by Philip Brown

In this issue:

·         Mercury retrograde

·         Links to two new political astrology articles

·         Introducing my new book, Cosmic Trends

Please forgive the tardiness of this newsletter. My new book, Cosmic Trends, has just been published, and I have fallen behind in writing the AstroFutureTrends Newsletter.

I’d like to thank all of you who are receiving this. Some of you have been subscribers for two years and I am very grateful for the support from all of you. Through this newsletter, I have made wonderful connections in the astrology community and have discovered so many wonderful, gifted, and selfless astrologers who are sharing their knowledge on the Internet, through blogs and websites. (Click here for links to  some great astrology blogs—just scroll down the left sidebar).

Mercury retrograde

Mercury retrograde has provided me with many fun-filled hours spent listening to voice mail menus while I try to resolve a variegated assortment of phone, cable, DSL, and website issues. If my website hosting company employed a resident astrologer, they would have known better than to attempt a total makeover of their service during Mercury retrograde!

It has really brought home to me how technology has become so integrated into the fabric of our lives—or at least the fabric of MY life. Ah, Neptune in Aquarius, Uranus in Pisces…the enlightening spread of technology…sigh...My wife likes to watch old movies and TV shows; it’s a nostalgic rush to see those computer-less homes and offices, plain plastic phones with squiggly cords, and people simply walking or driving from one place to another sans earbuds, sans cells, sans iPods, sans everything but a direction.

Links to two new political astrology articles

I have posted two new articles on my website, both adapted from my blog. One of the articles is on President Bush’s last two years in office. I’ve used solar return charts to forecast what to expect during his last years in the White House. Click here to read the article.

The second article is titled, “Mars, the U.S., and the 2008 Election,” in which I have pulled together and consolidated several recent strands about Mars that I wrote for my blog. Click here to read the article.

Cosmic Trends: Astrology Connects the Dots

I would like to introduce you to my new book. You can read recent book reviews here (a BlogCritics Magazine review by Elsa, whose outstanding and original advice blog I highly recommend) and here (Susan Custer’s always-engaging, superb astrology blog which I also highly recommend—it’s easy to subscribe).

I wrote Cosmic Trends to really turn readers on to the cosmic influences of the planets that are happening all around us, and to present this in a grounded way that people could relate to. There are lots of predictions, all of them linked to the outer planets. I hope the book is entertaining—that is a big part of it. I want Cosmic Trends to be fun to read, but not in a shallow way. I wrote it to transform how readers see the world.

I have friends who do not know anything about astrology and have little interest in it. But, because I wrote a book, they have picked it up and read at least parts of it. All of them have told me how unexpectedly interesting and entertaining it is, how it presents astrology in a new way that does not come across as a text or--as someone put it--selling a conversion experience.

One friend (who said he had never ever picked up an astrology book) likened Cosmic Trends to conversations he has with his teenage daughter when he is driving her somewhere in the car. He is usually able to bond with her much better while driving, casually listening and talking, than when sitting his daughter down at the kitchen table and giving her a “talk.” He told me that my book feels like a conversation about astrology while driving.

However, I also kept in mind as I was writing the book an imaginary reader who knows a lot about astrology. I tried to make Cosmic Trends relevant for that reader, too. There are astrology background sections which explain the astrology in more depth. Also, I tried to make the connections interesting and relevant so that even an experienced astrologer might see the familiar in new ways.

The book’s not too long. It’s 218 pages, but the main chapter text is just 181 pages.

I’ve also included interactive exercises such as a Three-Bubble Chart that readers can fill in to chart astrological connections in popular culture. There’s a Trends Squares activity (using planet keywords to spot cultural trends), as well as a Trends Worksheet, Creative Astrology Journals, Planets in the Movies, how to use astrology to spot fashion trends, and an Astro-Poem where anyone—no matter how poetically challenged— can write a first person poem imagining the energies of one of the planets.

It’s got both high culture (the astrology of fine art, Shakespeare, and T.S. Eliot) and low culture (Britney Spears, supermarket tabloids, and the astrology of sex chat rooms). In fact, I'm sure Cosmic Trends must be the only book that manages to connect Shakespeare, sex chat rooms, and Pluto in Capricorn--all in the same paragraph.

Finally, the book has lots of little sidebars. I wanted readers to be able to browse through the astrology section in a bookstore, pull my book off a shelf, and open it to any random page where they would find a short and interesting sidebar like “Neptune and Disco,” or “Car Generations.”

The book’s available from Llewellyn, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and any online or bricks-and-mortar bookstore. I hope you will buy it, enjoy reading it, and then tell others about it.

To give you a better idea of what’s in my book, here is the Table of Contents:

A Note About Pluto [added at the last minute, just before the book went to the printer, when Pluto was reclassified]

Introduction

Part I—Connecting with Pluto

Chapter 1—Transformational Pluto

          Pluto Profile: Bob Dylan

Chapter 2—Six Generations of Pluto, 1912-2008

          Pluto in Scorpio Profile: Avril Lavigne

Part II—Connecting with the Future: Pluto in Capricorn

Chapter 3—Saturn, Capricorn’s Security Planet

          Capricorn Profile: Howard Hughes

Chapter 4—One If By Land: The New Age of Threat Levels

Chapter 5—Blowing a Carnival Horn

Chapter 6—“Who’s There?” Seeing Behind the Mask

Chapter 7—Ben Goes Electric: Inventing the Future

Part III—Coming Attractions with Uranus and Neptune

Chapter 8—The Dreaming Planet: Neptune

          Neptune Profile: Stevie Nicks

Chapter 9—The Freedom Planet: Uranus

          Uranus Profile: Nelson Mandela

Chapter 10—Visions of Utopia: The Uranus-Neptune Connection

          Uranus-Neptune Profile: Clara Barton

Chapter 11—Uranus and Neptune Star in Trading Signs

          Neptune in Aquarius Profile: American Utopian Colonies

Chapter 12—Future Trends with Uranus and Neptune

          Uranus in Pisces Profile: Charlie Chaplin and the Silent Cinema

Part IV—Seeing the Big Picture: Planet Cycles and Major Trends

Chapter 13—A Tidal Wave: The Neptune-Pluto Conjunction

          Neptune-Pluto Profile: Martha Graham

Chapter 14—Seeing Paisley: The Uranus-Pluto Conjunction

          Uranus-Pluto Profile: The Warlocks

Chapter 15—Glimpses of 2020: Jupiter Meets Saturn

          Jupiter-Saturn Profile: William Shakespeare

Appendix A--Planet and Sign Keywords

Appendix B--Glossary of Terms

Appendix C--Connecting with the Zodiac Signs

Appendix D--Outer Planet Transits and Major Conjunctions Chart

Appendix E--Chart Data and Sources

Wishing you all a wonderful solstice and holiday season,

Phil