Hello, Folks.  I wanted to say thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for my recovery from the injuries to my hands.  Though the pain is less due to acupuncture, what I’m left with is a very deep fatigue, and I’m realizing that what I need is a good, long vacation from all this writing. I’m going to be 70 on my next birthday, after all, and I published my first astrology articles more than 40 years ago.  You, my readers, have kept me going all these years, and never more so than in the 3 years Skywriter has been around. Hearing from you directly and having you take part in our continued learning with your comments has been such a great adventure.

I will still be publishing articles regularly through The Mountain  Astrologer and answering reader’s questions about their charts through my Dell Horoscope Advice Column.  To submit a question, send your complete birth information and details about the situation to me via email to ehockaday@dellmagazines.net.  (Your name, birthplace, and current location will not be published.)

If you haven’t followed Skywriter very long, you can download an index of over 560 articles by subject, complete with active links, here: 1-Articles Index Skywriter 7-2011.  OR, see the list of categories on the right hand side of the page.  OR, use the search engine at the top right hand side of the blog.

To see a complete listing of my ebooks, including my Outer Planet Trilogy, see: Order My Books.

• If you’re coming to the United Astrology Congress in New Orleans over Memorial Day Weekend, do come and introduce yourself.  I’ll be speaking there twice and would dearly love to meet you in person.

I’m hoping that after a few months rest I’ll once more get up in the morning eager to write something for you.  There are still lots of topics we haven’t covered. So, it’s arrivederci, not goodbye.   All my best, Donna.

©9-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 One of the ongoing missions of this blog is to spread word of identity theft scams so my readers don’t fall for them. Today I want to mention some astrological transits that might signal vulnerability to identity theft and also to tell you about some inexpensive new ways of protecting yourself. 

A note from Donna Cunningham: Let me start with a brief update on the hand injury that has kept me off the computer all summer. Many thanks to my readers for their prayers, healing thoughts, and suggestions. They have helped me heal and have kept my morale up during this long, slow process. (See Update: I’ve had a lot on my hands! for background.)

I’m beginning to see improvement, slowly. I can bend the fingers in the most injured hand, and, with acupuncture, I’m getting substantial pain relief. I still must limit my time on the computer to two 15-minute periods a day, so forgive me if I cannot answer your e-mails.

(c)8-11 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 Many of you have been writing to ask about my hand problem and why the long absence, so I thought I’d just write a short blog post to bring you up to date. I had two terrible falls in June where I landed on my hands and injured them, though nothing was broken. Then I sprained both wrists trying to compensate for not being able to use my hands. So it’s been a really rough summer, with lots of pain, and I haven’t been able to be on the computer very long at a stretch. 

(c) August 15, 2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 Yesterday’s announcement of the opening of the second Saturn return blog was marred by one small mistake, a typo in the link to the blog. If you didn’t get there yesterday, here’s the correct link: 2nd Saturn Return Blog. I also want to share answers to a couple of questions from the comment section. 

©8-11 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 Were you born sometime between 1951 and 1953, while Saturn was intermittently within an 8° range of a conjunction to Neptune? (For most of you, both Saturn and Neptune are in the sign Libra, but for some Saturn is in Scorpio, though still within 8° of Neptune in Libra.)

If so, your second Saturn return is coming, off and on, between September 2011 and September 2012. Saturn takes about 28-29 years to orbit the Sun and come back to the sign and degree it was when you were born. That’s referred to as a Saturn return. The first return happens in your late 20s, and the second happens between 58-60.

For your particular age group, this may well be a challenging period, because you were born with a mixture of Saturnian and Neptunian qualities, and this is a period when you’ll be reassessing how well they work together.   

Give yourself time to face and address the major issues and life patterns that Saturn-Neptune conjunction has meant over the years, so that this does not have to be a time when they come to a head in a negative way. Instead, you can use it productively to conquer some of your barriers and build a more solid foundation for your senior years. 

Mimi Boothby, CJ Wright, and I have created a new resource, the 2nd Saturn Return Blog. There will be articles, free downloads, and group discussions on that blog to help you understand the issues at stake in this especially intense second Saturn return. As of today, it’s officially open—if you’re in that age group, drop on by.  If you know anyone who fits, pass the word along.   

Note to younger readers: Are you having your FIRST Saturn return? That would be age 28-29, born with Saturn in Libra during 1980-83. The articles on Saturn in Libra will apply to you, and it’s good to know what house is affected.

Otherwise, the rest of this project is not for you because you don’t have Neptune conjunct Saturn. Instread, many of you were born with Pluto conjunct Saturn, no picnic either. Visit http://saturnsisters.com/ with the Saturn Sisters: Sherene Schostak and Stefanie Iris Weiss, resident astrologers. Order a Saturn return report and have a look at their book, Surviving Saturn’s Return.

UPDATE: 10/29/2011.  In case you think you’re facing this life passage alone, I’m delighted to report that we’ve had well over a million page hits on the Second Saturn Return blog already! Now what we need to get the discussion going is for more of you to share your journey by visiting  2nd Saturn Return Blog.

©8-17-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 As my regular readers know,  I’ve injured my hands and have to take it slow with writing, but am filling in with collections  of past posts.  Below is a list of links to articles that have appeared on Skywriter that are meant for professionals or those who hope to become astrologers.

• Q&A: What Professional Astrologers Want to Know
• English For Astrologers–No Astrologese Please
• Astrologers’ Hang-ups about Money—How they Hurt our Clients
• Awful Things Astrologers Say to Clients
• Real World Astrology—Continuing Ed for Professionals
• Tips for Working with Teenagers’ Charts
• Chart Clues to Marriage—Will You or Won’t You?
• More Insights into Healing Grief and Loss
• Horary Happenings—Why I’m a Believer, Not a Practitioner
• Career Quiz—Guess the Chart Placements
• What Planet Rules Mentorship? Saturn or Chiron?

Working with Difficult Transits in a Client’s Chart:

• Facing the Difficult Potentials of a Transit
• Talking to Clients about Difficult Transits–Readers Have Their Say
• Tough Transits: Best Case/Worst Case Scenarios
• Why I Don’t Believe those Scary Predictions
• A Promise Fulfilled: When Transits Echo Natal Aspects
• In the Eye of the Storm—How Outer Planet Transits Work
• Why Transits to the Birth Moon are so Challenging
• How Outer Planet Transits to the Moon Affect Family Life
• Risk Assessment: Observations on Mars Conjunct the Ascendant and Danger
• Transits to the Vocational Houses–Temp Job or Career Departure?
• John Edwards’ Rise and Fall–a Stellium Meltdown
• Catastrophobia: What Causes it and How to Heal it
• What to Tell Astrology Clients about Pluto in Capricorn
• Pluto Problems Got You Perplexed? Here’s What Helps!

Another Link post: Astrological Insights into Family Life

 Readers, did any of these articles speak to situations with clients that have been hard to handle?  Tell us about it in the comment section.

©8-15-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

I’m not in a writing mode while my hands heal, but with Mercury retrograde, I thought I’go back into my blank books and dictate some handwritten articles from months back with voice recognition software. Here are some stories I’d like to see share about the magic of horary astrology. I swear to you that they are 100% true. 

©2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 You know what a piñata is, right? It’s a paper mache thingie filled with candy and other goodies, and at a party, somebody gets blindfolded and whacks away at it. The goodies fly all over and people scramble for them.

 Well, this is a feature for Skywriter in which you’ll get a shower of goodies from time to time that are astrological in nature—sometimes related, sometimes, like today, random. What you get in this series of Cosmic Piñatas are wee bits I’ve collected from the comment section of this blog, from my Dell column, or email exchanges or other venues—treats that I’d like to share. 

©2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 I miss you, folks! As my difficulties with my hands continue, I’ll present links to some of Skywriter’s series of articles on topics of special interest. Today’s topic is personal finance. 

If any of these articles give you new insights into your own money patterns, share them in them comment section–or just say hello!

Posts in the Astrology and Personal Finances series:

• Astrologers’ Hang-ups about Money—How they Hurt our Clients
• Readers Ask: Q & A about the 2nd House
• The 2nd House and Money Management Patterns
• Your 2nd House—A Clue to Extra Income
• Readers Ask: Q&A about the 8th House
• Everything You Ever Wondered about the 8th House…
• Living Off the Books—an 8th House Quicksand
• Uranus in the 2nd—Freedom & Individuality, vs. Financial Stability
• Saturn and Uranus Transits to the 2nd/8th House Axis
• Neptune in the 2nd—Money, Boundaries, & Codependency
• Neptune Transits to the 2nd-8th Axis—Time to Get Real about Money
• Money and Pluto in the 2nd House—The Haves vs. the Have Nots
• Pluto Transits to the 2nd or 8th —Money Issues Get Murky
• Thought Forms–How They Add to Money Blocks  
• More Help for Money Blocks—Clearing Past Life Barriers

If you’re enjoying this blog, sign up for a subscription, and get a FREE EBOOKLET for Skywriter Subscribers: Mothers, Daughters, and the Moon, a 50-page excerpt from The Moon in your Life. Read more about it here: New: Free Booklet For Skywriter Subscribers! 

To sign up for a subscription, go to the top right hand corner of the blog and click on “Subscribe.” Then send me an email with your subscription confirmation or an email post and ask for the booklet in the subject line. If you’re already a subscriber and want a copy, forward the most recent email post to me at moonmave@spiritone.com. 

(c)8-11 By Donna Cunningham, MSW

If you’re trying to track the Alpha dog planet in a stellium or major configuration, it helps to know the major issues and qualities of each of the planets. You’ll find a link to a useful new tool below–a table I’ve created that summarizes them briefly.

Here is a segment of the table. I’ve chosen the outermost planets, as many find them the hardest to describe succinctly. Download the full table here: issues of the planets-handout .  Having a bad hand day, folks, so can’t write more.

SATURN ISSUES: Structure; discipline; desire for quality and accomplishment; maturity; authority; perseverance; realism. EXCESS: Rigid, perfectionistic, hypercritical, authoritarian; fearful, depressed; workaholic. DEFICIT: Lack self-discipline, structure, goals, and planning; irresponsible, give up easily.

URANUS ISSUES: Finding your uniqueness and where you fit into groups; friendship; independence; breaking with the past; becoming your own authority; adolescence. EXCESS: The rebel, non-conformist; having to prove oneself and constantly fight authority; inability to accept ­structure. DEFICIT: Follower, conformist, afraid to express individuality; can’t establish independence.

NEPTUNE ISSUES: The desire to transcend the self and surrender to something greater; seeing beyond apparent reality; service, psychic abilities, spirituality. EXCESS: Poorly grounded; deceives self/others; savior/martyr; delusions; addictions, escapism. DEFICIT: lacks imagination, creativity; not in touch with spirituality or dream life; little compassion.

PLUTO ISSUES: Power and control; trust; to analyze what lies beneath the surface and eliminate the undesirable; separateness;  holding on to things or feelings; death. EXCESS: Alternates isolation/symbiosis; controlling; mistrustful; overly intense; bitter, vengeful. DEFICIT: Unable to look deeply within; lack of psychological insight; insufficient desire for transformation.

©8-3-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 If you have a stellium, triple conjunction or major configuration such as a T-Square, Grand Trine, Grand Cross, or Yod, it’s quite job to figure out how all the planets involved work together. It’s even more of a job to figure out how to make them all work together smoothly. That’s not a job, it’s s lifetime achievement. A key to making the most of chart features like these is figuring out which of those planets is something I call the Alpha dog planet.  

Among the canines, the Alpha dog is the leader of the pack, the strongest dog, and the first to have access to the food or females. Transferring that principle to chart interpretation, the Alpha dog planet is the strongest of an interconnected group of planets like a major configuration and generally initiates and dominates their action.

©2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

The following is an excerpt from my hard copy book, How to Read your Astrology Chart, available from the publisher, Red Wheel/Weiser.

When you scan a chart, some houses are empty while others are relatively full. Here, I pay attention only to the basic ten planets, not to a dozen asteroids or the Arabian parts, because those basic planets represent major focuses and expenditures of energy.  What factors you include in your scan, of course, are up to you.  

Given twelve houses and only ten planets, at least two houses will be vacant. However, when several planets clump together in a single house–as often happens with the Sun, Mercury, and Venus–even more houses are unoccupied. 

©7-29-11 by Donna Cunningham and Skywriter Readers

 This is the first post I’ve done with my new voice recognition software, Dragon’s NaturallySpeaking.  (I dictate, it types what I say.) I ordered it because, after 40 years of whacking away at the keyboard, I’ve developed painful arthritis in my hands. The potentials of this tool are exciting, but the learning curve is plenty frustrating. 

It’s rather like trying to train a high-spirited young colt– it’s bright and interested in connecting, but skittish. You never know how it will respond to what you say. I’m trying to teach it to speak astrologese, though it hasn’t a clue what words like quincunx and sesquiquadrate mean. It tries valiantly to cooperate, but the results are often humorous.

Still another email about opportunities at the United Astrology Conference in New Orleans, May, 2012. Speaking there is a career maker.

Speak at UAC 2012! Free Lunchtime Lecture Slots Open!   Do you want give a talk at UAC 2012 in New Orleans? You now have the opportunity to apply for a one hour speaking slot for UAC’s “Free Lunchtime Lectures”. We have 23 available slots open for these special presentations and are casting for them now! As well as having a paid registration for the UAC conference, you must submit the following information to be considered:Your Name, E-Mail Address, and Website URL (if you have one) Two Lecture Titles and Descriptions (75 words or less)To be chosen for a lecture slot, you must submit two topics/descriptions for committee evaluation. 23 lectures will be chosen on the basis of topic originality and the quality of their written description. Free Lunchtime Lecture Classes will be held Friday, May 25th- Monday, May 28th from 1:00 PM-2:00 PM.In order to apply, please send your topics to Joe Polise, UAC 2012 Free Lecture Coordinator. The deadline for submission is September 15, 2011. After the selection process is complete, each applicant will be notified whether or not either of their topics has been chosen. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL – IT MAY MEAN THAT JOE POLISE WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR APPLICATION. Joe Polise UAC 2012 Free Lecture Coordinator Joe_Polise2000@yahoo.com

Forward email

I received this announcement by email today.  UAC 2012 in New Orleans next Memorial Day Weekend is your chance–possibly the last chance–to see over 160 of the world’s top astrology speakers in one place.  This great international gathering of the tribes is held once in 3 years or longer.  If you’d love to go but can’t afford it, here’s an opportunity to consider:

©2009 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

The following is an excerpt from the introductory section of my ebooklet, Aspect Analysis: the Building Blocks of Chart Interpretation. This 8-part tutorial includes step-by-step instructions on how to analyze conjunctions, sextiles, squares, trines, quincunxes and oppositions.

 Aspects are the building blocks of serious astrology, moving you beyond single chart factors to integrating the many features a chart contains. Not only are they crucial in natal charts, they modify the qualities of transiting planets, progressions, and chart comparison. They powerfully impact outcomes in such diverse branches of our field as electional, horary, medical, and mundane. Here are some important stages in analyzing any given aspect.

©by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 The following is an excerpt from my hard copy book, How to Read your Astrology Chart, available from the publisher, Red Wheel/Weiser.   

For at least 40 years, astrologers have disagreed about house divisions, often vociferously. The more scientific-minded tend to espouse the Koch system, while diehards like myself stick with the traditional Placidus system.  There are trends in house cusp choices, and the current hottie is Whole Sign Houses. 

What makes this such a knotty problem is that intermediate cusps may be in different signs in one system than the other, and some planets may change houses, depending on which system you use. I’ve noticed that many people pick the one that puts their own planets in the best light. If their Venus falls in the self-defeating twelfth in one system and the friendly eleventh in another, they’ll swear by the one that puts Venus in the eleventh.

Donna says:  April Elliott Kent’s new book is a highly readable tour through the astrological fundamentals for beginning and intermediate astrology students.  This excerpt is reprinted with permission of the publisher.   

(c)An excerpt from The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology (Alpha Books/Penguin 2011), by April Elliott Kent

Because a planet doesn’t seem to function as expected while retrograde, astrologers tend to issue dire warnings about not getting your computer repaired while Mercury is retrograde and not buying a house while Venus is retrograde.

There’s something to these warnings, but proclamations like that always make me feel rebellious, and at the very least it’s fair to ask “Why?” After all, it’s not practical to spend nine Mercury retrograde weeks out of every year in communication/technology lockdown mode.

© 7-18-11 by Donna Cunningham, MSW 

Hello, Folks, the situation with my wrist and hand has escalated, and I’m under treatment. Prayers appreciated. I’ve ordered voice recognition software so I can dictate articles rather than type them. Meantime, I’ll fill in with book excerpts and guest bloggers. 

This is an excerpt from my ebook, The Outer Planets and Inner Life, Volume 1: Outer Planets as Vocational Indicators, available at Moon Maven Publications.

 ©4-10-2011 by guest blogger, Angela Artemis of Powered By Intuition

 Working with intuition is a bit like working with sand; it’s hard to grasp and easily slips though the fingers.

 So don’t make your intuition any harder to grasp by letting blocks get in your way.

©7-12-11 by Donna and Readers

 No more than 5 minutes after my request for questions for the interview was posted, they started coming in. Here are a few with short, easy answers that won’t make the longer interview.   

Jenny B:  Who do you turn to when you need YOUR chart interpreted?

©7-11-1l at Skywriter

 One of the winning entries in the recent contest for new article ideas was the suggestion that I be interviewed about myself and my career. My first response was, “No Way!!” Here’s how things unfolded: 

Chasmatazz: How about an interview with Donna Cunningham? It could be a question-and-answer with Donna Cunningham, wherein the readers ask you questions – not astrology questions, but probing personal questions, in the style of Barbara Walters, and you choose which ones to answer?

Donna, tell us about the first time you ever had a professional reading.

 Donna, what is your favorite planet?

 Donna, tell us about the worst client you ever had.

Don’t know who we’d get to do it, though.

Karen: I volunteer to be the interviewer! Would be very gentle;-) All Oprah~esque. Come on Donna … it would be fun! First Q: What has been the best part of being a professional astrologer for four decades?

Donna: If you promise not to be Barbara Walters, I’ll promise not to be Harrison Ford, the worst interviewee on record.

Note: I finally gave in, and we’ll do that this weekend, so think about your questions. Lest you conclude that it’s ego on my part, I must tell you that I’m the least likely person to ever have a reality show on cable. I’m extremely private and call myself an urban hermit—I love going out with friends, but am pretty much a recluse otherwise. However, one of my missions for this blog is to get more comfortable with being self-revealing, and that’s why I’m agreeing to do this.

So, Readers, here’s your chance to ask me about myself.  What sort of questions?  Oh, what I was planning to do for a living before astrology shanghaied me. How do I keep on writing, year after year, without running out of things to write about.  What are the proudest moments in my career? Will I ever retire completely?  Things like that. 

For a summary of my background, see About Me.

UPDATE: Thanks, folks!  The comment section is closed after about 70 great questions.  They’ve sorted themselves out into two categories–personal and professional–so I’ll do features on both.  Here’s the first: 10 Quick Questions You Asked Donna.

 

In a landmark television event on Sunday night, July 10, 2011 on ABC at 9/8C, Diane Sawyer  conducted the first interview with Jaycee Dugard.  Jaycee talked about her abduction and 18 years of imprisonment and sexual abuse and about giving birth to her two daughters without medical assistance. 

At the sentencing of Jaycee’s abductors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, on June 2, 2011, Jaycee’s mother, Terry Probyn, read a victim impact statement by her daughter and delivered her own statement, which included the following birth data: “On May 3rd, 1980, at 10:52 at night, Jaycee was born.”

© 7-7-11 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

Yesterday, after finishing the post on Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, I decided it was time for a break, so I walked half a block to the nearest Starbucks. (A tough life, I know.) As so often happens in my work, it wasn’t really a break from the writing, but a serendipitous continuation of the process.

There’s a magazine stand, and after leafing through an astronomy magazine, my eyes lit on the current issue of Psychology Today.  

The cover featured an article on narcissism, with the following teaser: “You can’t help falling for them, and by the time you’ve gleaned their true colors, you’re hooked —and possibly hurt. Welcome to the contradictory universe of narcissism.” 

©7-5-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 I’ve been feeling for a couple of weeks that I MUST write about the O’Neal family, but I resist it. I made myself watch their interviews on CNN promoting their new reality show and the first couple of episodes, although it gave me a queasy/uneasy stomachache.

It’s ugly to watch the secrets come out in the open and the shaming and blaming pattern between the two of them.  

©2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 In our recent contest for finding new article topics, Alice suggested, “I would love to see an article about the astrology of self-acceptance. Believing that self-acceptance is an important pathway to personal happiness, I’ve been fascinated by what indicates the lack of it in a chart (what aspects, placements?) and how to work with those difficult bits to move away from self-rejection to healing and embracing the self. “ 

Well, you’ve got it, Alice, and your entry is upgraded to an ebook winner! 

©7-3-11 by Donna Cunningham and over 120 Readers

Last weekend, I posted a contest asking readers to submit article ideas, which ended yesterday. It’s been fun, Folks, with more than 120 entries! Thanks for all the suggestions. As promised, here are some of the best, along with the three winning ideas.

 ©Ever so long ago, by Ivory Phoenix in Vibration Magazine

Donna says, In November, 2006, Vibration Magazine, the online essence journal published a special theme issue about essences, light, and color. This was one of the articles, reprinted here with Ivory’s complicity. 

Long ago and yes, so far away, I got involved with a lightwork school of the occult persuasion. I studied there weekly for a number of months until it became clear that I could not agree to their prohibition on sharing their teachings with others. I still have serious issues with suppressing knowledge that can relieve suffering and enhance evolution — at this crucial stage of human history, we don’t have time for that!

I pursued lightwork and color healing on my own over the years. It’s a bona fide medical specialty in England, Europe, and countries in the former British Empire, but it is essentially banned by the Americian Medical Association in the United States. Those who use it here and make claims of physical healing from it run a serious risk of being prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license. This intrigued me — any form of healing that diehard occultists on the one hand and the A.M.A. on the other don’t want you to know about must be pretty powerful!!

©6-28-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 For our contest to find new article topics, Lia wrote, “I can easily guess at some of the/progressions that accompany shifts in world view (9^th house, Jupiter, or Neptune). I’d be really interested in your take on it and on others descriptions of times in their lives when they lost their religion or gained it, or significantly changed their view of the world in some way.” 

Lia, of course, is right. The sign on the cusp of 9^th house of the birth chart and any planets therein shows our religious persuasion, philosophy, and how we seek answers to those eternal big questions like the meaning of life. It’s related to Jupiter and Sagittarius, in that placements in Sag and aspects to Jupiter show additional facets of our lifelong quest to find Truth and Meaning.

The 12^th house, on the other hand, has a more cloistered feel, being the house of the ashram or abbey and of devout service to the unfortunate. In that respect, it’s related to Neptune or Pisces, mystical rather than religious.  

The difference between Jupiter/Sagittarius and  Neptune/Pisces is that J/S is convinced it KNOWS things, has the ANSWERS and is qualified to teach them to others. N/P is  convinced it knows nothing, has no answers, and therefore has nothing to offer others except compassion.