One Important Key to Healing Your Relationships with Men and Women

Do you find yourself repeatedly drawn to men who drain your energy by demanding you pay lots of attention to their emotions? Perhaps your inner masculine nature wants its feelings nurtured, and you've dismissed it by assuming that behavior must be feminine. Do you find yourself in relationships with women who seek to control everything around them? Perhaps your inner feminine nature feels powerless, and you thought that power and control were masculine qualities. Do you find yourself always chasing after an idealized version of the opposite gender, and projecting those qualities onto each potential partner? Perhaps that ideal contains qualities of your inner nature of that gender, which is crying out for you to express.

Everyone has parts of themselves which are masculine, and everyone has parts of themselves that are feminine. Each individual expresses these parts of themselves differently. Learning to embrace that within you which is both masculine and feminine involves letting go of ideas that masculinity or femininity is in any way universal. Qualities of your masculine side may be qualities of my feminine side, and vice versa. Because we are all made of many parts, no two individuals have exactly the same expression of either gender. And so one must engage in a process of self-analysis, through introspection, meditation, conversation, and experimentation.

The inner and the outer reflect each other. Patterns in the inner form through encounters with the outer. We develop qualities within us partly by interacting with others who, when we are at an early age, represent archetypes more than people. Not your father but The Father. Not your best friend but The Best Friend. And we adjust who we are and how we express that in relation to these archetypes. The good news is, the patterns form both ways.

One of the most common problems people have, in my experience as a psychic, is finding harmony with people of a certain gender. If you believe the psychoanalytical standard, then you believe these issues stem from a person's relationship with their mother or their father. Perhaps that's true. Personally, I know my love for women and my preference for women as friends has more to do with my earliest relationships with my peers in school. The kinds of interactions I have always valued most involve deep conversations. As a child, that was easier to find if I played with the girls rather than the boys. The boys would push. The boys would shove. The girls would be peaceful.

Throughout my lifetime, I've been friends mostly with women and genderqueer femmes who present as women. And I spend a lot of time in circles where gender and issues around gender are discussed frequently. So I hear a lot of people talking about having issues and hangups around others in ways that have to do with gender. I, myself, have spent much of the past few years confronting and healing my hangups with both masculinity and femininity. And the one thing that has helped the most is looking inward.

When we heal that within us which is masculine and feminine, we find ourselves developing healthier relationships with others who express those qualities. When we accept these parts of ourselves for what they are, and allow them to be expressed authentically, we can create new patterns with others who express healthier versions of those qualities. And by letting go of past patterns, of judgment, and of rigidity around what masculinity and femininity are "supposed to be," we can find freedom and self-expression in new and profound ways.

Predicting the Release Date of Pokémon Go with Astrology

In addition to being a psychic, I'm also a lifelong video game fan. These days I don't find myself with nearly as much time to play video games as I used to, but there is still a soft spot in my heart for the Pokémon game franchise. I haven't played any of the Pokémon games more recent than Pokémon Black, which came out in 2011. And by that point, my enthusiasm had waned enough that I stopped playing it about a third of the way into the game. I still don't know how it ends.

But this year, Pokémon turns 20. And the first Pokémon game I've been truly excited about since 2009 comes out: Pokémon Go. It's an augmented reality game for your smartphone, which allows you to catch Pokémon by bringing your phone to various real-life locations.

Part of why I'm excited about this so much is that Pokémon has always had a strong spiritual component to it. Many of the creature designs in the game are based off of creatures and entities from Japanese and world mythology. For someone like me, whose spiritual practice involves interaction with a variety of mythic beings, Pokémon represents my cosmology introduced into the world wearing the thin disguise of a kid's game. Back in the 1990's, there was a backlash to Pokémon by various Christian organizations, who rightly recognized just how Pagan the games are. Buddhist and Shinto paradigms saturate the games' core philosophical principles. Specifically, the games speak of the importance of living in harmony with nature and all within it. Can't have that!

Naturally, I decided to take a look at the astrology behind Pokémon's initial release date. I ended up using the chart for 12:01AM on February 27th, 1996, in Tokyo, Japan. That time makes the most sense to me for reasons I will likely fully articulate at a future point. Suffice it to say, it works for how I understand Pokémon's purpose in the world.

Nintendo has announced that Pokémon Go will come out some time in 2016, but has given no information more specific than that. Nintendo, as a company, is in the habit of holding off on concrete release dates, much to the annoyance of the fans. So I thought I'd take a look at the astrology of Pokémon's 20th birthday, to see if I can guess within a day or two the most likely dates for important events to happen for the Pokémon brand.

The first thing I noticed is that a very important event will occur just after Pokémon's 20th anniversary. I expect a major announcement to be made between February 28th-March 1st, most likely the morning of February 29th, JST. Possibly it won't be a public announcement, but something gets finalized internally, leading to an announcement 1 month later, on March 29th. Both February and March 29th are important dates according to my interpretation of Pokémon's solar return chart this year, and I believe they are the most likely days for a more specific release date to be announced.

April 29th is also an important date in the chart, and if I'm going to pin it to an exact time, midnight JST seems likely. Because of that timing, and because of how I understand game releases to work, April 29th strikes me as the most likely release date for Pokémon Go. Well, not just because of that. That is the day that Chiron gets activated in Pokémon's solar return chart, and Chiron has a lot to do with being in contact with the spirit realm. Ellias Lonsdale includes the phrase "energized tremendously by special occasions" in his interpretation of the degree that Chiron is at in this chart, 20 Pisces. Chiron gets activated around the same time as Jupiter and the asteroid Karma, and right before the lunar nodes. According to the chart, midnight on April 29th should be the most dramatic moment of the year for Pokémon, so if I were a gambling man, and I'm not, I would put money on that being the release date of Pokémon Go.

Now, keep in mind: I am not omniscient. One of the things I have found to be consistent in attempting to use astrology for prediction is that the archetypal energies frequently manifest is ways you can't predict, even as they are the exact archetypal energies you originally saw.

But I'm putting this out there, to be proven wrong or proven right, or more likely in the middle, as the year progresses.

3 Important Themes for 2016: A Message from Archangel Michael

    As I'm trying to put together my predictions for the coming year, I see Archangel Michael in my mind's eye. I don't always get visuals with my psychic senses, but this is a clear image. He's shirtless, as usual, with the typical white angelic robes only covering from his waist to his knees. His torso is tightly muscled, and unusually for him, he's choosing to appear with large battle scars over those muscles, faded from time. I see him leaning back in a chair behind a cherry wood desk, which shows me he's here for business.
    "2015 wasn't easy," he begins, and narrows his eyes, "And 2016 won't be either. But there's an important difference between them." He gets up and walks away from his desk, standing with his back to me. He looks at me over his shoulder, and gestures to a vision in front of him. It's an idyllic scene of blue skies over rolling green hills, like a fairy tale landscape of childhood joy. "We carry dreams within us, of exactly the world we want to be in." The blue skies turn into a rainstorm. The rain is warm, but intense. "The storms of life come through, and interrupt these dreams. We think we can't achieve them, that everything conspires against us. But look at what happens after the storm." The rain ends, though the sky remains lightly cloudy. Flowers bloom from the grassy hills. Bees land on them. There is a chill in the air. "We survive these storms, and see beauty where once there was only a blank slate. But we see elements of darkness as well. The bee will sting you, and the rain will chill your body, but without them, no flowers will bloom." The vision had been projected in front of Michael, but we're inside it now. He holds out his index finger, and a bee lands on it. Michael gazes at the bee in silent communication and smiles. After a moment, the bee flies away.
    We're suddenly back at his desk. I'm sitting in a chair on the guest side of the desk, he's leaning back in his chair again, fingers steepled before him. He looks at me solemnly. "Were there any questions?"
    I get straight to the point: "What are the big themes of this year?" I ask.
    "Redemption, first of all. You mortals aren't the only ones who've had a rough time these past 12 months. The work in the spirit realm never gets any easier, but we understand the rewards for it better than you do in the physical plane. You've been through a lot. Most of those reading this, you've been through more than you thought you could handle in 2015. When I say 'redemption,' it isn't about righting past wrongs. It's about finding the peace, the sanctity, the reward for all you've put into your lives that hasn't come to fruition.
    You all have suffered greatly. We've felt it up here. We've heard your cries of pain, but our hands were tied. For most of you, it wasn't the time to give you what you needed. For those of you who've suffered, we did what we could to give you exactly what it took for you to make it through. Many weren't meant to make it through, and that's okay. That was their path. And they knew that going into their lives--though mortals tend to forget these things once they're born. The spirit realm has suffered losses as well..." Michael gazes into the distance, looking pensive.
    "2016 is the year that all those who have felt like everything was conspiring against them these past few years reap the harvest from all the growth they've been through and all the chaos they've endured. 2016 is the year that those who encountered challenges they didn't know how they'd deal with, finally rise above and bring forth into the world manifestations of these dreams they've held for so long. By enduring the storms, the dreams were made malleable, tempered, and shaped into a form that would be of use in the physical plane."
    "This goes along with the next theme: Hustle. 8 of Wands, for the tarot-minded among you. Move. Get going. Nose to the grindstone, balls to the wall, pedal to the metal, full speed ahead. Your dreams take action to manifest, and the Fire of God shall be under all of your asses." Michael smiles wolfishly. "Anyone who thought their dreams would land in their lap shall need to overcome that delusion in order to move forward. And unfortunately, not everyone will. Some will fail, and some will be stuck in past patterns and unable to move forward. The key to moving forward is to move. Keep your body healthy, and if you're able, physical exertion will help you stay grounded. Do what it takes to keep the blood pumping through your veins."
    "The final theme I'll mention is Changing of Leadership. Nation-states have elections, and some of those elections happen this year. That is normal--no prediction there. But most of these changes shall herald dramatic shifts in unprecedented ways. The very meaning of what many of these nations stand for shall come under scrutiny and be reinvented this year. Some of these transitions shall not be easy. Some of them shall be accompanied by violence, or disgrace. Many of these transitions shall be forced upon the leaders, and the shock waves shall ripple around the world.
    There is good news, however. Local communities, based on common interests and values, shall undergo changes in leadership that are overwhelmingly Just. Many of the current leaders within small communities have gained positions of repute more through charisma than ability to lead. Many of them have abused their power. Many have used their good will within these communities to serve their own interests, unconcerned with the good of all. And many, many of the leaders of small communities who have abused their power shall suffer a fall from grace. Others shall fill in the gaps. Individuals who choose to act justly, with the whole community in their hearts, shall find themselves in positions of leadership over the coming year. They shall find themselves well-regarded, and recognized for their righteous behaviors. This shall not be universal. Sometimes, stuck places and shadows are what the universe demands. But most shall find that when the groups they belong to undergo shifts around which names command respect, those who are most fit to serve the greater whole shall rise."
    Michael smiles at me, gently this time. "Relax, kiddo." He clasps a hand on my shoulder. "You spend so much time worrying about things. The time to worry is over. Now is the time to act." We stand up. He walks around the desk, and gives me a warm hug. "You got this, kiddo. You all got this."

Fin.

(To book Arthur Lipp-Bonewits for a tarot, astrology, or angel reading, you can email him here.)

Chart Rectification and Confirmation

One of my specialties in astrology is chart rectification. One of the first steps in doing astrology for someone is getting the exact time they were born. Unfortunately, many people don't know the exact time, or they're off by a little bit. I've had a lot of clients text their moms for me. Chart rectification is using astrological techniques to figure out the exact time when the person doesn't know and can't find out. Most astrologers use a long process based on transits and other predictive techniques applied to specific moments in the client's life. I don't.

One of the most important tools I have is the book "Inside Degrees" by Ellias Lonsdale. It is a masterwork of spiritual channeling, going deep into meanings and descriptions for all 360 degrees of the Zodiac. I've used this book quite a few times to figure out someone's exact birth time, by seeing when a few sensitive points change their degrees, and working with the person to determine which of those degree descriptions, as written by Lonsdale, most resonate.

A friend of mine a few months ago said she was born at 3pm, and looking at her chart I knew that couldn't be right. In fact, generally when someone tells me they were born on the hour or half-hour, I'm suspicious of it. But in this case, it didn't make any sense with her personality and chart. She told me it was actually somewhere between 3 and 3:30pm, so I rectified her chart with "Inside Degrees" to 3:22pm. She was satisfied with that.

She's home with family for the holidays right now, and she found her birth certificate. She sent me a picture of it, showing the birth time: 3:22pm.

I knew the chart was accurate, but it was still dang pleasant to get that confirmation. I'm looking forward to continuing the chart rectification work, as it really gets people engaged with their own patterns and personalities in new ways.

If you're interested in an astrology reading, especially if you'd like help figuring out your exact birth time, send me an email here.