The Naked Astrologer

The Rise And Fall of Public Figures

2009-02-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

In astrology Pluto shakes things up. It brings death and rebirth and transformation that is deep-rooted and spectacular but rarely comfortable for anyone involved because Pluto cares nothing for comfort; it spits in its eye, it insults its mother, it bullies it for lunch money.

On the other hand the sign of Capricorn is associated with the law, money, property and the institutions of the world (particularly banks). It is concerned with reality. And so when Pluto and Capricorn met in the sky it was no surprise that the reality which greeted us was of the grim and party-ruining kind whose consequences have been challenging people's feelings of security.

And nowadays, it's not just banks and companies that are in trouble. Public figures that were themselves a kind of institution public are also falling into death or desrepute like flies.

Jade Goody, having made a career out of reality TV when she was 20 is now 7 years later dying of cancer in the public eye.

Trinny and Susannah of the What Not To Wear fame have been axed by ITV and are off to try to restart their career in America.

And recently in politics, a few Labour MPs in the House Of Lords were emrboiled in a corruption scandal, when it was discovered they have been offering to change laws in exchange for cash.

On the other hand, all is not doom and gloom. All these things have happened before, but now they are simply happening in a more public way (in the same way that Pluto in Scorpio brought awareness of incest and sexual abuse into the public consciousness).

Furtheremore, I hope that the stars of some of the people who have been providing me with edification and entertainment over the years will continue to shine. To that end, if you aren't already reading Elsa and WebOfEvil then take my advice and remedy that immediately.

Alternatively, do you have a Pluto in Capricorn story? Something you noticed in your life or part of the world?

Gabriel - The Father Son and the Holy Ghost

2008-12-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

Every father is an archetypal figure, a demi-god to his baby. However, a person's experience of the SORT of deity he was is suggested by planets in the parental house (generally the 4th, but it's not an iron-cast rule), as well as aspects to the Sun. A Martian father is a dynamic figure, a Saturnian father is a tough LawMaker, a Uranian father can be both brilliant and cold, a Plutonic father is powerful. A Neptunian father is mystical and often in some way a wounded, tragic, vanishing figure. And a Jupiterian father is larger than life and although Jupiter has benign associations in traditional astrology, a Jupiterian father is by no means a benign or cuddly figure - in fact he may have been convinced of his supriority and rash and irresponsible, or simply not there - more interested in continuing his own bright journey in the world than the tediuous mundanity of feedings and diapers.

And although all fathers start out as dieties to their children - as babies grow and individuate and the relationship develops - fathers become human - although some never do.

In Gabriel's chart the Sun is conjunct Jupiter in Aquarius and they are conjunct the IC of the chart (the MC and IC correspond to the zenith and nadir and the parental axis of the chart, showing what is most public - MC and what is most private -IC). In Gabriel's case his parents split up in his infancy and his father left the family, going on to have another family and another son and then dying while Gabriel was still a child before he had a chance to know his father as anything but a figure of story and legend.

Strangely enough, there is often a correlation in astrology between death and the transits of Jupiter - where death may be seen as a healing process - the part of someone's ongoing and larger journey. In Gabriel's case - his Jupiterian father is always in the act of travelling, beyond any known horizon and the only human figures he could really pin his emotions (and anger) on, were his half-brother and his mother.

Gabriel is a Jupiterian figure in many ways - emotionally and physicially he has a large, gregarious presence and he is often in a sate of transit - changing countries and business ventures more often than some people buy shoes. He has a generosity and an openess of spirit but all this comes with a shadow side - an inconstancy of nature, a conflict between his loyalty and wish to commit deeply (Scorpio Moon and Ascendant, Mars in Taurus) and his need for change and to not be tied down. Gabriel's experience of his father is deeply tied in with his own sense of self, as a person and as a man. The father story is central to Gabriel's attempts to understand himself, which has led to an opening of his horizons and expansion of his ideas about the world (another Jupiterian function).

Currently Chiron and Neptune are moving towards Gabriel's IC and transiting his Sun-Jupiter conjunction, bringing up old pain and unhealed wounds to the surface as well as offering a vehicle for their exploration (through various kinds of modes and therapies). Making peace with that which was lost and cannot be changed is helping Gabriel transcend the situation and find his peace with it.

Pressure Pressure - The Moon and Saturn - How do you cope with stress?

2008-12-16T02:52:00.001-08:00

Resilience and need, resource and weakness is shown by many parts and aspects of a natal chart. However looking at the sign, house and aspect of an individual's Saturn and Moon gives a flavour of their endurance (Saturn) and emotional coping strategy (Moon).

Saturn is a stern teacher. On the one hand it represents an area of hurt in ourselves - where we feel we were short-changed by life or not good enough. On the other hand Saturn also promises bliss - that if you work hard then you can conquer that which hobbles you and you can master it. Saturn imposes constraints and limitations, but it also helps us stick to them and honour our commitments. Saturn (in synastry, natally and by transit) may be intensely frustrating but it can also be supportive. Saturn in relationship is a prime example of things that don't kill you (or make you strangle the other) making you stronger.

On the other hand the Moon is the naked part of the chart. Wherever it falls (even a secretive Moon or a hard-to-access 12th house Moon) tells us about the needs of that person, what their instinctual responses are, what hungers and yearnings they have, how they try and gain a sense of safety. The position, aspect and house of the Moon can also say quite a lot about what strategy a person will use to cope with stress and emotional turmoil.

As a working example of this I will use my husband's and my chart.

Z is a Sagittarius with a Taurus Ascendant and an Aries Moon in the 12th House. He has a Saturn in Cancer square Pluto in Libra. I have a Virgo Ascendant and Saturn in Virgo in the 1st House sextile the Moon and square a Venus Neptune opposition. My Moon is conjunct Uranus in Scorpio and falls in the 3rd House.

The most acutely stressful period Z and I lived through was our transition into parenthood, exacerbated as it was by inexperience and our son's refusal to sleep for three months. It was an experience so harrowing and intense that it pushed us (individually and as a couple) to breaking point and we used quite different strategies to get through it.

We both had a strong feeling of duty and responsibility (Saturn) to this child we had created and it was this which compelled us to keep responding to his cries and getting up and feeding him and walking around the house endlessly. It certainly wasn't a feeling of love or reward. We just gritted our teeth and did it like a job which had to be done. Z was better at it than me. Squares are energising aspects and a Saturn-Pluto square translates as Determination(Saturn) to Survive (Pluto). For him giving up was not an option while I gave up on a daily basis (usually multiple times) and then would just pull myself up and start again. In fact, my primary struggle was between the determination to stay with my child (Saturn) and a bone-deep wish to erase myself and dissapear (Neptune). I knew I couldn't do it, but for months, ceasing to exist was all I wanted to do.

The fifth house in the chart represents the area of our life concerned with creativity (and by extension, children). My fifth house is empty but falls in Saturn-ruled Capricorn which fuelled my own sense of parental duty. There was this completely helpless baby who I was responsible (Saturn) for and I was determined (Saturn) to work hard and do my best by him (also a Saturnian drive).

In my chart the Saturn and Moon are sextile. A watery moon feels a lot and the Virgoan Saturn takes what is too much to handle or what cannot be expressed (3rd House) and stores it in the body (1st House). Therefore as my mind raged against the difficulties of looking after this infant my body began to fall apart. Mostly it was through chronic injuries to my back (Saturn) which limited and incapacited me (Saturn) while at the same time giving me a high pain threshold to go on in spite of injury (Saturn) when there was no other choice.

In the meantime our Moons were doing their best (in different ways) to cope emotionally. My Scorpio Moon-Uranus felt assaulted and strangled by (what felt like) enslavement to this baby. In order to recharge I desperately needed to detach (Uranus) and be free for a while. I was in a bit of an identity crisis (Uranus) because I felt like I was being asked to give up myself and merge my identity with the role of being a mother. I defended myself through respite (I owe a lifetime depth of gratitude to all the people who took my son off my hands for a while in order to give me a breather) and through talking about the powerful feelings -good and bad- that I was experiencing (3rd house and Scorpio).

On the other hand Z simply went into a disconnect. He says : "I wasn't really there. I was running on autopilot telling myself - you can't afford to give up or snap, because you need your job and that howling monkey is still your son and that woman is still your wife. So fight for your family (Aries Moon) and don't think about feelings (12th House). Just get through each day and do what is honourable (Aries) and what needs to be done."

Where are the positions and aspects of your Moon and Saturn? How have you coped with stressful situations?

The dreams of my father - Pluto-Moon

2008-12-12T02:20:00.001-08:00

If I had chosen a birthday for my son I would have chosen early January 2008 which had a much easier, more harmonious chart than the one he was born with on the 30th of December 2007.

But the one thing I know now from motherhood and pregnancy is that our thoughts of what we wish for our children are not as important as the wishes of the children themselves.

When I was pregnant my husband and I had done a lot of planning and saving in preparation for our transition into parenthood and the resulting drop in income and increase in underslept stressed-out craziness. We had been feeling pretty on track about things and wanted to spend the last month of my pregnancy being as relaxed as possible, just taking it easy and enjoying the last days of being a family of two.

Instead when last December rolled around all hell broke loose. My husband found out he was a victim of (essentially a form of fraud) that nonetheless jeopardised his credit rating and livelihood and decimated both his morale and his savings. The ultimate sword hanging over his head was the possibility that he would not be able to get a re-mortage and lose his house and considering that this house represented what he had spent years of his life saving and working towards, the prospect of that loss was painful for him.

And even though both of us tried to focus on what was the most important - we had each other and we would have a baby and we would always have somewhere to live - the effects of stress were undeniable and the free-floating anxiety and anger and pain reached out to touch my son as well and coloured the world into which he was born.

My family has a legacy of loss. So many of us have fought for our lives and run and hidden. My hope was to protect my child for this, but he is the one who gets to choose, not I. And he chose to be firmly connected to that inheritance.

My son was born with a fourth house Moon in Libra as the apex of a tight t-square with Pluto and Mars. Natally he is plugged in to a collective drive for survival and the fear/memory of the world as an unsafe and threatening place. Furthermore, his Moon conjuncts my Mars and his father's Pluto so in our interaction the natal T-square is being constantly activated.

My son was born into a world that was falling apart. Shortly after I had him, I also had a substantial haemorrhage so within 15 minutes we were snapped from a lovely Libran thing into a more existential state of hospitals and ambulances and then after a lingering anxiety about renewed bleeding and long-term weakness while my body recovered. Furthermore, within a week of his birth we had two deaths in the family. It was a strange, intense time, when our nerves were strethed as thin as the boundaries between worlds and in the dark hours of the night love and sadness and bitter rage vied for attention.

The world into which my son was born welcomed him and loved him, but it reinforced his perceptions that it was fundamentally unsafe. And he reacted with all the terror, wrath and despair his lungs and tiny flailing fists could muster. There was no language. He couldn't tell us what he was terrified of and we couldn't reassure him. If his need wasn't recognised or met instantly it was like it was never going to be met. And if his need wasn't met within a particular window of time then he'd have a complete fit of frustration which would need to be calmed before anything else could be resolved.

We spent a lot of time holding him, and rocking, and soothing and pacing up and down while he bent his back like a bow and screamed in our arms rigid-bodied and scarlet-faced. He was so peaceful in sleep and generally inconsolable when awake. I remember feeling pushed to the end of my tether and then pushed again - to breaking point and then past it as I struggled to please him and to contain the waves of frustration and tiredness and anger that surged in me like the sea.

Growing and experience have mellowed him. At some point what we offered became enough, and having remembered that his needs were met yesterday, and the day before , and the day before that he has become more patient, more able to wait. But memory and cognition are a double-edged sword and now he has taken to waking at least once per night screaming with fear or some terrible dream.

Each night is a separate world, a dark sea we navigate by stars and instinct alone. Each night is an undoing, replete with the phantoms and monsters of our past. The lost dreams of my father and the ongoing legacy of war and death and loss. I don't know what my son sees which terrifies him, only that his dream journeys lead him to places of which he is terrified. His racing heart tells me that, and the nature of his cries.

I am his mother, and I have a Scorpio Moon. I know the shadow and the dark. So each night when he cries I reach out for him and he snuggles in my arms and I hold him. He presses his cheek against my skin, sobs his ragged breath into my neck. And I kiss his hair and stroke his face and hum solaces and lullabies.

I tell him: I am here. I am always here. I have walked the shadow-places. And I love you. And I will protect you. And I am not leaving, and I am not afraid.

He may not know all my words yet, but he knows the beating of my heart and he knows the flavour of my thoughts, just as I remember knowing my father's (who had a Scorpio Moon conjunct mine).

In those nights, he is often there with us, my father. Neptune is part of the legacy. I have it in the fourth. My father was a Pisces rising with a Sun-Neptune opposition. He was a singer and musician who died when I was a child. However, the veils between worlds are thin. Love is what connects us still. And sadness. And music.

My whole life since he died I have heard music in my mind so vividly I spent years making a mistake of thinking that someone had the radio playing.

In the dark as I hold my son, I also am held. I feel his presence. I hear his voice and the song he sings.

Your Bruised Heart, Courtesy Of Pluto In Capricorn

2008-12-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

So. It's been a while. Astrology Blogging with children is even harder than blogging while heavily pregnant and fully employed, who knew?
Anyway.

So, Pluto has entered the Earth Sign of Capricorn and all the (Jupiterian) over-extended and happy-go-lucky irresponsible investing and lending of the Pluto in Sagittarius era has given way to more sombre outlooks. The credit has crunched and the real estate prices have fallen and people are talking about the economy with frowny faces.

Fiscally, things are tight and grim. (This is the first December in my memory that I have seen so many sales and so many slashed prices before Christmas).

Emotionally, it hasn't been a barrel of laughs either. Personally speaking this is
an intensely challenging time (and if you feel the same, which I know many people do, then I feel for you; Hang in there). Essentially, it feels like the entire Universe has turned into Boot Camp and pleading with it to be merciful simply ends with it sneering in your face before kicking you in the stomach, while it calls you a sissy and says nasty things about your mother.

I think in the current climate all you can do to get through is just grit your teeth, stiffen your upper lip and apply yourself. This is the time when all of us, are being challenged on a global and personal level to work hard and eliminate the unnecessary from our lives. Although you can, if you choose, sit there and feel sorry for yourself this is unlikely to advance your situation because Capricorn (being an Earth sign) wants things to be manifested, created in the real world. Instead of debating Why Me and Why Is Everything So Unfair it is probably more productive in the long run to take responsibility for past mistakes and future possibilities and work to change this.

Pluto in Capricorn feels to me like a personal trainer. One that knocks on your door at the bleeding crack of dawn and just stands there and the longer you ignore it the more precarious your position becomes. On the other hand if you accept its offer it may make you cry and curse (and keep crying and cursing for a long while) but you'll have fantastic abs at the end of it.

Pluto in Capricorn is similar to The Devil and The Tower cards in the Tarot. It's about Truth and it's about Change, and although it's about as welcome and cuddly as taxes it's unstoppable. Often it is both hard and painful because it reminds us that no one is safe as all that we have built and achieved gets hauled out to be tested for strength and weakness and validity.

Schocking things happen. Painful truths come out, although how painful they are is in correlation to how much work on them you've done before. If the thing is sound, it holds. (Sometimes things turn out all right. The Ark floated, the razed cities were rebuilt, people survived and other people realised that facing down the tough things only made their marriages stronger).

I have a personal take on this since the last three generations of my family have spent significant portions of their lifetime being prosecuted and running. I was born with these memories - hard-wired into the collective drive for survival. We hid. We ran. We hung in there -sometimes for years- we fought sometimes, we defended what we could and ran with what we could carry and we started over.

In this a Pluto transit is an incredibly creative force, a bit like riding a wave. You can't control the wave, and you can't oppose it, but you can use it. Each difficult time you face is like your soul shouting at you Who Am I? and you decide what kind of person you want to be, what you want your actions to say about you.

You have skills and resiliences and kindnesses you may not even know you have. Pluto will show you that. It may push hard and relentlessly but when the dust settles you usually feel it was of benefit.

So by all means, be wary. But don't be frightened because breakdown and breakthrough go hand in hand and panic doesn't serve anyone in a crisis.

x

Births and Deaths and Resposposbility - all that lovely Saturn, Pluto stuff

2008-01-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

Because the circle of life likes to be tidy, last week I had a baby and this week my grandmother died.

I have a Moon-Uranus conjunction in my natal chart and I had always been highly ambivalent on the subject of children. I had certainly never craved biological babies and was more ideally attracted to things like adoption. On the other hand what I've realised after having my Capricorn son (who fits rather neatly into my chart with its Saturn rising, and the house of children in the sign of Capricorn) is that I was born to parent. He's a lovely baby but he struggles with the burdens of the world a bit, but we stay patient and do our best to support him with it. I'm crazy in love with the little boy and look forward to a lifetime of learning about him.

Welcome to the world my cardinal little bundle of fun.

Talk of death in the next post.

Die Another Day- The Transits of Pluto

2007-12-21T03:57:00.000-08:00

It's the calm in between storms in my houshold. My husband and I are in between major Pluto transits to our charts (the last lot were some 5 years ago) and the new set of aspects to our Cardinal Signs (opposition to my Cancer Sun, squares to my Libra Mars, mutual Libra Pluto and his Aries Moon Chiron and Mars) have a few years before they start pumelling.

On the other hand as Jupiter and Pluto conjunct each other and the galactic center in Sagittarius, gearing up to transit into Capricorn everyone seems to be feeling it and for me this comes across as Pluto Amplified.

(And speaking from a long experience of Pluto transits, the fact that it's officially no longer a planet has not affected its ability to sucker punch me one bit).

And as a taster of all this Pluto-ey goodness, (and no doubt a preview of coming attractions to the natal chart) Pluto and Jupiter are starting to make a loose out-of-sign square to the Libra Sun of mine and my husband's composite chart.

In the composite Sun is conjunct Pluto anyway (with the IC sandwiched in between)
and from the start, the relationship had a feeling of union through a shared experience of hardship and oppression ie. "this world has teeth and little mercy for you and me, so watch my back while I watch yours and we'll take the bastard on together."

There is no negotiating with any of our planets but this is especially true of the three collective planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). The forces they are symbols of are bigger than any single life, and the please and cries of the individual are as the beatings of a moth's wings in a hurricane.

Like the Tower card in the Tarot, Pluto is not interested in plea-bargaining. It cannot be swayed, or deterred, or locked out. Only accepted and rolled with, or fought tooth and nail against until it burns your house down.

Similarly, Plutonic experiences have little to do with justice. Earthquakes strike the innocent and wicked alike, and when burning ash is gearing up to fall onto your head, one of the least constructive things to do is ask "Why me?" (with or without the fist-shaking). Instead, I generally find it more productive to buckle down and get on with the business of breathing and surviving whatever is happening stage by stage.

And the transit to the composite has indeed coincided with irreversible changes to the relationship. December has been the month of Waiting For The Baby's Birth and Trying To Wrap Our Heads Around The Enormity Of Change That Will Mean, as well as the month of Fighting Shocking Assaults From Unseen Ennemies and Facing Up To The Threats To Our Home.

The stresses have been sudden and enormous, the Plutonic kinds of pressures that strip you down to your naked shivering core and challenge you to face up to what's truly real and fundamental to you. Pluto's transits are NEVER comfortable, but they can certainly be very exciting and if you play your cards right you are likely to emerge from its trials by fire singing "Je ne regrette rien".

And they're not all bad. December 2007 was the most challenging month so far for the relationship (previous record-holder, September 2006 when my mother in law died suddenly) but it's also been the most intimate. There are special kinds of bonds forged in the war against the world when your partner is the only one you can rely on and you realise how deeply (Pluto) love and trust go. When you finding yourselves turning to one another in your hour of need and see that both of you completely meant the whole "for richer, for poorer etc." thing.

Transits of Pluto last for years and they can be exhausting. They can also be intensely rewarding if you roll with them right. Pluto is an invitation to travel to the underground of the Self (or the relationship, or the family, or the collective), a primal force, a dare to see what you're made of and ultimately an invitation to truth.

Whereas the transits of Neptune mistify and cloud, transits of Pluto leave you in doubt about what's real and true what with the truth & reality constantly punching you in the eye.

The feeling of a Pluto transit ridden right is the euphoria of a hard test passed. The feeling of it ridden wrong is "Owwwwwwwwwwww, bloody hell this hurts". Either way though the long slow transits of this celestial body mean that frequent opportunities for re-testing present itself for better or for worse. And once you know they are inescapable it makes it so much easier to save your strength and face up to its invitations to dance or fight.

How to keep your marriage alive, by Venus in Gemini

2007-12-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

1) Make prank phonecalls to your husband, every couple of days. (His paranoid nature will only benefit!)

You can indecently proposition him, ask him to clean your carpets and not take no for an answer, try to sell him some shingle for the roof, accuse him of seducing your teenage daughter and put on all kinds of snazzy accents. The possibilities are endless!

2) This all works significantly better if you manage not to crack and burst out laughing in the first 30 seconds. I am still working on that.

Living with and loving: 12th house moon

2007-12-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

If I can point to one way which astrology has enhanced my life and the lives of those around me, it has been through increasing my tolerance of others and my understanding of innate difference. This has been a truly helpful development for someone who had very firm attachment to the ideas of being right, and my way being therefore the most logical and favourable way of being.

Over the course of my life so far I have had the privilege to meet many people and learning their charts has been ever so helpful in quieting the voice inside my head which wanted to hit them over the head with mallets. Being able to sit comfortably with difference is a challenge, and one I've nowhere near sussed but the Living With and Loving Posts will be a log of my attempts to do so.

Thus, on the subject of 12th house moons...

In astrology the Moon represents our emotional and instinctive self. Where the Moon falls in our chart (by sign, house and aspect) describes something about our primal, innermost self: our hungers, our needs, how and where we seek security.

The 12th house describes the unconscious, the hidden. It is the vastest, and the most mysterious of astrological houses. Trying to see its contents is as useless and as dangerous as trying to discern how deep the ocean by looking at its surface. The only way to experience the 12th house is to sink into it with eyes closed, using intuition and sideways senses and allowing its contents to rise up and meet you, like the distant ancestoral memories we carry unaware most often of the voices which sing in our blood, whisper in our bones.

The 12th house obscures whatever it contains, and its contents are not easily reachable. Attempting to grab a part of us that it's in the 12th is very much similar to fishing - direction and depth are illusory, things slip from our grasps, float to us in their own time, of their own accord.

On the subject of how to spot a 12th house moon, astrologer Alexander von Schlieffen gives a deeply helpful definition; namely that with a 12th house moon person their needs are hidden, elusive, both from themselves and others around them.

I verified the truth of that when I met my husband.

Although his Moon is in the fire sign of Aries (the warrior, the hero; the bearer of courage, arrogance, drive, aggression) and trine a fiery Sun in Sagittarius, its placement in the 12th house obscures everything. While this has its benefits for my rather sensitive nature (he is not aggressive, he doesn't yell) in most aspects it's taken a lot of adjustment (my own Moon is in the 3rd house of ideas and communication, my own needs and emotions are easily verbalisable and plain and obvious to me).

So, here's a list of useless questions to ask a 12th house Moon (unless you are looking for an excuse to work yourself into a froth of frustration):

How do you feel? ("Don't know, can't put it into words.")

What are your needs? (A wide-handed shrug that equates needs to vastness and unquantifiability of the sea; "I don't know")

What do you want? ("I don't know"; "What do you want?")

Can you remember how you felt about that? ("I don't know how to put it into words"; "I cannot find the words to explain how I feel about you either, words are so inadequate, I just feel".)

What are your boundaries? ("I don't know, but when you cross them we'll both know.")

What makes you happy? ("When you're happy.")

In short, a recipe for insanity if you're looking for any kind of a straight answer.

A recipe for suspicion or interest too, if you happen to have a probing Scorpio Moon intrigued by the fact that your normally very keen sense about other people (what makes them tick, where they shine, where they are vulnerable, what they're feeling) is being completely eluded by a 12th house moon person who is ephemeral, keeps slipping away. It takes a different tactic to catch this fish.

You must use patience, and subtlety. Enter its world. Wait with no probing questions, no sudden movements. Move with eyes closed, or using only peripheral vision. Do not startle, do not rush. Gather what information is given and wait for more, wait until the fish swims closer, reveals itself to you. And when the fish comes to you do not frighten it, do not violate its trust by grasping it and hurting it. Respect what you are shown, and honoured with. Swim in its own world, drift with it.

It has taken me three years (and some Pluto transits) to see my husband's naked core, his raw emotions. To be trusted with his secret self. And the experience was all the more special for the waiting.

The good, the bad and the retrograde - how I came to astrology

2007-12-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

As part of my World Dominion Plans and leisure time afforded by sweet, sweet maternity leave I hope to spent a lot more time blogging(because the ideas they are always there; I just didn't fare so well on the actual turning-on-computer-when-I-could-be-sleeping-angle).

My first experiences of astrology were uniformly terrible ones. Readings so bad, that if they were not in the so-horrifying-they-are-quite-amusing category I would have banished the entire thing from my memory.

They were extremely useful though, in some respects. Firstly, I'm quite thick skinned and filter opinion with a healthy handful of salt so I didn't feel personally damaged by the readings no matter how often my mind went 'I can't believe you're saying this. Or this. Or that.' Secondly, it was an excellent tutorial in What Not To Do As A Practitioner Unless You Have A Hankering To Lose Clients And Alienate People. Thirdly, it made me take up the study of astrology just to satisfy my inner intuition that the astrologers in question were talking out of their asses.

So, for the purposes of amusement and education here are some extracts from those astrology readings reproduced verbatim.

Astrologer 1:

[upon placing the birth data of the person I was seeing at the time in her ephemeris, cries out in disguist] A Taurus! With a Sagittarius Moon! This is the worst sign and the worst moon placement a person can have. I'll tell you something for free: stay away from Taureans. They are cold hearted psychopaths who would ply you with flowers until they get you into bed and then reject you. Their hearts are made of stone. And as for the Sagittarius Moon... that my dear is the very worst partner placement for you.

She did not mind you extrapolate on why a Saggi Moon was such a bad thing for me to have in a partner. Or contemplate whether there might be a way of actually making a relationship with a Taurus work. Or view as anything but hostile my response that plying people with flowers until they get them into bed might be more of a feature of the Y chromosome than a Taurus Sun. She did however go on to regale me with further gems.

Your will fall in love with an artistic man who lives in a different country from you, an artist or musician of some kind who is a little bit famous. He will be your greatest love. But you won't last and you'll never love anyone the same way again.

Leaving aside the question of what constructive thing comes from giving someone a prediction like that, and that indeed distant loves and pining are not unusual expressions of my Venus-Neptune, I'm still not sure what alchoholic binge she was getting her information from. Happily she was blatantly wrong on all counts, and while my marriage isn't founded on the hopeless romanticism that gave rise to my previous relationships it's certainly in no way diminished by that (in fact, the opposite).

Your natal Mercury is retrograde and your Mercury sextiles Saturn. Unless they are scientific, your writing endavours will all come to naught.

An interesting perspective, and one that would have afforded much mirth to my MSc Supervisor, considering how little he thought of the quality of my written scientific work. In fact as a Mercury in Cancer fiction always came fairly easily to me, as did communication.

Astrologer 2:

Started off consultation with:

I can see from your chart that you are opinionated. Too opinionated. And that you talk too much. In fact you should shut up.

Skimming over all the ironies inherent in that message, it was certainly a novel approach to establishing a connection with a client.

And you're promiscuous. It's all sex sex sex to you. You flirt too much, and choose your lovers badly. You'll never be able to stay faithful to one person. In fact, you kind of have a deceitful nature.

The promiscuity bit came from the fact that I have a Scorpio Moon which was mostly a demonstration of shoddy astrology and the dangers of imposing a personal value system on a zodiac sign. For Scorpios it's less about physical sex and more about intimacy and deep connection. I did find her vision of me as a raging nymphomaniac rather comforting though, considering that at the time of the reading I was single and hadn't had sex with anyone for over a year. And if we interpret 'ability to have perfectly satisfying sex with people without being in a loving, long-term relationship sanctioned by priests' then she was correct and I was a Jezebel. On the other hand if we interpret it as 'having sex without much thought' then she is wrong since Scorpios worth their salt are not only extremely adept at self-control but also choosy about where they invest their energy.

Although my Venus in Gemini was affronted by the idea that there was a thing as 'too much flirting' and aware of the ability to love more than one person at the same time (oh mental sluttery!) I still fortunately didn't feel the need to scrub my thoughts out with soap (no doubt a product of my deceitful nature). And although my single status at that point made my ability to stay faitful or not an interesting academic point, I would have still liked more input into why I choose partners badly and what could be done about it none was forthcoming.

I'm not sure where in my chart it said "Won't sue for libel" but it was pretty much the most accurate interpretation that came out of it.

Part II to follow. If anyone has particular experiences of readings (whether good or bad) which they'd like to share, don't be shy and drop off a comment.

Retrograde Mercury in Scorpio - words bite

2007-10-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

Another scan of the British newspapers, reveals some quite explosive Retrograde Scorpio Mercury action as the likes of Dr. Watson and Martin Amis have spoken out about taboo topics (racism and Islamophobia respectively) and have then seen their words come back and bite them in the ass via the vehicle of the public's indignation. Interestingly, both have since disowned their statements and said they weren't sure what has come over them.

Faith

2007-10-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Thinking more about Jupiter, and faith, it reminds me of a poem by Sheenagh Pugh (to keep in mind for when we are being pummelled by particularly gruelling transits, or angry constellations in the sky)

Sometimes things don’t go after all,
from bad to worse. Some years muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives;the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

The Magician and The Party Pooper - influences of Jupiter and Saturn

2007-10-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

In my natal chart, my ascendant falls between Jupiter and Saturn, with Jupiter conjuncting it from the 12th house and the effects of these two planets are something I've noticed quite strongly throughout my whole life. When I was born there was a food shortage-Saturn- (my mother didn't have any breast milk, there was no powdered milk available in any stores) but a donation from brought me suitcases full of powdered milk (Jupiter) which satisfied my rather vast Cancerian appetites. And even though throughout my life I kept encountering pretty much every kind of hardship (Saturn), there's also always been some kind of hidden benefactor or protective element (usually in a deus ex machina fashion) to intervene in my favour and see me through. After my father died for instance, and inflation reduced his life insurance money to the cost of a Kinder Egg and my father's friends robbed us, financial help from a relative from abroad (and Jupiter rules The Foreign) saw us through. A gift of foreign money (scholarship) paid for my education when I immigrated. I've had the tendency to get the mildest version possible of chronic, debilitating disease and several times when my life has been in danger strangers have appeared out of the blue to rescue me. When my childhood home burned down (mostly a Plutonic experience at the time, in terms of the planets) miraculously no one got hurt and an exploding window fell down, literally landing at the feet of an off-duty fireman who had happened to be walking down the street at that moment.

Most recently, it occurred to me that the pregnancy is an expression of the two as well - even though my external baby bump is quite compact (limits of Saturn), ultrasounds say that my unseen baby is actually a very long one (hidden Jupiter).

These experiences of hardship and faith have been profound, and ultimately very beneficial to me. I am quite resilient, I have a high threshold for endurance (Saturn) but I also don't live my life by fear thanks to the blessings of Jupiter (the accountant of the Zodiac, Saturn speaks to us through our fears and our cautions). Even when as now, when my family seems hit by one financial blow after another and I've spent my pregnancy beset by a string of irritating ailments I have not fear, that things will work out. Baby will be fine, birth will be fine, money will be found from somewhere, things will work out. That instead of endlessly worrying (Saturn) about the things I can't control, my energy is better spent in letting go, nurturing trust and being open to the appearance of hidden opportunity (12th house Jupiter).

If anyone else has thoughts on how the Saturn-Jupiter aspects have manifested for them (whether natally or by transit) please delight me by sharing. :)

More Scorpio Mercury through the Media

2007-10-09T04:16:00.000-07:00

I saw this news story on the BBC yesterday, about Interpol reconstucting the digitally blurred face of a pedophile from child porn footage and posting an appeal to try and identify and stop the man.

I can also tell that Mercury is going retrograde soon because when not dropping things and stamping down the urge to bicker with my partner (never is the urge to tell someone that their hair and shoes are STUPID and they've bought the WRONG KIND OF BREAD and other tragedies, more powerful for me than when Mercury goes stationary prior to the retrograde) I feel endlessly frustrated and near to tears.*

This too shall pass.

*edit to add another Retrograde Merc special: this post refusing to publish itself due to unkown errors, and it taking me three attempts to type in the tags.

Let's talk about sex, baby!

2007-10-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

More Mercury in Scorpio action via the medium of the TV listings.

ITV is broadcasting The Secret Diary of A Call Girl based on the books and blog of the funny and straight-talking Belle de Jour.

A perusal of the rest of tonight's channel listings revealed two programs about sex changes as well as Lucy: Teen Transsexual in Thailand

Happy 100th Birthday Granny!

2007-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

In honour of a century of my granny's life and deeds upon the earth, I thought I'd take a brief look at her chart (and it's apt can't-die-won't-die Pluto Saturn square).

Centenarian record keeping and accounts of childhood ('I was born near dawn') being what they are the time of birth is approximate (although the angles fit very well what I know of her personality).

As a true Sun-Venus in Libra she was celebrated for her beauty throughout her life, and she also exemplified the Libran trait of being convinced of her own fairness even when even when nobody else agreed.

Her Virgo Moon has always shown itself through a need to be needed and her best attempts to demonstrate her love were through doing a service for others. However, her Moon is also trine Uranus and sextile Pluto - no pushover! In fact her caring often had very dark undertones and her self-sacrifice was done in part to bind others to her.

Though passionate and giving in love she was equally posessive and fierce (did not like to share those she loved with anyone else). A steely core, disguised by the glamour of the Libran charm.
A remarkable woman with piercing, electrifying blue eyes (Moon Uranus) an indomitable will (no doubt helped by the prominent Pluto), and an amazingly sharp mind that was incredibly apt at intuitive grasp of truth of people and situations (Moon-Pluto).

One of the most talked-about features of my grandmother is her incredible health. Well into her nineties she was doing headstands every day, had no sign of osteoporosis, required no medication, lived completely independently, cleaned house and walked the dog, cooked all her own meals and had amazing regenerative powers (her broken arm healed in four weeks). And although in the last year she has lost much of her vitality and ability to live independently, her endurance has remained to the degree that astounds the medical profession. She has recovered from two strokes, two lung infections and numerous falls (no broken bones in any of the falls, and any tissue injuries sustained healed within a couple of weeks when the usual recovery time is six months).

Although that crazy degree of health certainly transcends any aspect or chart (rather as I see it, it's some combination of astrology and an x factor in the personality/environment) there are plenty of elements in her natal chart which allude to her amazing stamina (Capricorn Mars, echoed also in the Saturn Mars sextile) and refusal to bow down lay down and die or bow down to mere trifles like conventions of biology (Pluto Saturn square).

Happy Birthday Granny! x

Planetary Transits through the media

2007-10-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

Posts on Elsa Elsa about the way that planetary movements preceed and reflect various real world trends have caused me to notice the recent patterns in the British media.

For instance Mercury's current transit through Scorpio (the uber-sleuth and dirt-bringer-upper of the Zodiac) has coincided with headlines relating to the inquest into the long-ago death of Princess Diana. Due to my policy of ignoring as much as possible the antics of the British Royal Family (past and present) I haven't been reading the articles too closely - however all feature and debate various theories about her death (conspiracies, secret pregnancies, abduction, murder and other such nefarious plots). All these were rampant around the time of her actual death and its initial investigation, and it's interesting how they've resurfaced now in an inquiry that pledges not to leave any stone unturned in its search for the truth.

Similarly as Saturn has left the flamboyant Leo for conscientious Virgo and Pluto inches ever closer to good old belt-tightener Capricorn, we are seeing the emergence of new (more subdued and conservative trends) all over the place (including renewed rehab efforts from Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, no doubt related to the public's fed-up-ness with their antics).

An article by Fiona McIntosh in last week's Grazia sums it up rather well.

Here are some quotes (with added asides in brackets and emphasis in bold):

"Turn on the lights, call a tazi, the party's over. It was wild while it lasted, but it took a banking crisis for us to realise the Naughty Noughties are over. All the delicious blind greed of the decade (which coincided with Saturn's transit through Leo and the giddy joy of the world not ending in 2000) has evaporated faster than it took Northern Rock investors to empty their accounts. (...) Conversations at dinner have swung from how should I spend my money, to blimey, how safe is my money? (...) Ladies who lunch have begun growing their own lunch in greenhouses at the end of gardens. The fashion phrase of the moment is 'Future Heirlooms' - an investment piece built to last over several seasons is worth so much more than a dirty Primark binge. Belts, the hot new 'now' piece are being tightened both physically and metaphorically. This new Frugality has been bubbling under for some time, fuelled of course by the green movement. But it took the panic of a credit crisis for us to completely re-evaluate our lifestyles. (...) What were we thinking? This rampant consumerism is not only mad, it's vulgar. "