Astrology: Questions and Answers

What are astrologers for?

Posted on October 22, 2014 | 12 comments

Every so often, someone – usually an open-minded member of the public who has just found out what I do – asks me what my job as an astrologer is, and what the values and perspectives are are which I bring to my practice. Here is my response.

(Other astrologers may well have a different take on this topic. So – any practitioners, clients or students of astrology – or open-minded members of the public reading this – are most welcome to add their comments!)

Astrologer at Work

My job as an astrologer is to help other people understand themselves more clearly, in order to assist them in leading lives which they experience as being both fulfilling and useful. I don’t know what the balance is between fate and free will any more than any one else does. But the Birth Chart or Horoscope suggests strongly that we come into this world, not as tabulae rasae (blank slates) but with certain characters on the stage poised to live out a complex drama as the process of our life unfolds from birth to death.

Both astrologers and astronomers, via planetary observation, can look at and correctly plot the unfolding pattern of energies through space-time. After that, as an astrologer I step into a different realm than that of observation of the external, material, planetary world.

By looking at an individual’s horoscope, I can examine the essence of that moment in terms of its meaning, and then speculate with moderate accuracy about what some of the branches manifesting in that person’s life may be. Identifying the exact branches through which the energies symbolically represented by the planets in a horoscope may play out in the everyday world, is much more hit and miss.

Personally this cheers me, since it appears to suggest a creative balance between fate and free will in the universe; chaos theory in contemporary physics also has strong parallels with the astrological paradigm. Both the language of astrology and the language of quantum physics tells us that not everything is pinned down.

Indeed, a view and a model are slowly emerging, despite considerable resistance from the diehard defenders of reductionism, which can demonstrate convincingly that the lenses of astrology and quantum physics are focusing on the same underlying, all encompassing Reality.

The perspectives offered by contemporary writers, astrologers, depth psychologists, and scientists, such as Richard Tarnas, Liz Greene, the late Charles Harvey, Stanislav Grof, Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, and others — including recent books by astrologers of the quality of , for example, Armand Diaz and Kieron Le Grice — have been of inestimable value to me in the last few years. I urge any readers of this blog who are keen to expand their own perspectives to explore those writers’ work.

My view, based on my personal experience as well as those of clients and students over more than 30 years, as well as extensive reading and study, is that the key dimension in determining how a particular planetary pattern will play out in a person’s life is the level of consciousness at which they are operating at the time the inevitable challenges of life come their way.

Most astrologers have had the humbling experience of looking at the horoscope of a client which looks so difficult that the impending consultation feels very stressful, but upon encountering the client, they meet someone who has faced, dealt with, and grown through hard experiences that would have flattened a less aware person.

Anne W: Example Horoscope

We can never predict the level of awareness of a client we have never met, although we can have a pretty good idea that, e.g., Mars conjunct Saturn conjunct Pluto square the Moon is going to be no walk in the park.

I am personally very hesitant about both the accuracy and the wisdom of predicting at all, especially for individuals, in any more than a “describing the core and speculating about the branches” kind of way. Predicting that a specific branch will manifest may well close down possibilities rather than open them up, which also takes us into the realm of self-fulfilling prophecy.

For example, when Uranus was about to cross my Pisces Descendant in 2005, beginning its seven or so years’ traverse of my 7th house, I became concerned about what this might mean for my marriage. The rather problematic implications of Uranus’ impact on the relationship realm that practising astrologers see every day in their students’ and clients’ lives, as well as their own, worried me.

However, a profound, totally unexpected spiritual experience on my husband’s part linked both our spiritual journeys into walking the same path at the same time. This has had a supportive, deepening effect on our marriage and not one I could possibly have envisaged before Uranus crossed my Descendant.

I think that effective astrologers in consultation are poised on the interface between fate and free will – on the one hand helping clients to confirm who they are, which they probably already know, if they are honest with themselves; but on the other hand helping them to see, and to broaden, the range of possible expression of the energies with which they have been born.

The astrologer’s ego should have a minimal influence on the process of reading another person’s Horoscope. It’s impossible to keep ego completely out of it. It’s impossible to be completely objective, to avoid making mistakes; but what the person takes away should be as much theirs, and as little the astrologers, as is possible.

To maximise this outcome I feel it is very important to have my work regularly supervised by an experienced and well-qualified colleague. I am fortunate in this to have the support of a very experienced astrologer who is also a psychodynamic psychotherapist.

The main focus of my astrological work now is in vocational guidance, and in helping people who feel themselves to be on a developmental path which is rooted in whatever their sense of meaning may be, to gain an enhanced sense of clarity and perspective. Having been very much influenced by Buddhist philosophy in the last decade, in my own life I try to practice living in the present as effectively and mindfully as possible. ( Not easy…but well worth the effort!)

I’m only interested in working with clients who are prepared to take responsibility for themselves in relation to the way in which their inner world is connected to the unfolding of their outer life. Astrology appropriately used should enhance the sense of personal responsibility – not take it away and hang it on the planets, or even worse, on the astrologer !

In my view it is important for people not to become too dependent on a symbolic context – astrology and astrologers like relationships, drugs, sex, alcohol or the national lottery can become highly addictive. The great symbolic arts, eg astrology, tarot, palmistry , I Ching, should be consulted with deep respect, and with considerable restraint.

In sum – I think it is my job to send people away feeling more able to operate constructively and honestly in their world than when they came in, by supporting their courage and confidence to lead their own lives using their own judgement.

However, I also consider it important to have a refer-on list of reputable therapeutic practitioners of varying disciplines, if it becomes apparent from our reading that the person consulting me needs some form of ongoing help. In assessing this, a long background as a counsellor as well as an astrologer I regard as being of immense help to me – and therefore, I hope, to my clients….

Zodiac

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1300 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

12 Comments

Posted in Astrology: challenges, ethics and practice (11 articles)

Tagged Armand Diaz, Astrology, astrology and quantum physics, Brian Swimme, Charles Harvey, horoscope, Kieron Le Grice, Liz Greene, Planets in astrology, Richard Tarnas, Rupert Sheldrake, Stanislav Grof, Zodiac

What happens when Uranus, Neptune and Pluto cross the I.C?

Posted on October 3, 2014 | 30 comments

I’m often asked about what clients/students can expect when the biggies, ie Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, cross the Imum Coeli or I.C. Well, here is an account of one person’s experiences, ie mine! Do not worry, those of you in the throes of one of those heavy duty, life changing transits. I’ve had all of them cross my I.C and I’m still here…( as far as I know…)

Although this article was written and published in the mid/late 1990s I thought it was worth posting on “Astrology: Questions and Answers”.. It’s been the most-read-ever article on my other blog ‘Writing from the Twelfth House’.

It would be most interesting, and educational for other readers, if any of you felt like sharing YOUR experiences regarding any of those great collective planets crossing the I.C. point.

******
Liz Greene once wryly observed in one of her seminars that, if you wanted a relatively quiet and peaceful life, you should arrange to be born when the outer planets were as far away from the personal planets and Angles as possible. I wish! say many of you reading this, as indeed does the writer, who has all the outer planets bolted onto all the personal planets and has had anything BUT a quiet life. (Encouraging note for the similarly challenged – I’m not young any more, but I’m still here –more or less! – and pretty happy with what I have been able to make of my time on this earth to date).

In similar vein, many people – depending on the horoscope yielded by their particular date, time, and place of birth – will never even experience one of the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto crossing their IC ( for non-astrologers reading this, the IC symbolises the point of origin, roots and core of a person’s life).

However, I have had the lot – and am still here to tell the tale. Here it is….

In my horoscope the IC is conjunct the South Node at 28 degrees of Scorpio. Pluto, its ruler, is placed in the twelfth house conjunct Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Moon and Sun in Leo. As a child I would lie in bed watching the roses on the wallpaper turn into malevolent faces as daylight faded; I had to make bargains with them before they would let me sleep.

I read voraciously, and particularly recall the works of Victorian novelist H Rider Haggard whose myth-steeped descriptions of his characters’ adventures in Africa last century fascinated me. But da Silva, the Dutch explorer whose frozen body was found centuries after his death in a cave high up Mt. Kilimanjaro, transferred himself from “King Solomon’s Mines” to the wardrobe in my bedroom, on and off, for a couple of years. Getting to sleep was no mean feat with an imagination like mine!

My ‘real’ life – eating, sleeping, going to school – was incidental to my inner life which was full of what I felt were the really interesting questions : why are we alive, where do we go after death, do we live on several planes of existence at once, what is happening in other galaxies, if there are x million Catholics and even more Buddhists and Hindus, how come they are all Wrong and Damned and a few thousand members of the Free Church of Scotland are Right and Saved ?

And what would happen if you unwrapped an Egyptian mummy and I wonder if I could make a shrunken head like the Jivaro Indians and why did people paint pictures on cave walls thousands of years ago?

These were the issues which preoccupied me for years. No-one knew about them except my maternal grandfather. He had spent time taming wild horses alone in the middle of Argentina before World War 1, and in later life was the only Church of Scotland missionary to visit ill or injured foreign sailors of all religions in the local island hospital, despite the disapproval of the Free Church. “We are all God’s children”, he would say firmly to his critics – and to me. He died when I was eleven, after which I spoke to no-one until I grew up and left home about anything which really mattered.

As Pluto squared 12th house Venus, Moon and Sun, then crossed the IC conjunct South Node from 93-95, what was left of my family of origin fell apart in a particularly painful and tragic way. I had to make choices in order to protect myself from the destructive urges of other family members which involved separation from loved ones which is probably permanent. The major decision I made during those years was that the blood tie does not give others the right to destroy your life. I was indeed fortunate in having an astrological framework, which helped to provide a meaningful context for the pain.

As part of trying to process what was happening, I decided to compile a family history, returning to my native island to collect some oral material from old people who knew my family back a couple of generations. The day I sat down to write it up, transiting Pluto was exactly conjunct the South Node, within half a degree of the IC. During the same week, I looked back through some old writings of my own, finding two unpublished pieces.

The first was written in July 1970, six months after the start of Neptune transiting the IC. I had no knowledge of astrology then…….

“…….My sister and I decided to take the dog and walk from our house, just outside the town, to a beach very exposed to the sea, well beyond the harbour. It would be a long walk, but it was a beautiful briskly windy sunny day – snatched from the usual bleak incessant rains of a Hebridean July.

We took a curving route through the town, then via an outlying district overlooking the navigation beacon. This landmark had winked its electric eye reassuringly at the mouth of the harbour for as long as I could remember. Approaching the district cemetery, my sister walked on by, but I slowed down, never having passed through its gates. Only men attended funerals in the Outer Hebrides when I was growing up.

“The sun is shining on the dead today!” I called to my sister. “Let’s go and pay our respects.” She wasn’t too keen. “Have you ever visited Granddad and Granny’s grave?” I asked.

“No,” she said. ” I suppose we could do that.”
We pushed open the heavy creaking gate. The graveyard, beautifully tended, sloped gently down to within a few hundred yards of the sea. I realised that I did not know where my father’s parents lay.

” I remember where Daddy said it was,” my sister said. “Follow me. With our English name, it shouldn’t be difficult to find.”

Our paternal grandfather had been posted to the Outer Hebrides before the First World War, meeting our grandmother on his first trip ashore. English gentlemen were a great rarity in these parts; very desirable “catches” to aspiring island girls like Granny, who had by all accounts been a handsome, strong and wilful young woman. He was well and truly caught; apart from a period of war service he remained in the Outer Isles for the rest of his long life.

His death devastated my grandmother. They had been married for fifty two years. I remember sitting with her in her bedroom, she who had always turned herself out so elegantly propped up in bed, an old singlet of my grandfather’s failing to conceal her droopy, withered breasts from my young eyes. Up to then I had never known the desolation of not being able to console another human being – or that old people ever cried. She wept and wailed and moaned, repeating:
“I don’t want to live any more. What’s the use, what’s the use now he’s away? “

Live on she did, doggedly, for nine years, lightened only by a late addition to the family. I was fifteen when my brother was born. Granny was eighty two, and half way senile. The child was called Frederick, after Granddad; as the novelty wore off Granny slipped into senility, a querulous fractious husk, and finally just a husk, and a medical miracle, carried off at eighty six with her fourth bout of pneumonia.

I was at university when she died, having become so distant from her by then that I felt nothing but a vague sense of relief ….

“I’ve found it !”
I had fallen behind my sister in my reverie. She was standing about twenty yards away; I hurried to the spot. It was a plain, simple grave. A low railing ran round it. The headstone was in sandstone, with only the facts of their births and deaths etched on it in gold lettering. Noting with satisfaction, which my grandmother would have shared, the absence of ‘fancy versification’, I stood and looked at the grave.

Without any warning, for I had felt quiet and composed, there was a rush and a roar in a deep silent centre of my being; a torrent of desolation and grief swept through me. I wept and wept and wept, quite uncontrolled.

There they were, half my being. Where had it all gone: the passion of their early love; the conception of their children; her sweat and blood and pain as she thrust my father into the world; their quarrels, silences, love, laughter, loneliness and grief; their shared and separate lives? And this was it. On a hot beautiful day with the sea lapping on the shore and the seabirds wheeling and diving, a few bits of cloth and bone under the earth, an iron railing and a stone above.

I was not weeping just for them. Overwhelmed by total awareness of my own mortality and that of all human beings before and after me, I had never felt so stricken, so vulnerable, so alone.” (i)

The second piece, however, written in the autumn of 1971, at the end of the Neptune transit to the IC, whilst Neptune was 0 Sagittarius, shows that something else was now emerging from the underworld which would offer me inspiration and support :

(The ‘pibroch’ referred to is the music of lament played on the Scottish bagpipes)

“ It was a clear autumn evening. Peter called just after seven; he was going out to practice some pibroch. Would I like to come along? It was a rare time of balance – in the weather, in the satisfaction of work which was still new enough to be stimulating, in the fact that Peter and I were falling in love.

Peter drove several miles out of town, winding slowly up deserted country roads to a hill above a small village. Taking out the pipes he began to blow them up, and after much tinkering began to play. To avoid distracting him, I strolled slowly down the road. Peter was standing on a bank of grass at the top of the hill; on his left was a little wood. On the other side of the road was a ditch thick with whin bushes.

Beyond the ditch was a rusty, sagging fence; on the far side of the fence, smooth, mossy moorland dotted with whins, their vivid yellow colour fading into the deepening dusk. In the distance I could just see the Highland hills, purple and rust, gathering shadows in the autumnal twilight.

A myriad of stars, taking their lead from Venus, was growing bright with increasing intensity. A mellow harvest moon was slowly rising, casting a glow on the hills. The air held a hint of cold. I could feel the melancholy music of the bagpipes flowing through me like a magical current.

Reaching the foot of the hill, surrendering myself completely to the intensity of the moment, I lay down in the middle of the road. Spreading out my arms, I gazed up at the stars.

A gentle breeze blew over my body, soughing through the reedy grass. Drifting with the music through the night sky, slipping away from awareness of myself or the present, I was a timeless spirit of the air, travelling the vastness of space on the notes of the pibroch. An unobtrusive rhythm, a pulse, began to beat; growing more and more steady, it became a whispering message in my mind :

‘ There is nothing to fear,’ it said. ‘ There is nothing to fear.’

An image of my lying dead, under the earth, came to me. Such images, occurring at other times, had filled me with panic and disgust. Now, there was none of that. I could gladly have died at that moment; my flesh would return to the earth and nourish it, my spirit would soar to infinity. The pulse continued, flooding me with its light :

‘ There is nothing to fear, nothing to fear, nothing to fear….’

At that point of spiritual ecstasy, I felt the absolute reality of my soul.

Such a moment might have lasted a second, an hour, or a hundred thousand years; but the music ceased, and the chill which was gradually taking over my body drew me back gently into the present…….” (ii)

The knowledge that such a vitalizing sense of connectedness was possible, glimpsed during the above experience, kept me going through the long struggle to believe that life had an overall meaning, and to find my own way of offering my energy creatively in the years which were to follow.

When Uranus crossed the South Node/IC in 1980/81, I began to study astrology,thereby fulfilling a prediction made by an astrologer I had casually encountered in a laundrette in Bath in England in the early 1970s. I also met, moved in with and later married my partner – his Scorpio Moon is conjunct my IC and South Node, and he has an Aquarian Sun and Venus. All very appropriate symbolism for the timing of the Uranus IC transit !

His steadfast support, combined with the deep awareness of teleology which many years’ practice of astrology brings, have been vital for my personal and professional growth and development from the time Uranus crossed the IC until now, (ie end 1995-early 1996) as Pluto moves off that point.

When Pluto was still transiting the IC, but from Sagittarius, I applied and was accepted for a major astrological study course. The very day that Pluto was exactly on the South Node and about to cross the IC for the last time saw me beginning the first year of study. I felt a powerful sense of standing on firm inner ground after the turbulence and trauma of the last few years – of being in the right place at the right time, of having done what I could, for now, with my family inheritance – of being ready to move on to the next growth cycle.

Now that the outer planets have crossed the IC and moved into the Western hemisphere of my Horoscope, I feel liberated from much of the pathology of the past, and more able to use directly in the world the undoubted creativity inherited with it. Nor do I need any longer to make bargains with the shadowy figures who emerge when the light of day is dimming….

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i & ii : Both extracts have been published both together and separately in several articles in the USA, the UK and Australia, eg in “Of Cerberus and Blackest Midnight Born” which appeared in the UK’s Astrological Journal, 1996, and was then reprinted in Considerations magazine (USA) in the same year.

and –

“Of Cerberus and Blackest Midnight Born” is a quote from ‘L’Allegro’ by the English poet John Milton

Zodiac

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2600 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014/17

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

30 Comments

Posted in What happens when Uranus Neptune and Pluto cross the I.C ?

Tagged H Rider Haggard, horoscope, Imum Coeli (I.C.), Liz Greene, Neptune planet of spiritual longing, personal planets, Pluto, Uranus, Venus Rising

A Tender Twelfth House Tale…

Posted on September 19, 2014 | 6 comments

“…where do we go when we sleep? Where do we go when we give up the fight? Where do we go when we drift, allowing fantasy to take over? Where do we go when we die? Where DO we go when we give up struggling within Saturn’s realm and allow Neptune’s flow to take us over? Astrology has a name for this inchoate territory where everything dissolves into the primal waters.

It is called the Twelfth House…”

The Mountain Astrologer

In the August/September issue of ‘The Mountain Astrologer’ magazine, I was very happy to have my long-gestated ponderings on that most mysterious of all the astrological houses, the Twelfth House, published as one of their leading articles for that issue. Called “Contemplating the Twelfth House: an optimist’s take on self-undoing”, it must have struck a deep chord with some readers. I have never before had so many powerful, moving, poignant responses to anything I’ve written.

Picture the scene: a lady is standing in a slow health food store queue in Hawaii. She is looking for something to pass the time. She picks up an astrology magazine (The Mountain Astrologer) reads my article whilst she is waiting, goes home and immediately emails me. Her comments on what she has read are affirming and much appreciated. One phrase in particular, “…we are all particles poised to slip back to the wave…” resonates so deeply that she asks me if she can use it for a very special purpose?

She has just lost a dear friend to cancer, and plans to make a collage to give to her friend’s family at the funeral, to be held in a few days. May she use my phrase around which to create the collage?

“Of course you may” I said, deeply touched by this request. She thanked me most graciously. “I’ll send you a copy when it’s done.”

The lady was as good as her word. Here is the beautiful collage she made, which I shall always treasure. Both of us, I know, will also treasure the “One World” circumstances of our contact. The Twelfth House is that place in space where all differences dissolve, back, back, back to the Source. Our joint experience across seas and continents is one tiny validation of that truth.

Rashani Réa, unique, gifted lady – thank you for including me in your world.

we are all particles…

******

Zodiac

4o0 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

6 Comments

Posted in The Twelfth House ( 3 articles )

Tagged Astrology, collage art, Hawaii, horoscopes, particle/wave theory, Rahani Rea, The Mountain Astrologer, the Source, the Twelfth House

Uranus, Pluto and the Scottish Independence Referendum

Posted on September 11, 2014 | 43 comments

In our minute corner of the Milky Way galaxy, in that barely noticeable solar system of which our tiny Earth is part, ingenious humans aeons ago devised a symbol system, based on observation of the relationship between planetary movements and human behaviour. They were thus able to unlock what the meanings of those energy shifts might be. We astrologers are still observing – and what an especially interesting time this is in which to be doing so!

Astrologers, however, do not have an observational monopoly. Songwriters have a pithy way of capturing behaviour patterns too: ‘Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it, Let’s do it, let’s fall in love…’ Cole Porter was probably an optimist – or he never experienced the scouring, disruptive force of Uranus/Pluto in action.

Since the turbulent 1960s conjunction, the first exact squares of those two planets (moving gradually towards exactitude since around 2007/8) have been ripping across the world from 2012 onwards. The Aries/Capricorn combo is currently just past the fifth of seven exact squares. A highly notable effect has been massively disruptive and often violent falling out of love between established nations, their leaders and populations.

Uranus/Pluto in action worldwide

The most dramatic, extreme expression of this is the ‘Arab Spring’ which has been sweeping across the Middle East since December 2010 in Tunisia. Street trader Mohamed Bouazizi’s despairing self-immolation in that country triggered off massive popular uprisings which swept away dictators like Egypt’s Mubarak and Gaddafi in Libya.

Its current major manifestation is the ghastly civil war in Syria which shows no signs of abating in its grotesque destructiveness. In the meantime, Libya is descending into a chaos of fighting factions, whilst Egypt appears to have replaced its democratically elected civilian president Morsi, swiftly deposed by people power, with yet another military-backed president and government. (NOTE: I completed and submitted this article on 14.6.14, before the subsequent flare-ups of severe disruption in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iraq where ISIS/ISIL erupted with brutal, shocking violence)

Be careful what you wish for…

Arrival at reasoned compromise is not one of the most notable manifestations of the Uranus/Pluto combination. With this particular square, Pluto in Capricorn’s archetypal thrust is towards the destruction of institutional and political structures which have outlived their usefulness.

Uranus in Aries is immediate and not very nuanced in its headlong pursuit of a new, ideal social order which is – per se – bound to be better than the old, discarded one. Nothing short of revolution, achieved by force if necessary, is its aim. Caught up in the passion of the moment, a leap into the unknown is acceptable, exciting.

Reasoned, hard-headed contemplation of consequences is not high on revolutionary agendas.

Uranus: the revolutionary egg breaker

Liz Greene offers a succinct caveat regarding the Uranian archetype in action, thus:

” But Uranus doesn’t recognise the value and nature of time, or the importance of slow growth and compromise. Nor does it recognise the reality of individual human feeling. The vision of the future must happen now, and anything standing in its way must be annihilated or, at best, reformed. This can result in enormous suffering, for individuals as well as for the collective. The basic philosophy of Uranus is that, to make an omelette, one has to break eggs. The problem is that the eggs are the emotional and instinctual needs of individual human beings. Revolutions always have a way of going out of control.”(1)

We are all caught up, tossed about every which way, by the shifting energy patterns of a restless cosmos. Both individuals and nation states are, as it were, given a chip of prevailing energy patterns to act out.We are run far more by the dark tides of those turbulent energies than we may care to admit. Uranus Pluto waters run deep in ‘passionate intensity’, shallow in temperate rational analysis.

Uranus/Pluto strikes Scotland

Scotland’s Horoscope

Bearing this in mind, let’s turn to Scotland, one of the four countries making up the United Kingdom. At the UK general election of May 2011, the Scottish National Party headed up by First Minister Alex Salmond won a sweeping mandate from the Scottish people. Many Scots voted SNP not out of a desire for separation, but because as a minority government from 2007, they had appeared to be doing a more competent job of running the country than the Labour Party, whose long domination of Scottish politics had led to terminal disillusion on the part of much of the electorate.

With this strong mandate, the big push to a referendum vote on Scotland’s future was on. On 18th September 2014, Scots will go to the polls to answer a simple question:

“Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Scotland’s Horoscope: from 1005 to 2014

In 1999, the year Scotland gained its own parliament for the first time in nearly 300 years, I wrote an article presenting and briefly analysing Scotland’s horoscope.The most commonly used chart for Scotland is that of the crowning of Malcolm the Second at Scone on 25 March 1005 at noon (see DATA at end of article).

In this chart can be seen quite clearly some of the main themes which the wider world associates with Scotland. On contemplating both the natal horoscope, along with its progressions and transits for 1999, I was amazed at the accuracy with which this thousand year old chart seems vividly to describe Scotland’s complex national character. Furthermore, the transits and progressions summed up the state of play in 1999 very clearly.

You can read the article here: http://anne-whitaker.com/2014/02/12/scotlands-horoscope-2/

I concluded by saying “…there is a death/rebirth process going on in Scotland’s ties with England and the UK. The outcome of that is by no means clear, many Scots wanting nothing less than the end of the long marriage with the UK…”

Fifteen years later, we know the answer to that speculative statement. After the Independence Referendum on 18th September 2014, there is a credible chance that the UK will formally cease to exist in March 2016.

The current picture

In this article I have chosen a limited focus: to set the political turmoil going on in one small country, Scotland, in the context of a bigger world picture dominated by two disruptively transformative planetary archetypes i.e. Uranus and Pluto, frequently present at key revolutionary moments in history. I look forward to the appearance of a swathe of detailed mundane analyses, very much extending the narrow scope of this one, and bringing in both the UK’s charts and that of the redoubtable Mr Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister (whose birth data I have included at the end of the article).

Let’s look now at Scotland’s natal chart (see above); then Uranus/Pluto as it links to the same chart with its hand-drawn overlay of secondary progressions (in green) and transits (in red) for that fateful date of 18th September 2014:

Scotland’s Horoscope 18.9.14

The position of the Uranus/Pluto square could scarcely be more prominent. Uranus has been crossing Scotland’s Aries ninth and tenth house planets and Aries MC since 2010/11, and is currently squaring the progressed MC/IC axis from the tenth house. Pluto sits right on the progressed MC, along with the progressed Sun and Neptune – AND Scotland’s natal North Node. (note: Alex Salmond’s North Node, Sun and Mercury are at 5, 9 and 13 degrees of Capricorn respectively – the UK’s North Node, Sun, MC and ASC are 14 Aries, 10 Capricorn, 9 Cancer and 7 Libra)

It’s also worth noting that transiting Neptune is opposite Scotland’s Moon at the time of the referendum, reflecting the longing of the population for some kind of future independent Eden – along with uncertainty and confusion, inability to know where the post-referendum truth may lie, whatever the outcome…

These significators depict a heady mix of energies: a nation suffused with idealism and longing for a radically altered structure to its national life and role in the wider world, urgently prepared to demolish the old order, inspired by a pioneering vision of a radical new future.

Which way forward?

So – which way will it go on the 18th of September? Astrology has its range of successes and failures to show, as have other practitioners of the predictive arts eg physicists, economists and weather forecasters – remember the failure to predict the Great Storm of 1987? We do much better at describing the essence of a pattern, but identifying the exact branches is much more hit and miss. Personally this cheers me, since it appears to suggest a creative balance between fate and free will in the universe.

However, it is possible to see some clear pictures emerging from this contemplation of the stripped-down meanings of the Uranus and Pluto archetypes, and by observing how they are clearly playing out right now across the world. The seventh and final exact square takes place on 17th March 2015 at 15 degrees Aries/Capricorn, gradually fading in intensity over the next three to four years. Hopefully after that, the dust should start settling; we can begin at that stage to assess what the possible political costs and benefits have been.

A few things seem clear from reflecting on Scotland’s horoscope for the 18th September 2014 and thereafter through the lens of this Uranus/Pluto square. Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, the old order is now untenable, is on its way out. The scouring forces of change, for good, ill –or both – will have their way. Scots want more of a say in how their nation is run. They will have that, one way or another.

Be careful what you wish for…

Uranus being Uranus, consequences that no-one could have predicted are on their way both for Scotland and the whole UK. Fasten your seat belts, everyone. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!!

*********

DATA:

Scotland:

25 March 1005, Scone, Scotland, Noon (traditional symbolic time for the coronation of the king). Coronation of Malcolm Canmore, aka Malcolm the Second. Source/s: this date is given as the start of the year 1005 in the Annnals of Ulster, as quoted in Early Sources of Scottish History Volume 1, p 521, covering AD 500-1296. This work was collected and translated by Alan Orr Anderson (1879 -1958) and first published in 1922 by Oliver & Boyd (Edinburgh). A corrected edition was published by Paul Watkins in Edinburgh in 1990.

(note: the Horoscope in this article is set for Perth, Scotland, a latitude and longitude so near Scone as to make no difference to the horoscope’s planetary positions, Ascendant or Midheaven – the computer hadn’t heard of Scone, apparently! And – the date changes to 31 March when calendar adjustments are made from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar)

Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland:

31 December 1954, Linlithgow, Scotland, 16:30 GMT

Source/s: A Multitude of Lives A book of astrological data and biographies. Paul Wright, Parlando Press, Edinburgh, 2009, p220

*********

References and Notes

1)Liz Greene, CPA Seminar Series, Volume 7:

The Art of Stealing Fire, p 3.

BIO:

Anne Whitaker lives in Glasgow, Scotland. Her background is in adult education, generic and psychiatric social work, and private practice as a counsellor, counselling supervisor, and mentor. She has worked as an astrologer, teacher, and writer since 1983. Anne blogs at www.anne-whitaker.com, where her e-book Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness — an open-minded take on paranormal experience — can be purchased.

Contact Anne at info@anne-whitaker.com

(NOTE: this article was requested for the Association of Professional Astrologers International’s Newsletter, where it was first published in June 2014. It was subsequently re-published in the UK’s Astrological Journal in its September/October 2014 issue.)

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19o0 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Posted in Scotland's Horoscope ( 2 articles), Uranus/Pluto (5 articles)

Tagged Centre for Psychological Astrology, Liz Greene, Pluto in Capricorn, Scotland, Scotland's Horoscope ( 2 articles), Scottish Independence Referendum, Uranus in Aries, Uranus/ Pluto square, Uranus/Pluto conjunctions

TreeHouse interviews astrologer, writer and blogger Anne Whitaker

Posted on August 15, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here is an extract from a recent interview in which that fine Arts site, TreeHouse, asked me a series of searching questions about my blogging career in particular, and my other four careers – including astrology of course! – in general. It was great fun to do, so if you want to find out more about the Leo behind Astrology: Questions and Answers , as Jupiter settles into the sign of Leo and starts crossing my excessive number of planets in that sign, do read on!

Leo

TH: What initially drove you to create the Astrology: Questions and Answers site at http://www.annewhitaker.com?

AW: Answering questions about astrology is something I have done both for my students and for myself for a very long time! Then a couple of years ago, I was invited to run an astrology blog from a popular local site here in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. I thought it would be fun to call it Astrology: Questions and Answers, since by this time my astrological writings on Writing from the Twelfth House were attracting various kinds of correspondence via comments and emails from readers. Inevitably, questions were a big part! The local site proved too limiting, so I set up my own Astrology: Questions and Answers blog.

To read the rest of the interview, click HERE

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2o0 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Jupiter in Leo 2014 -15: what will it bring ?

Posted on August 11, 2014 | 17 comments

Click on the links for detail on the Jupiter 11-12 year cycle, and Jupiter in Leo, the first two articles in this series. This third article explores the 2014-15 journey of Jupiter through the sign of Leo, in relation to the twelve houses of the natal horoscope.

What does the Jupiter in Leo year hold?

I thought I’d kick off this article with an exchange a few weeks ago on this site between my blogging friend Ellis Nelson and myself:

ellisnelson | July 14, 2014 at 1:39 am Jupiter moves to the 9th house for me and I’m looking forward to it!

Anne Whitaker | July 14, 2014 at 6:13 pm | Reply | Edit

Sounds great! Jupiter in his own house adds an extra ‘woosh!. So – teaching in any sphere, embarking on Higher Ed yourself, long distance travel – and, can it be (??!! ) book promoting and publishing. Enjoy!

Ellis is a fine writer; her blog, ellisnelson, is well worth a visit. Here is her credo: Mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. (WB Yeats): I do not know her horoscope, but would expect from what I know of her writing that the planet Jupiter is a powerful influence.

You can see from her comment and my reply, in broad brush stroke terms, what that year-long transit of Jupiter in Leo through her Ninth house is likely to bring.

In my own case, Jupiter has just moved into the Eleventh house; I am about to begin teaching my first astrology class for over 12 years (a whole Jupiter Cycle ago!). It is a ‘refresher’ class for some students I have taught over a number of years, whose astrology has become ‘rusty’ and needs a polish. Jupiter in Leo is up for the task!

The Eleventh House concerns all activity connected to one’s link to the human family, one’s family of origin, and the groups and friendships in which one is involved. So I can expect a year where my wider connections with people grow, develop, and (hopefully!) bring me and those with whom I come into contact some measure of inspiration, broadening of perspectives – and fun.

A broad picture

As ever, it is important at the outset of a general article like this to stress that one can only really judge in detail what the essence of any planetary shift is likely to be from consideration of the whole horoscope or birth chart. However, it is certainly possible to sketch out a broad picture here which can offer some perspective: both to readers with some astrological knowledge, and to those of you with little or none who are curious to know more.

One of the great gifts of astrological understanding is the help it offers in setting our sails, metaphorically speaking, to the prevailing winds of our lives.

Thinking ‘big’ with Jupiter in Leo

So, by considering which house the larger-than-life planet Jupiter is traversing at any given time, we can gain a good general idea of what to expect, and plan accordingly. Jupiter in Leo is theatrical, dramatic and expansive. It needs stimulus, fresh perspectives and challenges, bringing a quality of restless creative energy to whatever house it graces with its benevolent presence.

It is also well worth mentioning Leo’s strong link with matters to do with children: your own, or other people’s, eg as a teacher. So, look out for this dimension in whatever house has Leo on the cusp, as Jupiter passes through that sector over the next year.

You need to ‘think big’ with regard to the affairs of the house of Jupiter in Leo’s year-long residence. But not too big. As I discussed in the second article in this series, Jupiter is prone to excess. As William Blake’s famous line puts it:

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” (i)

…well, not always! One of the perils of Jupiter’s residence in any house is a tendency to overdo things.

Unfortunately, my advice to be careful of excess during this Jupiter transit is, I realise, unlikely to be heeded – especially by ME as I sit here at 6 am (I am not normally, at all, an early riser), typing away furiously in order to inform and entertain all you Eleventh house folk, my readers, out there. …

Pairs of Houses

It’s important here to point out that the houses, like the signs, operate in complementary opposites, in pairs. Ellis’s Third and Ninth houses are stimulated by Jupiter’s transit of the Ninth. Thus gathering a variety of types of information and experiences (Third) and placing them in the context of the Big Picture (Ninth) on a bigger scale than usual, describes the essence of her Jupiter through Leo year.

My Fifth and Eleventh houses are up for challenge and expansion. Thus my creative impulses (Fifth) are focused and directed through sharing learning and new perspectives with the groups and friendship networks (Eleventh) in which I am involved. You’ve already seen how this has begun to work out!

If you have an early degrees of Aquarius Ascendant or Rising Sign, then your Descendant or point of significant others is in Leo. Jupiter has just crossed that point and is now traversing the Seventh house, highlighting the First house also. This is the Me (First house ) in relation to You (Seventh house) pair.

Thus Jupiter travelling through your Seventh house strongly emphasises your need for challenge, excitement and new developments on the relationship front. I’ve often seen this core meaning express through the branch of clients becoming involved with a new partner from another country and/or culture.

Generally speaking, it’s a transit which brings new and growth-enhancing relationships into one’s life. You are also likely to encounter more than one significant new person whose Sun Sign is Leo…But watch it! It can also bring over-optimism: seeing in A.N.Other what you want to see, rather than what is actually there.

So – always be aware in considering the impact of transiting Jupiter (or any other planet by transit) through the houses, that the opposite house is also involved, although the ‘weighting’ is always in the house in which Jupiter is its year-long visitor. In fact, quite often it may feel as though the house in which Jupiter is resident draws energy away from its opposite house.

For example, Louis, focusing on renovations on the home front (Jupiter transiting 4th House) could feel his inclination towards putting energy into his career (10th House) temporarily diminishing.We will meet him again at the end of this post.

Meeting friends along the way

Some houses are empty of natal planets (although NOT lacking in importance – this is the subject of another article in itself!) . Others, on the other hand, are tenanted natally by anything from one to several planets.

Let’s imagine that Uranus, in Leo, lives in your Tenth house of vocation, career, direction. In essence, this indicates that you are a person whom a conventional, structured, rule-bound career would not suit at all. You are in your mid-thirties, have already had three career changes, and are feeling bored and restless. (note: third Jupiter Return approaching!)

Jupiter swings by your Tenth House for a year, spending some time hanging out with Uranus in Leo. A work colleague takes you along to a seminar on astrology given by a charismatic astrology teacher. You are completely bowled over, spend a year reading everything you can get your hands on concerning this fascinating new subject. Three years later you have changed career again, having gone freelance: guess what the new career is, folks?!

Someone else, let’s call him Mark, has four planets in Leo in the Twelfth House. He works very hard as a social worker specialising in welfare rights (Aquarius on the Sixth House cusp). Jupiter enters the Twelfth House, and Mark feels a strong creative pull toward his spiritual life, towards retreat and reflection. He is due some sabbatical leave, so embarks on a three-month retreat in a nearby Buddhist monastery.

Conclusion – and Louis’s story

I hope that this brief exploration of a range of possible means of expression stimulates you to reflect on the House in your horoscope currently tenanted by Jupiter. If you are new to astrology, why not have your chart calculated by one of the reputable services such as Astrodienst, so that you can find out? Or better still, go and have an astrology reading with a qualified, experienced and reputable astrologer.

In reflecting on that highlighted house, and considering how best to direct Jupiter’s energy there, bear in mind, whatever the house is, what I said earlier in this article:

Jupiter in Leo is theatrical, dramatic and expansive. It needs stimulus, fresh perspectives and challenges, bringing a quality of restless energy to whatever house it graces with its benevolent presence.

I hope you can make the best of the opportunities and challenges which Jupiter may bring into your life in the year ahead. As ever, it would be great to get some feedback, since putting real flesh on the bones of the symbolism is how we all, beginners or experienced astrologers alike, become fluent in our craft.

I’d like to conclude the article with some brilliant feedback given to me a few days ago by a friend, who I’ve named Louis.

Jupiter entered Leo on 16th July 2014. Louis’s IC, beginning his Fourth House, is at 0 degrees 49 minutes of Leo. The Commonwealth Games began in Glasgow, Scotland, UK on 24th July 2014, just as Jupiter by transit crossed Louis’s IC, beginning a year-long transit of his Fourth House. For the two weeks preceding this major event,Louis and his friends were hard at work renovating and decorating an upstairs flat in Louis’s house in order to let it out for the Commonwealth Games.

He first let the flat out on 23rd July, and it was let continuously to three different lots of visitors during the ten days of the Games. In this way, not only did Louis cover the cost of the renovations: he now has a regular source of income which he can draw on by continuing to let out that flat, thereby improving his financial position.

Another issue cropped up at exactly the same time, which may well result in Louis having an inheritance or profound gain of some kind – not necessarily material. Jupiter first crosses his Pluto at 16 degrees Leo early in October 2014, again in mid-February 2015, before crossing for a third time and moving on at the end of May/beginning of June 2015. We shall have to wait and see whether this plays out in concrete material terms, or as powerful gain of some other kind.

I’ll let you know! In the meantime, if any beginning astrologers are reading this: tell me why I put forward those possible outcomes from Jupiter crossing Pluto in Leo in the Fourth House. Any offers?

And – feedback on your experiences of Jupiter in Leo through any of the Houses/over any of the four Angles of your horoscope, is always welcome.

References

(i) from William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, one of the “proverbs of Hell”.

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1850 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Posted in Jupiter and its Cycles (5 articles)

Tagged horoscope, Jupiter in Leo, Jupiter in Leo 2014 -15:, Jupiter in the Seventh House, the twelve houses of the horoscope, William Blake

More about Cycles: planning your autumn with the Sun/Moon cycle

Posted on August 8, 2014 | 4 comments

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (i)

Since my recent popular post about the Jupiter Cycle, I have had a few requests to write about other planetary cycles. My blogging friend, Linda Leinen, is interested in hearing about the effects of the planets on plant growth. I aim to track down a former student, Janice Sharkey (are you reading this, Janice?!) who is a specialist in astrological gardening, to contribute a Guest post on this fascinating topic.

In the meantime, I thought it might be useful to introduce the fundamental regulating cycle of life on Earth – the cycle of the Sun and Moon. I’ve included a light-hearted ‘guide’ on how best to use the upcoming energies of the autumn new moons in Virgo, Libra and Scorpio.

The Sun/Moon Cycle

marianneohagan.com

Sun and Moon – heavenly partners

Astronomically, we know that the Moon is a small satellite of the Earth, and the Sun is the great cosmic life-giver, much, much farther out in space. By a planetary quirk, the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, but 400 times nearer the Earth, so we see them as the same size.This is why eclipses can occur, since at the time of a solar eclipse the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, blocking out its light totally if the angle of observation is exact.

Astrologers distill symbolic meaning from the astronomical facts of our solar system. They see the Sun and Moon as of equal but complementary importance in the quest to understand the ever-shifting dance of cosmic energy, and where we fit in.

The Sun is rather like the Greek hero Jason, setting out on his quest for the Golden Fleece; the Moon, the unfolding pattern of the quest and the experiences which arise from it. The Sun is cerebral, seeking to create meaning from experience. The Moon is the body, receiving and interacting with that experience of everyday life from which meaning can be distilled.

The monthly weaving

The movements of all nine planets plus the Moon are plotted throughout the year against a 360 degree imaginary circular band in the sky called the Zodiac, which is divided into twelve thirty degree sectors called Aries, Taurus, Gemini and so on.

The Sun and the Moon have a 29.5 day cycle of relationship with each other, beginning with a conjunction at the New Moon, when the Sun and Moon occupy the same part of the sky. On 25 August 2014, for example, the New Moon takes place in the Virgo sector, which the Sun will occupy for most of September. After about three days the beautiful, fragile waxing crescent moon appears, indicating that the energy of a new cycle of earthly life has begun to take shape.

The Sun/Moon Month http://www.psychiclibrary.com

The Moon moves much faster than the Sun. Within a week, it has moved on to Sagittarius. The Sun and Moon are now at an angle of 90 degrees to each other.The Moon has become fatter, more substantial. Equally, the energy of the cycle has established itself in concrete action. Two weeks into the cycle, we have the Full Moon, with the Moon now in Pisces, opposite the Sun.

The energy of the cycle at this point is at its most potent and visible. In ancient times, the full moon point was an important one, eg in the timing of rituals. Symbolically, the energy of that point had a charging-up effect on whatever was being enacted. The contrast between the forces of light and darkness, birth and death, masculine and feminine, was at its most amplified and potent. Even in this era of electric light and rational analysis, many people can detect a heightening of their energy and emotions at the time of the full moon.

By the last quarter, a week before the next New Moon, the Moon is visible in Gemini, 90 degrees apart from the Sun again, returning this time to meet it.The energy of the month’s cycle is fading. The splendidly full moon has diminished markedly in girth. Like the autumn of the year, the efforts of the earlier phase of the cycle have produced results which are now being harvested, for good or ill.

The next New Moon falls on 24 September, in Libra. 21-24 September represents the very end of the cycle which began in Virgo. This period was known to the Ancients as Moondark – a time of ending, as the old cycle dies, and the new one prepares to be born from the dark womb of the night.

Personal timing – some practical tips

Farmers do not plant their corn in the autumn. That is the time for reaping, just as sowing should occur in the spring, when new life is beginning to surge up from the earth refreshed by its long winter rest.

Thus we can use the Sun/Moon cycle in a very practical way, to help us set our own activity in the context of the natural waxing and waning of the energy of life through space and time.The guidelines which follow can only be general; for specific detail we each have our individual life blueprint or horoscope.

The horoscope or birth chart shows, in symbolic form, the characters who enact the play of our lives as the script, ie the ever-changing movement of the planets, unfolds the action of the drama. Nevertheless, the Sun/Moon cycle offers a useful structure in broad terms. Let’s explore how this can offer an aid to planning over the next few months.

The Lunar Phases http://www.psychiclibrary.com

Autumn Guidelines

If you are intending to initiate something, eg a business, a marriage, a new project in the home, try to wait if you can until there is a New Moon which reflects the nature of the enterprise.The new moons over the autumn of 2014 are in Virgo on 25 August, Libra on 24 September, and Scorpio on 23 October.

Virgo is an earth sign, its energies strongly service oriented, practical, and good at managing detail. It is also extremely hard working, and analytical.So – the Virgo new moon would be an ideal time to start that blitz on your admin system which you’ve been putting off all year, or for putting special effort into re-organising and cleaning up the garden.

Libra, another air sign, is connected to the arts, the aesthetic side of life, and to relationship. Thus the Libran new moon would be ideal for re-decorating your home, taking up an arts-related hobby like painting or theatre-going – or setting that wedding date…

Scorpio is a water sign, very much connected to emotional intensity and passion.It also has strong links to all those aspects of life which carry a powerful charge: sex, death, psychotherapy and money being just a few. So if you want to embark on a passionate affair, make your will, sort out a deep-rooted emotional problem which has been left to fester, or persuade your bank manager to give you that big loan, this is the month to do it!

At the New Moon point, life’s energies are still fluid, unformed, and the Moon itself is invisible. Initiatives are best taken between three and seven days later – from the first waxing crescent to the first quarter.

Moondark is the last three days of the cycle.The Moon disappears then, as the energy of the month wanes. It is wise to avoid initiating something important during this time; it is best used for winding down, withdrawal, contemplation and reflection, stock-taking, preparing for the new.

Many readers will know some of the stories of King Arthur, the legendary king of ancient times. He ruled just as the old pagan beliefs were being superceded by the rise of Christianity. When he married Guinevere, he did so in a Christian ceremony at Moondark. The pagan priests were appalled at this. “No good will come of it ” was their view.They were right. The marriage of Arthur and Guinevere was barren, and she spent most of it in love with another man, the knight Sir Launcelot.

Applying the cycle to the Big Picture

The metaphor of the monthly Sun/Moon cycle can be used as a template for helping to understand the much longer cycles of human life. The biggest cycle astrologers work with is the Neptune Pluto cycle: those two planets meet only once every 492 years, and this New Moon point symbolises the start of a whole epoch of human development.

The most recent one took place in 1891/2 in Gemini, ushering in the communications revolution which in a hundred years has radically altered the way we conduct life on earth. The previous one, also in Gemini, occurred in 1398/9, prefacing the Renaissance and the Reformation, two major shaping processes in European and world history.

But whether the cycle is huge, like the Neptune Pluto one, or small, like the monthly Sun/Moon one, the same basic stages apply: seeding, germinating, sprouting, flowering, ripening, harvesting, dying back in preparation for the new.

At a deep unconscious level, we all live out the unfolding energies of our era, sensing inner timings without the help of any astrologer. But astrology is valuable in its ability to offer a symbolic framework from which individuals can gain greater clarity, conscious awareness, and confirmation of their personal connection with the Big Picture.

Good astrological practice should support people in their courage to be themselves, help them to see that “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”.

References

(i) The Bible : Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verse 1

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1600 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
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Posted in The Sun/Moon Cycle, New Moons & Moondark (8articles)

Tagged astrological gardening, horoscopes, Libra, Moondark, Scorpio, Sun/Moon cycle, The Jupiter Cycles, Virgo

Questing fire meets creative fire: exploring Jupiter in Leo

Posted on July 27, 2014 | 5 comments

Jupiter is now settling into in the sign of Leo from 16th July 2014 – 11 August 2014. To read the first of my series of articles exploring various facets of this lively spell of planetary “weather”, click on What is the Jupiter Cycle?

When questing, philosophical fire – Jupiter – dons the clothing of fun-loving, dramatic, look-at-me, creative fire – Leo: what could be the result? Over the next year, we will all find out!

Jupiter in Leo

Jupiter in Leo natally

Here are a few well- known examples of people born with Jupiter in Leo: Bjorn Borg, one of the world’s most successful tennis players. Ian Fleming, author of the famous James Bond spy novels, known for being a bon viveur and womaniser. Simone de Beauvoir, one of the earliest feminist writers and lifelong partner of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund and eminent child psychoanalyst in her own right.

Edward Kennedy, member of a famous American family and well-known politician, not known for restraint in his personal habits.… Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. Alan Leo, famous Victorian astrologer who invented mass-market astrology. Pope John Paul the Second, the most widely-travelled pope in history.

Broad brush strokes – and first principles

Not everyone is born with the exuberant, restless planet Jupiter in Leo, the most playful, creative sign of the zodiac. However, we all have Leo somewhere in the twelve houses of our natal horoscope. It’s important to stress that in a general article like this, one can only offer broad brush strokes of what this exuberant energy will bring to the highlighted house or houses through which Jupiter will be journeying over the coming year.

I will be looking at some of the possible ways in which Jupiter will be lighting up those highlighted houses – hopefully with some more examples from readers! – in the next article in this series. One of the many gifts offered by astrological knowledge is this: used wisely, it can help us to set our sails, metaphorically, to the prevailing winds of our lives.

For now, in preparing to reflect on what this particular transit may bring for us personally, it’s a good idea to return to first principles, to consider the archetypal core of the energies we are contemplating.

It’s always worth remembering that from the core or root, many branches arise. So it’s always more creative and constructive, in my opinion, to pay most attention to those core meanings – and to align oneself with them as best we can when considering what transiting planets might bring into life at any given time.

We can never quite know what branches will manifest: this is down to an interaction between the essential nature of those energies which are currently ‘live’ in our lives, our levels of consciousness, self-awareness, the choices we make – and the x factors in life which no-one can ever predict with reliable accuracy….

Having said this, let’s look at the core principles of the Jupiter in Leo combination, bearing in mind that the planet is always the key driving force, with the sign its particular “tone”, colouring or clothing.

Jupiter – the Great Benefic

Jupiter, the “Great Benefic”

Astrological Jupiter is known as “the great benefic”, the planet bringing opportunity: personal wealth, political prominence, high social position, professional success – “kingship” of various kinds as befitted mythological Jupiter’s role as king of the Olympian gods. As Charles Harvey puts it in “Orpheus” : (i)

“ he was seen as the greatest good and his blessings were everywhere invoked. No one can doubt that his message of life, vitality, hope, growth, optimism, faith and the call to meaning are profoundly desirable.”

Psychologically, though, all forms of over-confidence, inflated sense of one’s own importance, arrogance and hubris were also assigned to the realm of Jupiter. These represent the shadow side of Jupiter’s undoubted blessings of robust faith in life’s essential value and goodness, the longing to know and to grow in wisdom, and the ability to have fun and inspire other people.

The restless drive to grow, to expand, to live a life rich in meaning, to push the boundaries of knowledge and experience as far as possible, lies at the core of astrological Jupiter. So does its shadow: restlessness which cannot and will not accept the limits set by age and time – Saturn’s domain…

Thus Jupiter’s energy brings great force, vitality and optimism. But watch out for its shadow, as set out above! There is always a tendency to overdo things with Jupiter: spending, eating, sex, consumption of drugs and alcohol, and generally “biting off more than one can chew”.

Leo

Leo

The three fire signs: Aries the first sign of the zodiac, Leo the fifth, and Sagittarius the ninth, represent in essence an arising, development, and focus of the life force. Mars-ruled Aries is raw, primal energy, effective but not very subtle. (Sorry, Aries people! No offence meant…) In Sun-ruled Leo, the energy is settling, looking for creative outlets. And in Sagittarius, Jupiter’s own sign, it is time to pull the energies of the zodiacal journey into a framework of meaning (Please don’t stay on that soapbox too long, Sagittarius!) .

Thus Leo is self-consciously aware of its specialness, its gifts (time to be rude to Leos now: ‘ok, you’re special – but not THAT special! ‘ note: I’m allowed to say this, with my embarrassing number of planets in Leo…) and in order to flourish and to grow, needs to be encouraged and allowed to shine, to contribute something unique.

Leonine creativity doesn’t necessarily need to operate in the obvious creative arts, although it often does: drama and performance art, writing, painting and graphics, dance, musical composition, making beautiful objects e.g. jewellery, are just a few of the obvious outlets.

But rearing stable and happy children, being a warm and loving partner and/or friend, shining Leo warmth and exuberance wherever one works, plays, and socialises: these are also wonderful ways of making people feel better, feel special themselves, as Leo shares that sunlit energy with the wider world.

Bringing the two together

Jupiter in Leo creates a bright, strong flame. This demands – and at best, ensures – that the person in whose life such a torch is lit bears it into new, creative endeavours which are not only life-affirming, but also productive of an enlarged perspective: both for the person bearing the torch, and for those illuminated by the light.

In collective life, which is usually less controllable than one’s personal domain, this energy can spill over and become destructive rather than illuminating. As I write this in late July 2014, with Jupiter establishing itself in Leo, we are currently witnessing in several world contexts the dreadful consequences of polarised positions where both sides are convinced they are in the right – and more literally, of the destructive use of firepower.

In individual life, how this flame works depends on the whole set-up of a person’s horoscope. But in the general terms of this article, as we have seen, the flame brings great potential for creative development and for understanding more deeply what being a creative person in the world means, as well as opportunities coming one’s way to bring that about.

Personal examples

As I write this, an image arises of a room full of astrology students, one moment laughing as their Leo teacher (me!) entertains them, another listening intently as the sheer magic and mystery of what astrological symbolism can reveal, penetrates their hearts and fires their imagination. I had to give up all my teaching and indeed all my work, at the end of 2001. Although I had largely recovered by 2008 and resumed part-time work in 2012, I never thought I’d teach again.

Now, as the New Moon in Leo backs up Jupiter’s entry into Leo, preparing to cross all my Leo planets (not telling you how many – but fortunately they are mostly in the Twelfth House!) over the next year, I am planning to set up and run a small refresher astrology class at the request of some of my ‘old’ students. That educational urge, along with the urge to entertain and perform, is proving irresistible as Jupiter moves into Leo, shining its light first on my eleventh house, the house of group activity and collective action. In my small way, I hope to make a bright and illuminating contribution.

I hope also to receive some more feedback on how my readers are experiencing the early entry of Jupiter into Leo. In the meantime, here is some brilliant, very illustrative feedback sent to me by a friend and fellow astrologer, extracted from an email she sent to a friend of hers. Jupiter in Leo, 12 years ago, was transiting her first house, and making a square (challenging aspect) to her Mercury:

“… I’ve been in a strange state of mind for a while now. Not bad, just strange. In fact quite positive really, I think – very much as if my brain has gone into overload – I’m always reading (usually 3 or 4 books at the same time) and writing and thinking about stuff, and researching stuff… it’s bizarre. And all sorts – astrology, archaeology, history, metaphysical, philosophy, occult stuff…. all sorts… constantly buzzing around in my head. It’s strange because I’m so hyped with it all that I can’t sleep at night – my head just keeps on going! Very wired….So my brain may explode really soon!!!! Aaaaargh! Still…. I’m never bored!!…”

I love this feedback. Says it all, really, about the combination of Jupiter, Leo, Mercury, and the first house…

Conclusion

Jupiter is expansive, buoyant and also excessive, so whilst enjoying its energy charge, try not to overdo it! I need to take my own advice! This is the second article generated by Jupiter’s entry into Leo. Last time I discussed the 11-12-year Jupiter Cycle. This time it’s been Jupiter in Leo. I’d like next time to spend some time exploring the effects of Jupiter in Leo through the houses, then follow that by checking out the repeating 12-year Jupiter through Leo cycle. This could go on for a whole year! See what I mean about excess?

_______________

NOTES:

i) Charles Harvey from ‘ War of the Worlds : Jupiter & Saturn,’ essay in Orpheus -Voices in Contemporary Astrology (Consider, 2000) pp 103-4

_______________

Here is the third article in the Jupiter series:

https://astrologyquestionsandanswers.com/2014/08/11/jupiter-in-leo-2014-15-what-will-it-bring-2/

Zodiac

1800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

5 Comments

Posted in Jupiter and its Cycles (5 articles)

Tagged Anna Freud, Aries, astrology chart, Bjorn Borg, horoscope, Jupiter in Leo, Leo, Sagittarius, What is the Jupiter Cycle?

What is the Jupiter Cycle?

Posted on July 21, 2014 | 25 comments

The Jupiter Cycles

Optimistic, expansive and meaning-seeking Jupiter is now in the sign of Leo, where it will remain until 11th August 2015. Excitement is already high; try googling ‘Jupiter’s shift into Leo’ and you’ll see what I mean. My impression from talking to people, and dipping into social media, is that we are all looking for a bit of light relief from what has been a pretty bad news year thus far.

So – what is this shift likely to mean for you and me? In this two-part article, I will first of all introduce the Jupiter cycle in general. In the second part, we will look in some detail at the Jupiter cycle in relation to its traverse of the sign of Leo. It’s important to colour theory with some lively examples of what actually happens to real people when those shifts take place. I already have some interesting material to share. Let’s go!

Jupiter – the Great Benefic

Part One: what is the Jupiter Cycle?

As ever, it is important at the outset of a general article to stress that one can only really judge in detail what the essence of any planetary shift is likely to be from consideration of the whole horoscope or birth chart. However, it is certainly possible to sketch out a broad picture which can offer some perspective: both to readers with some astrological knowledge, and to those of you with none who are curious to know more.

Each of the planets, travelling through the twelve signs of the zodiac as viewed from Earth, has a cycle of differing length. Pluto, currently in Capricorn, will take 248 years to traverse the 360 zodiacal degrees, returning to that sign long after we are all dead and gone! Saturn’s cycle, on the other hand, is a much shorter 29/30 years. Currently in Scorpio, dredging up all kinds of sexual scandal from its previous traverse of that sign in the 1980s, it offers us all the famous Saturn Return, returning to the place it occupied at our birth when we are 29/30 years of age – inviting us all to grow up.

Jupiter and Saturn together form a symbolic, complementary whole: as its cycle unfolds, Saturn helps us to be realistic and to set limits without which no maturation or growth can take place. Jupiter creates contrast and balance to this. It energises that optimistic, expansive part of us which reaches out to the pleasure of new experience, new learning and understanding. Its natural exuberance can make life a fun, joyful experience.

It can also cause us to over-reach our limits, expect more than life can realistically deliver. That facet needs to be watched carefully when Jupiter is very active in our lives…

Jupiter’s cycle is 11-12 years: 11.6 years to be exact. It’s an easy one to track, being accessible both to those of you who know some astrology and those of you who don’t. Everyone can track though their lives, measuring the Jupiter cycles: Jupiter returns to its location in your birth horoscope at 11/12 years of age, 23/4, 35/6, 47/8, 59/60, 71/2, 83/4 in a currently average lifetime.

What do we look for in the Jupiter cycle? In essence, the start of each cycle represents the opening out of a whole new learning period, whose archetypal purpose is to expose us to new experience, new learning – all kinds of travelling within both inner and outer life.

Real life flesh on symbolic bones…

These experiences may and do vary hugely from one person to another, taking their flavour from the zodiacal sign and house in which Jupiter was located when you were born.

At 23/24 (Jupiter in Sagittarius in 9th house) you might take off to Australia to do a postgraduate Diploma in Adult Education. Your friend (Jupiter in Capricorn in 6th house) might not travel anywhere, but concentrate on mastering a new skill like carpentry which enables him after a few years’ apprenticeship to set up his own business. In the meantime, my neighbour down the street (Jupiter in Cancer in 5th house) might marry at 23/4 and have three children in rapid succession before the age of 30. In a real-life example, Alexa said: “My second Jupiter return, aged 24, coincided with me buying a house – natal Jupiter is in Cancer, which is appropriate, of course, and the house was bigger (Jupiter) than we needed for just the two of us, so we could have space for lodgers.”

These are very different branches, Jupiter in differing signs and houses of the zodiac at birth: but the same underlying principle of expansion and growth of experience, understanding, and (hopefully!) some wisdom, shines through them all.

You can also detect the archetypal lifelong themes provided via Jupiter’s placing by sign and house in your personal horoscope, as you follow the Jupiter cycle’s unfolding throughout your lifetime. For example, I have Jupiter in Scorpio in the third house of my natal horoscope. It’s not hard to work out from this (and Jupiter’s strong links to most of the planets in that horoscope!) that an intense preoccupation with gathering and sharing all kinds of information and placing it in contexts which expand one’s understanding of life’s deeper meanings, might be rather important to me…

The Jupiter cycle: unfolding in one lifetime

At 11-12, I passed the “Quali” (the long defunct Scottish entrance exam to determine one’s level of entry to secondary education). At 23-4, I completed a post-graduate Diploma in Education, having already been an adult education teacher for two years. At 35-6, I studied for and passed my first astrology qualification, the Certificate of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (UK), prior to beginning a career as an astrologer.

At 47-8, I began the Diploma in Psychological Astrology, studying with Liz Greene and the late Charles Harvey at the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London. In completing this course, I commuted by plane for three years, earning myself the nickname of “The Flying Scot”. The year after the 59-60 Jupiter Return, I stepped into cyber-space via “Writing from the Twelfth House” my main blog. My first book, a research study called “Jupiter Meets Uranus”, was published the following year.

Perhaps this personal account will encourage you to track through a few of your Jupiter cycles, and see that there is indeed a thematic unfolding of a specific kind of experience…

Fate, free will…or what?

Moirae: the Three Fates

The question of what the balance is between fate and free will has preoccupied humans for millennia. It remains unresolved. However, as an astrologer it is important to have a view. Decades of astrological practice; much reading especially in recent years including what I can grasp of probability theory and chaos theory; my own efforts to become a more conscious person: these have all led me to the view (not original at all – many astrologers take this standpoint!) that there are certain givens in this life, as shown by the characters standing on a person’s life stage when the horoscope is drawn up. Those characters, the horoscope’s symbolic, archetypal patterns, are ours for life.

However, the evidence of observation and experience appears to suggest this vital point: the more conscious we can become of what our motivations and drives are, and how they impact on our inner and external life, the wider becomes the range of possible avenues of expression to which we can have access in choosing how to make our particular life’s drama as positive and creative as possible.

Bearing this in mind, let’s return to the Jupiter cycle and see how we might work creatively and consciously with its 11-12 year periods.

Working with cycles

All life cycles, whether we at looking at a gnat, a human, or a galaxy, go through the same process: seeding, germinating, sprouting, flowering, ripening, harvesting, dying back in preparation for the new. So it is with the planetary cycles.

Think of the tiny monthly cycle of the Sun and Moon. The New Moon takes place in darkness. Only when that first magical waxing crescent appears after 2-3 days, does the energy of the cycle begin to build. After a week, first quarter, things are taking shape. At full moon, the cycle’s energy is in full light, at its most obvious. A week later, on the waning square, the Moon is shrinking, the month’s energy on the wane. Then the last, waning crescent precedes moondark, those 2-3 days in which the energy of the completed cycle sinks back into the Void, waiting for the energy of the next New Moon to arise.

Applying the same template to the 11-12 year cycle of Jupiter, it takes a year or so for the initial upsurge of desire for new expansive challenges to stabilise and take definite form.

Jupiter in action: a real-life example

Let’s use the person with Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 9th House as our example. At the age of 23, off she goes to Australia, completes her Diploma, and obtains a good teaching job in Melbourne. She works there for a couple of years, then relocates to Sydney (first quarter phase, Jupiter now in Pisces) since she wants to take up sailing and she has a friend there who runs a sailing school.

Three years later (full moon phase, Jupiter in Gemini) she agrees to take on a teaching job at the sailing school where she has been a student. Another three years go by, and she begins to become dissatisfied and critical (last quarter phase, Jupiter now in Virgo). She is becoming bogged down in admin and paperwork. Not her style!

She puts less and less commitment into her job, and after over ten years in Australia, she has itchy feet again (moondark). Nearly twelve years after arriving, full of enthusiasm, she is off to work in the Greek Islands. She has fallen in love with a Greek Australian and decides to return with him to his home island of Rhodes. She is nearly thirty-six years old.A new Jupiter cycle is about to begin…

Working with our Jupiter cycles

I’ve always found that astrology students and clients are fascinated when you unfold their major cycles with them, as well as finding it helpful in understanding the unfolding pattern of their lives. The Jupiter cycle is a particularly easy one to which to connect. The rhythm of the cycle, looking back, can usually be tracked. In the last year or two before a new 11-12 year period begins, one can generally perceive a certain dissatisfaction, boredom, loss of any great interest, and desire for a new challenge in the sphere of life indicated by the sign and house placement of Jupiter natally. If Jupiter is a very strongly placed and emphasised ‘character on the stage’, the overall effect is of course amplified.

With Jupiter in Scorpio in the third house, I clearly recall my boredom, restlessness, and desire for a new educational project towards the end of my fourth Jupiter cycle when I was forty-six or forty-seven. Alexa, with her Jupiter in Cancer, bought a house at the start of the second Jupiter cycle when she was twenty-four, “… bigger (Jupiter) than we needed for just the two of us, so we could have space for lodgers.”

Are you a year or two into a new Jupiter cycle? Or three years into it? After five or six years, the cycle is at its Full Moon phase, its peak of energy. By nine years, impetus generally is on the wane, and restlessness setting in. By the Moondark phase of the cycle, it really feels like time for a new project, a new venture. But you know, if you are familiar with this cycle’s rhythm, that it will probably be another couple of years before the new idea has taken shape and translated itself into a fresh, exciting direction.

One of the great gifts of astrological knowledge is the help it offers in setting our sails, metaphorically speaking, to the prevailing winds of our lives. It is useful to get to know your Jupiter cycle, in planning those times in life when your Spirit is calling you to open up your life to new experience. I do hope this introductory article has given you some useful food for reflection – and impetus to action!

Part Two: Jupiter in Leo.

It would be helpful in the meantime if any readers feel like sharing their experiences of Jupiter cycles. In this way, we all expand our understanding…Thanks!

Zodiac

2000 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

25 Comments

Tagged Astrology, Centre for Psychological Astrology, horoscope, Jupiter in Cancer, Jupiter in Leo, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Jupiter in Scorpio, Liz Greene, The Jupiter Cycles

A Scorpio asks: ” How do I help my deepening spiritual life along?”

Posted on July 12, 2014 | 15 comments

Allegra’s is a very reflective, intense, sensitive and profound question to which I am not sure I can do justice in this context. However, I will try! If any readers are able or willing to add to my words in a way they think will be encouraging to Allegra (not her real name) , they are most welcome to do so via a comment.

“….I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me. I am finally making great strides in my spiritual walk and I need some direction. First, I’ve been meditating, praying and consciously accepting positive energy. I once struggled with the idea of controlling my world, and now I am letting the universe flow through me. Lately, since I’ve been listening to myself and able to receive energy I’ve been experiencing very intense, very dense spiritual downloads. They come in the form of words, visions, dreams and feelings. Problems I’ve been trying to solve and sort out for years are so clear suddenly. I love this new connection I’m experiencing, but I would like to continue to grow it and keep receiving these solutions, and information and soothing comforting energy.

Any suggestions? The visions are vivid and so profound and I’ve noticed they often happen when I’m either in the dark, or in warm water. I’m an 11/06/1981 scorpio.

Any wisdom you could share with me would be greatly appreciated. I would love to learn how to live in unison with this great power and use it wisely and respectfully…”

Allegra- Sunrise Horoscope

Dear Allegra

it is perhaps appropriate – given your deep, dark Scorpio Sun – that I too am in the dark: in the sense that I do not know you, have no idea how much if any astrology you know beyond the popular, limited Sun Sign astrology, and do not have your birth time or place. However, I have put up a horoscope for you for Sunrise on your day of birth. This puts all the other nine planetary characters on the stage with the Sun, giving me a reasonable idea of which ones are to the fore on the stage of your life at present.

Given that this is a public reply, and that I do not do detailed horoscope readings on my blog, I am focusing purely on those characters. And there is plenty to focus on!

It will help you to follow my analysis if you think of the planets in the heavens at the moment as your play’s Directors. The main Director in your case at this time is Neptune, planet of spiritual longing and very often, psychic sensitivity: openness to those levels of Reality which the reductionists tell us do not exist – but which many of us have experienced over millennia and continue to do so to this day. The sensitivity, openness and compassion which Neptune brings is both a great gift and somewhat of a burden. Sensitivity needs nurturing, care and protection from too much harshness and stress if Neptune’s gifts are gradually to be fully realised

There is a very gifted, complex pattern in your horoscope involving Pluto, planet of power, Jupiter, planet of higher learning and Mercury, planet of information-gathering and communication. All these together in the sign of Libra make you a powerful teacher, traveller, communicator and writer in the pursuit of balance and justice. They are all positively linked with your Moon, planet of emotional receptivity and of the great Feminine principle in all its aspects.The Moon’s placing in the compassionate and empathic sign of Pisces naturally aligns with the planet Neptune, the main Director of your life’s play at this time.

For the last few years, Neptune has been gradually, continuously whispering to those characters that a more spiritual direction is what your deeper Self requires. This kind of call can be quite disruptive to one’s ‘ordinary’ life, but has a way of being insistent in altering one’s direction, over time. From the Spring of 2011, I would imagine Neptune’s influence has gradually become stronger, added to practical and realistic Saturn’s challenge to your Sun in Scorpio, especially in the autumn and winter of 2013, to seriously re-define your life.

So – everything you describe in your message to me makes sense, fits where your deeper Self needs to be and what that Self wishes to explore and develop at this time. All I really need to do is affirm that you are already doing what YOU need to do! Your respect for the ‘great power’ you describe is evident in the way you have written about your current experiences. With time, wisdom in the way in which you are meant to use it will open up. Be patient! The deeper Self usually has a different timescale and a slower rate of process than our impatient Ego would wish….

In the meantime, here are a few suggestions:

Make sure to develop a regular and steady spiritual practice, centred round meditation, contemplation, prayer and reading of material which inspires and supports you. Books like Jack Kornfield’s ‘After the ecstasy, the laundry’ spoke to me very powerfully at a time of intense spiritual journeying. Try to take ‘time out’ for this practice each day if you can.

Keep a journal, make art, music – use your creative gifts to work with the powerful process you describe. Write out your dreams and visions if it feels right to do so. If you do this consistently you will see an unfolding developmental thread when you look back which may not be obvious at the time of writing.

If you can find a spiritual companion to meet with regularly, someone with whom you can discuss your deep experiences, who has been through their own profound journey to the Underworld and back and who can help you gradually find your new direction, that would be helpful. I had such a person for a long time and now have a ‘spiritual friend’ with whom to share inner experiences that many people do not have and most people do not wish to know about – I find it very helpful!

And finally, but most important of all: trust the Unseen to guide you on your path.

I do hope what I have written helps you – and any other spiritual seekers along the way who may read this post.

Blessings

Anne

Zodiac

1100 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

15 Comments

Posted in Astrology: challenges, ethics and practice (11 articles), Uncategorized (35 articles)

Tagged Feminine principle, horoscope readings, Jack Kornfield, Libra, Neptune planet of spiritual longing, Scorpio Sun, Sun sign astrology

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