Tag Archives: Zodiac

Thinking about Saturn: the Second Saturn Return and Beyond

Posted on May 20, 2016 | 17 comments

In keeping with the transiting retrograde Mars/Saturn midpoint squaring my natal Ascendant, I have been feeling pretty Saturnian of late. Much is written about the first Saturn Return; not so much, about the Second. So, for those of you going through this crucial rite of passage at present – and anyone else who feels like a spot of advance planning! – here are my thoughts:

Saturn

Saturn

By the second Saturn return, we can see what our lives have become — and we can see what it is too late to change. This is one of the most fundamental differences in perspective between the second and the first return. At age 30 we have probably still to sow the most productive seeds of our lives — what we have already sown is still only germinating. But by the approach of 60, we are reaping the harvest and are confronted with the stark Biblical words “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

Saturn is the planet of strict justice. Blind, stubborn, arrogant, or fearful refusal to face certain basic realities in life, as the second cycle unfolds, skews the life path further and further away from who we could become – were we able to acknowledge and accept who we actually are – rather than try to be who we are not. This can bring increasing pain, dissatisfaction, emptiness, and depression as the second Saturn return approaches.

Franz Hals: an image of serene later life

At one end of the spectrum are those who arrive at this stage feeling that their time on this Earth has not been wasted. They have very few regrets and are prepared to face the final thirty-year cycle of life with equanimity, perhaps rooted in great spiritual depth. These people usually retain a zest for life and its remaining possibilities.

At the other end are those who have sown meanly, poorly, or fearfully, and are reaping a harvest of regret, bitterness, loneliness, physical ill health, and fear of the waning of physical power and attractiveness in the inevitable decline toward death.

Most of us will arrive somewhere in the middle range: satisfied with some aspects of our achievement and disappointed by our areas of failure — or those things that fate appears to have denied us without our having had much option for negotiation.

I see the main challenges of this stage as follows:

* first, to value what we HAVE been able to do

*second, to come to terms with and accept those failures or disappointments that it is now too late to change

* third, to find, within the limitations and constraints imposed by our state of mind, body, spirit, and bank balance, some further goals that are realistically achievable, which bring a sense of meaning and enjoyment to whatever time we have left.

Recommended book: 

Saturn A New Look at an Old Devil

  Saturn: A New Look At An Old Devil
by Liz Greene.

  Info/Order book.

______________

ENDNOTES

The full text of this article “The cycles of Saturn: Forging the Diamond Soul” was first published in the UK’s ‘Astrological Journal’ (Nov/Dec 1996), and subsequently in ‘www.innerself.com’ and ‘The Mountain Astrologer’ (Feb/Mar 1998)

It was  included in  The Mountain Astrologer’s “Editor’s Choice” : 43 previously out-of-print articles from TMA in the 1990s, available on CD from the autumn of 2010.“The Mountain Astrologer” is recognised as the world’s leading astrology magazine.)

 

Zodiac

********************

550 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2016
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

17 Comments

Posted in Saturn and the Saturn Cycles (9 articles )

Tagged , , , , ,

What is astrology’s place in our contemporary world?

Posted on May 16, 2016 | 2 comments

I’m happy to say that I am guest blogging again on the Mountain Astrologer magazine’s blog this week, with

Some thoughts on the place of astrology in our contemporary world:

“We live in a vast energy field of constant motion, most of which is invisible to us. The rippling patterns of order and chaos, which is the fundamental dance of creation, govern everything. I have come to see the art of astrology (helped by what I have grasped of what the quantum world has revealed to us) as one that enables us to map those patterns via the constant shifting energies of the planets in their orbits…”

To read the rest of this post, click HERE

Zodiac

***********************

150 words copyright Anne Whitaker/The Mountain Astrologer magazine 2016

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

 

2 Comments

Posted in What is astrology's place in our contemporary world?

Tagged , , , , ,

How did the sign of Virgo get its name?

Posted on April 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

While I am away on a short break, here is an early post, from my back catalogue – very rarely commented on ( go on!! ) but very frequently read:

Virgo‑Zodiac‑Sign

To read the post, click below:

https://astrologyquestionsandanswers.com/2013/07/09/why-is-the-zodiac-sign-of-virgo-called-the-virgin/

******

  • 50 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2016

    Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Leave a comment

Posted in Why is Virgo called the virgin ?

Tagged , , ,

Aries New Moon – and the year’s Moondark…

Posted on April 3, 2016 | 20 comments

From the depths of antiquity right through until the general advent of electric light in the early part of the twentieth century, humans have been powerfully influenced by the 29.5 day cycle of the Sun and Moon.

The Sun/Moon Cycle

The Sun/Moon Cycle

The power of the Sun/Moon cycle

They hunted in daylight, made long journeys by the light offered by the Moon as it moved to full illumination of the night sky 14-15 days into the cycle. They timed their most powerful magical/religious rituals to coincide with the Full Moon. Ancient peoples gradually came to understand, as the age of agriculture took root and developed, that the time to plant their crops was when the Moon was waxing in the early part of the 29.5 day cycle, and in the Spring, or waxing, part of the year.

Out of those practical observations of the heavenly bodies, so fundamental to survival in humanity’s early days, came the realisation so beautifully put in the Bible:

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” {Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)}

The planetary cycles, from the tiny 29.5 day Sun/Moon cycle to that powerful regulator of human affairs, the 20 year Jupiter/Saturn cycle, were recognised in antiquity as weaving all life including that of human beings into an observable rhythm which brought a context of order, structure, and some comforting predictability to the patterns of life on Earth.

But whether the cycle is huge, like the Neptune/Pluto 500 year one which was not known in antiquity, 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.

All cycles’ 12th House phase

Moondark describes the end of any cycle – the 12th House phase – whether we are contemplating the monthly Sun/Moon one or the epoch-defining Neptune/Pluto cycle. It is the time of withdrawal and dissolution of energy – think of wintertime, the stripped trees, the cold, barren earth – a time of dark power in which the old order dies at a number of different levels, so that fertile energy can emerge from the womb of the night: indeed, a time of “dying back in preparation for the new.” Thus, every year, the time from the New Moon in Pisces to the New Moon in Aries can be seen as the 12th House phase, the Moondark time, of the entire zodiacal year.

Moondark has fascinated me for a long time. I may first have encountered the concept in my twenties, through the agency of Marion Bradley’s magnificent novel “The Mists of Avalon”, set in the time of druidical Britain in the era when Christianity was sweeping through the Roman Empire and the Old Religion of the Druids was being violently challenged as a result.

The legendary King Arthur, disregarding the advice of his Druid priests, married Guinevere in a Christian ceremony – at Moondark, the very end of the Sun/Moon monthly cycle. Since Arthur was a king, getting the symbolism of his marriage right was much more important than it would be for ordinary mortals! “Woe, woe, no good will come of this!” was the view taken by the Druids. They were right. The marriage was childless; moreover, Guinevere spent much of it in love with Lancelot, one of the knights of King Arthur’s fabled Round Table.

Each year’s Moondark

We tend to think of the annual 20th March equinox, the day that the Sun enters the sign of Aries, as the symbolic beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. But you could argue that the true beginning of spring is when a New Moon takes place in the sign of Aries. In 2016, that celestial event occurs on 7th April, both Sun and Moon meeting at 18 degrees of Aries, the fiery first sign of the zodiac. The degree of their meeting varies from year to year: in 2015, it was 28 degrees Aries; in 2014, 10 degrees; in 2013, 21 degrees; in 2012, 2 degrees– on that occasion very close to the 20/3/12 spring equinox.

I find it illuminating and helpful to think of each year in those terms. Thus – as we wait for the fresh energy upsurge of the Aries New Moon this week, we are symbolically waiting in Moondark. This year’s Moondark has been especially potent; it has run from the 19 Pisces New Moon on the 9th March, which was a total solar eclipse.

Events of a collective and personal nature have been powerful, dark and traumatic this Moondark: the combination of a total solar eclipse, the following lunar eclipse at 3 degrees Libra on 23rd March, and Saturn’s station at 16 deg 24 mins Sagittarius from 23rd to 29th of March with his turning retrograde on Friday 25th – Good Friday in the Christian calendar – certainly brought us experiences of symbolic crucifixion.

Collectively, the worst of several horrors from 23-29 March 2016 were the dreadful terrorist massacres in Brussels, Belgium and Lahore, Pakistan. At a personal level, I heard many stories of deaths, and injuries. There were two murders in my home city of Glasgow, Scotland, UK during that period. We experienced a death in our extended family,  after one member’s long period of great suffering. A close friend fell and is still hospitalised. Other friends are also dealing with traumatic events which flared up during that period.

The uses of Moondark

Moondark is at its best a contemplative time: a time to take stock both collectively and personally. We live in an increasingly frenetic 24/7 society where ‘time out’ is increasingly hard to find, and is not supported by the culture as a whole. Those of us who wish and need to retreat regularly to preserve our balance and well-being tend to be regarded as odd by mainstream society.

But humans have always benefited from times of quiet contemplation, in whatever way suits them best: listening to music, doing yoga/meditation, praying to whatever Higher Power sustains them, making or contemplating art, walking in Nature –especially by the sea, that great universal symbol of dissolution and emergence.

Even half an hour a day of retreat time on a regular basis is nourishing for the spirit. In ancient times, women used to retreat together monthly during menstruation time which was seen as a period of potency, and hidden power – a liminal time to link through dreams and ritual to worlds unseen.

It would be good if individually we could get into the habit of using the time from the Pisces New Moon each year to find some retreat space in whatever way suited us: to take stock of the year that was coming to an end, ponder our successes and our failures, and set some realistic intentions to pursue for the zodiacal year ahead. Will you be taking stock this week? I certainly shall…

Happy Aries New Year when it comes!

Aries New Moon 7.4.16

Aries New Moon 7.4.16

 

1150 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2016
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

20 Comments

Posted in Aries New Moon - and the year’s Moondark…

Tagged , , , , , ,

Scotland’s Horoscope

Posted on March 30, 2016 | 2 comments
 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. In a brief piece like this, one can only cover the most obvious.
Scotland's Horoscope

Scotland’s Horoscope

The first thing to strike the eye is the powerful emphasis on fire, with Leo rising , Aries MC, and both rulers in Aries in the tenth house.  Mercury Venus conjuncts the MC from the Ninth House. This conjures up a picture of an exuberant, creative and confident nation not wishing to keep its talents to itself but  launching them (in the shape of its people) out into the wider world.

Scots are to be found everywhere, and every modern Scot has relatives in Canada, America and Australia in particular. Some of the world’s most famous explorers were Scots, David Livingstone and Alexander MacKenzie, who named the MacKenzie river in Canada, being two examples.

Uranus, ruler of the Aquarian Descendant, is placed in the Ninth House in a watery grand trine with Saturn and Pluto. This conjures up a powerful image of strongly inventive and imaginative abilities which can structure the natural forces of nature in innovative ways: James Watt whose steam condenser leading to the steam engine drove the Industrial Revolution, and John Logie Baird who invented television, come immediately to mind.

Uranus’ conjunction with Mercury, Venus, the MC and trine the Leo Ascendant  combines restless travelling with innovative writing and artistic expression: Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, neither of whom ended their days in their native land, but both of whom exerted powerful influence as writers and artists, fit this pattern well.

Overall, Scotland is a country which has contributed to the positive dimensions of human endeavour quite out of proportion to its small size.

Inevitably, there is a darker side to this bright picture, as with any nation. Saturn rising in Cancer in the Twelfth House is the powerful starting place from which to explore the painful side of Scotland’s complex sense of national identity. That identity under threat from an oppressive aggressor nation is a strong picture which arises from the square between the Twelfth House Saturn in Cancer, and  Mars in Aries in the Tenth.

There are many examples of this oppression by England over the thousand years since Malcolm was crowned at Scone. Memories of the brutal putting down of the 1745 rebellion against English rule, the infamous Massacre of Glencoe and the suppression of the Gaelic language which followed, and the Highland Clearances which forced thousands of Scots to emigrate in the eighteenth century, still fester in the national psyche.

Mars in Aries in the Tenth is exuberant, bold and adventurous; the square to Twelfth House Saturn in Cancer shows the undertone of rage and pain at  being torn from one’s deepest roots which lies behind that bright spirit. Poverty and oppression in many cases were the driving forces behind the Scots’ wanderlust.

One of Scotland’s many paradoxes is that a great, and justified, sense of national pride seems to co-exist with angry feelings of resentment and a hidden inferiority complex; symbolically, this fits well with the square sitting behind Leo rising.

If you are in any doubt about this, try keeping company with Scots who are the worse for drink, particularily if the location is England! One of the most unattractive facets of contemporary Scotland seems to be the need to put down (with the exception of Sean Connery !) those who have done well, rather than praising them.

Scotland’s passionate and at times tortured relationship with the spirit at its different levels can also be seen from this chart. Look at the dominant grand cross involving the Cancer/Capricorn Nodal axis with Neptune, crossing the MC/IC axis T-square involving the prominent Sun and Venus.

This is a highly imaginative, spiritual, musical, passionate,cultured, artistic, adventurous, justice-seeking, visionary pattern in its bright face. It speaks of the many gifts this small nation has given to the wider world, and through which its own national life has been, and is, a rich experience for many of us who live here.

But its dark face is that of the maudlin drunk, abandoned by God, oppressed by England, singing exiles’ songs in some parochial bar, longing to return to the unchallenging safety of the womb/home – or failing that, the oblivion of alcohol.

******

The 1005  chart  reflects well  the momentous changes which were going on, as we moved towards electing the first Scottish parliament for nearly three hundred years on the 6th May 1999.

Prog Uranus at 4 degrees Aries is crossing natal Mercury and Venus (IC ruler) in the Ninth House, with prog Asc at 20 degrees Pisces close to natal Uranus, also in the Ninth. Prog Sun (Chart Ruler ) is conjunct  Prog MC at 28 Sagittarius, both falling on the natal Part of Fortune – all indications of the radical nature of those changes, and the nation’s optimism and expansive spirit as it prepared for its first step towards self-government  for nearly 300 years.

Transits reinforce this. As the time of the elections approached, Jupiter crossed all the Aries planets at the top of Scotland’s horoscope, as well as the MC.

During the whole period since the sweeping New Labour victory in May 1997 made a Scottish parliament a reality instead of a romantic nationalistic fantasy, transiting Pluto in Sagittarius  opposed Scotland’s Jupiter in the 11th in Gemini, square the 2nd House Virgo Moon. Scotland’s Sun/Moon midpoint at 8 Gemini was also opposed by Pluto from Spring 98 until the end of 1999.

These were very appropriate significators for the debate centred around beliefs and values and the proper allocation of resources which had been going on; also, 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. 

_______________________________

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, 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)

_______________________________

PS: 11.9.2014: The Scottish Referendum vote

To read my thoughts on the Scottish Independence Referendum, viewed through the lens of the larger, and extremely turbulent, contemporary world picture, click HERE

Zodiac

Zodiac

1200 words copyright Anne Whitaker 1999/2014/2016
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

2 Comments

Posted in Scotland's Horoscope ( 2 articles)

Tagged , , , , , ,

Called from the Bar to the Stars…Why Victor Olliver became an astrologer…

Posted on January 16, 2016 | 4 comments

Last Spring, I had the fun of Victor Olliver’s company as a Guest blogger whilst we slogged it out – in a civilised manner, of course! – over the merits and demerits of Sun Sign astrology. This January, I am delighted that he has returned to help kick start my blog for 2016. 

A recent article in Harper’s Bazaar, in which four women talk about why they chose to become astrologers, inspired me to tell my story a couple of weeks ago. I then decided to run an occasional series this year, inviting leading astrologers to share theirs. It is my great pleasure to have Victor Olliver, astrologer, author and editor of the UK’s Astrological Journal, tell his tale with his  unique combination of  cheek, challenge, verve – and depth. Over to you, Victor!

Victor Olliver, Barrrister

Victor Olliver, Barrrister

“…It never occurred to me that astrology was rubbish. Such were the many oddities of my early life – born of an Anglo-Italian mismatch into a world of wars that sang love songs while I played playground peculiarity (sorry about all the pees) yet looked like angelic jailbait and had a posh voice despite working class pedigree – that my mind was ready to accommodate exotic and weird notions not readily explained in school physics textbooks.

The sky lab technician who created me in his/her cosmic test tube prepared me well for a world that is essentially, profoundly inexplicable. We dream our way through life and pride ourselves on our logic. Paradox is to be found in everything as we pretend to follow highway codes. We feel our way through life and engage in the charade of decision-making. Yet one by-product of all this chaos and melodrama and hallucinating is that we (many of us) still manage to pay our bills while getting better on prescription drugs.

So, in the beginning, astrology was for me less a ‘topic’, more an arrangement of images in a book, without any unifying thought. Frankly it all looked comfortingly bonkers. At about the age of 12 I’d won a book voucher at school for being clever after years in the dunce stream. I now know that at about the time of my first Jupiter return and not long before my first Saturn opposition, my brains started to grow. The book voucher added to my reputation for being odd (and probably queer – though what did fellow kids or idiot teachers know?) when I exchanged it for a huge coffee table tome about mythology; Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, you name it. That copy is still in my library.

What intrigued me was that inanimate humanoid forms made of stone or paint, sometimes winged, diaphanous or bearded, ruled worlds temporal and spiritual. These days such undead powers are called brand logos – so, through the likes of Coca Cola and McDonald’s marketing, I understood by association the idea of mysteries having mastery.

Thanks to those modern sages Russell Grant and Linda Goodman, the stone/plaster/paint gods migrated in my head to astrology where Jove, Mercury, Venus/Aphrodite and others still lived despite the progress exemplars of TV game shows and penicillin. The gods lived through the ‘zodiac’ and those much-maligned media Sun-sign columns, the then top dog of which was Patric Walker (more about whom just below). Incidentally, he was wrongly suspected of murdering his predecessor ‘Celeste’ at Harpers & Queen magazine in order to grab her stars column.

None of this was enough to persuade me to follow in Patric’s footsteps. Instead I took a 25-plus-year detour and became a barrister before embarking on a career in journalism, as you do. But astrology was not ready to give me up. Around the time of my fifth tr Jupiter-Jupiter square (with tr Uranus on my Saturn – and astro scepticism on a high), a glossy magazine commissioned me to interview…Patric Walker. His reputed Libran charm took leave of absence that day as he sat in his hotel bathrobe firing off the odd barb he thought I did not catch. Librans can be so Arien, don’t you think? My acid write-up repaid his put-downs. I concluded he was a right bitch trying to chat me up – but he knew his stuff. I stayed in journalism.

By the time of my 4th Jupiter return, my curiosity about astrology had reached the point where I felt it was time to do or die of boredom. I enrolled at the Mayo School of Astrology and fell under the guiding and sane influence of tutor Wendy Stacey.

This coincided with one of those events that in retrospect one calls ‘fated’. Yes, I didn’t fall in love. That is to say, I started a brief relationship with a notable astrologer called Henrietta Llewelyn Davies (called ‘Henri’ by her friends) – sadly no longer with us. Our eyes met across a crowded room at London’s Groucho Club – an opiates dungeon for doped up media types and their whorish hangers-on. Henri had done well: columns in Cosmo, Woman’s Own, TV Times – astro stuff in The Times. She was psychic, too. She talked a lot about her work, I was fascinated. She encouraged me to learn the art and craft of horoscopes.

And at this time a clairvoyante medium told me that my dead father was with her. Or as she put it: “He’s saying do something with those, oh, they look like, well, whatchamacallit, horoscopes”.

I lost my job, graduated with a distinction diploma in natal and mundane astrology, landed the role of the first-ever stargazer on The Lady magazine (by another misadventure) and then ascended to the heavens of The Astrological Journal editorship.

In other words, the career I should have first pursued flowed like a dream with scarcely an impediment. In contrast, enter a hostile place and all you experience are gremlins and gargoyles. Astrology on the other hand had the air I breathe and the vistas I appreciate. It presented me with a perspective which, in its predication on the unknowable yet adherence to systemic thought and practice, summed up the paradoxes I’d suffered and experienced in other life departments.

I had arrived in Astro-Wonderland. Mad Hatters aplenty.

I couldn’t care less which system of astrology you prefer, or whether you think luminary orbs should be 12 or 15 degrees. It’s all background chamber music to me. No matter what the astro academics like to propound, I know astrology is half instinct, half method.

Without that first half I may as well have been a lawyer…”

*************************

Victor’s website is: Victor Olliver Astrology

Victor Olliver, Astrologer

Victor Olliver, Astrologer

Victor ’s book Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2016 is available exclusively from Amazon in eBook and paperback formats.

Lifesurfing 2016 cover

Lifesurfing 2016

*************************

Zodiac

Zodiac

1000 words copyright Anne Whitaker/Victor Olliver 2016

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

 

4 Comments

Posted in Becoming an astrologer: leading astrologers tell all ! (5 articles - occasional series), Guest Posts 2015/6 (6 articles)

Tagged , , , , , , ,

R.I.P David Bowie 1947-2016: astrologer Tim Burness reflects on his horoscope

Posted on January 11, 2016 | Leave a comment

Here is Tim Burness’s thoughtful take on David Bowie’s horoscope, with thanks to the Astro and Psyche Facebook Page…

David Bowie 1947-2016

David Bowie 1947-2016

https://timburness.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/david-bowie-astrological-birth-chart/

David Bowie: a true Capricorn

David Bowie: a true Capricorn

Leave a comment

Posted in R.I.P David Bowie 1947-2016: astrologer Tim Burness reflects on his horoscope

Tagged , , ,

Working Saturn/Neptune…a New Moon meditation

Posted on December 12, 2015 | 4 comments

I use a very graphic, grounded, simple image to help my students get to grips with the inter-relationship between the longer-lasting planetary transits of Saturn, planetoid Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and the faster-moving Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars. I ask them to imagine cooking a pot of soup.

The Moon, Sun and inner planets meeting the slower-moving outers is like turning the heat up under the slow, steady bubble of the soup for a short spell. The effects of this bubbling-up are usually powerful, symbolically pushing us towards the potential for greater awareness, and hopefully positive change. But the circumstances are usually pretty uncomfortable, at times highly disruptive. Painful too.

The last week of November 2016 saw Mercury in Sagittarius briefly charging-up Saturn, in long-term square to Neptune in Pisces for most of the next year. The first week of December saw the Sun shine a fierce light on the same territory. Those of us with planets/Nodes/Angles in the first ten or so degrees of the mutable signs are likely to have had an uncomfortable fortnight.

Here’s a taste of what my particular soup is like at present, so to speak…

I’ve recently had nearly a year of Saturn transiting my South Node/IC, widely squared by Neptune. Currently, Saturn is transiting my Fourth House, T-Squaring the Ascendant/Descendant axis which has Neptune currently crossing that axis, squaring Saturn. A potent and uncomfortable planetary brew!

Yesterday, with the New Moon just taking shape in optimistic, philosophical  Sagittarius, was a really good, nourishing day. Perspective has been emerging on what has been a very difficult fortnight, including a whole week of a very unpleasant cold which has pushed me into rest and seclusion. I have often found – perhaps not unconnected to having several Twelfth House planets – that big psychological shifts are accompanied by the necessary retreat period that a short bout of illness brings…

In essence, I have been wrestling with what matters to me at the very core, and those encumbrances I really need now to leave behind. All very connected to Saturn over the IC, moving into the Fourth House, and the square to Neptune’s prompting to allow certain ties to dissolve, and certain old disappointments and hurts to slip into the stream of  Time..I now have at last gained some very much needed detachment from pathological aspects of familial bonds and feel freer just to let people go, for good or ill.

Life, of course, in its usual fashion presented me with a tough test of this hard-won perspective. The day that the Sun was conjunct Saturn, turning up the heat on the Saturn/Neptune soup so to speak, a much loved young relative set off on a three-month solo trip to India…to date, he has sent me six pictures of  splendid colonial churches, sinking into decay…so I know he is ok thus far!

One of the great gifts of Neptune, which is a hard gift to appreciate, is that it dissolves those Saturnian structures which not only keep our lives on track, but also can keep us stuck in patterns which are undermining and/or blocking our development. I was reflecting on this when I dipped into an interesting-looking new online astrology magazine, Real Imaginal, created by Erica Jones.

She mentioned  Healing Fiction,  a book by archetypal psychologist James Hillman, in which he claims that “… a fluidity of identity, a multiplicity of perspectives—in short, the presence of an uncertainty which offers the possibility for a creative response—is what will foster psychological wholeness and good health…”

This quote sums up beautifully what I currently think and feel about what the current Saturn/Neptune square is offering us, if we choose to work with it as honestly and creatively as possible. None of it, of course, is easy. Throughout the difficult two–week period just described, one of  Jung’s observations kept coming to mind: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” 

I would be really interested to have some feedback from any of my readers who feel able to share their experiences of those two weeks…or any thoughts on how to work constructively with Saturn/Neptune…

Zodiac

700 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2015

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

 

4 Comments

Posted in Saturn and the Saturn Cycles (9 articles )

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Which House system – Placidus, Equal…or what?

Posted on November 30, 2015 | 4 comments

“…Sooner or later, it dawns on the student or budding astrologer that the method of dividing the space in a horoscope into 12 sectors or spheres of life, known as houses, poses some problems.

Firstly, since there are a number of different house systems, which should you choose?…”

I’m pleased to say that the Mountain Astrologer blog has just published my thoughts on this topic. Do drop by and have a read…

Astrological Houses

Astrological Houses

http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/tma-this-week#some-thoughts-on-the-astrological-houses-placidus-equal-or-what

Zodiac

Zodiac

100 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2015

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

4 Comments

Posted in Houses and House Systems (3 articles)

Tagged , , , , ,

Born on the cusp: which sign am I?

Posted on September 16, 2015 | 3 comments

This is easily the most frequently read post on this blog! So – thought I’d repost it for the benefit of new readers – with thanks to Rian, who asked the original question.

Could you talk a little bit about cusps? How much does a person with their sun at 29.5 degrees take on the next sign? Or is it black and white. I think it might be a fade-out/ fade-in, but I’ve never found anything written about this. Thank you. 

Anne’s Answer: I’m glad you asked this question. It’s one astrologers are asked A LOT !I’ll answer it in two stages.

Firstly, let’s imagine someone out there is due to give birth mid to late June 2013 in Glasgow, UK, and is wondering whether their baby will have the Sun in Gemini or Cancer.

At midnight GMT on 21st June (1.00 am UK summer time), the Sun is at the very end of  Gemini:29 degrees 48 minutes. By midnight GMT on 22nd June (1.00 am UK summer time), the Sun has moved to the next sign and occupies the very beginning of Cancer: 0 degrees 45 minutes. Thus our imaginary child arriving on 21st June 2013 some time after midnight GMT  in Glasgow,  UK would be in popular terms, ‘born on the cusp’.

However, as anyone who takes their interest in astrology ‘beyond the Sun Signs’ will very quickly realise, there is a lot more to astrology than its popular Sun Sign face would suggest. With an accurately calculated horoscope which uses the date, place and vital TIME of birth, an astrologer (or, these days, anyone with access to a reasonable computer programme ) can work out to the minute where the Sun is on that child’s birthday.

To illustrate this, look at the image below. (click on it to enlarge). Our imaginary cusp Baby X, born in Glasgow UK at 6.00 am British Summer Time ( 5.00 am GMT ) on Friday 21st June 2013, will have the Sun in Gemini – at 29 degrees 59 minutes. If this child  is born only five minutes later, however, he/she will have the Sun in Cancer – at 0 degrees 00 minutes.

Baby X (UK)

Baby X (UK)

Thus, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as ‘born on the cusp’. Our Baby X, horoscope accurately calculated,  is either – in Sun Sign terms – a Gemini or a Cancer.

However, Rian, your guess was quite correct. Someone born with the Sun at the very beginning of the 30 degrees of any zodiac sign has a stronger, more vivid and obvious  ‘charge’ of the sign’s energy than someone born at the very end.

Imagine you are standing in a favourite room which you have occupied for a long time. You are becoming a little bored, jaded with what that room may have to offer. Suddenly, a door you’d never noticed before opens slightly. A shaft of new light streams through from another room. You step forward, intrigued. Could this be a new adventure? Or, to conclude our analogy: the Sun in fickle, restless Gemini is becoming stale – the prospect of entry into a journey through another sign, watery mysterious Cancer, beckons….

The second stage of my answer, though, brings in a little of the more complex picture which more in-depth astrology has to offer.

Take another look at Baby X’s horoscope, featured above. (click on it to enlarge)

Even those of you with very little knowledge of astrology should be able to imagine the 360 degree zodiac circle before you as a stage. Stand in the centre, and look around the circle.

You will see various symbols, representing the planets. Humans have been standing on Earth, looking out into the night sky, plotting the planets’ positions against an imaginary 360 degree great circle, the zodiac, for more than six thousand years. That view has never changed, despite our knowledge for several centuries that the Sun, not Earth, is the centre of our solar system. We still look out from the same Earth to the same  celestial view.

On the left of the circle, just above and below the horizontal black line,  fall the sectors of Gemini and Cancer. Our Baby X may be a Sun Gemini – only just! – but very close to that Sun is Jupiter (desire to connect to the Big Picture)   and not far away is Mars (action). This gives our Baby X a very strong emphasis on the Gemini theme.

However the horizontal black line is his/her Ascendant or Rising Sign, revealing the way s/he will appear to the world in general. This is in the sign of Cancer. Just below this point, squashed together on 22 degrees of Cancer, are Venus (urge to relate) and Mercury (drive toward communication, expression). Thus Baby X will have five out of the ten planets (or characters on the stage), and Rising Sign, occupying only two of the twelve signs of the zodiac.

This places a very strong emphasis on the signs of Gemini and Cancer, rational air and emotional water. Thus, at a very simple level – full interpretation has to take all the characters, their locations and interactions on the zodiac stage into account – Baby X will have the gifts and pains of that classic Shakespearian clash between reason and passion, to wrestle with and reconcile, be driven by–  for as long as  s/he lives.

A long answer for a short question! But I do hope it sheds some light – and reveals in the process a deeper astrology ‘beyond the Sun Signs’. Do let me know what you think!

And you new visitors and Followers out there. Drop by with your observations….. and, of course,  your Questions….

Zodiac

Zodiac

900 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013/2015

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page of Writing from the Twelfth House

3 Comments

Posted in An Astrological Miscellany: of cusps, virgins, atomic scientists, Muhammad Ali and much, much more...(13 articles), Born 'on the cusp'?

Tagged , , , , , , ,