Alex's Asteroid Astrology |

August 13th, 2020 at 09:30am by Alex Miller

Harris Wins Veepstakes

On Tuesday 11 August 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made his long-awaited choice for running mate in the 2020 election: US Senator and former nomination contender Kamala Harris (D-CA). I suggested Harris as a running mate for Biden in my January 2019 profile on her when she announced her candidacy for president, based not so much on astrological analysis as a gut feeling that this would make a winning team.

Harris’ chart shows a clear professional drive for the White House, and the connections between her and Biden suggest she’ll be an asset on the campaign trail, and a worthy successor when the time comes, should they win in November.

August 5th, 2020 at 08:56am by Alex Miller

House Diary: Lammas

[Cover image: The Corn Wheel I made in the early 1990s is still serviceable as the center attraction for the Lammas season, evoking corn, one of the glories of August, as well as anticipating autumn, with its use of Indian corn for the spokes representing the eightfold year.]

Lammas, August 1^st, is the celebration of the First Harvest, that of grains. It takes its name from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning “loaf-mass”, a day when early Christians brought their milled grain and fresh-baked breads to be blessed by the Church. As with so much of Christian lore, the tradition has its roots in prior pagan practice, and Lammas has been honored by nature religions for the first fruits of the earth time out of mind. The earlier pagan term is Lughnasadh (pronounced “loo-nah’-sah”), named for the annual games held in honor of the Celtic deity Lugh (“Loo”), god of light. It was a day for gathering the clans, feasting on the abundant produce, friendly competition, horse trading and “handfasting”, a remarkably sensible mating ritual whereby a couple agrees to cohabit for a year before final vows are exchanged, just to be certain they’re compatible.

Here in the garden it’s been a blisteringly hot and dry summer, which spells trouble for yours truly and the errant well. So far, adhering to a carefully spaced watering schedule utilizing zones, I have averted a second incident of the well running dry, and a few drenching summer thunderstorms have helped. We’re having one of those days as I write, on Lammas Eve, so I’m taking advantage of my break in water drills to start composing this entry.

July 30th, 2020 at 01:50pm by Alex Miller

Aster-Obit: John Lewis

On July 17, 2020 US Representative John Lewis (D-GA), known as “the conscience of the Congress”, passed away at the age of 80. A former associate of Martin Luther King Jr, Lewis was an influential civil rights leader and had served his district as representative for more than thirty years. Lewis, one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington and the last surviving speaker at that rally, was a leader of the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965, which protested suppression of black voting rights, when he was viciously beaten by Alabama State Troopers at the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Members of this same organization now saluted his remains when Lewis’ casket was conveyed across that bridge one final time, as part of a protracted funeral process.

The five-day official commemoration of Lewis’ death focused on Alabama, where he was born; Georgia, where he represented the state’s 5^th district; and Washington DC, where he had served in the House, highlighted in a funeral and lying-in-state at the Capitol Rotunda, first African American to be given that honor.

July 27th, 2020 at 10:18am by Alex Miller

Trump: The Nemesis Dialogues

[For my sixtieth birthday, a bit of mythic whimsy, as I revision Nemesis’ role in Donald Trump’s life and career; all celestial relationships are authentic and reflected in Trump’s chart; events alluded to are accurate, though embellished; reported conversations may or may not have occurred.]

Nemesis pursed her lips as she glanced about her at the droves of celestials lining up in the Hall of Destiny, shuffling and taking their places for Zeus’ final approval of the about-to-be-incarnated’s horoscope as the birth moment approached. Enthroned on his dais, the King of the Gods seemed preternaturally still, even from Nemesis’ vantage point, some ninety degrees away.

She looked again at her traveling companion, standing on the same degree marker; this wouldn’t do at all.

July 20th, 2020 at 11:00am by Alex Miller

Stranger Rings in the Kuiper Belt

Guest blogger Sue Kientz gifts us with some celestial jewelry in the form of her thought-provoking, groundbreaking article on planetary rings in the Kuiper Belt, that icy region past Neptune which may be populated by thousands of dwarf and minor planets. And so, without further ado, here’s Sue!

Saturn’s rings have been explored close-up by robotic spacecraft and found to be small moonlets marshaled into ring shape by nearby moons. Separating the rings are distinct gaps, also made by lunar influences, both examples of how small bodies can be surprisingly influential and in beautiful ways.

This design structure repeats. Saturn is not the only one with rings; Jupiter has gossamer rings as do Uranus and Neptune. Centaur Chariklo and Dwarf Planet Haumea have them. Even the Sun has a huge ring — the main-belt asteroids, corralled by Jupiter and Mars.

So it should not surprise that there is ring-like structure in the Kuiper Belt, itself the Sun’s “outer” ring, maintained by Neptune, but not without gravitational coaxings from Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter. These giants use gravity to “bully” big Dwarf Planets into safe zones where they peacefully orbit. If they stray from these zones, they’re thrown clear of our solar system or pulled inward and broken into asteroids.

July 14th, 2020 at 10:13am by Alex Miller

A Rolling Stone Serves No Time

We last checked in with Trump crony and political adviser Roger Stone eighteen months ago, in January 2019, just after his home was raided by FBI agents, and Stone arrested on seven federal counts of obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering. It’s been a long road for Stone, who was convicted on all counts in November 2019, then sentenced to forty months in prison on February 20, 2020, after William Barr’s Justice Department attempted to intervene and lighten his prison term, prompted by tweets from the President characterizing his friend’s treatment as “horrible and very unfair” and a “miscarriage of justice”.

Stone’s incarceration was due to start July 14, but was superseded when Donald Trump commuted his sentence on Friday, 10 July 2020. Short of a pardon, the commutation means that Roger Stone, for now, remains a convicted felon, but will never serve a day in prison for his crimes.