Anne Whitaker's Blog, page 6

Mercury Retrograde: instructions for Beginners – and Dismissers!

Well, it’s that time of the year again. Mercury went retrograde on 13th December 2023, not resuming direct motion again until 2nd January 2024. I was entertained by my colleague Victor Olliver’s brief posting on Facebook today, and his opening salvo, ie ‘…Such is my contempt for the Mercury retrograde nonsense…’

His three brief lines were followed by an absolute torrent of comments of varying opinion and example regarding the significance or otherwise of this thrice-yearly celestial phenomenon, inspiring me to dig into my own Mercury Retro archives in order to share this brief but hopefully entertaining and informative piece with my readers. I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you to do your own research.

Mercury: isn’t he GORGEOUS?!

….in the spring, summer and autumn/winter of each year, the planet Mercury does something strange. It appears to slow down in its orbital pace, stop, then start to move backwards. This is known as retrograde motion. It is of course an illusion. Otherwise, we’d have fallen off the solar system aeons ago.

However, the effects down here on Earth when Mercury is in its 2-3 week retrograde phases are anything but illusory. For years, I studied this phenomenon in my own life, the lives of family, friends, and astrology students. In sum, communications of all types become strangely awkward and hard to manage during those times.

I learned to look forward to having some rest during Mercury Retrograde, since my referral rate dropped. Normally clients always turned up for appointments, MR periods being the exception. Cancellation rates increased.

Once, a client called to cancel because her house had just caught fire (yes, she called the Fire Brigade first!).Two clients often turned up at the same time. Cheques invariably got lost in the post, or clients forgot to bring cash.

One summer I moved office during MR, becoming involved in a dispute of byzantine complexity with the telephone company which took almost a nervous breakdown on my part to sort out.

As MR periods approached, I used to entertain my students by looking at their individual horoscopes, which enabled me to be more specific regarding possible MR effects. I told one student, a lawyer, that a female helper in his workplace was likely to have communication problems which would impact on him.

His feedback?  His secretary sprained her wrist, and was unable to type during the entire MR period.

Mercurial people, ie those with the sign Gemini strongly emphasised  or the planet Mercury  dominant in their horoscopes,  are most affected  by Mercury’s retrograde phase. Anyone involved in the business of communication can look forward to a less than smooth three weeks.

A good example is my old friend Ronnie who used to run a first rate copying and web design business here in Glasgow; Mercury’s retrograde havoc wreaked on his computers one year convinced him that “There’s definitely something in this astrology business, Anne!”

What can mercurial folk do, then, to maximise advantage and minimise disruption when Mercury is retrograde? MR is a positive time for going back over all matters to do with communication, and cleaning up.

Some examples: if you’ve been putting off a purge of your filing system, do it now. If your accountant has asked you nine times for your last year’s papers, use this 2-3 weeks to update them.

Dig out and finish some of those half-worked articles if you are a writer.  If you’ve been writing furiously and the brain/wrist is seizing up, have a break. Catch up with some reading. As we know, fallow time is creative.

The don’ts? If it is not feasible to avoid or delay taking important new initiatives or completing existing processes, eg signing contracts, leases, etc, try to accept complications or thwartings philosophically.

Also – be prepared for delays, eg when travelling, especially long distance.  Don’t sit under the mailbox waiting for cheques. And please, don’t arrange for a phone installation!

“Come on then !” I can hear you shouting as you search for my mobile number or email. “Tell us WHEN !”

….oh, all right. I’ll tell you:

2022: January 14-February 3 in Aquarius & Capricorn

May 10-June 3 in Gemini & Taurus

September 9-October 2 in Libra & Virgo

 December 29-January 18, 2023 in Capricorn

NOTE: for 2024 dates, click HERE

Gorgeous Mercury

PS. I know you’ll find this hard to believe: I recently published a book of collected essays, articles and columns called “Postcards to the Future” – available ( currently on seasonal Special Offer ) everywhere on Amazon – whose subtitle is ‘Mercurial Musings 1995-2021’. However – there isn’t a single article on Mercury, or even Mercury Retro. Maybe I should rectify that in the next edition…

800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2023

The Twelfth House: mystery, myth, mysticism…

The Twelfth House is hard to understand, difficult to grasp – and can take those of us with planets in that house (five, in my case!) (i) a long time to work out how to “live in the world, but not of it”: essentially, the task which we 12th House people are given …

Step in…to the Mystery…

The essay featured in the Astrodienst link at the foot of this page has been re-published in several places in recent years: you will also find it along with other varied writings in my recent acclaimed collection of sixty published essays, articles, and columns “Postcards to the Future”(ii) in the section titled ‘Where I live (behind the sofa…”) Some of my other writings on the Twelfth House also appear in that section.

From this, and the title of the essay ie ‘Contemplating the Twelfth House: an optimist’s take on self-undoing’ you may gather that I have come to relatively peaceful terms with the pains – and the considerable gifts, which can flow from being a lifelong occupant of territory where

… all forms disperse, and flash back into life again
where boundaries are impossible to draw
where our experiences dissolve into our collective, tribal, familial, and personal past
where the seeds of the future lie
where ‘reality’ and ‘imagination’ overlap
where paranormal experience takes place
where religion and myth’s ‘sacred time’ resides
which myth describes
which the collective unconscious evokes
which can be perceived as God, Goddess, the Void, Brahman, the Zero Point Field…

I hope that the essay will help my fellow 12th House folk, and anyone else who has difficulty getting to grips with this most complex of the astrological houses, towards a clearer understanding of both its challenges – and, in time, its considerable rewards.

Enjoy the read!

https://www.astro.com/astrology/aa_article150302_e.htm

Endnotes:

(i) I was even BORN in the twelfth house of the street my parents were living in at the time!

ii) “Postcards to the Future” is currently on a Seasonal Special Offer – check it out!

©anne whitaker 2023

“Postcards to the Future” Seasonal Special Offer and – ‘Six reasons why I love astrology’

Tonight, we have a Moon/Jupiter conjunction in Taurus, shining clear and bright where I live in Glasgow, exact tomorrow around Noon in the UK. It falls in my ninth house, trine my Virgo Ascendant. Seems a good time to do a bit of books PR!

From Karin Hoffman of Astrodienst:

‘…Present and future astrologers will find in this deep and varied collection nuggets of pure gold, forged in a lifetime, collected and polished for display and – most importantly – for enlightenment and use…’

In keeping with the approaching Festive Season, and mindful of the cost of living crisis making it harder especially for younger astrology students to afford book-buying, there’s a special seasonal offer on my recent collection of 60 essays, columns, articles and essays, “Postcards to the Future “, which has collected five star reviews from a wide range of eminent astrologers including Steven Forrest, Frank Clifford, Margaret Cahill of The Wessex Astrologer, Ronnie Grishman Editor Emerita of USA’s much-missed Dell Horoscope Magazine, Victor Olliver of the UK’s Astrological Journal (and ‘Postcards…’ Editor), Christina Rodenbeck of The Oxford Astrologer, and Karin Hoffman of Astrodienst.

The book – both print and Kindle versions – is available on Amazon everywhere. For further details, click HERE:

As the Preface to “Postcards…”, I just had to begin with one of my own favourite pieces, written some years ago for World Astrology Day: “Six Reasons Why I Love Astrology” , which has appeared in a number of publications both in print and on line since then. Here is an extract…

“SIX THOUSAND YEARS AGO, WHEN THE HUMAN MIND WAS STILL HALF ASLEEP, CHALDEAN PRIESTS WERE STANDING ON THEIR WATCHTOWERS, SCANNING THE STARS.”

( from Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler )

Poetic licence here: a watchower of books!

‘…I love knowing that the rational, mythical, symbolic and empirical art of astrology has been around for at least six thousand years. Our increasing contemporary awareness of the interconnectedness of all things was well known in antiquity: the ancient maxim “As above, so below” still applies. Astrologers operate on the margins of our fragmenting, reductionist culture. But we represent an unbroken line to a time which in many ways was wiser than ours is now. Being a tiny thread in that weave gives me a deep sense of pride, connectedness and rootedness…’

…to read the rest of this Preface to “Postcards to the Future “, click HERE:

AND…You can read about, checkout the latest review comments, and purchase my e-books HERE:

@anne whitaker 2023

Jupiter, Uranus and the Purple People from Planet Zog….

UPDATE in November 2023

As we advance towards the conjunction in April 2024 at 22 Taurus, Jupiter/Uranus is now preparing to settle into a new 14-year cycle, following on the ones I researched in 1997/8 and 2010/11, continuing with its ancient symbolic task of seeing no limits as it challenges old frontiers and reveals startling new vistas of experience and discovery. As a human community, we have begun a new voyage into the Unknown. Comfort and security are never key features of such voyages….

The print book referred to in the following interview is no longer available, but anyone wishing to acquire the updated e-version which includes all my research done not only on the 1997 conjunction but the 2010/11 one, can find it HERE.

You will find a selection of great reviews from fellow astrologers at the time I first published my Jupiter/Uranus research   HERE – and HERE from Armand Diaz, PhD.)

The interview featured below covers a number of facets of the Jupiter/Uranus combination which remain relevant, as well as exploring the historical background to the conjunction and some fascinating examples from its impact on previous cultural phases. It also tells you something about the connections between the researcher ( ie me!) and the reasons for her continuing fascination with this unique planetary pair.

My facetious comments in 2009 about the Purple People from Planet Zog, as you will see, have contemporary 2023/4 relevance: some possibly credible evidence is emerging since Spring 2023 that tales from former NASA employees involving those Purple People may actually have some validity! (well, maybe…)

From the AFA interviewer:

In her new book published by the American Federation of Astrologers, (April 2009) Scottish astrologer Anne Whitaker reveals the results of her extensive research project conducted during the 1997 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Aquarius.

Her research includes mundane events and the conjunction’s effects in individual lives, as she explains in this interview, first published in May 2009 by the AFA Newsletter. Anne also offers insights into the upcoming Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions in Pisces and Aries.

AFA: How often does a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction occur?

AW: Every 14 years. There were eight during the 20th Century, with two in Aquarius–one on March 4, 1914 at 9 degrees, 32 minutes of Aquarius, and the other at 5 degrees, 55 minutes of Aquarius on February 16, 1997.

AFA: What is its essential meaning?

AW: In brief, it is a combination of energies regarded as dynamic, unusual, disruptive, expansive, unpredictable – breaking down the old order, stimulating breakthroughs to new levels of expression and understanding, individually and collectively. The Aquarian conjunction is the one most powerfully connected to radical and disruptive social, political and technological shifts, for reasons which are explored in the book.

AFA: Few astrologers are doing research, and you may be the first, at least in many years, to undertake such a massive project linking both mundane and personal astrology. Why did you decide to do this research project?

AW: It feels as if it decided to do me! Seriously though–I have long been fascinated by the link between micro and macro levels of existence. I began to practice as an astrologer under the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius of 1983, around that time hearing my first ever lecture on mundane astrology given by the late Charles Harvey. He inspired an interest in exploring the links between individual and collective life via astrology. By I996, I was excited by the prospect of doing some original exploration of a planetary combination which had been present at the birth of my own astrological career.

AFA: Describe the project.

AW: It is a research study of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, set in its mythological and historical context, including a very broad tracking of the pulse beat of the conjunction through the four elements from 500 BC to 2500 AD, which identifies some interesting correlations with broad historical changes. It then narrows down to an exploration of mundane and personal life during the Aquarian conjunction of 1997-98, extending to 1999-2001 when Neptune transited the 5 Aquarius 55 Hot Spot where Jupiter and Uranus met on February 16, 1997.

AFA: What mundane events occurred?

AW: Lots! The major event–just 10 days after the conjunction occurred–was the announcement to the world of the existence of Dolly the Sheep, the first ever cloned animal, created by scientists based in Scotland. Over the weekend of the conjunction, February 15-16, the crew of USA’s shuttle Discovery effected repairs to the Hubble space telescope, completing five five space walks to do so. Chapter five in my book tells of many more happenings.

AFA: What are some examples of monumental recorded events that have occurred during previous Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions?

AW: Let’s take the theme of exploration. Explorer Ponce de Leon stepped ashore near Cape Canaveral (thus named by the Spanish some years later) on the morning of April 3, 1513, when there was an exact Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Aries, to claim the New World later to become the United States of America. Precisely 33 Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions later, on July 20, 1969, there was an exact Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Libra when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon’s surface, the first human to do so. The spacecraft on which the astronauts traveled was launched from Cape Carnaveral. . . .

AFA: How many people did you track during the project? Who are they? How did you find them?

AW: Seventeen individuals took part in the first phase of the research from February 1997 to January 1998. I had a sudden inspiration while being interviewed for a magazine in late 1995, to ask readers whose birthdays fell between January 24 and 26 of any year (when the Sun would be transiting 5-6 degrees of Aquarius) to contact me before February 1997 so that I could follow developments in their lives that year. Out of the response came three serious volunteers, to whom I added three clients and 11 of my astrology students. Six participants knew no astrology. All 17 had extraordinary years.

AFA: Was the participant feedback surprising or was it what you expected?

AW: I set out with as open a mind as I could muster, bearing in mind Liz Greene’s wry comment in one of her seminars: “ If you can predict it, it isn’t Uranus! ” A big surprise was the male client, “Frank” (see chapter six in my book). He depressed me by answering all the questionnaires with monosyllabic negatives, then in his summing-up provided a vivid picture of his “amazing year.” The biggest surprise was the “Jupiter-Uranus effect” showing up so clearly in all their lives. I hadn’t expected that.

AFA: Were you able to validate any astrological precepts such as the influence of hard and soft aspects or orbs?

AW: Yes. All participants reported disruptive, unpredictable, expansive life changes. But those with a strong natal Jupiter-Uranus signature went through more radical disruptions and breakthroughs to new levels than those whose natal Jupiter-Uranus signature was absent–or weak, i.e., minor or soft aspects, wide orbs.

AFA: What differences did you observe between contacts from retrograde and direct planets? Were the stations outstanding in any way?

AW: Yes. Just one example: Questionnaire 2: Summer/Autumn 1997  asked if the period of October 13-15 was significant; Uranus turned direct on 5 Aquarius then. Almost everyone reported left-field Uranian happenings. The most markedly Jupiter-Uranus person in the study, Lucia, led a deprived group of inner city youngsters through a powerfully life-changing artistic event involving the spontaneous use of her astrological knowledge, October 13-15, 1997. The book also details striking collective effects involving retrograde and direct planetary motion.

AFA: Why did you continue the research beyond 1997-1998, the year that the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction was operational?

AW: From April 1999 until the end of 2001, the planet Neptune transited the observational band of 4-7 degrees Aquarius which I had set as the boundary for observing the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction’s impact. I was curious to discover whether Neptune’s crossing would reactivate the “Jupiter-Uranus effect” I had demonstrated in collective and personal life in the 1997-1998 part of the research.

To my great surprise, given the diffuse nature of Neptune, it did. This was an affirmation of the astrological precept that powerful planetary meetings on particular degrees of the zodiac “charge-up” those degrees thereafter with the flavor of their meeting.

AFA: Were there any striking observations regarding house rulerships?

AW: Yes. It was clear, for example, that the houses or angles ruled by Neptune as it traversed the observational band mentioned above, were the areas of life most up for disruptive, expansive, unpredictable changes for individuals during the stated time period.

AFA: Do you see Jupiter-Uranus as positive or negative change, or does it represent something else?

AW: Without the unimaginably destructive act of creation, the Big Bang, which as far as we can surmise began our universe, we would not be here to observe our world’s wonders as well as its terrors. Positive and negative energies are two sides of the same coin, wherever we look. I hope I have conveyed that unity adequately in ‘Jupiter Meets Uranus’.

AFA: What can we expect in general terms from the upcoming 2010 Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions in Aries and Pisces?

AW: in essence, the unexpected! And this question needs a whole article, not a few brief paragraphs. The Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Pisces-Aries-Pisces comes into orb (10 degrees) at the end of March 2010, and separates (10 degree orb) in mid-March 2011. Fasten your seat belts! The human community and probably the natural world are in for a bumpy ride.

This Jupiter-Uranus conjunction will arrive at a turbulent point: joining the last Saturn-Pluto square since its conjunction of the early 1980s, and amplifying the first Uranus-Pluto square from its conjunction which dominated the 1960s: that decade of the Vietnam war and its protesters, political assassinations, women’s liberation, musical revolution and the beginning of the micro-technology metamorphosis which has utterly changed our world in only a few decades.

In common with the 1997 conjunction that linked in an astonishing bowl shape with Mars, Saturn and Pluto (Jupiter Meets Uranus, p. 40), this will be no “ordinary” Jupiter-Uranus event: Jupiter conjunct Uranus at 0 Aries will form a T-cross with Saturn at 28 Virgo and Pluto at 4 Capricorn. Mars at 1 Virgo will trine Pluto, opposes Neptune and link back to quincunx the Aries Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.

The Jupiter-Uranus predilection for seeing no limits, leaping before it looks and challenging the established order expressed through the filter of the rash, angry impetuousness of Aries and locked with the harsh, power-driven determination not to budge of the Saturn-Pluto square, offers a difficult and dangerous picture in the realm of international politics, for instance. Misuse of technology by angry, militant fanatics convinced they have God on their side and that the old order must be overturned, is a picture which arises from this.

We can also await more disruption and turbulence on the economic front, but I leave further speculation on this issue to those much better qualified to comment than I!

Religion is not going to diminish in impact; the Piscean backdrop to much of the conjunction will see to that. We may well see an inspirational “messiah”-type figure emerge with challenging and disruptive effect socially and politically in the Aries phase.

(NOTE: 19.9.10: little did I think (it being Uranus of whom we speak) that we would have an ‘anti-messiah’, that self-styled High Priest of the Militant Atheism persuasion, Richard Dawkins, and his plan to arrest the Pope, during 2010….) ( ….and  Autumn/Winter 2010….Julian Assange, anyone? The “messiah” of  uncensored openness?)

Also suggested is fiery eruption disrupting the very fabric of the Earth itself. On a more positive note, the urgency of the accelerating environmental crisis may give birth to great leaps forward in the pioneering of new technologies, e.g., for harnessing solar power and reducing environmental damage.

The challenging pattern I have described, set against the cardinal backdrop of the natural zodiac (which I used for most of the Jupiter Uranus conjunction charts in the book) also links in with the Super Galactic Centre, currently at around 0 degrees Libra.

A picture arises from this of major scientific breakthroughs in our understanding of the Universe or Multiverse, of which our tiny solar system is a mere blip of ephemeral matter. Perhaps the CERN Large Hadron Collider will work this time, and we’ll find the Higgs Boson particle at last . . . or maybe it really will blow us all to bits! There is a most interesting article bringing the CERN particle accelerator and the Super Galactic Centre together, at http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29853. Check it out!

AFA: Do you have a particular area of interest where you expect the 2010 conjunction to deliver, as it were?

AW: One of my own special interests is in genetics and cloning. The 1969 conjunction in Libra saw a Harvard medical school team identify the first gene (see p. 93 of Jupiter Meets Uranus). The year after the 1983 conjunction in Sagittarius, a British scientist developed genetic fingerprinting (p. 93). In 1997 with the Aquarian conjunction, we had the announcement of the first cloned animal, Dolly (p. 43).

The conjunction in Aries in 2010 suggests the next stage, which could well be human cloning, currently illegal where the creation of a complete human is concerned. Maybe a defiant, pioneering male doctor/scientist is prepared to pit himself against the established order and rule of law to do so? There are “maverick doctor” rumblings in the press about this already. . . .

AFA: Do you have a special wish for the human community for something uniquely helpful which could emerge from this powerful and disruptive energy field?

AW: Yes. I would love to see science fiction fantasies over many decades become fact with the arrival on Planet Earth of small but fabulously evolved purple people from Planet Zog to teach us how to mend our ways. Now THAT would be unexpected!!

AFA: As an astrologer, what did you learn from the project?

AW: I began to study astrology more than 25 years ago as part of my quest to try and prove to myself that we do not live in a random, meaningless universe. Time and again, on the large and small scale, astrology has offered that proof, enriching my life and I hope in some measure, the lives of my clients and students along the way. This research has affirmed very powerfully that the personal and collective lives of humankind respond in the same core way to the great music of the spheres, played throughout space and time by the planets in their cycles.

AFA: Finally, a question on YOUR horoscope. Is Jupiter-Uranus prominent?

AW: Well, how did you guess?! My chart is an eastern bowl shape, with Uranus leading from the tenth house, bi-quintile Jupiter which closes the bowl from the third house. My Ascendant, on the Jupiter-Uranus midpoint, was squared by transiting Pluto during the whole research period. . . .

To read more about Jupiter meets Uranus 2023/4, check out https://jupitermeetsuranus.wordpress.com/

****

2500 words copyright Anne Whitaker/American Federation of Astrologers 2009/Anne Whitaker 2023/4

Getting into Video: Gen Z nags Pluto in Leo…

My video-literate Gen Z new friends have been telling me – no, nagging me! – that I really need to start doing more stuff on video, AND that I also need to do some PR for my very neglected video channel, collect a few subscribers, etc etc…

Could this be a Gen Z Person? Or is it me in training?

So – never one to neglect good advice, here we go! Do have a browse, there may only be 15 videos here (yet…) but from Ana Isabel and me ranging across topics as varied as Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions(new one coming up next Spring!), Fate, the Moon’s Nodes, Premonitions and Predictions, to me on Astrology and Twins, the so-called Aquarian Age, An Astrologer’s Job Description and more besides, there’s something here to interest everyone. Including open-minded non-astrologers…

Enjoy the browse, subscribe, leave some feedback. All constructive comments welcome!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCvC9iJ8Te8y8gqHw9aAVQ

150 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2023

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

Jupiter’s meeting with Uranus: a major astro-event approaches…

As we advance towards this unique conjunction in April 2024, Jupiter/Uranus is about to settle into a new 14-year cycle, following on the ones I researched in 1997/8 and 2010/11, continuing with its ancient symbolic task of seeing no limits as it challenges old frontiers and reveals startling new vistas of experience and discovery. As a human community, we have begun a new voyage into the Unknown.

Comfort and security are never key features of such voyages….

My colleague Victor Olliver, well-known astrologer, editor of the UK’s world-renowned The Astrological Journal, and respected author had this to say recently:

‘The Taurus Jupiter/Uranus conjunction is the major astrological event of 2024 – and Anne Whitaker’s e-book (and blog) Jupiter Meets Uranus is by far the most authoritative guide to its meaning and significance, based on her original research and driven by her customary rigour and straightforward approach. Though the alignment occurs in the latter half of April, it has a longish build up and a longish ‘wake’ whose effects are sure to be clear and measurable in the world. A must-read for a better understanding of astrology and our times.’

And – two weeks ago, my colleague Ana Isabel, master-interviewer of many luminaries from the astrological community including Victor Olliver, Steven Forrest, Chris Mitchell, Darrelyn Gunsburg and Jessica Adams, interviewed me again on the fascinating topic of Cycles. Of course, we had to talk about that extraordinary pairing of Jupiter and Uranus. Here is the interview. Hope you enjoy it!

If you now cannot wait to find out more, you can access and purchase the e-book re-publication of my “Jupiter Meets Uranus: From Erotic Bathing to Star Gazing” study (i) by clicking HERE:

Endnote:

i)   its original publication by the American Federation of Astrologers in 2009 has sold out long ago and is no longer available. Its details may still be found – along with its very shouty cover – on Amazon along with one five star review on Amazon UK and another five-star review on Amazon.com. In those distant days, I was not very savvy in either using the Internet or making sure reviews found their way to Amazon. However, you will find a selection of very favourable feedback comments from readers, and some great reviews from fellow astrologers,  HERE .)

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

Although experiencing feelings of uncertainty and sometimes turbulence with most of the people I know in varied contexts worldwide, as the new Air Era gradually takes shape, I can also feel my life changing with it in potentially creative ways. Our current world situation is fraught with danger, darkness and difficulty; it would be naive and dishonest to try to pretend otherwise. 

However, I am immensely grateful to have the Big Picture, long-term historical perspective provided by astrological symbolism. Knowing we are collectively at present in the chaotic energy field between one world Era and another helps me – and hopefully other students/practitioners of astrology – to keep a steadier footing than might otherwise be the case. 

from Jessica Davidson

Here are my current thoughts, featured on Astrodienst this week:

https://www.astro.com/astrology/in_awpluaqu_e.htm

Fate, Uranus – and the astrologers’ degree…

Anyone who has ever written a regular column will know that there are times when inspiration is – not to put too fine a point on it  – notable by its absence. At other times, so many ideas are flying around that catching one by the tail to pin it down is, to say the least, tricky. And – you never know, as the last deadline is met and you can now relax for a few weeks –  which set of conditions is going to prevail the next time.

Fate?

So, Reader, there I was, new deadline appearing over the horizon, and…nada. Nix. No–thing. At all. Braincell dry as an old chewed-up bone. In this situation there are generally two options: blind panic – or blind faith. I have six fiery planets. This is often a curse, let me tell you, but in the matter of column deadlines, it is a blessing. So, armed with nothing but blind faith, I headed for the office.

To pass time sitting on the bus, I check my phone. Ahah – there’s a message on Messenger. A colleague is beginning a new project for the international company he works for, an unusual company where his boss is an astrology appreciator. He is making a podcast series on Turning Points:  asking people to talk for five minutes on the one decision which changed their lives forever. He is inviting me to contribute. 

“Ping!!” went the braincell, hit by a mini bolt of inspiration. I had my topic. I’d ruminate on what it was that inspired me to take up, and continue, the long-term study and practice of astrology. That decision certainly changed MY life forever.

So – what was it ?

Was it my youthful awe as I watched the Northern Lights enacting their glorious colourful dance, just above the skyline near our house? Perhaps it was lying cosy in bed, listening to the roaring gales of January tearing the world apart – wondering what the Power was behind that raging wind. Was it the growing excitement, as I grew up, of being able to spot familiar constellations in the clear, unpolluted night skies of my native island?

Or – maybe the Fates had already decided, leaving me a clue to be decoded many years later, via the placement of Uranus, the astrologers’ planet, at 25 Degrees of Gemini,  in the tenth house of my natal horoscope?

I have recently been revisiting the significance of the placement of Uranus’ discovery degree, ie  24 degrees 27 minutes Gemini,(i) in the horoscopes of those drawn to the practice of astrology. A dip into my horoscope collection, lifting out three male and three female birth charts, found that all six prominent astrologers chosen have this degree either conjunct, square or opposite natal planets, Nodes or Angles: the lately deceased and much-missed Donna Cunningham, Michel Gauquelin, Liz Greene, Isabel Hickey, Johannes Kepler and Noel Tyl. (ii)

Johannes Kepler Asc 24 deg 25 mins Gemini

Furthermore, when I was 27 years old, progressed Sun crossed asteroid Urania, placed at 19 degrees of Virgo in my first house, square tenth house Uranus. That year, I had a totally random encounter with a pair of astrologers who predicted my future astrological career.

So – did I choose that career or did I come in with it already chosen? Was it Fate, or free will? We will, of course, never be able to answer that question. MY conclusion, hardly stunningly original, is that we dance to the tune of both. There are times when the power of Fate feels strongly present. Other times, the unglamorous wrestle with inertia, poor judgement, and other ills to haul our lives into a reasonably satisfying shape feels very strongly to be determined mainly by our own conscious efforts.

In the latter case, a major ingredient in the shaping process, in my opinion, is the power of inspiration. At twenty-four years of age I was fortunate enough to have what I later realised was a mystical experience, something which has continued to inspire me. This may well have created a spiritual backdrop for the subsequent encounter with astrology as foreground; when I met those astrologers I was going through a crisis involving wondering what, after all, my life was FOR…not an uncommon state for one’s late twenties!

Their accurate reading inspired me to investigate astrology further, initially via the UK’s Faculty of Astrological Studies. On discovering that I, too, could produce accurate and affirming feedback from those strange marks on a piece of paper which seemed helpful to people trying to understand themselves better, I was hooked. For the rest of my life.

Astrology has continued to inspire because it continues to challenge me. It challenges me because we are working with living energies, patterns whose essential meanings we have established over millennia, but whose manifestations are endless and only partly predictable. Despite decades of experience, I still get that tight anxious feeling before every new client I see, being very aware of my responsibility at least to do no harm, at best to help the person before me see their life in a more constructive, bigger context.

I am, of course, always curious to find out what inspires people to engage with astrology – and to keep going once they get there. There is an occasional series running on my blog, in which astrologers tell their interesting, unusual tales of inspiration and  – of course! – an inevitable amount of perspiration…

Want to share your story? Go on…

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Endnotes:

(i) and (ii) : all charts available free from Astrodienst: http://www.astro.com

NOTE: To find details of how to purchase Anne’s books, including her acclaimed recent book “Postcards to the Future”, click HERE

This post is a slightly edited version of my bi-monthly column for Dell Horoscope Magazine   ‘The astro-view from Scotland’  from the January/February 2018 Issue.

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950 words copyright Anne Whitaker/Dell Horoscope Magazine 2018

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

The Fixed Cross: pointer to the new Air/Aquarian age?

It’s all identity politics’ fault. Trying to come up with a Big Picture context for this 21st century phenomenon has led me all the way to contemplating the so-called Aquarian Age, such a cultural cliche by now that I usually prefer to let the ageing braincell focus on fresher topics. However, bear with me. I think I’ve got to something which might intrigue you.

But first, a definition of identity politics by Nicholas Campion in his book Astrology, History and Apocalypse: such politics involve ‘groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social or cultural identity [who] tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group.’

Does this suggest the shadow side of the Leo theme to anyone? It certainly does to me.

Given that polarity, i.e. the interplay of opposites, is a fundamental generator of the life force (think egg, sperm and first division of fertilised egg here), this by astro-logic brings us to Aquarius, Leo’s opposite. Aquarius is fundamentally concerned with the group. As the Aquarian and English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748- 1832) so famously stated of the utilitarian principle in A Fragment on Government:

‘It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong’.

To be clear: I do not subscribe to the touchy-feely idea that the Aquarian Age, if it exists at all, is bringing or will bring an era of universal brotherly love (or siblinghood of person if you prefer). The evidence from our contemporary world would suggest otherwise. Moreover, Nicholas Campion has collected around 100 dates for the supposed commencement of the Age of Aquarius from around 1260 AD to around 2300 AD.

However, I am intrigued by Carl Jung’s notion, set forth in his essay ‘The Sign of the Fish’ (from Aion, Volume 9, Part 2 of Jung’s Collected Works [1951]) that when world ages change, i.e., when the first point of Aries can be seen against the backdrop of e.g., the constellation of Aquarius, having shifted backwards from its 2000 or so years’ traverse of the previous constellation of Pisces – roughly the era of Christianity – we begin to perceive/project the Divine differently.

We have been going through an enormous technological revolution in recent decades as science makes huge strides. Mapping the human genome, expanding our view of the vast universe we inhabit via wonderful Hubble then James Webb telescope images, and linking much of the human population via the Internet and mobile phone technology are but a few examples. You could even argue that a new religion is arising: Scientism, which holds that only the 5% of the cosmos which we can perceive through our senses or test out through the procedures of reductionism, is worth considering.

It is my view that, as societies become increasingly secular and materialistic throughout the world, we are beginning to project the Divine onto science and technology … even to the extent in some quarters that the prolonging of human life indefinitely into some kind of techno-immortality is perceived as eventually being possible. Pushing the boundaries of science forward just because it can be done conjures the spectres of Dr Frankenstein and his monster, immortalised in Mary Shelley’s modern myth, Frankenstein, or the New Prometheus. It also speaks strongly of the shadow side of the Aquarian theme which doesn’t mind how many individual lives it disrupts or destroys in the name of revolutionary change.

Hence its Leo shadow opposite arising, in the shape of identity politics as defined at the start of this column.

Reflecting on the stubbornly fixed positions which have increasingly been taken up in recent times – as expressed in political discourse, religious conflicts and environmental activism – has evoked for me the fixed cross in the horoscope’s astrological symbolism (shown below): this comprises the four angles upon which every chart hangs: Ascendant (AS), Imum Coeli (IC), Descendant (DS) and Medium Coeli (MC or Midheaven). Since the Ascendant-Descendant horizontal axis speaks of the here and now of our individual and collective lives, how about placing Aquarius on the AS with Leo opposite on the DS? Thus, we see the march of technological progress for the supposed benefit of us all (Aquarius) , not presently getting along too well with individual identities (Leo) in various forms.

(from p 327 “Postcards to the Future”)

The IC-MC axis speaks of roots (IC) from which our future direction (MC) arises. The Taurus IC is the ground on which we stand, our Mother Earth. Scorpio on the MC opposite speaks of the deep crisis which our home planet is facing. If humanity is to survive into the future, we need to develop radically different ways of living. The old materialist order is currently dying – the evidence is everywhere. The question is, what will replace it?

I have found contemplating this metaphor of the astrological fixed cross, which condenses the polarised conflicts of our current era into four fundamental themes, powerfully illuminating.

We need to find a way forward: from our present stubbornly fixed shadow positions, to a situation where respect both for the dignity of individual rights and for the greatest good of the greatest number is harnessed and directed towards respect and care for our Mother planet. Perhaps the consequences of the harsh pressure on all our institutions and structures via the long 2008-2024 transit of Pluto through Capricorn will force us in the direction we need to go when Pluto settles into the revolutionary sign of Aquarius from November 2024.

I certainly hope so…

Endnote

This is an edited version of an essay which first appeared in my The Astro-View from Scotland column in Dell Horoscope Magazine (2019), and most recently on pp 325-8 of “Postcards to the Future”, my collection of 60 essays, articles , columns and research from 1995-2021.

1000 w ©annewhitaker2023

Planetary Cycles Part Two: Uranus the Disrupter, Chiron the “Inconvenient Benefic”.

In July 2023, Ana Isabel and I had the first of our reflective dialogues on those great cycles which symbolically shape our lives from birth onwards: revisit that conversation here:

Planetary Cycles…our wise guides as Life unfolds.

Image from Gaia

This month, we reflect on the key transits and 84 year cycle of Uranus, the great Disrupter of the zodiac. We also take time to consider the Chiron cycle of 50 years, and its impact, sharing some moving stories. Chiron is best known in his mythical garb as the Wounded Healer; we also consider him in his perhaps lesser well-known role as the Inconvenient Benefic.

In this conversation, we share some very funny personal anecdotes regarding Uranus transits’ capacity to turn life upside-down with (eventually) positive outcomes. We also share some deeply moving personal stories both from our client work ( anonymously of course) and from our own lives where one can see both the wounding and healing dimensions of the Chiron archetype at work.

So – take a break, settle down, and enjoy our dialogue as you reflect on how those two great planetary forces have impacted on YOUR life…

Image from Gaia

200 words © Anne Whitaker 2023