Anne Whitaker's Blog

A world turned upside down:some thoughts on planetary ingresses and conjunctions…

In the autumn of 2003 at the cost of £91($124) I sent a big cardboard box containing copies of all my astrology teaching notes from 1985 to an address in Belgrade. (long story…) Having found out they needed English astrology teaching notes there, and having been flattened from late 2001 by a long Neptune transit, I thought I’d never need them again.  (never say ‘never’, people…) If anyone out there knows what became of that box, do get in touch!

In the box was, also, pictorial evidence of my fascination, ongoing to this day, with how eloquently the heavens’ symbolism speaks to the denizens of planet Earth at key points in our planetary, national, local and personal lives. That evidence took the form of a large collection of newspaper cuttings vividly illustrating the potent symbolic links between ‘the heavens above and the earth below’.

Sadly, I no longer keep any cuttings, having given up collecting them from my long period of Neptunian retreat onwards. However, observing and reflecting on the graphic symbolic links between periods involving planetary ingresses, and outer planet conjunctions, has continued to captivate me, stimulate my imagination.

We are currently entering a world turned upside down – the evidence from wars raging in the bigger picture, to storm tossed personal lives of those who are plugged into the current planetary shifts, is everywhere. As Pluto settles into the early degrees of Aquarius, Uranus makes his first foray into Gemini, and the Saturn Neptune conjunction continues its confusing dance between the end of Pisces and full entry into Aries next spring 2026, we are entering an era of fire and air dominance and a fast changing world. 

Much will be written about this over the next few years, (probably including by me!). However, in this piece I am confining myself purely to reflecting on a few of my own ‘favourites…’ both over the last number of years, and in the present moment…

Pluto enters Sagittarius to High Drama

Here, from memory (aided by Google), are some of the cuttings in that vanished box: firstly, from Pluto’s entry into Sagittarius on 17th January 1995.

On Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 5:46 a.m. local time, Japan woke to a stark reminder of its vulnerability to earthquakes…The front pages across the world showed the horrifying effects of the Great Hanshin Earthquake – and the city of Kobe in flames.

Two days before Pluto’s entry,  Pope John Paul II addressed an estimated crowd of over 5 million people at <World Youth Day 1995 in Manila, Philippines, in January 1995. This event was recognized by the  Guinness Book of Records at the time as the largest crowd at a live event in history.

Later that year, a huge civil rights march, The Million Man March was a large gathering of African-American men in Washington, D.C., on Monday, October 16, 1995…researchers at Boston University estimated the crowd size to be about 837,000 members.

And my personal favourite: (I have Pluto conjunct four Leo planets, square Jupiter in Scorpio, go figure!…) from the Los Angeles Times, 16th May 1995…Scientists have uncovered what may be the largest underground tomb ever found in Egypt’s fabled Valley of the Kings–a mausoleum in which may lie buried 50 sons of Ramses II, the red-haired Pharaoh of Exodus who ruled Egypt (for 67 years) at the zenith of its power more than 3,000 years ago.

My horoscope, relocated to Glasgow UK where I have lived for decades, has my IC at 0 Sagittarius. Having studied informally at the Centre for Psychological Astrology for four years, I began my formal Diploma studies in the autumn of 1995 and spent the next three years flying down to London for the day, once a month during term time, until my graduation in the autumn of 1998. Quite the Sagittarian adventure…

Saturn joins Neptune – confusion and turmoil rule…

Thirty years on, I’m now transfixed by observing the Saturn/Neptune duo’s slow dance between Pisces and Aries from early 2025 to February 2026 – with accompanying worldly and individual turbulence of an extraordinary nature.

In this case, we have a powerful and fascinating combination: two ingresses and an applying conjunction of both Saturn and Neptune, taking place in the same time period between the Spring of 2025 and their extraordinary meeting at 0 Aries on 20/2/26.

 After this, their moves between Pisces and Aries give way to forward motion through Aries, and a Mars-driven challenge to reconcile those ancient opposites of order and chaos, reality and illusion with which humans have been tasked both collectively and individually since …well…forever. 

As one human who is deeply exercised by this, ie tenth house Mars in Cancer currently squared by the current Saturn/Neptune conjunction,  I am experiencing first hand just how tough it is to work with creatively. Lying on the sofa with an absorbing book instead of writing this piece – or indeed doing almost anything! – is unbelievably tempting…And I know from simply observing other people’s lives and what’s going on in the wider world, that we are almost all storm-tossed one way or another at present.

Historic Echoes, War Talk – re-enter Trump

Although there were indeed newspapers in 1861, I wasn’t alive then (as far as I know!) to cut out and keep the reports which must have appeared in the press across the world when the American Civil War began: on the 12th April 1861. The very next day, Neptune ingressed into Aries…

Fast forward to the next ingress of Neptune into Aries on 30th March 2025, conducting a disruptive and confusing, turbulent series of shifts backwards and forwards conjunct Saturn from Pisces to Aries through the rest of 2025.  Neptune will at last enter Aries on 26 January 2026, remaining in that Mars-ruled sign, meeting Saturn at 0 Aries on 20 February 2026, until fully entering Taurus in the Spring of 2039. 

You don’t need an astrologer to tell you that the period since the end of 2024 – Donald J Trump elected USA President for the second time, anyone?– has been exceptionally disruptive in the USA and worldwide. And dangerous, as wars in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan have all featured escalating variations on the tragically perpetual theme of “Man’s inhumanity to Man”.

There is a widespread perception that the USA under Trump’s second term of office is shifting from democracy in the direction of imperialism and dictatorship. In sinister echoes of the past entry of Neptune into martial Aries in 1861, in an increasingly polarised nation, there is also increasing speculation about the possibility of civil war, illustrated in this recent article in The New Yorker. 

I had some vividly dramatic cuttings in that lost box of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in precise alignment with the Saturn/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn on 13th November 1989. That was a breathtakingly literal illustration of ‘as above, so below’…Less literal but none the less vividly expressive of that contradictory planetary combination was the collapse of  Communism which followed. 

Another literal expression of that 1989 conjunction manifested following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s magical realist novel Satanic Verses in the UK in September 1988 and the USA in February 1989.. The book’s controversial content, which questioned sacred Islamic texts and depicted the Prophet in a potentially mocking way, led to a widespread backlash, including violent protests and a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. The fatwa was proclaimed on February 14, 1989, by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, calling for Rushdie’s execution.

From a symbolic point of view it is both fascinating and chilling to note that in August 2022, as the 1989 conjunction drew to its close, an assassination attempt in New York nearly ended Rushdie’s life. However, he survived, publishing Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder in April 2024 as the 2025/6 conjunction began to form. His attacker Hadi Matar was sentenced to 25 years in prison on 16 May 2025 – 10 days before Saturn and Neptune’s first meeting of the new cycle at 0 and 1 degrees of Aries. His attacker, who admitted he’d only read two pages of The Satanic Verses, cited Rushdie’s ‘insulting the Prophet Mohammed’ as his reason for the attack. 

During the Saturn/Neptune Pisces/Aries combo of late 2024/5, there are strong political echoes of the essence of that earlier conjunction as international blocs have collapsed: eg USA under Trump has withdrawn its unconditional military support of European nations against Russian aggression, forcing re-alignment between the UK and other European nations as Putin’s land grab war against Ukraine shows no sign of coming to an end despite Trump’s assertions that he could ‘end the war in a day’ prior to his re-election in November 2024.

The Virgo/Pisces eclipse season: dangerous – and deadly.

There have been many more manifestations literal and symbolic in the Press worldwide of that contradictory, confusing grapple between illusion and reality, order and chaos characterised by the Saturn/Neptune combination – far too many to fit that cuttings box I used to keep! 

In any case, press cuttings now seem charmingly anachronistic. Video clips shared around the Internet instantaneously worldwide now provide vividly graphic images of cosmic energies in action.

As I write this (on 13th September 2025) with today’s Sun Mercury conjunction in late Virgo moving away from the South Node and the recent lunar eclipse, advancing towards opposition with the Saturn Neptune conjunction, we are in especially fluid and dangerous territory.The run-up to a partial solar eclipse in Virgo on September 21 marks a powerful new moon – in essence representing the “second act” of this season’s eclipse story. 

The lunar eclipse in Pisces occurred on the 5th of September 2025. Less than one week later, on 11 September, a major political assassination took place of a notable politician and Trump ally from the Christian Right, which surely will have disturbing repercussions both in America and the wider world. 

Preceding this on 9 September, there was a widely condemned attack on Doha in Qatar by the Israeli air force – where negotiators have been attempting to find a peace deal between Hamas and Israel.

Times between eclipses have historically been fluid and potentially dangerous – especially so when these times coincide with major planetary ingresses and conjunctions, as is the case now. This one, involving the Saturn Neptune conjunction at the end of Pisces and the beginning of Aries, is surely no exception.

Conclusion

‘…As above, so below…’ the Internet era has brought with it massive proliferation of the world populations’ use of social media.We astrologers no longer need press cuttings in a cardboard box to register that immediacy of connection between ‘…the Great Above and the Great Below…’, as the ancient Sumerians so expansively described it. These days, the click of a mouse does that job for us…

Endnotes

All italicised quotes on world affairs accessed via Google during August and September 2025.

••••••

1,850 words ©Anne Whitaker 2025

Reflecting on Chiron as his Aries journey continues…

This morning, whilst reflecting somewhat gloomily on the current Pluto transit from my horoscope’s fifth house to natal third house Chiron at 4 degrees of Scorpio, I decided to search Google for vintage astrologer A.L Morrison’s words of consoling wisdom. He viewed Chiron as “the inconvenient benefic”...and I was in need of some positive inspiration.

Guess what? Up came one of my own posts, from 2018 when Chiron was just beginning his 2018-2027 journey through Aries. So – having read it to restore my own perspective today, I thought I’d share this post again, as Chiron’s Aries journey nears its end.

What does Chiron mean to you? Have you experienced his symbolic energy as healing? Wounding? As the ‘inconvenient benefic’, kicking open doors to places you’d never have thought to go? Does he simply not register as any kind of recognisable influence in your life or those around you? Or have you simply not given him much thought as you work with your horoscope in relation to your life?

Lots of questions. Let’s address them now!

Reflecting on Chiron as his Aries journey continues…

200 words © anne whitaker 2018/2025

Neptune, poetry, and August’s melancholy…

I have always loved August, that month where a particular coolness in the morning air on stepping out, a papery rustle tingeing the wind blowing through the trees, intimates that Summer is losing its hold upon the year, that Autumn is ascending…sensing this brings on a very particular mood, a mood dominated by the atmosphere of Neptune, that most poignant, sensitive and poetic of energies.

Autumn beauty…
Photo: Anne Whitaker

Step with me for a moment into Neptune’s world…

August is my birth month. There is a poised melancholy about it which fits my temperament well. From a very young age I have been very aware of the transience of Life: for all its challenge, turmoil, joy, grief and seemingly endless possibility, its manifold excitements, loves and pleasures, it is soon gone: a frail leaf drifting down to the river of Time which carries everything mortal to the great Universal Sea.

Whilst in a pleasingly melancholy August mood today, I dipped into a favourite inspirational book and found this gem, which I thought I’d share, from Katherine Mansfield…

“…It is a sensation that can never be forgotten, to sit in solitude, in semi-darkness, and to watch the slow, sweet, shadowful death of a Rose.

Oh, to see the perfection of the perfumed petals being changed ever so slightly, as though a thin flame had kissed each with hot breath, and where the wounds bled the colour is savagely intense . . . I have before me such a Rose, in a thin, clear glass, and behind it a little spray of scarlet leaves. Yesterday it was beautiful with a certain serene, tearful, virginal beauty, it was strong and wholesome, and the scent was fresh and invigorating.

To-day it is heavy and languid . . . So now it dies . . . And I listen . . . for under each petal fold there lies the ghost of a dead melody, as frail and as full a as a ray of light upon a shadowed pool. Oh divine sweet Rose. Oh, exotic and elusive and deliciously vague Death..”.(i)

______

Endnotes

(i)  Katherine Mansfield: The Death of a Rose (from The Virago Book of Spirituality, Edited by Sarah Anderson, published 1996,  p276 )

One fallen leaf….

photo: Anne Whitaker

400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2017/2025
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Some thoughts on…Twelfth House phases. We’re in one now!

Over the decades of my being an astrologer, I have written extensively on the Twelfth House in general, and Twelfth House phases in particular. Hardly surprising, with either five or six of my planets there, depending on house system…

Collectively, we had a world-defining USA election on 5 November 2024. Donald Trump returned to the Presidency with Pluto anaretic in Capricorn, in the final fortnight of the Twelfth House phase of an almost 250 years long Pluto cycle which began in Aquarius in the 1770s, heralding the American Revolution. This was followed a decade later by the French Revolution, with the world-trnsforming Industial and Scientific Revolutions just hitting their stride in that transformative Era.

Currently, we are being tossed around worldwide in yet another Twelfth House phase: that of the Saturn/Neptune cycle which began in Capricorn in early November 1989, accompanying the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism. The new cycle of that contradictory planetary pair – about which much is currently being written – begins fully with maximum drama at 0 Aries in late February 2026.

As I write, with Mars in mid Libra having recently activated Saturn in Aries, Uranus in Gemini, Neptune in Aries and Pluto in Aquarius, all in their opening degrees, we are seeing the tantalising prospect of peace inching forward in the brutal conflict following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022. There may even be glimmers of hope of some kind of peace in the Middle East…

Last autumn, I published a reflective piece setting those world-defining cycles in the even larger context of the shift which is currently taking place between world eras. That piece is still relevant, and it seems very apt to share it again in these currently highly significant days:

As I said on Hallowe’en 2024:

‘…We are currently in the turbulent, disturbing, liminal space between one world Era and another; a potent time of  “…deaths and entrances…” Great poets like Dylan Thomas have always been ahead of the rest of us in sensing momentous changes in the world’s energy field. As the great astrological cycles are showing us in symbolic form, and the great Victorian  poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson once observed in ‘Morte d’Arthur’, ‘the old order changeth, yielding place to new’.

To read the rest of this post, click HERE:

400 words© Anne Whitaker 2025 + 1600 words © Anne Whitaker 2024

Some thoughts on…the power of Fate…

“Tell me a story…” Why do we humans never tire of stories? I have been reflecting on this recently, and on particular stories where Fate seems to weave a powerful cross thread into the pattern of a person’s life, changing that life’s direction forever.

“Tell me a story…” 

I have also been reflecting yet again on that age-old Fate/Free Will question, probably as a consequence of currently re-re-reading “The Astrology of Fate” by Dr Liz Greene, well-known and respected Jungian analyst, astrologer, teacher and writer. I’m trying to prepare myself for yet another immersion into a long Pluto transit ( consoling words for other mega-Plutonians like me in a similar position: I’m still here – as far as I know…). To paraphrase Liz G who does not mince her words, the choice with Pluto transits is either descend willingly into the Underworld, or get dragged down yelling and resisting. I’m trying the former option…

The most striking encounter I have had with Fate intervening and changing my life is one by now familiar to my family, friends, students and many of my readers – so (uncharacteristically!) I am not going to repeat it here, simply leave the link to that story for anyone curious enough to read it.

The most recent encounter I had with a striking tale of Fate’s intervention came, of all places, when I was flat on my face on an osteopath’s couch, having a back problem treated. Being a typical writer, rather than chatting about the weather or what I was doing for the weekend,  I indulged my curiosity about other folks’ endlessly fascinating lives by finding out something about the well- respected osteopath who was treating me, Mr James Sneddon.

His clinic, along with the team of therapists who work with him, is one of the longest established and most highly regarded in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. I found out that Mr Sneddon had taken over the clinic from his father, James Russell Sneddon, who had founded it over 80 years ago. ( update: Mr S. has since retired and the clinic has moved)

The poor unsuspecting man then made the mistake of asking me what I did. Taking a deep breath (probably not a bad thing to do under the face-down circumstances!) I summarised my varied, rather wayward career path as briefly as I could. ‘My goodness,’ he commented. ‘That’s so interesting – especially your story about that fated encounter. As a matter of fact, my own father had an encounter like that which certainly changed HIS life.’

( Mr Sneddon Jnr gave me full permission to share this story, including his and his father’s real names.)

Mr Sneddon Snr. left school not long after the First World War without much formal education and was sent to sea by his parents. He had bronchial problems; his parents thought sea air might help his condition.  Whilst in China, it was recommended he visited a Chinese doctor in Shanghai, who pierced various parts of his body with sharpened bamboo sticks (Mr S Snr. had never heard of acupuncture at this point), took his various pulses, and said he should not …’ …drink the juice of the cow…’

Giving up milk and dairy products got rid of his bronchial problems; when he returned to Scotland on leave, a Western alternative practitioner gave him the same health advice. Amazed that he should have had the same verdict from both the exotic East and the familiar West, his interest in nutrition and the effects of food on the body was piqued and he began to investigate alternative medicine, more or less beyond the pale in Scotland in the 1920s.

Meanwhile, his mid-twenties found him in Alaska. One day, whilst they were on shore leave, the ship’s captain invited him to come fishing. At that point a humble ship’s engineer, James R Sneddon happily accepted. Both men set off on a rough track with their fishing rods, into ‘…the middle of nowhere…’ where the captain knew of a promising fishing loch.

Mr Sneddon Snr. had some tobacco with him. When he saw an old Native American woman sitting by the track, smoking her pipe, he reached out to give her some.  She grasped his hand, turned it palm up, examined it for a moment, and said...

‘ …“ you will leave the sea and take up a healing art that won’t use knives”.’

In due course, he did exactly that.

J R Sneddon (Noon Chart: time of birth unknown)

In the absence of a birth time, I have used a symbolic Noon/MC chart for James R Sneddon, since we are considering his vocation and direction through life. This striking horoscope could have a post all to itself! However, I’ll leave you to study it, dear readers, and confine myself to one or two key observations which are valid regardless of his time of birth..

Note that Sun/Jupiter conjunction in Taurus on the Noon Midheaven, opposite Mars in Scorpio conjunct the IC. This reveals an adventurous traveller, a restless seeker after higher knowledge, prepared to plumb the depths as he pursues his quest. The Taurus/Scorpio combination in the signs of physicality and in-depth transformation also speaks to us both of osteopathy and acupuncture as branches of expression from that core pairing.

By a delightful piece of synchronicity, the Ascendant of Mr Sneddon Snr’s chart is at 1 degree Virgo: the exact place where the 19/2/19 Full Moon was due to fall when I first shared this remarkable story. Also, the Virgo Moon conjunct the North Node, opposite Saturn in Pisces on the South Node, is a very clear signature for working at healing through the body – and for preparedness for hard work and commitment to his future vocation.

In his mid-twenties James R Sneddon  would have begun his third  Jupiter cycle: Jupiter returns by transit to its own place in a birth horoscope every 11-12 years,  at its best opening us up to new possibilities, bringing experiences our way which broaden our horizons. That certainly happened in a startling way to Mr Sneddon Snr. in the middle of nowhere in Alaska.

That encounter with the Chinese doctor when he was aged around 19/20 just after the North Node – the horoscope’s North Star, compelling one towards one’s destiny – returned to its natal position, ‘set the scene’, as it were, for his compelling encounter with the Native American fortune teller. He returned home to Scotland, began studying in earnest, and on his Saturn Return (to the healer’s sign of Pisces) in 1935, aged 30, opened the Buckingham Clinic which has been successfully treating generations of patients ever since. ( update: Mr S. has since retired and the clinic has moved)

As an interesting postscript which rounds off the tale nicely, James R Sneddon introduced acupuncture to his clinic in the mid 1960s – during his Second Saturn Return to the healer’s sign of Pisces.. By then, of course, he well understood what those sharpened bamboo sticks in Shanghai, so long ago,  had been all about!

I loved hearing this story, which took the compelling and intriguing ancient idea that Fate intervenes when we need a nudge in the direction in which we are meant to be going, and placed it central stage in the life story of my osteopath’s father.

I’ve never forgotten Dr Liz Greene, in one of her seminars at the Centre for Psychological Astrology during the 1990s, making a remark to the effect that it is truly astounding the lengths to which the Fates seem to be prepared to go to arrange life-changing encounters for people, sometimes right across continents.

Having mentioned Jung at the start of this tale, it seems appropriate to give him the last word here:

“Free will is the ability to do gladly that which I must do.”

I wonder if you agree?

“Tell me a story…” 

1300 words © Anne Whitaker 2019/2025

Understanding Astrology for Twins: Do They Have the Same Horoscope?

Helene’s question:

How does it work when you do a birth chart for twins? Or two babies born the same minute at the same hospital?  Can two people have the same horoscope!?

My Answer:

During many years of teaching astrology classes, I found that the above questions came up very frequently.

It is important at this point to emphasise to readers who are familiar only with Sun Signs that to get ‘beyond the Sun Signs’ requires an individual’s horoscope to be drawn up for the date, place AND time of birth. Human beings are complex and contradictory. It’s not possible to approach any satisfying symbolic exploration of that complexity through the Sun or Star Sign alone.

A number of years ago, I decided to address the typical questions students asked about twins (summed up by Helene’s questions here) via one of the tutorial classes I ran for my more advanced students, all of whom had a good grasp of the basics of astrology, and some of whom were already practitioners in their own right.

One student – let’s call her Anna – was the devoted aunt to a set of twins in their mid teens, a boy and a girl –  let’s call them Angus and Miriam. These two had been born less than fifteen minutes apart and had almost identical horoscopes.

I had formulated a theory about twins and astrology which I wanted to test out, so I obtained permission via Anna from Angus and Miriam’ s parents as well as the twins themselves, to calculate their horoscopes and discuss them anonymously in class.

My method was to put up on the board only one horoscope since there was so little difference between the twins’ horoscopes, and ask the students to take an hour to prepare along with me a basic outline of the key characteristics revealed by this one horoscope. We did the preparation as though we were preparing a birth chart for just one person.

The class knew nothing about either of the twins, and I asked Anna to observe us, but not to make any comments at all.

Once we had written up the outline, we spent the next hour discussing our findings with Anna, who knew her nephew and niece well.

I am writing this after a long time gap and no longer have the notes or charts for detailed reference, so can only give a summary of the essence of what emerged from our discussion.

Anna found our summary from the one horoscope of the basic characteristics of both her nephew and niece to be very accurate. What was very clear was that certain traits were held in common, but that the rest were, as it were, divided up between the twins. To put it very simply, looking at a range of traits: 1,2,3 and 4 were recognisable in both; Miriam manifested traits 5,6 and 10 whilst Angus lived out traits 7, 8 and 9.

This very interesting and enlightening experiment does not of course constitute any kind of proof: but it bore out my impressions from reading about the similarities and differences in the lives of twins about whom I had read, as well as my own observations of twins I had come across from my own experience, as well as the few horoscope readings I had done for individuals who were twins.

What was this impression? Coming back to the analogy of the horoscope revealing the characters poised on life’s stage, waiting for the moment of birth to kick start the action of the play, it seemed that twins unconsciously chose which characters on their joint stage they were going to live out jointly – and the ones which they were going to live out separately.

The experiment which I did all those years ago with my students, Anna and her nephew and niece certainly bore out my theory….

After writing this piece I googled ‘astrology and twins’ to see what came up, and was pleased to find on my favourite astrology site, Astrodienst, that other astrologers including Dr Liz Greene had come to much the same conclusion.

As far as two people born at the same time in the same place is concerned, yes, they would in effect have the same horoscopes.  You would certainly see considerable similarities if you studied both their lives over time. But each character on the stage at a given moment in time has a range of possible modes of expression. Thus the influence of different family circumstances and different opportunities, etc, would call forth a range of possible responses from the same basic character.

To read much more on this topic, do go over to master astrologer Donna Cunningham’s excellent blog Sky Writer, where she has an excellent piece on the astrology of  twins.

Then come back and let me know what YOU think!

800 words © Anne Whitaker 2025

Lunar Reflections podcast: a new astro-kid on the block!

It’s been my pleasure recently to drop in and have a listen to a most enjoyable, accessible, thoughtful and informative new podcast, Lunar Reflections, set up by Heliodora and Tarah, two astrologers relatively new to our astrological community, both with interesting and impressive academic and professional backgrounds in other spheres. I have listened to the first episodes and really enjoyed the fluency, depth of understanding and accessibility of their approach. I’m sure you will too – do go over and have a listen!

(I love their idea of ‘journeying with the Moon while Jupiter is in his exaltation in Cancer…)

Say Heliodora and Tarah:

‘…Welcome to our Lunar Reflections Podcast where we’ll be journeying with the Moon while Jupiter is in Cancer. Each month we’ll release an episode to coincide with the New Moon!…’

200 words © Anne Whitaker/Lunar Reflections Podcast 2025

Synchronicity strikes again…a Saturn in Aries lunar tale

I have the privilege of mentoring internationally, via Zoom, a small number of really smart astrology students, mostly studying with MISPA – the Mercury Internet School of Psychological Astrology (i). Last week, I experienced a particularly powerful session with a student who was trying to understand and make peace with some especially troubling facets of family history. For reasons of confidentiality I can say no more than that about the student.

However, the session evoked for me a powerful memory of facing and dealing with an upsetting set of circumstances in my own fairly recent life – it was 2018, just two years before my husband’s death in January 2020. Those circumstances made me painfully aware of how the very long arm of my family past had reached out and sharply challenged me in the present.

I’m very sparing in sharing any personal material with students and clients. After all, it’s their time, not mine! But occasionally – and I’m sure other practitioners have similar experiences – it seems both apt and helpful for the client or student to share something of one’s own grapple to come to terms with Life’s inevitable complexities and pains. In this case, the student concerned found my disclosure very helpful in offering possible ways to manage their current family issues more constructively.

Here is my story:

Jungfrau/Munch, Switzerland

A tale of Saturn, Capricorn, Nodes, and family history….

And what of synchronicity? Well, after the session was completed, signed off, my notes written up and the recording sent to the student, I settled down with my usual cuppa and biscuit (digestives, in case you are wondering. Couldn’t live without them!) – to wind down and reflect on the session. There had been such a strong travel, family, Cancer/Aries/Capricorn ‘feel’ that I wondered what the chart ( 4.30 pm BST – set for half way through the session) might say. And sure enough – my natal 10th house Mars at 1.5 degrees Cancer was being triggered by a transiting Moon/Jupiter/Saturn T square involving the early degrees of Capricorn, Cancer and Aries.

I’ve been an astrologer now for decades. But the synchronicities invariably revealed through its symbols between the microcosm of our tiny lives and the vast planetary macrocosm of which we are part, never ceases to make me feel humbled – and often amazed.

‘As above, so below’ – indeed...

Endnotes:

This post includes the link to a slightly edited version of my bi-monthly column for Dell Horoscope Magazine  ‘The astro-view from Scotland’  from the November/December 2018 Issue. Dell Horoscope magazine ceased publication with the March/April 2020 issue – after nearly 84 years…

i) MISPA – the Mercury Internet School of Psychological Astrology is the online successor to the Centre for Psychological Astrology founded in 1983 by Dr Liz Greene and the late, much missed Howard Sasportas, (author of that astrological classic, The Gods of Change), where I completed my CPA Diploma during 1995-8 after several years of flying down from Scotland as an informal student. So – it feels most fitting and as though I’m completing a circle, to be mentoring students for the worthy internet successor to the CPA so ably run by John Green and his team.

400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2025 / + Dell Horoscope Magazine 2019

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: they’ve all crossed my 1C – and I’ve survived !…

I often get asked about the effect of the transits of the ‘Big Heavies’ ie Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, over the IC or root/origin point of the horoscope. Here is my story of life-changing experiences occurring when the Big Heavies all crossed that point in my horoscope during my twenties, thirties and forties. Quite a long time ago now… Encouraging news for those of you currently going through one of those: It’s 2025 and I am still very much here!

Light in the darkness: (photo Anne W)

It’s been one of the most-read essays I have ever written, published in a variety of magazines journals and on-line publications over the years including Astrodienst. It is also one of the sixty essays, columns and articles which is featured in

“Postcards to the Future: Mercurial Musings 1995-2021”.

Please feel free to share YOUR stories of those powerful transits. It’s how we all learn…

Here is the essay:

https://anne-whitaker.com/category/uranus-neptune-and-pluto-cross-the-i-c

©Anne Whitaker 2025

As the Sun joins Jupiter in Cancer: a community family celebrates …

The Children’s Wood: A Community Treasure in Glasgow G20

Our Cheerful Shed

( photo by Anne Whitaker)

We had a big Summer Solstice/10th Anniversary celebration on Saturday 21st June afternoon in Glasgow G20, with wonderful weather – interspersed of course ( this is the West of Scotland…!) with the occasional downpour. It didn’t stop us having a wonderful time celebrating our vibrant local community. Here’s a brief summary, courtesy of the wondrous(?) AI :

‘The Children’s Wood charity in Glasgow is celebrating its 10th anniversary since becoming a registered charity on June 21st 2015. The organization manages The Children’s Wood and North Kelvin Meadow, aiming to connect people with nature, raise aspirations, and involve the community in land management.

They hosted a 10th birthday party on Saturday, June 21st from 1-4 pm, and invited the community to celebrate. The Children’s Wood is known as the last wild space in the West End of Glasgow’…

Any readers interested in the evolution of this unique ‘dear green space’, whose community story/struggle against commercial developers began 25 years ago – beginning to gather real momentum about 15 years ago – can read about its inspiring story HERE .

This wild space has been my happy place, spring summer autumn or winter, hail rain or shine, for all those years. I am so grateful to everyone in our community family who worked together to make it happen, and who continue to do so…

Here’s the last word on a wonderfully heartwarming community event, taken from the Children’s Wood and Meadow Facebook Page if you’d like to support us: “Thanks to all our helpers, volunteers, committee members, great storyteller, our lovely face painter, Frog Life, bakers, BBQ Charlie, beekeepers, science centre folks, juggler and musicians… you made our birthday such a success!..”

300 words  Anne Whitaker 2025