Hudson Valley Astrologer

“It’s leviOsa, not levioSA!”

Hermione, Harry Potter

For me, the ToDo List has gone the way of the New Year’s Resolution! Like an old flip phone or that turkey meatloaf recipe written on a 5×7 inch blue lined index card and stacked with other recipes torn from magazines. There is a hand scribbled note by an aunt (her name escapes me, but she wasn’t really an aunt, she was a friend of the family), and hurriedly tossed into that catchall drawer. “How to make pirogies,” it says, but I can’t make much else out, and it clings together with other scraps of recipes in a 3 inch bundle, held in place by three rubber bands, each a different color. For twenty years this collection of recipes has been stowed away in the junk drawer where, magically, it has grown, like my sour dough starter that doubles in the dark over night. The curious notion that comes to mind, that I briefly wonder about, is how many times has “clean out the junk drawer” made it the ToDo List?

My essential problem with ToDo Lists is that they become like that proverbial junk drawer, a catchall for random thoughts and ideas that cross my mind, where I document my would-a-should-a-could-a collection of “if-only’s…” If-only I had more time! If-only I had more money! And just like that the list grows because, really, who has enough time or money?

Did you write down on your ToDo List to check the futures market? Headlines suggest that we are “tumbling” after tariffs were given the green light. Long term trends are definitely still up, but short term and intermediate term trends are weakening. We will have to wait and see, but after a sudden lurch markets ought to settle back down and proceed in an orderly fashion, for now, people will nevertheless get their knickers in a bunch, even though the market is nearly 30% above its 40 month moving average; a correction to the 10 month moving average would come in at 16%. So, there is room here for a pullback. “The Big One” could hit at any time but I think we’ll need to wait a while… “Check!”

What else is on my faux list? Oh sheesh! Other “big stuff” like when did/will Pluto transit the signs of the zodiac?

• ♇ ♈︎ 1822-1853
  • Change through adversity
• ♇♉︎ 1851-1884
  • Change through determination
• ♇♊︎ 1882-1914
  • Change through intensity/diversity
• ♇♋︎ 1914-1939
  • Transformation of self within the spheres of family, home, and institutions of security
• ♇♌︎ 1937-1958
  • Change through individual assertion of ego
• ♇♍︎ 1956-1972
  • Transformation by refining social systems
• ♇♎︎ 1971-1984
  • Social and cultural transformation
• ♇♏︎ 1983-1995
  • Change through deepening
• ♇♐︎ 1995-2008
  • Change through polemics
• ♇♑︎ 2008-2024
  • Change through reform
• ♇♒︎ 2023-2943
  • Change out of the blue
• ♇♓︎ 2043-2067
  • Change through imagination

Due to Pluto’s irregular orbit, which is highly elliptical and inclined to the ecliptic plane, the outer most “planet” will spend anywhere from 12 to 30 years in a sign. This is because Pluto moves faster when it is closer to the Sun (Capricorn/perihelion) and slower when it is further away from the Sun (Cancer/aphelion). Pluto just spent 12 years in Capricorn (2008-2024) and will remain in Aquarius for the next 20 years (2024-2043). Pluto’s eccentricity is 0.25 (compared to Venus, 0.007) which describes just how irregular the orbit of Pluto is compared to other planets..

Pluto suffered a “demotion” from planetary status to a “dwarf” planet in 2006, the same year I earned a Master Certificate in Astrology. But even though Pluto is 1/3rd the size of the Moon it can still represent total transformation, sometimes annihilation, as in matter(s) can metamorphose beyond recognition. To be “plutoed” means to demote or devalue someone or something. For an astrologer this is an ironic etymological developmental because this is what Pluto tends to do. But more than this of course, is the force behind the effect which remains hidden, and mysterious; Pluto creates fission first, but then rising from the ashes fusion and redemption becomes possible.

Like Pluto, the ToDo List is a small thing, and the things we put on the list can be even smaller. However, if what we need to do is transform our lives the traditional ToDo List may fall short. Here’s why:

• Taskiness: ToDo lists do not necessarily help prioritize the most important things, and can instead enable procrastination by focusing on trivial tasks.
• Short-circuiting: There is a tendency to overload our ToDo Lists which does little else but create ANXIETY. Doing a list isn’t at all the same as doing a thing.
• What’s missing: Without the context of priorities, deadlines, and expected duration of a task, a ToDo List can be worse than no list at all.
• Short on Strategy: ToDo Lists are long on tactical, short term goals, being busy at the expense of longer term goals,but not connected to a long term strategy (usually the result of significant planning). We tend to wing it sometimes just to get through the list.
• Zeigarnik effect: Unfinished tasks take up bandwidth in the mind causing distraction and mental fatigue.

My strategic plan aims to deliver 5,000 years worth of astrological wisdom to learners in less than 5 minutes, using daily drills that students can perform everyday. I have been putting in all the hard work so that you won’t have too. By painstakingly going through each astrological component and how they interrelate, cataloging, categorizing, and classifying the rules and relationships, and building a delivery system that I think will revolutionize learning astrology, my intention is to make not only better astrologers, but also help clients be more informed, to get more out of their consultations.

When I started building this system I thought it would take a couple of weeks. That was a few years ago, and I am still at it. A ToDo List would have been the death of me, I would have been “Plutoed.”

Last year I made a commitment to take a cold shower every single day of the year. Let me tell you! December, January, February, and March are the hardest. It turns out that a cold shower may be more challenging than a cold plunge because the water is running and inside a tub the body envelops itself in a thin layer of water nearest the skin that warms up slightly from body temperature. I did this as an act of remembrance and honor for my sister who passed suddenly last January. The science was all agog with how beneficial cold plunges could be for our health, but suddenly there are some potential long term effects that question the wisdom of cold plunges. The ToDo List has enjoyed a kind of self-help supremacy, but its effectiveness too is easily questioned. At the very least running a daily ToDo List isn’t the magical incantation we had hoped: “Wingardium Leviosa,” you might catch a ToDoer say, waving their post-it note in the air like a wand, and squinting their eyes in an attempt to make the magic spell for levitation “swish and flick”there ToDos away.

HVA

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