Anne Whitaker's Blog, page 3

Understanding Astrology: Your Questions Answered

New Year greetings, everyone!

I thought I’d start my blogging year this year by briefly – and hopefully clearly! – answering some of the most common questions I get asked when doing Astrology: Questions and Answers sessions. I really enjoy those events, having done them both on zoom and in person for various groups over the last couple of years.

The sessions seem to fall into two main categories: firstly, people with an open-minded interest in what astrology ‘beyond the sun signs’ might be, some of whom may just have begun to think about taking up astrological studies seriously. And secondly, folk who have been engaged in the study and/or practice of astrology for a while, as a result of which certain questions have become pressing for discussion/reflection.

Here are just a few of the topics I’ll be covering in the next few posts, just to give you a flavour:

In the simplest terms, what is astrology and how does it work? Do you believe in horoscopes? 
What is an astrological birth chart?  And, from more advanced students/practitioners: Is life controlled by fate or do you believe in free will? Can astrology predict my future? What keeps you engaged in its study?

I usually spend between an hour and an hour and a half in dialogue with the groups. My job is to be honest, clear, focused, keeping things as straightforward and jargon-free as possible. Invariably, the general response from those who are very new to astrology is this: “…I had no idea until now that astrology was so wide-ranging and complex. It’s fascinating!!…”

I also get asked advice from time to time on how to deal with astro-dismissers, ie those people (of whom I used to be one myself!!) who dismiss our great subject without ever having taken the trouble to investigate it beyond the occasional tabloid astro column. I don’t encounter this kind of ignorance very often.( Maybe they detect my MercurySaturnPluto conjunction vibe without even having to know any astrology!) But when I do, I ask very politely for how long they have actually studied the subject. They usually bluster, get shifty and can’t reply to this, upon which I say that I would be more than happy to discuss astrology with them: but only after they have gone away and studied the subject with a reputable teacher of school for a minimum of one year. This works for me.

So – shall we get started?

Here are the first questions – and my answers:

In the simplest terms, what is astrology and how does it work? Do you believe in horoscopes? 

The word ‘astrology’ is derived from two Greek words ‘aster’ and ‘logos’ and means, in essence, the study of the stars. It is an ancient art and science going back at least 6000 years, to when the Chaldean astrologer/astronomer priests,  “… when the human mind was still half asleep,…were standing on their watchtowers, scanning the stars”(from The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler). 

We humans from earliest times have needed to set our tiny individual and collective lives in the context of a Bigger Picture which provides a sense of meaning, and reassurance that we are not just butterflies pinned randomly to the board of Fate. 

Astrology provides that Big Picture context, as do the world’s religions. However, it’s important to stress that astrology is NOT a belief system. Western astrology works by plotting the regular movements of the planets (we include Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in modern Western astrology) from observational points on Earth in relation to the 360 degree path of the Sun through the heavens, noting their positions in complex mathematical and astronomical tables which have been developed over many centuries. 

In this way, energy patterns can be seen unfolding through space/time as the planets weave their intricate dance over seconds, minutes, hours, days, centuries, millennia. Astrologers have correspondingly observed those shifting, changing, repeating patterns, noticing how human life both collective and personal changes with them. The famous dictum “As above, so below” sums this up.

Astrologers then take a step beyond astronomy/maths by attaching meaning to what we see.

To be continued.. .

NEXT:

What is an astrological Birth Chart?

++++++

700 words© Anne Whitaker 2025

Big Bang theory challenged – as Pluto moves into Aquarius (19.11.24)

Watch this recent video – it’s only 15 minutes or so – and prepare to have your mind blown (in a good way). “…fundamental ideas about the universe, such as the Big Bang Theory, are being challenged by observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. In this documentary, scientists speculate that the universe is a living, self-aware system and compare the complexity of human brain cells to the structure of galaxies. The universe is learning. This falls within Pluto in Aquarius themes. If the universe is a giant brain we return to the idea of ‘god’…” Victor Olliver

We are now faced with

‘…Deeper layers of reality beyond what we can perceive with our senses or measure with our instruments…’

I absolutely love the irony in all this – scientific reductionism is getting a beating, thanks to a major scientific development i.e. the James Webb Telescope. It looks as though the mystics and symbolists (especially astrologers) have had a more accurate grasp of how things are, all along i.e. for several thousand years at least.

This puts the depressing events on planet Earth last week thoroughly in perspective – a vastly larger perspective than we even thought we knew. What wonderful symbolic timing, as Pluto is about to move forward into Aquarius …

Thanks Victor Olliver, for sharing this…

[image error]

P.S: Another stunning manifestation of Pluto’s imminent shift into to Aquarius is this, from UK’s Guardian newspaper on 13 November 2024 :

“…Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 1 million new users since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.

The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach nearly 15 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said…”

PPS: Well, that’s me – just joined Bluesky. Do come and join me on the fastest-growing s/media platform…

https://bsky.app/profile/annewhitaker.bsky.social

(This beautiful image by Susi Petherick)

******

300 words© Anne Whitaker 2024

Scorpio New Moon 2024 – Herald of the new Air Era

“On almost the incendiary eve

  Of deaths and entrances…”

Those portentous lines from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ ‘Deaths and Entrances’ have been intermittently invading my thoughts for days. You don’t need to be an astrologer to realise that we are currently living through perilous times.

New Moon in Scorpio 1.11.2024

War has been grinding on in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of that country in the Spring of 2022. Since the 7th October last year, with Hamas’ brutal invasion, murder and kidnap of citizens of Israel from Gaza, the Middle East has increasingly been catching fire as an ancient conflict over territory and nationhood flares up yet again. Who knows at present where all this horrific destruction of ordinary people’s lives and homes is heading, in those main theatres of war plus further deadly conflicts in other parts of our very troubled and divided world. 

Massively adding to the overall tension, increasingly evident through intense media coverage, is the imminent USA Presidential Election on 5th November 2024 between former Republican president Donald J Trump and current Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris. I do not propose here to add to the vast amount of analysis which is pouring out into the public sphere world-wide, including the astrological community, regarding this election. Most of us by now will know where we stand on the relative merits/demerits of both Trump and Harris and what they may have to offer. 

We also know that the outcome of this election is poised on a knife edge: the result could ultimately be determined by a few thousand votes in one of the ‘swing states’:  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. This election’s result could determine the future of democracy. In this essay, well worth reading, the following question is addressed in depth by Michael Hirsch: Is 2024 Really the Most Important Election in History?

In his introduction, Hirsch makes this deceptively simple point: the election, Harris said at her rollout event as a presidential candidate on July 23, is “about two different visions for our nation: one where we are focused on the future, the other focused on the past.”

These are, on the surface, says Hirsch, fairly banal words, seemingly anodyne sentiments typical of presidential campaign rhetoric. Yet, in the present context, he thinks they are terrifyingly true.Why? Because the 2024 election is in large part about a candidate and the political party that he now controls—Donald Trump and the Republican Party—who want to move the country decidedly backward in time and who seek a return to an America – and a world – that no longer exists.

Dylan Thomas again…

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’. 

The old Earth order, defined by the 20 year Jupiter/Saturn cycles travelling through the earth element from 1802 and the rise of the Industrial Revolution until their final entry into the Air element on the Winter Solstice 2020, concludes with Pluto’s long transit through Capricorn from 2007-2024: he then completes his transitional to-ing and fro-ing from the 23rd of March 2023 until the 19th of November 2024, at which point finally moving forward into Aquarius, a sign he will not occupy again for almost 250 years. I have written extensively on those shifts in recent times, most recently on Astrodienst in 2019  and in the UK’s Astrological Journal for the September/October 2024 Issue, re-published on my website on 23.9.24.

So – we are at the very end of not one, but two major cycles: in transition from one Epoch to another.

Further emphasis on this epochal shift will be Uranus’ move into Gemini in mid 2025, settling into that sign from the Spring of 2026. Neptune moves into fiery Aries also during 2025/2026, his first entry into this sign since the 1860s and the American Civil War. Furthermore, Saturn also moves into Aries with the especially potent Sa/Nep conjunction at 0 Aries in February 2026.Thus in the space of a mere two years, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto will all have moved from earth and water to air and fire: momentous shifts indeed.

In this moment

 In the meantime, back to our turbulent here and now. I am grateful to USA astrologer Lynn Koiner for this pertinent observation:

“…I have observed that, when Pluto is in the Ending Degrees of Capricorn, many people are having accidents or health issues. I know that, when I have had a major health issue in the past, it always precedes a major life transformation. An accident or health issue will break up some patterns in our lives. With Pluto entering Aquarius, everything is going to change, just as it did when Pluto entered Capricorn…My former horary teacher, Gil Navarro, said that, when the Outer Planets reach the Ending Degrees, people feel desperate, at the end of their rope…”  

(from Lynn Koiner, Lynn Koiner Astrology Group post on 4.9.24)

Moondark, twelfth house, New Moon rising, New world order…

In my horoscope, the Suns sits at 22 Leo, the Moon at 20 Leo, Venus at 18 Leo, Saturn exactly conjunct Pluto at 13-14 Leo, and Mercury, the ruler of my Virgo Ascendant, at 9.5 Leo – all in the twelfth house by Whole Sign and Equal, all squared by a third house Jupiter at 19 Scorpio. Being so Plutonian with most of my planets in the twelfth house, born in the last hours preceding a Leo New Moon, it has taken me much of a lifetime to come to terms with the rich mix of gifts and pains brought by this symbolic allocation. 

 As I write this on Hallowe’en, we are in the last hours before a Scorpio New Moon tomorrow: 1 November 2024, 12.48 GMT. We are also in the very last days of the Earth Era which began in 1802: the very end of the twelfth house phase of that world-defining period in which industrialisation changed the way most of us live, for both good and ill. This final twelfth house phase began, most aptly, around the time of the Millennium. 

That Dylan Thomas quote is resonating strongly with me because I am feeling so powerfully, both in my body, my being, my life and in our collective present moment – thanks to my strong connections with the twelfth house and the mediumistic qualities it bestows – those very ‘deaths and entrances’. Today, at the very end not only of the lunar month’s Moondark, but also a whole Era’s Moondark, I am in a deeply withdrawn, sensitive, pensive state, feeling very open to our collective vulnerability and suffering as fragile creatures on a tiny planet, currently riven by much turmoil.

However, astrology’s symbolic wisdom over millennia has demonstrated, through its division of the Cycle of Life  into twelve archetypal phases, that each stage in the life cycle both collectively and individually holds its own wisdom, its own necessity. As the King James Bible puts it so beautifully:

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…’

The twelfth house phase is the time of dissolution, the winter phase of life, where the Old Order needs to come to an end so that the seeds of the new may germinate, emerge and (hopefully) flourish.(i) 

This is where we are now, both as a human collective and as individual human beings. I very much resonate with Lynn Koiner’s observations as quoted earlier. There is a great deal of fear, turbulence and suffering being endured by so many of us at present. But I’ve also experienced both personally and by observing my friends, family, colleagues, students and casual encounters with my fellow citizens, major life transformations, heralds of the new, emerging from all the turmoil. 

As already mentioned, we are on the eve of a momentous USA election whose outcome will to a greater or lesser extent affect us all. Whatever the result, there will be disruption and turmoil, since that is the nature of the time through which we are living. 

However, the new Air Era is almost upon us, and its broad outlines are already visible. An airborne pandemic in 2020-2 upended the whole world, we took in our millions to platforms like zoom, and AI has taken an exponential leap into pervading and changing our world, in the last few years – to give just a few very significant examples. In Robert Hand’s memorable phase,we are at a point where “ the past has minimum hold upon the present, but the present has a maximum hold on the future.” 

The old Earth Era is dying, it’s had its time. A New Air Era beckons, so let’s embrace it as best we can. Let’s make from its strongly Aquarian opening energy an opportunity to come together constructively as a human community. We don’t have to be beholden to war, enmity, hatred and division. In the words of the ending of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, let’s summon up ‘…the better angels of our nature…’ as we head into a challenging future for humanity in the years to come.

Endnotes

(i) You might want to read my longer musings on sacred twelfth house time, published some years ago in several places, including Astrodienst. As you may gather from the title ‘Contemplating the Twelfth House: an optimist’s take on self-undoing’ I am a true appreciator of the profound gifts on offer in the twelfth house period – provided we work to understand and appreciate the wisdom to be gleaned from that mysterious symbolic ‘place in space’.

Pluto into Aquarius 19.11.24

******

1600 words© Anne Whitaker 2024

Save the date: Pluto enters Aquarius on 19.11.2024 – and stays until 2043…

We are truly living through astonishing, turbulent, disruptive times. Those periods when one big cycle comes to an end, and a new one arises, have always been especially turbulent for our world. We are currently bearing witness to more than one of those events. On the winter solstice of 2020 (who chose that date?!) Jupiter met Saturn at 0 degrees of Aquarius, that potent defining cycle at last shifting fully into the Air element after spending from 1802 enacting its 20-year dance through the element of Earth.

Jupiter/Saturn conjunction

The Jupiter/Saturn cycle has always been considered of paramount importance in shaping the course of history: Baigent, Campion and Harvey in “Mundane Astrology”  describe it as

‘… the ground base of human development which marks the interaction between perception of ideas, potentialities (Jupiter) and their manifestation in the concrete world. (Saturn)‘, (p. 184)

Additionally, Pluto’s dredging his way through earthy Capricorn since late January 2008 is about to conclude with his full entry into Aquarius on 19th November 2024. Pluto was last in Aquarius from  1778-1798. This was a period of significant change, including the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the discovery of Uranus. That planet, currently in the final degrees of Taurus, completes an 84 year cycle through the whole zodiac by entering Gemini again in 2025, remaining there until 2033. Uranus was last in Gemini in 1941 – 1949 during the middle, end and aftermath of the Second World War. Back then it was the Cold War (between Russia and America) which led to a new carve-up of territory worldwide.

So – the new Air Era has been taking shape since 2020 ( pandemic, anyone?A.I. anyone?!) and is already greatly changing the way we live worldwide for both good and ill: those two interwoven, inseparable archetypal forces govern the whole of existence. Jung once wisely observed that our task in this life is to reconcile those great opposites. At this point, we seem more intent as a collective on bitter, deadly division than on much by way of reconciliation…

The movement of those great cycles and their symbolic impact both collectively and individually has deeply fascinated me for a long time now: I’ve written extensively on cycles in recent years, including on Astrodienst. Just over a week ago I was emailed by one of Astrodienst’s translators, the charming Hiroko, who has translated an essay I wrote for Astrodienst last year into Japanese. I am most pleased by this, never having had my work appear in Japanese before ( to the best of my knowledge!…) Hiroko’s work has inspired me to re-publish the essay: it is even more relevant now, as we approach the most important USA Election for a very long time on 5th November, in the very last, dying days of the old Earth Era…

Pluto’s slow shift into Aquarius 3/2023-11/2024 … what’s been happening in YOUR world?

I hope you enjoy reading the above essay – there is a link within it to ‘Some notes on Cycles in a time of Crisis’ , also published (in 2019) on Astrodienst – hoping too that it helps somewhat in your gaining some much-needed perspective on the departing ‘Old Order’. I have certainly found that studying the great planetary cycles over long periods of time has helped me to see that the dynamic interplay between periods of order and periods of chaos has been with us since the beginning of human civilisation…

I did love looking through my essay rendered in beautifully elegant, artistic Japanese script by Hiroko; I thank her and Astrodienst for that. The link to the Japanese version is included HERE. Maybe one or two of you will be able to read it in that context!

******

800 words© Anne Whitaker 2024

Some thoughts on…Cycles and the USA election

Those of you who drop in on my various writings from time to time may well have noticed that my astro-preoccupation for quite some time now has been planetary cycles (i). I find them profoundly fascinating, awe-inspiring. This has especially been the case as we have all had a ringside seat in watching the spectacle of our world being turned increasingly upside down in the last few years. 

Digital illustration of the Solar system.

At a personal level, the more we have been ‘plugged in’ to the planetary degrees of recent significant symbolic shifts, the more disrupted life has been. That has certainly been the case for me. Having been born under an exact Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Leo, and married under the subsequent one in Libra, I was widowed on 13th January 2020 – the day after an exact Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn. 

No doubt other readers have powerful stories of their own to share. 

As Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will,” (Hamlet to Horatio in Act 5, Scene 2). I have never been made more acutely aware of this than I was by the shocking timing of my husband’s death. However, 40 years’ involvement with astrology as a practitioner, teacher and writer – as well as the living of my life – have taught me that, as Richard Tarnas observed in Cosmos and Psyche,‘…astrology is not concretely predictive, but archetypally predictive…’

Unsurprisingly, given the dramatic events in the USA in recent weeks, astrologers worldwide have been poring over the charts of all the protagonists with varying degrees of scrutiny, coming up with the usual varying conclusions – we should admit that the evidence for consistently accurate concrete prediction by astrologers is not strong, and bring a wee bit of humility to bear in reminding ourselves of that fact in our speculations!

Brief background survey – key recent events

Here in Scotland, there was a divisive Independence Referendum in 2014 where we Scots voted by 55% to 45% to remain in the UK, leaving bitterness in its wake. In 2016, the UK voted by a narrow margin to leave the European Union, which caused further bitterness and division. 

Also in that year, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College (although she won in terms of overall votes) and became president of the United States of America. His rancorous style created an intensification of division in the USA via the promotion and rise of the MAGA cult. This division intensified when, having been defeated in the election of November 2020, he failed to hand the reins of power to incoming president Joe Biden in January 2021, as befits time-honoured democratic procedures, with any kind of dignity or grace.

 Quite the opposite. We all remember the ensuing Insurrection and its ongoing consequences of increasing bitterness, hatred and division throughout the USA. 

Preceding the election, in January 2020 the world had been plunged into even worse turmoil by the Covid pandemic, which cost millions of lives before effective vaccines were developed. We are still very much dealing with the environmental, political, social, cultural, and personal consequences of that event. 

This was followed in the Spring of 2022 by the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s ‘special operation’, still ongoing and contributing its own chaos to the wider world, affecting us all as well as causing massive suffering and death. The escalation of hostilities between Israel and Palestine following the brutal October 7th 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel and the taking of hundreds of hostages has produced an orgy of destruction in Gaza responsible now for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, of whom around 25,000 are children. 

Neither of those conflicts looks likely to conclude any time soon. 

So –  here we are, looking on as the ancient, ever-repeating oscillation between order and chaos, Saturn and Neptune, would appear to be tipping steadily in the direction of  chaos. The world certainly looks to be a more dangerous place now than it was at the start of the Millennium…

Current focus on political drama in the USA

My own interest lies in looking at what the planetary cycles, measured over the last 250 years or so, may have to say about the outcome of the upcoming USA election in November 2024 – probably one of the most crucial since George Washington was appointed first president in 1789, in the same year as the French Revolution. In a short piece like this, I am confining myself to broad brushstrokes  – by way of introduction. No doubt much longer and more detailed analyses will also be appearing.

The critical nature of this approaching election is well described by its placing within a number of significant cyclic shifts.(ii)The Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Libra in 1980 was the first herald, as it were, of the upcoming Air Era, with a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Taurus in May 2000 announcing the final 20 years’ cycling of those two planets though the Earth Element. This lengthy sojourn, which began in 1802, terminated with a dramatic symbolic flourish following the cycle’s full entry into Air: with Jupiter meeting Saturn at 0 Aquarius on 21st December 2020 – the Winter Solstice, no less.

To quote from Mundane Astrology (p. 185) ‘…the transition of the conjunction from one element to another –the ‘Mutation Conjunction’ – has always been considered to be of particular importance marking a major shift in emphasis and orientation in the world…’ 

The opening of the first Jupiter /Saturn cycle in Aquarius, and the new Air Era, moving us all toward a  ‘…major shift in emphasis and orientation in the world…’, saw the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the USA on 20th January 2021. This event was preceded by the infamous insurrection on 6 January 2021, following Trump’s inciting of his mob of followers attempting to subvert the result of the November 2020 election: just one yearinto the start of another fearsome 33-38 year Saturn/Pluto cycle, at 23 Capricorn on 12 January 2020. In page 183 of Mundane Astrology, that cycle is described as pertaining to ‘…Very deep cultural transformations, purgations and ‘resurrections’…’

Just after the Spring Equinox of 2020, Saturn had entered Aquarius, Jupiter in mid-Capricorn in hot pursuit, heading for their 0 Aquarius meeting at the end of that year. Meanwhile, Pluto was close to completing his purging of financial and institutional structures worldwide which began with the financial crash of 2007/8, his focus preparing to shift with the Spring 2023-Winter 2024 gradual forward, then back, moves from Capricorn to Aquarius during that period. Pluto’s full forward entry date into Aquarius is 19th November 2024: critical timing, as we will see shortly.

Currently a temporary visitor to Aquarius since late January 2024, Pluto is due to dip back into Capricorn on 3/9/24, turning direct on 12/10/24. It will be fascinating to see what further dramas and disruptions take place around those dates, with Pluto remaining anaretic in Capricorn until returning to Aquarius on 19/11/24 – where he will remain until 2043.

This particular USA election, initially scheduled to be a re-match of Biden v Trump, will take place at a fascinating point in space and time: the very last two weeks of Pluto’s 17 years-long purge of everything Capricorn stands for – having turned major economic, political, religious and social structures upside-down in the process. The last time this occurred, nearly 250 years ago, was between 1762 and 1798, followed by Pluto’s traverse of Aquarius from 1777/78 to 1798. Significant events then? Absolutely!

 In 1775, many of the inhabitants of Britain’s 13 American colonies rebelled in the War of Independence (1775-83). Congress voted to accept the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This action represented a formal separation of the American colonies from Great Britain. The Constitution was ratified on June 21st 1788, followed in 1788/9 by the first USA Presidential Election in which George Washington was elected as the first president and the members of the 1st United States Congress were selected.

So many firsts with Pluto’s previous shift into Aquarius. What firsts may we expect with Pluto’s settling into Aquarius in the winter of 2024/5?

2020– 2024/5: a world in liminal times

The 2020–2024 period has been and still is a time of exceptional turbulence, increasing polarisation – and violence. It has also been, to take a more upbeat note, a time for new seeds germinating and beginning to fruit during the huge transition from the Earth to the Air era.  

Thinking about all this caused me to further reflect, this time on the significance of the twelfth house phase, that phase of dissolution and preparation for re-emergence which applies to every cycle whether applied to the life cycle of a gnat, a galaxy – or a world Era. In the mysterious depths of the metaphorical twelfth house, the seeds of the future are quietly germinating in darkness, preparing to burst into new life in the first house phase: that of the new Air Era upcoming. 

Just a few of the seeds germinating and beginning to fruit during the 2000-2024/5 transition from the Earth to the Air era were/are:

* Arrival of the iPhone in 2007 which set the social media age in motion, along with the rise of AI technologies. OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, can now browse the internet since its launch on 23 March 2023, the very day of Pluto’s first entry into Aquarius for the 2023-2043 period. 

* Election of USA’s first black president, Barack Obama, serving from 2008-16. The 1777-1798 period of Pluto through Aquarius saw the election of the USA’s first ever president, George Washington, in 1789 as previously mentioned. Interestingly, Obama’s Ascendant is in Aquarius, with his natal Jupiter in his twelfth house at 1 deg Aquarius…Pluto has been potentising that Jupiter since the Spring of 2023, and will be re-activating it, just after the USA Election date. A significant role in the new government, maybe? The 2020 USA election, won by Joe Biden, saw Kamala Harris make history as the first black woman appointed to the role of Vice President.

The war in Ukraine has lead to closer alignment between Russia and China under two autocratic leaders Putin and Xi. We have also seen the rise of India as a global superpower: a major player in the global IT and BPO services industry and a powerful manufacturing leader.

* Also, uniquely, half of the world’s populations are taking part in elections in 2024. Interestingly, the power of Narendra Modi, although he was re-elected prime minister of India on 4/6/2024, has been much reduced by the votes of a significant number of dissatisfied Indian voters. People power is on the rise! We have also recently seen evidence of this in the UK with a Labour election landslide. It got rid of 14 years of increasingly chaotic and corrupt Tory rule. All of this indicates major shifts in leadership and superpower alignments across the globe in 2024/5: aptly dramatic dynamics of entry into a new Air era.         

So – what may we expect from the USA Election?

 Initially it looked as though the protagonists on the 5 November 2024 were going to be two old men: Democrat Joe Biden aged 81 and Republican Donald Trump aged 78.  How very apt, I thought – but rather depressing despite Biden’s not inconsiderable achievements since 2021 – that Capricorn’s final degree before Pluto’s fully shifting into Aquarius should host a contest for President between two ageing Saturnian figures, way past reasonable retirement age. 

There seemed to me, though,  to be a profound and troubling contradiction here: An election held at the last gasp of Pluto in Capricorn would be followed, firstly, by the final pass of the USA’s Pluto Return to 1 degree 35 mins Aquarius on 30/12/24. Then – the inauguration of a new President would take place at a vibrant point of radically new energy: with the Sun conjunct Pluto at 1-2 degrees Aquarius on 20th January 2025.

This contest of old men did not fit with what the archetypal patterns of the times we are living through are clearly telling us, as eloquently summed up in that great epic poem about the death of a great king and the end of an Era, Mort d’Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):

“… The old order changeth ,  yielding place to new …” 

(Interestingly, Tennyson was born at the beginning of the new Earth Era. His great epic poem was published in 1842, not long after the accession of Queen Victoria to the UK throne in 1837. That great Victorian period, primary driver of the early Earth Era, was just gathering momentum. Tennyson had the Sun in Leo on his IC, with an Aquarian Midheaven…)

However, the Fates, or the inevitability of historical process, or the shifting of the planetary archetypes (take your pick, or choose your own term!) had things in hand. 

Increasing unease regarding the suitability of Biden as this election’s Democratic candidate, building from Pluto’s re-entry into Aquarius in January 2024, came to a head following that disastrous Biden/Trump campaign debate on 26/6/24. Biden’s stepping down from the presidential race on 21/7/24 dramatically reshaped a White House contest: Biden handed over the candidacy to Kamala Harris, a move which has seen Harris enthusiastically endorsed.

 As of yesterday (writing this on 3/8/24) Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign announced that it had raised $310 million last month, an eye-popping sum, showing that donors who once seemed spooked about the prospects for November’s election with President Joe Biden are now offering mountains of cash to boost his former No. 2. This haul by Harris has far outpaced Republicans who raised a ‘mere’ $138.7 million for July.

Contrary to some gloomy predictions beforehand that it was pretty disastrous at this late stage in the campaign for the Democrats to change candidates, at the time of writing the opposite appears to have occurred. Trump’s pick for Vice President is J.D. Vance – another MAGA right-winger who not so very long ago was describing Trump as another Hitler. 

His ’childless cat lady’ gibes appear to have spectacularly backfired – just check out the memes flying around on social media –  having probably galvanised thousands if not millions of American women to get out there and vote, including those who might not otherwise have bothered. To say that Trump, the Trump campaign and the MAGA cultists have been wrong-footed and rattled by the rise of Kamala-fever is an understatement as things stand at present.

A  striking image has arisen in my mind of an angry, vituperative old man and his MAGA cultists manning the barricades of the Old Order about to be swept away by the rising populist tide of the Airy, Aquarian New World…

Concluding Comments

It has been instructive and useful to stand back from the massive flurry of detailed, fascinating mundane and personal astrology centred on the upcoming election, to look instead at what the epoch-defining cycles are telling us about this historic election. Its outcome will profoundly affect the whole world and all our lives, directly or indirectly. 

In terms of Tarnas’ cautionary comment at the outset of this essay, about astrology being archetypally but not concretely predictive, the archetypes, (or shifting, ever-changing and repeating energy patterns of our solar system if you prefer to nod at quantum physics) are certainly pointing in a very obvious direction. I hope this essay has made clear what that direction is. Elderly Trump  belongs to the Old Earth Order now passing. Harris, not only a much younger person, but also a woman, and a mixed race woman, certainly fits the bill for Aquarius’ and modern ruler Uranus’ tendency to kick down barriers and let lots of fresh energy in.

However, it’s probably worth reminding ourselves that astrologers’ record on concrete prediction – c/f the 2016 election won by Trump – is patchy to say the least. Trump representing Capricorn and the past, Harris, representing Aquarius and the future certainly look to be likely concrete manifestations of very different archetypal forces. But it’s also worth repeating one of my favourites of Dr Liz Greene’s memorable aphorisms from the 1990s: “If you think you can predict it, it’s not Uranus you’re looking at!”

Uranus is clearly what we are looking at now, and very much so from the aftermath of an election which is taking place with Pluto anaretic, at the 29th crisis degree of Capricorn. The Old Order is not going to ‘yield place to the new’ without a grim, bitter and unpredictable fight; the route to the New Order is likely to be turbulent. Fasten your seat belts, folks. There’s a bumpy ride ahead! 

Endnotes

This is an edited version of my Not the Astrology Column for the September/October 2024 Issue of UK’s The Astrological Journal.

(i)  Astrodienst: Some notes on cycles in a time of crisis 

(ii) Waning and Waxing Crescents: windows to the future…the Jupiter/Saturn cycles 2000-2040

•••••••••••••

2800 words© Anne Whitaker 2024

A new astrology magazine for the new Air Era – ‘Stellar’!

“…Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken…”

(John Keats “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”)

…except in this case, it’s a brilliant new astrology magazine, aptly named Stellar, with a limited-space soft launch now, and formal launch in late October 2024.

Stellar is freely available to anyone and is part of the print/online editions of The Astrological Journal, the magazine of the UK’s Astrological Association. Stellar will grow as an online publication and remain free.

Check out this beautiful soft launch first on-line edition here: https://www.astrologicalassociation.com/stellar/.

I’ve recently completed a long essay on “Cycles and the USA Election ” which appears in the September/October 2024 edition of The Astrological Journal, as well as several other articles and essays in varied contexts, eg Astrodienst, in the last few years. As the archetypal patterns of the turbulent times we are currently living through are clearly telling us, eloquently summed up in that great epic poem about the death of a great king and the end of an Era, Mort d’Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):

“…The old order changeth, yielding place to new…“

All major changes of World Era produce unsettling disruptions. Our times are no exception. Retrograde Pluto, now returned to Capricorn today, turning direct on 12th October 2024, is due to settle slowly into final forward motion for the 2023-2043 period of his transit through Aquarius on 19 November 2024, a mere two weeks after the crucially important upcoming USA Election.

An enduring fascination for me has been observing how planetary symbols play out at every level from the macro level of world politics, through to the ordinary lives of you and me. Those of us ‘plugged in ‘ at an individual or group level to current powerful planetary energy shifts are also going through disruptive change to a greater or lesser degree. Like it or not, resist it or not, the New Order beckons.

And so it is with astrological publications. I’m excited about Stellar, whose appearance seems to me to be picking up on the energies of the emerging New Order. As Editor Victor Olliver says:

‘…Stellar online is a multi-media publication – with text, images, podcasts and other regularly updated video content – and aimed at the vast global audience interested in astrology. Stellar is accessible, digestible and engaged…’ 

So, Readers, check out and download this first, early edition of just twelve pages . It’s brilliant – and it’s free!

https://www.astrologicalassociation.com/stellar/

400 words ©AnneWhitaker 2024

As Mercury goes direct…my favourite Mercury Retrograde tale…

Mercury turns direct tomorrow tonight, 28.8.24, at 28 Leo, 21.17 GMT ( uk time) . I will be leaning out of my third floor window, listening for sighs of relief. For me, this three-week period has been especially trying as Mercury (my ruling planet) migrates from Virgo which houses my Ascendant, to Leo, which houses six of my planets – then back again before slowly resuming forward motion.. All this action – or rather, thwarted action!! – has been taking place in the Twelfth House.

Mercury/Hermes

I have now been sharing Mercury Retro Tales off and on for several decades. Rather than regale you with this most recent saga – please, I need time to recover! – thought I’d read through the MRetro collection and share my favourite Mercury Retro tale with you, dear Reader. Feel free to use the comment boxes to share your own.

However, lest you readers out there imagine that Mercury Retrograde is all bad news, let me stress a fundamental principle of working creatively with planetary energies, whatever they may be:

To quote Dr Liz Greene in one of her 1990s Centre for Psychological Astrology Seminars:

“You have to give the god what the god wants. If it’s Mars, don’t offer a bunch of flowers!”

I have never forgotten this witty, sage advice. So – what should we offer Mercury in his retrograde phases, which occur three times a year ? First of all, philosophical acceptance that, the more Mercurial one is, the more day to day screw-ups on the communication and travel front one is likely to have. Just allow more time to do everything, and don’t expect too much to flow smoothly if it is anything to do with communication or manual dexterity.

And of course, paying attention to the Retro part gives you a clue that going back over matters to do with communication/writing is a constructive use of this time. On that positive note I am now heading off to lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress on my forehead. Enjoy the tale!

Mercury stations – enter domestic mayhem!

PS if you fancy reading a few more Mercury Retro Tales, here’s the file:
https://astrologyquestionsandanswers.com/category/mercury-retro-and-direct-mercurial-tales-6-articles/

250 words ©AnneWhitaker 2024

Melancholy musings from a Twelfth House Sun in Leo, as summer loses hold…

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…

August is my birth month. There is an almost, 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…

Death of a Rose…

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

******

350 words © annewhitaker 2024

How to make it through the night…as Neptune transits the Twelfth House

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time…” Andre Gide (1) That quotation occupied a prominent place in my kitchen for a very long time, from 2001-2012, to be exact. Especially during 2001-6, I needed all the inspiration I could get, having been pitched into what amounted to a frightening inner voyage of discovery with no landmarks, no map, no companions – and no idea if I would ever again reach dry land. 

Winter Seascape by Anne Whitaker

During this voyage, the defences I had constructed since childhood to keep my ‘other side’ at bay were eroded by Neptune’s insidious currents. Episodic manifestations of my great-grandmother’s Second Sight (2) – as it is known in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland – insisted on being honoured by me at last. I was forced, also, to attend to the fact that inspiration and guidance were welling up from an altogether different Reality than the one my strongly rational, pragmatic side hitherto had trusted and preferred. 

In essence, that long Neptune transit forced me to surrender,  pay homage to a symbolic ‘god’ in whose physical realm ie the sea I had almost drowned at the age of around 7, when Saturn was beginning to square all my twelfth house Leo planets. As Liz Greene once memorably observed in one of her 1990s seminars at the CPA (Centre for Psychological Astrology, London):

‘You have to give the god what the god wants. And if it’s Mars, don’t offer a bunch of flowers!’

The trigger for my collapse, on top of overwork, was a young family member who had embarked on a course of action in 1998 leading to a paranoid mental breakdown, returning home needing sanctuary in the Spring of 2001. As I battled a severe menopausal stress-related hormonal imbalance which triggered acute exhaustion, insomnia, palpitations and crippling waves of anxiety, mismanagement by my then GP did not help. 

By the time we had got our family member into stable supported accommodation and appropriate medication early in 2002, I could barely get out of bed – had to let go of everything and everyone sustaining me except for my husband, a few friends and one or two family members. Life as I had known it was definitely over. I had no idea what came next.  The ‘night sea journey’ (3) had begun. Honour Neptune I certainly did, having no option but to do so. Retreat from the quotidian round of everyday life for years – and prolonged rest – was at the heart of the cure. 

Making long car journeys accompanying my husband on his twelve year pilgrimage to climb all the Munros (4) in Scotland, I sat around in beautiful places, reading everything I hadn’t had time to read for decades. This escapist travel, and increasing  immersion in the natural world as my energy returned, was also an important dimension of the slow process of recovery. 

Reading has always been my sanctuary from early childhood. Via the many and varied writings of a range of open-minded scientists of the calibre of Fritjof Capra, Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, Paul Davies, and open-minded writers on psycho-spiritual topics such as Carl Gustav Jung and William James, Pema Chodron, Jack Kornfield and Karen Armstrong, my long-term understanding that the worlds of science and imagination/spirituality need not be at odds with one another was deepened and reinforced during that long retreat.

I realise now, looking back, that all the above reading was an important part of my reconciling the strongly Mercury/Saturn pragmatic, rationalist side of myself with a heavily tenanted twelfth house. I now understand more clearly that we exist in many Realities, some utterly unknowable, which intellect can attempt to refine and communicate at best. Until my prolonged immersion in the Neptunian sea, I had used my inner rationalist to keep that mysterious sea with its many currents at bay. 

This William James quote sums up his importance to me during my long Neptunian ‘dark night of the soul’:

” … the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and …those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also;…although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points……

…. the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow ‘ scientific ‘ bounds.” (5)

His open-minded, non-judgemental qualitative research into people’s actual experiences of Realities which lie beyond the one in which we normally live, move and have our being enabled me to value a lifetime’s intermittent, threatening, and unwelcome experiences of ‘otherness’. My Underworld sojourn also gave me time to record and analyse a variety of paranormal experiences which had occurred now and then between 1971 and 2000 – a whole Saturn cycle. James’ work helped me to create a new balance within myself. For that gift I remain forever grateful.

I have recently begun an account of my experiences of that long Neptune transit/‘night sea journey’. With the benefit of time and distance, I realise two things. One, given a choice between going through that journey again and dying, I would prefer to die. That’s how bad some of it was. Two, I am immensely grateful for the enriching gifts which I’ve slowly realised Neptune has given me – as a result of having surrendered to ‘giving the god what the god wants’. 

The book’s working title is “Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness: a Neptunian Night Sea Journey.” Wish me luck as I embark on this new journey with Pluto opposing all those Leo planets – for the rest of my life. 

I’ll keep you posted…

Endnotes

This is an edited version of my Not the Astrology Column for the July/August 2024 Issue of the UK’s Astrological Journal

 (1) From Gide’s 1925 novel ‘Les faux-monnayeurs’ [‘The Counterfeiters’]. 

 (2) ’…Second sight, a special psychic ability…is traditionally believed to be a natural inborn faculty of mind running in certain families…’ ( by SA Cohn · 1996 University of Edinburgh)

 (3) I first came across this term in Jung’s work. The coining of the phrase, however, seems to belong to Leo Frobenius (1873-1938). The phrase “night sea journey” appears in his book ‘The Age of the Sun God’ (1904)  

 (4) A Munro is a Scottish mountain with an elevation of more than 3,000 feet (914 metres). Named by Sir Hugh Munro (1856–1919), whose groundbreaking list of the 283 highest mountains in Scotland was first published in 1891.

 (5) William James:On Consciousness: from “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (pp563- 4)

******

1100 words © annewhitaker2024

Born ‘on the cusp’: is there such a thing?

When you’ve been an astrologer and teacher for as long as I have, certain questions keep cropping up…

This year, I’ve been doing a series of Astrology Q and As in different settings, in person and over Zoom, responding to the many thoughtful and curious questioners who want to find out more about astrology Beyond the Sun Signs. It has been great fun, and quite heartening, doing those sessions. Invariably, the response I get having tackled an hour’s worth of sometimes searching questions from open-minded enquirers is this: ” Wow!! I never realised there was so much more to astrology than the Sun Sign stuff…”

I then take great pleasure in recommending quality local, national and international courses – thanks, Zoom: we all owe you! I also enjoy pointing people in the direction of further reading, and reputable websites which will enable them to take their interest further. I see this as part of my job as a useful Elder in our astrological community. I’ve had quite enough of preparing for classes in a wide variety of settings – in Adult Ed and social work before I even encountered astrology.

My pleasure now (apart from continuing writing and mentoring) lies in responding to open-minded interest in our great subject via spontaneous, unprepared Q n A sessions. And if I am stumped for a reasonable answer – that hasn’t happened yet, but it probably will next week now!! – there’s always Mr/Ms Google…

So – I’m going to be running a series here presenting some of the most frequent Questions I’ve been asked over the years, and sharing my Answers. Here’s the first one, published on my Astrology: Questions and Answers archive some years ago. It’s a hardy perennial: crops up regularly!

house cusps

“What does it mean if I’m born on the cusp?” This is one of the the most frequent questions asked of astrologers. So – I thought I’d revisit 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. To read my response, click HERE

©Anne Whitaker 2024