Gordon is OK.
One of the world's great modern geniuses just gained his wings and entered spirit vision permanently. I don't even know where to begin, but writing is helping me process my emotions here, and feels like the proper way to expend this grief.
Gordon, in a live stream once, while telling a tale about going into a crystal shop, and having the owner try to sell him a specific piece, vibed out the right crystal for what he needed, picked it up, and responded (at least in the story version of the event) to her oohing and awwing about how powerful it was, and what a good choice he'd made with, "Of course it is, I'm the Chaos Queen Witch, bitch!" I'm sure that's not a title he would have put on a resume, but gives a sense of his deliciously witty cattiness, which as a flavouring on top of pure genius, was always an engaging way to enter into the depths of everything he shared with the world. Gordon was not only an incredible scholar of all things esoteric, but a phenomenal geo-poilitcal scryer, who was correct about Covid every single step of the way, well ahead of the curve, and had been warning for years about the time period we are within right now. I treasured his quarterly geo-political updates using his Blended Cycle forecasting method, (something you can take an incredibly in depth course on in the incredibly invaluable Rune Soup Community, I highly advise you join.) as a means of approaching the constant chaos of our fallen realm, with a spiritual insight and calm clarity that made moving forward an adventure within which we ask ourselves, "what is mine to do?", aside from simply watching in horror. The fact that he departed here just as the time of his warnings was lighting off, seems so wrong, he was to be a guiding light through the apocalypse, and yet.... a wizard never leaves early or late, but departs precisely when he intends to....
Gordon was born just shy of a full lunation cycle after I was, meaning during that 1981 cohort of Jupiter Saturn conjunctions in air for the first time in 600 years. A herald of a new age of ideas, and knowledge. Indeed. He however described his magical practice as primarily focused on the element water, the feeling nature of being a ceremonial magician. Of course he was a Cancer Sun, with a fiery Aries Moon.
Of course he had Uranus in the first house didn't he? And Neptune in the second, making his living from mystical practices. I don't really want to read his chart right now, because it simply isn't the purpose of this article, nor where my head is at right now, processing current events. It's worth noting, that he was born in the Southern Hemisphere, and as I was trained by Robin Armstrong, flipping the Zodiac to match the seasons works particularly well with Gordon's chart. The undeniable Capricornian work horse output of his was staggering. Being a premium member, (and perhaps for you out there in the free zone just trying to keep up with his Substack (fittingly final post is a requiem for Peter Carroll), or his youtube, that it was a full time job just trying to digest his incredibly sourced and deeply thought out output, let alone contemplate who he could create so much in so little time. The work was all consuming for him. During the trying Covid times, Gordon had a serious heart issue, which led him on his heart healing journey. A side quest to that involved some deep diving into feelings of rejection in childhood, and one of the paths he took was to buy himself a solo playing Lord of the Rings game to reconnect with some of the hobbies he felt were suppressed as a child. His conclusion was that, he doesn't like games, he likes working. Noting also, his love of traveling the world, Mars in Sagittarius makes a hell of a lot of sense. I'm not here to argue the Zodical tropical shift of the equator however, as both charts clearly work. I'd bring it up with him sometimes, and he'd respond with a thumbs up. The sort of thing you'd give a precocious child who thinks they know more than they do. A little pat on the head, "there there kid, Austin Coppock is a close personal friend... I'll just totally upend my chart based on what you have to say though!"
I am saddened that I joined the Rune Soup community so late. I was aware of Gordon's work for a few years, I had read his masterpiece Star.Ships, but for some reason waffled on joining his community, despite how ridiculously under-priced it was for the wealth of knowledge contained therein. Growing up in a Born-Again family always made wary and afraid of magic. My induction into the astrological arts was just a wedge into the other world I always knew was there... Gordon helped me redefine my understanding of reality. I had many synchronistic, prophetic moments in my own creative journey through life, with my writing and music. Gordon's framing of the imaginal realm as one and the same as the spirit realm helped me to connect what I already knew, intuitively, always since childhood. The lost, fatal animism we are all born with, and have beaten out of us by modern materialist society, never quite left my mind. My stuffed animal WAS real. The Oak tree that grew outside my bedroom window really was a wise old man I used to talk to, and share my problems with. His name was Oakley. Gordon's mission was to re-enchant the world, and he has done just that.
I know he also found me obnoxious. My Regulus rising chart can be a little, exuberant when excited by a new space, and people I respect. A yappy little dog jumping around. I had engaged on a year long journey to collect herbs of each planetary nature on specific elections for use in incense and other magical purposes. The journey itself was magical and full of incredibly synchronistic adventures. I put together a presentation on it and offered to do a Zoom meeting through the RSPM membership to show what happened, and how it all played out. I wore my accursed Solar talisman that day (a story for another time!) and absolutely no one showed up. Not exactly what you want out of a Solar Talisman to be sure, then I spilled a drink on my laptop and well.... it lead to me buying a new laptop before the AI processor shortages truly began... and my old laptop resurrected as well... so all happened for a purpose... but then.... during the Time Magic course, in a module on traditional native healing herbs, got furious, (I guess he DOES have an Aries Moon!) and called Hermeticists out there trying to impose planetary correspondences upon traditional medicines Space Imperialists! Given the proximity in time to me trying to share my own journey, I took it personally and it made me sad someone I respected so much might have taken offense to my own journey, which was taken in good faith and without any intent to trample upon indigenous culture. It was through a plant ally session where I felt pure love and forgiveness for my own feelings of hurt towards Gordon, which may not have had anything to do with me in the first place, anyways.
Where I truly connected with Gordon was the book club he began in 2025, democratically elect a book to represent each Zodiacal season. The Zoom sessions were thrilling explorations of esoteric takes on literary classics, with some wild synchronicities running through the Zodiacal aspects between the books of each season. It was a truly incredible ride, and we'd just started our second run of the Zodiac. We often didn't agree on some of the books. Siddhartha got chosen for Leo last year, and he hated it. The themes of struggling to find meaning in this illusory physical reality really hit home with me at the time. I made the argument that Siddhartha was an unreliable narrator, playing the role of a Leo ego being the best at everything all the time. Gordon gave an uproarious laugh, and said if true it saved the novel for him. Foucault's Pendulum as the (strangely) Capricorn selection was especially contentious. Before the meeting, Gordon challenged me to make my case for why Foucault's Pendulum was a great novel not purely a piss take on all esoteric traditions. By the end of it he thanked me for my spirited defense of the book. He was largely concerned with having all his meticulous research into the history of the Templars and other related traditions polluted by a fictional conspiratorial plot, which I can respect. In one of these book club sessions, Gordon told me he read Lord of the Rings when he was 6 years old. Not the Hobbit.... Lord of the Fucking Rings. When I was 11 and tried to read it I gave up during that 50 page romp through the forest. Gordon was built different. He said that Lord of the Rings was truly what formulated his sense of magic, and served as a template for what he wanted to do with his life.
The first clue that something was wrong was last week, on Saturday, when he didn't show up for our Taurus book meeting. Worry spread from there. We still don't have an exact date, but Kaitlin Coppock of Sphere and Sundry has said she got news of his passing on Sunday. Alex Fulton of Crypto-K, who uses a numerical system of codes as a profound synchro-mystic system, relying largely on what is called the parent(thesis), where the midpoint of anyone's life is potent date to be mined for details which spin off into other numerical synchronicities. If we use Sunday as the end point of Gordon's life, then the midpoint of his life was the release date of Peter Jackson's Return of the King, the third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, filmed in Gordon's old stomping grounds of New Zealand. Sadly, this then reminds me of the fact that we will now never get the conclusion of his absolutely brilliant trilogy of books, designed to re-enchant our modern world. The Dot Trilogy. The final book was to be about the Cunning Man tradition, and discuss how we need to bring this practice of folk magicians back into the every day world, helping on the community level.
As the days continued with no word, of course we were getting concerned within the community. Cards were pulled, coins were tossed. A thread was emerging. From my own assessment of his transits and progressions, Neptune was heavily emphasized. Grodon's plans were to ride out World War 3 in South America, where the ravages of war seemed less likely, and restrictive lock downs and government over reach are more easily bought off with raw cash. Gordon was traveling through Peru at the time. His progressed eescendant was right upon his combust and retrograde Mercury... a tale of being caught with contraband entheogens started to form within my mind... transiting Neptune, on his Moon, which rules his tenth house. Did he overestimate his ability to navigate this foreign government? A good friend in the community pulled 3 of Swords, Justice, and the Hanged Man. 3 of Swords being the middle Saturn ruled decan of Libra, Justice relating to Libra, where Gordon's Saturn Jupiter conjunction is, and the Hanged Man has been correlated to Neptune. This certainly fed into my theory.
Late that night, his fate started to really press on me, and at 3:30 AM, I cast a horary chart, not looking for anymore details beyond, Will Gordon be ok, and I got this.
I was confused in casting the chart what significator I would even give to Gordon, but when I saw the chart, the ascendant and midheaven both ruled by exalted Jupiter in an exact trine with the Moon? That was good enough for me. It's actually an incredible electional chart, aside from the angular nodes.... but I put it aside, it was good enough for me. Gordon was in jail, the other person who pulled 4 of swords was him lying in repose in his cell, awaiting release, finding inner peace inside this moment of restriction, surrounded by swords... this was good enough for me.
Of course, it didn't play out that way. We found out this morning that he was indeed deceased. No details, or exact date known yet, so it's hard to examine what was going on with the transits, though it's obvious to note that his sixth house was Aries, and had just undergone a massive, difficult stellium, and was still containing both malefics, and Neptune on his Moon. His progressions tell a more detailed story though...
Note the Moon, at the anaretic degree of its fall. The Moon is fed up of the dark obsessions of Scorpio, and is ready for the next adventure in optimistic Sag. It is both an ending, but about to be an expansion into something new, the Centaur with mystic bow aimed at the center of the Galaxy, Sagittarius a, urged on by the impetus of Uranus who demands a shocking change to the established order. The Ascendant of his progressed chart is exactly upon Sagittarius a... the center of our galaxy, the Southern gate of the Milky Way, where souls in many traditions exit reality, and return to the heavenly realm. Transiting in the current skies is Mercury in the exact same phase of its synodic cycle, the psychopomp scurrying into the underworld beneath the sign of the Bull.
What is so difficult for me to comprehend is how it could possibly be that Gordon departs at this phase of Fourth Turning. His Geo-political updates were essential intel as the world churned to the great Revelation. It seems almost impossible that he would depart now. But then I look again at the Horary chart I cast. Of course, I'd read it all wrong...
The psychopomp Hermes ruling the IC, where all things come to their end beneath the Earth. The ascendant points to Fomalhaut, the most mystical star in the sky, fittingly enough, but there are the nodes. I have to say, more than anything else, this chart starts to convince me of the nodes controversial use as signifiers of incarnation and the Karmic cycle. They certainly show up in fated events via transit. Here, I believe that Ketu on the descendant, the house of the Others, shows the sadness and loss for all of us left on this realm, but Rahu, the ravenous head of the dragon, is upon the ascendant... it is rising. Gordon's irrepressible lust for life endures. Especially considering the exact trine between the Moon and the powerful chart ruler of Jupiter in the fifth house, this entire chart speaks to me in an image. That image is of Obi Wan Kenobi at the end of the first Star Wars film. He warns Vader, if you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine... he bows his head, and disappears. This is where Gordon is now, he has ascended to where he can help all of us move through the next phase of reality in ways he could not have had he remained corporeal. Fomalhaut, on the ascendant, is viewed as the Arch-Angel Gabriel, who trumpets news of hope, and new beginnings. A close friend of mine, SarahEliza, was wracked with grief today. She lay sobbing on the floor, unable to get up and get on with life. During Jupiter hour, she lit a candle, applied some Jupiter in Cancer Salve, and continued to sob unable to function. In her mind, suddenly, she heard Gordon's voice, clear as day, exasperatingly state, "Get up!" Ha! I suspect many of us will experience these sorts of tough love advice moving forward.
I can say for certain that Gordon's Prayer course changed my life in a profound way that is almost unmatched. Coming from a Born Again family, and eventually rejecting the doctrine, in times of need, I've often felt the need to pray, but who am I praying to? Getting permission to pray again was so powerful, as silly as that may seem. We all need prayers moving forward. I can't recommend that course highly enough. Discovering how powerful keeping an eye on the Planetary Hours is, and praying to the planetary deity of the moment for what is needed works... It's worth mentioning that the Venus of this chart, on the IC, is exactly conjunct my own Venus, to the minute, which I'm sure is why I was connecting with my feelings to such a level that I needed to cast this chart in the first place. That Venus is upon Capella, which is the goat who nursed Zeus, as well as, far to the south, Phact, viewed as the Dove who brought Noah the olive branch... a sign of peace to come, if only we can survive the coming onslaught... not all of us will. But looking at that Rahu on the ascendant, the birth point, I know that Gordon is OK, and that he will be back, rest assured of that....
It was tonight, while writing all this down as my own therapy, that This Must Be the Place came on my Monster Synch Generator, a song one of my closest friends once told me he wants played at his funeral, a friend who's Venus is conjunct my own, and I started to bawl... and really feel the loss. Tears open up as flowers in the other realm to those who died. They are a profound tribute to let out loved ones know they mattered while here. It was at the exact moment of my own Aries Moon's lunar return.
What I learned from Gordon is endlessly indescribable. I learned to feel the true reality, to tune into what I always understood from birth. All my craziest intuitions as a child were true. The trees do hear me. The birds are telling me stories. It really was my Grandmother in my dream checking in on me. What we imagine comes true. This is true magic. Rune Soup will thrive. In fact it is stronger now than ever, and magicians... as Gordon said, Magicians should have adventures. You are on the greatest one of all now Gordon. All our love, please keep in touch. Gordon is OK. And so shall we all be. Believe it.
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