Karma is not produced so much by a wrong kind of action as by the type of action which derives from a refusal to perform creative acts, when the need for them had come. Dane Rudhyar

Since Trumps election, the majority of my clients feel agitated, hopeless or haunted by a fuzzy, low-grade anxiety. To say thats understandable is a whopping understatement.

My initial response: Turn off, tune out and drop in. This is a distorted variation of Timothy Learys defining counterculture-era phrase from the 60s: Turn on, tune in, drop out

And heres what I mean:

I no longer hound dog the news, not because Im in denial, but the ongoing clusterfuck is too incestuous, too convoluted to unravel amidst the coming-at-you-every-five-minutes barrage of infoglut. It would take every iota of my psychic force to gain a sliver of objective truth and Ive other shit I want to do.

But this obsessive entanglement is what ensnares most folks: Once online their nervous system is tweaked, twanged and poked like a cyber-driven form of Chinese water torture. And theres a method to the madness.

Big media is complicit with Trump in myriad tacit ways. Trump is the grift that keeps on giving. As some internet advertising maven said once: Anger makes people click. Within our carnival culture, clicking means money.

Trump is one of the angriest human beings on earth (natal Mars in Leo is conjunct a Leo ascendant translated: righteous anger stoked by entitlement and a hybrid form of narcissism that has yet to be properly diagnosed).

And Americans are some of the angriest people on the planet. They are also in the era of the homogenous online hive mind desperate for acknowledgment, for some sense of being a unique individual so its a great match. People get the president they deserve or at the very least the president that mirrors their shadow.

My favorite form of self-torture is to trawl the comments section of any article I come across online. This is akin to flipping the lid up on the American Id.

Should the comments sections be uncensored, like, on Youtube, then OMG turn back! Or brace to be soaked in our cultures kookoo watering hole. The Internet has unleashed a Pandoras pox of rage and spread it virally into everyones home (and head). Historically this is unprecedented. But take heart. Amidst the horrors there are opportunities. Attached to full exposure is the potential for full illumination.

I do occasionally check in with three websites. Democracy Now, The Intercept (though I wish Glenn Greenwald had a mean editor) and a new site Im loving, The Outline (kind of like a non-puerile Gawker with political undertones and smart sardonic reporting). Those three sites give me enough info to have a cursory idea of the State of the Nation.

And then I get on with living.

The Shadow Knows

The mechanism of psychological projection works like this: The unconscious conjures an image related to some unsavory quality within the self and projects that image onto someone (or some condition, political party or ethnic group.) An adversarial relationship is established. The only way free from this position is through recollection. Reabsorption of the projection.

Projections are weird because usually intermixed with the projection is a lot of energy, passion and force. So when thats blasted out and lands on someone or something outside, a huge chunk of ones vitality is lost too.

Self-inquiry facilitates dissolving the realization that the projection is coming from inside ones own home.

After that insight, you can go to work on recollecting. Owning the projection to regain access to the psychic force that went missing. This is what maturation is all about. But with a Trickster like Trump at the helm, its doubly difficult to pause, evaluate and reclaim. But this is a necessary discipline should you wish to drop in on what youre interested in creating in life.

Which is really the point of this post. If you feel you want to do something more than react, rant and re-post articles from the New York Times about Trumps latest outrage, well, start recollecting. That method allows you to turn off and tune out. Youve made a clean break. Now you can DROP IN.

When a projection is owned, the rearrangement within the psyche creates a blank spot or hole within the fabric of ones familiar sense of self. This hole can act as a sort of portal into whatever youre wishing to align with or do or create in your life.

The quirky thing about projections: Not only does the projection rob you of vital force it acts as a distraction a way to avoid engaging with life because, well, Ive got so many fucking things I want to complain about!

When the complaining stops what do you do?

Drop into the hole and see where the portal leads you. If you need assistance book a session with me and well work it through.

You dont need to have all the specifics about what it is youll be involved with (or maybe you do maybe you want to take to the streets and protest, run for political office or just clean out your garage it doesnt matter.) What matters is that youve regained the drive for doing whatever. Youve dropped into your life and out of the swirling, distracting miasma of Trumplandia.

Good luck!

'Turn Off, Tune Out and Drop In'

June 29th, 2017

Its mid-year. How in the hell did that happen? (Time the revelator).

As I noted last year I havent had the time to compile music for a proper mix on Mixcloud. I miss doing that as the process is actually meditative but well, heres a bunch of tunes on Spotify. Ive been spinning this collection since the dawn of 2017. There are some rhyme and reasons to the order and flow though a lot of serendipity too.

Enjoy.

Opening graphic: Toilet Paper, vol. 12 cover by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.

'Mid-2017: Songs for the New Secession'

April 30th, 2017

Paul Horwich, in a long NY Times essay wrote:

The singular achievement of the controversial early 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was to have discerned the true nature of Western philosophy what is special about its problems, where they come from, how they should and should not be addressed, and what can and cannot be accomplished by grappling with them. The uniquely insightful answers provided to these meta-questions are what give his treatments of specific issues within the subject concerning language, experience, knowledge, mathematics, art and religion among them a power of illumination that cannot be found in the work of others.

Wittgenstein isnt an easy immersion, but hes worth your effort because the more you study his philosophy which was actually, in spots, more akin to mysticism the more freedom you might gain as an astrologer.

Like the closet mystic Carl Jung, Wittgenstein knew how to couch his propositions to pass the scrutiny of his peers (well, except for his mentor Bertrand Russell who he drove to fury by disregarding traditional formulations of logic.)

And because of this sketchy dance, between chilly logic and the nimbus of mysticism, I find Wittgenstein to be the most satisfying of linguistic rebels. His mix of the effable with the ineffable mirrors in a direct way how human beings toil with making sense (or a muddle) of astrology. Read more

'Why Astrologers Need to Study Wittgenstein'

March 15th, 2017

The earth is littered with the ruins of empires that believed they were eternal. Camille Paglia

Dead men walking. Women marching. Alternative facts. Reality show presidents. Anti-Christ-Palooza. Terrorists and Tiaras. Bitcoin. Gold coins. NSA. GMOs. WTF.

Signs, symbols, and Zeitgeist stingers. Time traveling omens from Armageddon are the stock and trade of our modern day narrative. The stories and anxieties we lay down and fret about until the Ambien kicks in.

Doom tales monopolize our inner landscape because speeding up to the end means a new beginning is just around the corner. Or over the cliff. Thats one theory. The catch, of course, is the way we resist other narratives. Its wise now to think beyond the parameters of being a garden-variety human being.

This is the nut of the message from the ongoing transits of Neptune and Pluto through the closing section of the zodiac, while Uranus in short fuse Aries keeps broadcasting, Come on! Speed it up. (Or blow it up). Hurry! Go faster (and furiously.)

When food, money, energy and optimism are scarce we become attached to whatever sort of hoard (be it our meager amount in savings or the way Plutocrats hog all the wealth and investments in their seemingly exempt world) weve come to associate with as a means to see us through to the new phase. Or at the meanest level, its outsiders who are closing in on our turf and must be turned away.

So were looping right now. Sort of like the routine animals demonstrate before being eaten by a predator. Youve probably seen videos like this on those nature shows you watch on Youtube. The prey runs around and around in a hysterical circle before the killing bite is administered by the predator. Right?

This entire article is included in the new book Skywriter: Notes on Modern Astrology. Order below!

For the past ten years, Frederick Woodruffs AstroInquiry has become the go-to spot for readers in search of illuminating commentary on astrology, popular culture, spirituality and the pitfalls of New Age charlatanism.

Woodruffs 40-year career as a professional astrologer, artist, and pop-culture critic have honed a perspicacious writer who doesnt pull punches as he explores radical new views on astrology, the shortcomings of New Age magical thinking and the precarious minefield that dots our tech-obsessed cultural landscape.

Thankfully, hes funny and also keen on suggesting creative ways forward for everyone.

And now theres an e-book that collects Woodruffs most popular and provocative articles into one comprehensive and engaging book. You wont want to miss any of them!

This volume includes:

The Truth About Mercury Retrograde Planetary Ennui: The Nostalgia for Samsara and the Outer Planets How To Make Facebook Your Slave and Preserve Your Creative Drive The Power, Beauty, and Wonder of the Horoscopes 12th House Imbeciles at the Gate: How The Internet Destroys Astrology How To Escape From the Torture of Self-Help Hell Depression and the Solar Consciousness Secrets of the Heart: Love is an Action Not A Feeling Create Your Own Archetype & Call It You: An Escape from Evolutionary Astrology Redefining the Oxymoron of Sex and Marriage Death is the New Black How To Write About Astrology (Especially How Not To) Astrology, Ants, Hives, Essence, and Types: A Gurdjieffian View Final Notes About the Life-and-Culture-Changing Uranus-Pluto Square

Order your copy now!

'Outer Planet Transits & Nostalgia for Samsara'

Read the rest here:
Frederick Woodruff * Astrology * Gurdjieff * Fourth Way ...