker editor, Sandie Sedgbeer, no small proponent of astrology, convinced me that I should use an astrologer to sort out the chaos that kept cropping up in my life. Well, being a pretty linear person, I decided that I would consult not one, but two, astrologers and compare the readings. The results were quite remarkable.

One of them is a Vedic astrologer who lives in Berkeley, California, and the other a more traditional Western astrologer who lives in San Diego, California. Now, I really don’t have the knowledge base to tell you one way or the other how close they were in terms of their interpretation of chart mechanics. I do know that the major messages each had for me were the same in two respects.

The first was a description (accompanied by celestial mechanical explanations that I did not understand) of the chaos that had and was occurring. The second was a description of what was likely to occur in my life over the next several months. Both of these descriptions were amazingly similar and accurate (at least the part about the recent past — who knows for sure about the future?); so much so, that if they had done this without benefit of the knowledge of astrological principles, I would have thought they had conspired to come to the same conclusions.

What did I learn from this, other than a better understanding of what was and is happening in my life? First, I have a new-found respect for the art and science of astrology. The science part consists of the movements of the stars and planets (plus our sun and moon) and the implications of the different patterns created by them. The art part is how these patterns are conveyed to an individual based on his or her natal or birth chart that predisposes the person to certain events and behaviors as the celestial bodies change their relative positions.

Second, I now understand that my knowing the mechanics is not important. It is the same as taking my car into the shop when it is not running properly. The mechanics do some sort of magic, charge a lot of money, and lo, the car once more runs properly. I don’t know how they did it, and it’s not important to me know. I will continue to use astrologers to help me understand what is happening around me (and inside me as well). I am not going to concern myself with Mars transiting my seventh house in opposition to Pluto. Don’t know what that means (although I will politely listen to my astrologer as if I did know what it means) as a celestial pattern, but you can guess that I will pay attention to its application to me in the here and now, and the imminent future. I found that there is a lot of value for me in astrology. To astrologers everywhere, I apologize for secretly being snide all of these decades about your profession and talent.

To Ms. Sedgbeer, please serve up my crow with béarnaise sauce.

To all of you, enjoy this season of growth for the northern hemisphere, and for our brothers and sisters in the south, the season of rest and recuperation.

Your comments about any "aspect" of PlanetLightworker are always welcome.

In the Light,

Ron McCray
Associate Editor

ron@planetlightworker.com

sandie@planetlightworker.com