Anne Whitaker's Blog, page 8

Some thoughts on…ethics, care and responsible astrological practice…

In keeping with many if not most of my astrological colleagues, I am both pleased at the upswing in popularity and scope that social media has brought to our field, and alarmed at the careless way that the art and craft of astrology is often used in the public realm.

Many of us have invested much time, effort and expense into becoming qualified and responsible practitioners. A number of us, including myself, have gone on to teach and mentor upcoming students who are studying with reputable schools. Some of us, myself included, have been involved in astrological practice, teaching and mentoring for decades.

I feel a particular sense of responsibility toward those young folks who are at an early stage in their investigation into astrology, and currently going through what those of us seasoned practitioners have gone through ourselves: increasing fascination, reading, realising the vast scope and depth of a practice way beyond the Sun Signs of its popular face, which has been part of human experience for at least 6000 years, exchanging exciting new ideas with others, maybe going to local or online classes, usually practising on friends, family, and whoever would like their charts “done”. Hopefully along with increasing knowledge and practice also comes an increasing awareness of the power of the art of astrology and an accompanying sense of responsibility to the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of those upon whom we practice. However– we all know that this is often not the case…

However – and this is a big however – that old cliche “He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” will kick in at some point as one slowly walks the path toward competence. Astrological symbolism can scare us as well as excite us. Astrology well and responsibly practised can be a healing art of deep value. But astrological knowledge can also be wounding. That is part of the risk we all take on, in moving deeper into such fascinating symbolic territory. However, as with most adventurous and life-changing journeys, we are often not aware of certain risks until we are well down the journey’s road.

In my recent collection of 60 essays, articles and columns, Postcards to the Future, p 128, there is a long study called “Astrology as a healing and a wounding art..” In that essay, to which a number of my students and clients contributed, I explore this sensitive topic in some depth.

An encounter with precisely this topic occurred for me this week, via an enquiry from a young person whose own astrological journey had brought up an issue of some concern to her. I have asked her permission to use our email conversation since I thought it might be of value to other young ( and perhaps not-so- young! ) folks who are beginning to experience the more challenging facets of astrology as their explorations continue. I am most grateful to “Jessica” – she chose her own pseudonym at my request! – for being so willing to share our exchange.

Here it is:

Dear Anne

Hello. I’ve been reading your website for a long time. Recently I was reading a book by Liz Greene, and I had a question. I decided to look for her students to ask this question, and found out that you studied with her. So I decided to write to you. Liz Greene in her book said this about retrograde Venus: “When Venus is turned inward in this way, the capacity to express erotic love on the body level may be somewhat inhibited”, “Often there is a kind of shyness or social clumsiness about a retrograde Venus, since the elegance and skill of a more extraverted Venus will operate on the inner, cerebral level rather than the outer one. There may also be considerable awkwardness in sexual matters, because the beauty of the fantasy may supercede the pleasure of physical encounter. A retrograde Venus does not thwart the capacity for sexual pleasure. But it may not be the most important aspects of relationship, and there may be inhibitions which need to be honoured because of the inner richness of feeling which results”.

My Venus will soon become retrograde in secondary progressions. It will be retrograde for more than forty years and I’m twenty-one. Please tell me, does this mean that all these negative effects will occur to me? Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Jessica

My Reply:

Dear Jessica

thank you first of all for following my writings. I really appreciate that, and it’s good to hear from my readers…

Liz Greene is a brilliant astrologer, teacher and writer: I consider it a great privilege to have studied with her throughout the 1990s. I don’t know what the specific context is of this quote. In any case, all astrological writers know that what they say in print can only be general, and to have a specific personal “tuning” requires a reading of your actual horoscope constructed from your date, place and accurate time of birth. There are many other facets to Venus than the sexual dimensions focused on here, depending on Venus’ location, aspects etc in your horoscope – and in any case any statement made about any planet /angle/house/ aspect/ node/asteroid either natally, by transit, or by progression can only be general unless the writer is examining a specific horoscope.

So – I really don’t think you should worry unduly about this, but take yourself off to an experienced astrologer and discuss the Venus retrograde issue with them. I realise that will involve cost, but as in everything in life, you get what you pay for, and a good astrology reading is worth saving up for – or you could perhaps ask for one as a birthday/special occasion gift. I’m enclosing some recommendations at the end of this message, since I only read charts now in the context of work my zoom mentorees wish to discuss with me.

Here’s a personal story which may help: a few years ago now, I noticed that Mercury (my ruling planet) was going to go retrograde in Scorpio in the third house – for the rest of my life! Professional astrologers are not immune to getting rattled by what they see coming up in their own charts, by the way. However, I thought I’d work WITH the grain of this shift, and got down to going over my many essays, articles, columns, blog posts etc which I ‘d written and published over the years, and make a selection of 60 of the best of them. That resulted a couple of years later in my book Postcards to the Future, which has gone down well and been very well reviewed. I am currently mining all my writings on The Moon’s Nodes going back over many years, and hope to produce that as a book as well in due course. And other material from my ‘back catalogue’ Also, during the covid lockdowns, which followed on my husband’s death in January 2020, I found that the deepening self-sufficiency and introspection brought by that retro Mercury by sign and house, was a huge help to me in coping with quite a bit of reflective time (and in my case, time for mourning) which we all had during the pandemic lock-downs. There have also been other benefits flowing from this retrograde turn – but I’m sure you get the idea!

In essence, try to go WITH the grain of whatever comes your way symbolically through your astrological studies, and work with these energies as best you can. In that way, you will find riches rather than affirmation of your fears. Astrology is indeed double-edged: with the wonderful enlightenment it can bring, it also can make us fearful – often unnecessarily. I have lost count of the things I worried about over the years of my studies and practice, that never happened! Now I am much more laid-back…

I ‘ve copied and pasted my standard letter to enquirers below my name in this email. I have confidence in all the practitioners I’ve recommended, and know them personally. 

Hope this helps – and enjoy your studies. 

Best wishes

Anne 

Jessica’s Reply:

Dear Anne, Thank you SO much for such a detailed answer! You have helped me a lot ♡

******

1400 words

©anne whitaker 2023

Astrology: a practice centred in Mystery…

   ‘ The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.’ (Albert Einstein) Engaging with mystery, which piques my curiosity into embarking on processes of exploration and discovery, has been a key feature of my somewhat wayward life. 

The most striking example of this was a chance encounter with astrologers who drew up and read my horoscope, stunning me with the depth and accuracy of the picture they were able to paint. I simply could not understand how drawing symbols on a piece of paper could provide a key to my – or anyone else’s–  inner world. Determined attempts to penetrate that mystery led me to to the astrological career which I have pursued to this day. 

Another mystery, which as a writer I especially love, is how the strands of our lives quietly weave themselves into a pattern without our noticing until much later, sometimes by decades. During my late twenties, a major preoccupation was whether life did in fact mean anything at all. Emerging from many years of nihilism, I found myself unable to sustain a belief that our struggles in this life were meaningless. 

On cue, came that life-changing encounter with those astrologers. My astrological studies were partly about unravelling the mystery held by those symbols on that powerful piece of paper. They were also about proving to myself that life was not a random meaningless accident in space/time, but was charged with mystery, meaning, pattern and purpose. 

As an astrologer I work ‘blind’ with no information about the client’s life beforehand apart from their chart, allowing my guide on our journey of exploration to be the client’s answer to the question “Why are you here today, and what do you hope to gain from our meeting?”. I realise, a long time later, that this mode has arisen from two formative strands. 

The first was the original experience of that ‘blind’ reading of my horoscope, which had such a powerful impact. The second was further affirmation gained from those early studies and practice, aimed at proving astrology’s validity: not just by the time-honoured mode of most of us, i.e. practising on willing friends and family, but also by doing a substantial number of my own ‘blind’ readings. 

The latter practice, in particular, provided me with the proof a demanding mind required. With Mercury ruling my chart, conjunct Saturn/Pluto, glib explanations have never cut much ice. As my skills and fluency grew, I found myself able do the same thing for complete strangers that the astrologers had done for me, thereby arriving at the stage to which all sincere and dedicated practice takes us: knowing that astrology works. 

Sitting here in morning sunshine, writing and contemplating, I am aware with gratitude of the debt owed to six thousand or more years of tradition in which my practice is rooted. What has astrology done for me, as well as providing an endlessly fascinating career? What do I try to do for my clients and students as a transmitter of that tradition? 

Primarily, it has provided a context of meaning where I can perceive my life as a small, but useful strand in the Big Weave. I often say to new astrology students: “ Think of your horoscope as a tiny symbolic chip of the universe’s energy pattern at the time you were born, which Someone handed to you, saying ‘Here – do the best you can with this.’ Your job is to hand it back at the end of your life with more light shining through it than there was at the beginning.” 

At a more practical level, my horoscope showed me that, far from trying to iron out my contradictions – a futile pursuit for much of my twenties – I needed to understand them, make peace with them as far as possible, and stop punishing myself for the parts of which neither I nor our wider culture particularly approved. Gradually, I discovered that those darker energies could be channelled creatively, with help from the insights offered by my horoscope. Plutonian power drives come to mind here… I have five planets including Pluto in Leo in the twelfth house, all squared by a third house Jupiter, with Virgo rising. Boy, did I need all the help I could get in making peace with that lot!

 In essence, I try to offer my clients and students what astrology has given me. The biggest help people can gain from a horoscope reading, I have found over many years’ practice, is being able to take a step forward in accepting themselves as they are. This can release energy, formerly used in self-punishment, denial or lack of confidence, to be channelled into using their gifts and strengths more constructively. Continuing this work remains a great joy, although these days I concentrate mainly on student mentoring, occasional zoom interviews, and writing. 

Yet mystery still remains. One can describe the symbolic patterns of the birth moment,  those characters on the stage of a person’s life, with considerable accuracy in essence; nevertheless each pattern has an infinite range of possible manifestations. We can never know until the client begins to tell us their story what level of consciousness they bring to the living of their unique life. Very often, this is what determines how the patterns play out in practice. But beyond that, lies mystery. As Carl Jung so wisely put it ‘… learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul…’  The nature of that miracle lies in mystery – as such, forever beyond our reach.

*****

This piece was published (May/June 2017 issue) in my column The astro-view from Scotland which ran for the final three years of Dell Horoscope Magazine: USA’s leading astrology magazine for over 80 years until the Spring of 2020.

©anne whitaker 2023

Neptune transits: opening the door to ‘Otherness’…

As an astrologer, one of my favourite quotations is from Nobel Prize-winning German physicist, Max Planck (April 23 1858 – October 4 1947) :

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die…”

Do come in…

This strikes me as an observation pertinent in its essence to most of us, arising from amongst other things fear of the unknown – and desire to keep IT ( the Shadow) out, keep the light on. However, psychologist and mystic Carl Jung took the view that the major task of our lives was the reconciliation of those great opposites. Light and Dark run through the whole of life: we need them both, collectively and as individuals. Without the bleak apparently barren darkness of Winter, we cannot have the life-affirming beauty, light and energy of Spring.

Identifying too closely with either pole inevitably calls forth its opposite…at its worst, there are too many examples scattered throughout history: a perennial (and contemporary) example being religious and/or political persecution – and war – arising from one side knowing the Light of Truth and having Right on their side, being prepared to destroy those unfortunate enough to take a different view: in order to save their souls from the darkness of Hell – metaphorical or otherwise.

Those splits are especially acute in our era. Saturn in Aquarius is slogging it out with Uranus in Taurus, as Pluto concludes his long dredge through Capricorn mercilessly exposing the rotten underpinnings of a ubiquitous culture rooted in a materialistic set of values and practices which are severely damaging our mother planet, and intolerance runs rampant everywhere.

Another contemporary variation on this theme is the bitter split between materialist reductionism which posits scientific perspectives as the only Reality, and the recorded accounts of very many people over centuries and longer, who willingly or otherwise, have experienced decidedly ‘other’ versions of reality which simply do not fit the current prevailing reductionist paradigm.

I am one of those people. For a long, long time, despite being a decidedly rational individual – sceptical in the open-minded sense of the word – I experienced intermittent and unpredictable intrusions into my everyday Reality whilst going about being a stable and productive member of society. A period of unwelcome, intermittent and uninvited episodes of ‘otherness’ began when I was nearly 24 years old, with Neptune transiting my IC conjunct South Node in Scorpio. It took me a very long time, but eventually I was able to come to terms with and make peace with that ‘other’ side of myself.

Thirty years later, during a long Neptune transit in Aquarius opposite my six 12th house planets, I began writing the book in which I recorded those 37 ‘other’ experiences. Having completed the book and published it in PDF form, the episodes came (mostly) to an end. Here I am, talking about ‘Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness” and related topics with my colleague Ana Isabel – another open-minded rationalist who is no stranger to experiences of ‘otherness’ herself. I’m planning to incorporate ‘Wisps…’ into a longer memoir provisionally titled ‘Swimmer in a Secret Sea’ to be published in print and as an ebook sometime in 2023. Watch this space!

In the meantime, kick off your shoes, grab a coffee – or something stronger, and have a listen to this recording we did recently for Ana’s In the Light podcast.. I’d be most interested if you felt like sharing your experience(s) of episodes which reductionist science says do not exist…

Opening the door to ‘Otherness’…

©Anne Whitaker/Ana Isabel 2023

Astrology: gifting us a place in the cosmos…

“…I’ve loved listening to your conversation, Steffie and Steve. I was deeply moved by the way in which you shared your deep sense of wonder at the night sky, and the sense you both had of being connected to a larger consciousness. That sense precisely underlies my own core connection to astrology – and evolution as an astrologer over several decades now…” (i)

It was delightful recently to listen to a very lively discourse between master astrologer Steven Forrest, well-known USA astrologer, teacher and writer – and Steffie James, graduate from and tutor with the London School of Astrology, who runs the Stellium Astrology podcast which hosts a whole range of astrologers on all manner of interesting themes.

Lunar Cycle. (pixabay.com)

Those of us who are regular students, practitioners and teachers of this 6,000 + years old practice, rooted in humans’ wondering about the stars, and where they fit in to the Big Picture we see stretched before us in the night sky, can get a bit blasé. We can forget in our quotidian preoccupations with clients, classes, writing and deadlines – not to mention the normal preoccupations of day-to-day living, the depth and wonder of the subject that is astrology.

We can be so immersed in computerland that we forget simply to go out on a dark, clear night (assuming this might be a possibility given one’s location and local weather!) and look up. Following the path of the Moon each month as she waxes and wanes in the heavens can be a reminder that we are woven into the cosmos – as are all living creatures.

So – it’s great every so often to stop and be reminded (recently for me by listening to Steven and Steffie talk about when astrology first gripped them) of the sheer grandeur and vast sweep of universal energies ebbing and flowing throughout the cosmos – their patterns brought down by the ancient practice of astrology to help us make sense of life here on Planet Earth.

Looking back a long way, I think the early beginnings of my own capture by the art of astrology can be traced back to my childhood on the Isle of Lewis, a wild and at times ferociously windswept island off Scotland’s West Coast. I still clearly recall lying cosy and tucked up in bed, listening to the fierce winter gales that used to scour our island, feeling that the wind was tearing the world apart – and wondering what the sheer Power could be that generated such ferocity. Feeling quite safe in my bed, I used to be exhilarated, not frightened by the weather’s wildness. ( Many years later, I was to discover that the planet of Power, Pluto, was very strong in my birth horoscope. So – no wonder those wild winds had such a powerful effect then!)

I was also deeply affected, growing up, by observing and gradually being able to identify celestial patterns in the clear, star-studded night skies. In those days, in that location, the effects of light pollution were minimal. The sense of wonder engendered by those skies, the feeling of being a tiny part of something too vast for me fully to comprehend, was triggered by that early closeness to Nature, and the wildness of the elements. 

Fast forward a couple of decades, to a rainy Sunday night in a laundrette on the outskirts of Bath, Somerset. A college lecturer in English in those days who considered herself a Marxist, I had no idea that the template for my future life was about to be set. I’ve written about and been interviewed about the event following, a number of times in recent years (ii): in essence, I encountered a couple who turned out to be astrologers. Such was their charm that they persuaded me to let them read my horoscope – over a cup of tea in their nearby flat.

I can still vividly remember reeling out of their house, completely staggered by the in-depth accuracy about me, my character, my family background as well as vocational tendencies, which they had been able to extract (without knowing anything about me), from marks on a piece of paper. I still have that hand drawn horoscope…

Anne W’s Birth Chart

The most baffling part of the whole thing was the prediction that in around seven years’ time whether I believed in Astrology or not ( decidedly not, in those Marxist days! ) I would end up practising it – or something very like it – myself.

And, Dear Reader, it duly came to pass!

I have now been an astrologer, teacher, writer and student mentor for decades. This represents undoubtedly the most satisfying period of my vocational life, my main interest in recent years being observation and writing about the larger planetary cycles. These can give us amazing insight into the unfolding patterns of energy and time throughout history, and are especially helpful in setting a meaningful context for the current turbulence world-wide. 

The practice of Astrology offers many gifts, allowing each one of us to weave our tiny threads of life meaningfully into the great tapestry of time and space. ‘As above, so below’…

This opportunity having come my way, its background being my Nature-dominated Hebridean childhood, and its unlikely foreground that encounter on a rainy night in Bath in Somerset, has left me feeling forever grateful to that

“…divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will…” (iii)

I’m always intrigued to hear folks’ experiences of their first encounters with Astrology, and especially from those of you out there who were so gripped that you went on to study and to practice the ancient Art. What was your experience, why did Astrology capture your imagination, what keeps you interested and involved?  Do let me know – I’d love to share your stories, perhaps in a future article!

Endnotes:

(i) from my comment left in response to the following podcast: November 1st 2022: Episode 118 of Stellium Astrology podcast with Steffie Jay:

‘Evolutionary Astrology: Beliefs, Empowerment & Reincarnation’ with Steven Forrest

(ii) ‘Postcards to the Future: Mercurial Musings 1995-2021’ pp…122-5

(iii) Hamlet to Horatio in ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare  Act 5, Scene 2.

Lunar Cycle

© Anne Whitaker 2023 1000 words

“Shake hands with the unknown…” Some thoughts on a new year dawning…

Well, here we are, as another turbulent and difficult year on Planet Earth ends. I hardly need to spell out the world’s current ills; we know what they are, centring round an accelerating climate crisis, with a major highlight being all kinds of economic, social and political disruption and misery flowing from yet another utterly pointless orgy of destruction unleashed by one European nation on another.

Dark – and Light…

However…

The sun is inching imperceptibly towards the light, again…snowdrops are poking tiny tentative fingertips of green through bleak wintry earth, again… No matter how listless, dreary we may be feeling in that strange, liminal week between midwinter Festive excess and the start of a new year, the life force is stirring, called forth by the slowly re-emerging sun…

And…

I am on the hunt, as ever, for poems to share which do not flinch from truth about the human condition, but help me to stay optimistic as I reflect on the year passing and look forward to the year about to unfold.

I found these, and thought I’d share them. I hope they speak to you, too!

…from Los Angeles Times (New Books section: five hopeful poems to usher in the new year) 

“Say goodbye to disaster. Shake hands
with the unknown, what becomes
of us once we’ve been torn apart
and returned to our future, naked
and small, sewn back together
scar by scar.” ( from Dorianne Laux, “Blossom”)

“It’s clear that you are now too old
to trust in good Saint Nick;
that it’s too late for miracles.
— But suddenly, lifting your eyes
to heaven’s light, you realize:
your life is a sheer gift.”   (from Joseph Brodsky, “1 January 1965”) 

Carpe diem, everyone, and blessings as New Year 2023 dawns with all its threats – and all its promises: that ancient alchemy of shadow and of light.

“Postcards to the Future” Mercurial Musings – and Festive Greetings!

‘…As a human community

we are at a time of major epochal shift. A deadly

airborne virus upended our way of life in 2020. Major

cultural, political and environmental turbulence is

set to continue, radically altering the way we live on

planet Earth…’

(from P.S. Windows to the Future, the final essay in “Postcards to the Future” p 365)

As readers who have been following my blog in recent times can see, I have been continuing my Mercurial Musings (along with many other astrologers!), as our world situation becomes more turbulent and challenging with every month that passes: Pluto’s 2023/4 transition from Capricorn to Aquarius –which he enters on 23 March 2023 for the first time since the 1770s – is a major symbolic significator for the new world order slowly being born. No doubt I’ll be publishing a sequel to “Postcards…” before too long, at the rate I’m going! My major astrological interest these days is undoubtedly in the larger planetary cycles, which I have written about extensively in “Postcards…”, which brings 60 of my essays, articles and columns from 1995 to 2021 together. You can view the whole list HERE.

I’m writing this post – partly – for the time-honoured reason of tapping into the Festive Season market and offering my book – which has been wonderfully well reviewed, I’m happy to say! – as an ideal gift: as Juliet Sharman-Burke, psychotherapist, astrologer, tarot specialist, author and Administrator for The Centre for Psychological Astrology, said in her October 2021 review:

“Postcards to the Future” is the perfect book for the present time. Today so many people feel fragmented, too busy to concentrate on anything for long, overwhelmed and exhausted with the amount of information coming at them from the internet, the media and social network platforms and cannot face embarking a long complicated book which has to be read chapter by chapter to make any sense. “Postcards to the Future” offers a range of incredibly stimulating and wise bite-sized essays, articles, interviews and blogs covering all things astrological which can be dipped into by beginners and knowledgeable astrologers alike. There is literally something for everyone in Anne’s “ Mercurial Musings”. 

Credit for the above poster: Dawn Durrant

However, the other reason is to say a big Thank You to those of you who so generously reviewed, sold and bought “Postcards…” during this year just passing. I also want to extend thanks and welcome to the many new subscribers to my blog since the wonderful Michael Wright thoroughly re-habbed and streamlined it this autumn. About time too, after ‘Writing from the Twelfth House’s 15 years on the Net!

So – despite the harsh times our world is going through at so many levels at present, I hope you can find some happiness and inspiration both during this Festive Season and the year to come. And – I’d love it if you bought my book, recommended it, and if possible shared this post to spread the word. I’m already putting my next book together: a compendium of writings and research into The Moon’s Nodes in Action including my latest mini-study which appeared on Astrodienst last month. So – if you want to be kept up -to-date, folks, do sign up !!.

Happy Solstice!!

Some brief notes on Order and Chaos: what are the planetary cycles saying?

In trying to make some sense out of current uncertainty and turbulence, it can help to check out what the planetary cycles are saying. Here are some brief notes summing up the essence of the present day planetary picture.

Carl Jung “In all chaos there is a cosmos,

 in all disorder a secret order.”

We know several things astrologically at the moment which describe crisis in the world in general :

We are moving from one world era to another: from a period between 1803 and 21st December 2020 when the twenty-year long Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions were travelling through the Earth element  – describing (in shorthand terms) the era of capitalism. This era, simply put, owes its ‘success’ to heedless exploitation of our mother planet, and a way of living which is increasingly obviously no longer sustainable as we continue metaphorically to saw off the branch on which we are all sitting as the climate crisis takes off.

Crisis = threat+opportunity

That conjunction’s journey shifted to the Air element for the 200+ years following 2020’s Winter Solstice, when Jupiter and Saturn met at 0° Aquarius: early evidence being an airborne covid 19 pandemic which has upended the way we live, and the fact that our culture is taking a major shift into conducting itself on Air e.g. via zoom, proliferating social media, and increasingly sophisticated advances in Artificial Intelligence or A.I. 

This first 20 year cycle of the Jupiter Saturn combination through the Air element between 2020 and 2040 is going to be critical in setting the terms of reference for the new world order into which we are moving. 

The USA is currently undergoing its Pluto return at 27 Capricorn in 2022, with attendant turmoil, and there is a major war taking place in Ukraine which began in the Spring of 2022, showing no sign of coming to an end any time soon. Pluto’s cycle is around 248 years; we have seen, since his entry into Capricorn in 2008, every institution on the face of the Earth dredged and purged with all its unresolved crap coming to the surface. Until Pluto finally settles into Aquarius on 19th November 2024 – just after the next USA Election on 5th November 2024 – the purging and dredging which began in 2007/ 2008 will continue. From all of this you can see that the time over this winter is going to be especially critical worldwide as the Lord of the Underworld returns to Aquarius on March 23rd 2023, for the first time since the revolutionary decade of the 1770s. Astrologer Jessica Davidson has done a fine historical survey of Pluto’s Aquarian ingresses – and impacts – over a long historical timeline. Read it HERE

 However, I take comfort from my knowledge of that historical timeline, however sketchy it may be – cultures have always alternated between periods of chaos dominating, out of which of arise new ways of humans organising themselves – as order gradually reasserts itself.

Learning to live with uncertainty, trying to find our personal balance in an era in which chaos (Neptune) is increasingly more evident than order (Saturn) seems to be what we are all challenged to do at present. 

My personal motto is ‘start where you are and do what you can’ as positively as possible, in order to make some small individual contribution to the birthing of a more constructive world order from the old one: an order which is clearly deeply corrupt and well past its sell by date…

Crisis = threat
+opportunity

March 2023 to November 2024: Pluto’s slow final grind from Capricorn to Aquarius…

from Astro-Seek.com

For the UK, an era ended on the 8th of September 2022 with the death of Queen Elizabeth the Second, an event which reverberated around the world. Regardless of one’s politics, the death of a monarch has archetypal power: many people with no particular regard for the UK royal family – including this writer – were surprised at the impact this event had.

However, the Queen’s passing at this especially turbulent time not just in the UK’s history but in the world at large has focused my reflections on the particular significance of the fractious and divisive Saturn/Uranus lens through which we humans seem to have been substantially viewing then acting out our collective social and individual lives from the spring of 2020 when Saturn first entered Aquarius, and are likely to continue to do so until Saturn enters Pisces in the spring of 2023. With Saturn gradually coming into orb of a wide sextile to the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in Taurus in early 2024, let’s hope things then cool down somewhat… 

There is, of course, a much bigger symbolic backdrop to this particular Saturn/Uranus square. Being especially interested in observing how the larger planetary cycles correlate with changing patterns of human collective behaviour, I have already written in some depth about the significance of the big shift from an Earth era defined by the 20-year Jupiter/Saturn cycles traversing the Earth element from 1803, to an Air era beginning with the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction at 0 Aquarius on the Winter Solstice of 2020, then running for around two hundred years. (i)

 Pluto will emphasise this momentous era shift by first entering Aquarius in the spring of 2023, following on his long sojourn in Capricorn from the spring of 2008 which kicked off with a devastating world banking crisis. Also – in 2025 Neptune enters Aries, for the first time since the onset of the American civil war in the 1850s, ushering in a Fire/Air period for the next number of years.

 So – our lives are not likely to settle down any time soon…

Ranging from the climate wars (Extinction Rebellion, anyone?) to increasingly rage-filled trans and woke movements on both sides of the Atlantic, to land-grab war in Europe with attendant disruption to food and energy supplies worldwide, to a bitterly contested and hugely divisive election result in the USA, to revelations of an increasingly persecuted Uighur minority in China, my impression – having lived through quite a few Saturn/Uranus aspects by now! – is that divisions and polarisations arising from the period of the current square, have been more black-and-white, intolerant and brutal than in previous Saturn /Uranus periods. 

Why should this be? Having thought about the matter in the context of other large-scale disruptive changes also taking place has brought me to what I think is an explanation, symbolically speaking. 

Putting things simply: Saturn rules Capricorn, the last sign of the 1803-2020 Earth era to be traversed first by the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction, then by Pluto, lord of the Underworld. Symbolically speaking, with the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction then Pluto moving into Aquarius, the rule of planetary old god Saturn is being replaced by that of planetary new god Uranus.  However, to add another layer of complexity and conflict, Aquarius’ old ruler is Saturn, new ruler is Uranus – and Pluto’s shift from Capricorn to Aquarius will not be completed until 19th November 2024: a mere two weeks after the next USA Election takes place on 5th November 2024. What stunning timing…

 Astrologers man their symbolic barricades over this one: the Trads insisting on Saturn as co-ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius, the Mods favouring Uranus alone. Take your pick…whichever you favour, there is an especially bitter symbolic battle of the giants taking place worldwide as we shift from one long Era to another, a battle at every level: environmental, political, national, cultural, personal. 

So – what comes next? 

Much speculation regarding the shape of things to come has been going on for some time now, set to intensify as we await Pluto’s traverse through Aquarius from the spring of 2023 to early 2044, giving a heavy symbolic weighting to that sign for a long time to come. 

Aquarius is the sign of the human collective, symbolising an energy driven to pursuing and promoting ideals regarding how we should be moving forward in order to create a fairer, more equal world. It is a highly rational, technology and future-oriented, “Let’s get together to make the world a better place”, kind of energy. 

As such, we should see some major developments at all levels as power (Pluto) shifts towards The People, away from plutocrats, oligarchs, and from politics rooted in gaining material power and control through exploitation of planet Earth’s diminishing resources, towards (in theory!!) more equal world-wide sharing of power derived from an Air-based technologically expedited economic system. Also, the development of wind and solar energy is likely to accelerate with Neptune’s shift into Aries from 2025 onwards. 

Pluto’s last sojourn through Aquarius (1778–1798) brought with it sweeping changes in social order and public rights, including: the ratification of the American constitution following the USA’s breaking away from Britain’s colonial control, the rise and expansion of the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the publishing of ‘The Vindication of the Rights of Women’ by Mary Wollestonecraft. 

None of this was accomplished without The People or individuals in one way or another rising up against prevailing regimes, rules, or ideas perceived as being outdated and oppressive. So we can expect cultural, social, political and environmental upheaval to gain momentum as Pluto shifts into Aquarius and the Capricornian penchant for collective coercive control socially, politically and environmentally is severely challenged. We are very much seeing this right now, with recent uprisings in Iran triggered by the death of a young woman in the custody of the so-called Morality Police still ongoing, and widespread public protests triggered by three years of stringent covid restrictions right across China. These protests are largely being spearheaded by the young…

What we really need in tomorrow’s Aquarian world, though, is a radical change of attitude. Essentially, as one astrologer I was reading recently so succinctly put it, it is ‘…time for us to figure out what it means to be human and how to live together on this planet without fighting over everything…’ (ii)  

A tall order indeed…

In our own small country the UK, still insisting on seeing itself as a major world player, we can certainly expect People Power to exert itself more forcefully as we move towards next spring. Our new Tory Chancellor is reportedly considering removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses imposed by the European Union following the greed-fuelled virtual collapse of the world banking system in 2008. (BBC news 15.9.22) This will not go down well – to say the least! – with those sectors of our population who have to choose between heating and eating this coming winter.

UPDATE: the new Chancellor and his Prime Minister lasted less than six weeks in power, having created mayhem on the world financial markets and worsening the already serious cost of living crisis in the UK with their disastrous budget. The incoming Prime Minister Sunak and his Chancellor Hunt have acted swiftly to abandon those policies and restore a measure of stability – for now…

Also, our late Queen, mourned and well respected by much of the UK’s population, especially in Scotland where she died, having been laid to rest with due pomp and ceremony, huge questions will surely come to the fore regarding the future of  the monarchy in our increasingly strained United Kingdom.

What, then, of the wider picture, especially regarding Russian President Putin’s increasingly disastrous-looking attempt to land-grab and control Ukraine, currently looking like the feistiest, bravest nation on the planet?

Here are the forthright words of that redoubtable Australian astrologer, Jessica Adams, from a post on her website on 13/3/2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine:

‘…And yet, you don’t need Putin’s birth chart, actually, to see which way the wind is blowing, though. Pluto (power) in Capricorn (the man at the top) is finished on March 24th, 2023. This is the end of an era when plutocrats (which Pluto represents in astrology) who are the top goats on the mountain (Capricorn) fall off – as the mountain itself collapses…’ (iii)

‘The old order changeth…’  (iv)

Fasten your seat belts, people. It’s going to be some ride!

Endnotes:

This is an edited version of my essay“The old order changeth, yielding place to new…” published in the UK’s Astrological Journal November/December 2022, soon to be re-published in The Federation of Australian Astrologers Journal under the same title, with permission…

(i) See the P.S Windows to the Future section of my recent collection “Postcards to the Future”(August 2021), including ‘Waning and waxing crescents: windows to the future’ (first published in The Mountain Astrologer Dec 2020/Jan 2021)pp 365-380

(ii) https://jessicadavidson.co.uk/2021/06/07/pluto-in-aquarius-the-evolution-of-society-and-technology/

(iii) from Jessica Adams’ Twitter post of 12 September 2022

(iv). “The old order changeth, yielding place to new…” from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s great epic poem Morte d’Arthur, published 1842.

©Anne Whitaker 2022

Moon’s Nodes and Eclipses: Gemini/Sagittarius adventures 2020-22…

Ever since I began to decipher my own birth chart in the 1980s, discovering that a strange glyph looking like a pair of headphones was exactly conjunct my 28 Taurus Midheaven, the Moon’s Nodal Axis and its unfolding path through the heavens has continued to fascinate me….here, in my new mini research study featuring the recent traverse of the Moon’s Nodes and Eclipses traversing Gemini/Sagittarius during the period of 2020-2022, I tell the story of four people’s changing lives. Including my own…to read all about it, click HERE

Thanks, Astrodienst, for once again featuring my work…

As Pluto prepares to leave Capricorn for Aquarius: a world in waiting…

Pluto enters Aquarius in March 2023 for the first time since his 1778–1798 soujourn brought with it sweeping changes in social order and individual freedoms, including: the ratification of the American constitution, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, the publishing of The Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollestonecroft…

Along with other astrologers whose main interest is in the relationship between the larger planetary cycles and world affairs, I’ve been watching with fascination as people power asserts itself in the general direction of greater democratic freedoms and increasing rejection of oppressive rulers. I’ve written about this in more detail recently here (i)

There is a word which beautifully describes – at both a collective and a personal level – this disturbing but highly creative state of emerging from the past, being highly disrupted in the present, reaching out to an uncertain future. That word is LIMINAL.

Here are my thoughts on both the micro and macro dimensions of that wonderfully descriptive word, starting (of course – I used to be an English teacher, after all…) with a definition. Written as my ninth The Astro-View from Scotland column for that wonderful USA magazine Dell Horoscope, sadly no longer with us, it is still highly relevant. I hope you enjoy my musings: feel free to add your own as a comment should you feel inspired to do so!

‘…I always seem to have a favourite word. Maybe that’s one of the hallmarks of being a writer. It’s probably tiresome for other people when I cram it into conversations. By now, I’m sure you are quite desperate to know what the damn word is this time. Ok. It’s ‘liminal’. From the Latin ‘limen’ meaning ‘threshold’, it refers to that stage in life when one is hovering…departing from what is in the past: not quite at home here in the present: not quite arrived there, in the future…it’s an uncomfortable, fluid state to be in, but highly creative and full of potential. 

How about this contemporary usage, definition from Wikipedia: ‘…More recently, usage of the term has broadened to describe political and cultural change… During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt…’ I don’t know about you, but this to me sounds just like where we are collectively on planet Earth at present.  Let’s hope in the long run – which we baby-boomers likely won’t live to see – we end up with something better than the mess we have now. 

‘As above, so below’ : no contemporary astrologers have come up with a pithier definition of the essence of our art than did fabled Ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus in the equally fabled Emerald Tablet. Hermes was conceived as apparently hovering between the divine and human worlds. Down here in that all-too-human world, thinking about Hermes in relation to the world ‘liminal’ is providing me with some inspiration; much needed in my case, as I hover uncomfortably and uncertainly between the end of one 12 year Jupiter cycle, and the beginning of  a new one.

 Jupiter cycles have always been a big deal for me, since third house Jupiter at 19 degrees 07 Scorpio squares all six of my Leo 11th and 12th house planets. I wrote about the dubious but transformative delights of this astro-lineup in my very first column for Dell. 

This idea of hovering between the divine and human worlds might be of some comfort and inspiration also to those of you readers who are ending one cycle at present, without being able to see how the energy of the next one is going to form. Standing in this liminal place, one cannot bully, cajole or entreat the new order to reveal itself. There is divine time, and there is human time. 

This may sound pretty mystical, but my feeling – from both personal and professional  experience– is that the deeper wisdom of our soul knows the direction in which we need to proceed in order to become all we can be, and how long it may take to get there. The astrological cycles can put us in touch with that spark of divinity within each of us, offering profound insights into what a waning cycle has been about, and what the newly-forming one might bring. They also teach us that‘… there is… a time to every purpose under the heaven…’ (i). 

Our egos, located in human, ordinary time, can often rail against this when we don’t like what we see of the shape of things to come, or how long a particular transitional period is going to take. Try consulting your ephemeris, as I did at the end of 1998, to realise that I was about to have a series of sixth house Neptune oppositions to twelfth house planets lasting from 1999 until 2012, as well as the ending/beginning of five major cycles. It was some immersion, I can tell you. Did my ego rail against it? You bet. I had to quit my career in 2002, and did not begin to surface, via writing on the Web at first, until 2008, not returning to consulting and teaching until 2012.

But guess what? I now look back on that period, when I felt liminal approximately twenty-four hours a day for years, as the most soul-enriching of my entire life. One of the many lessons I took from that period was to pay close attention especially to the feelings of restlessness, dissatisfaction and uncertainty which herald the end of, for example, the 29-30 year cycle of Saturn which we all share. Many of us recall – or are experiencing now! – the turbulence and pain of the end of our twenties, from which most of us emerged or will emerge by around the age of thirty-three with a much clearer idea of who we are, and most importantly, who we are not.

Those difficult feelings and experiences occurring in the twelfth house phase of any major cycle (where we are now, collectively, as Pluto traverses the final degrees of Capricorn…) are part of the dissolution of the old order of that part of our lives. An ending must take place– so that new energy may arise, taking us forward to the next stage of our unfolding.

 Astrology’s great gift is to show us that we are not random butterflies pinned to the board of Fate. We each have our small, meaningful strand to weave into life’s vast tapestry. In the end, it was consent to my tough and frightening period of liminality, patient waiting, the love and support I was fortunate to have, and trust in the wisdom of the Unseen that got me through. So, my liminal fellow travellers, take heart. The old order may be waning, but something fresh and new is surely arising…’

Endnotes:

(i)https://anne-whitaker.com/2022/09/24/leo-aquarius-a-climate-bill-a-monarchs-death-pluto-and-a-changing-world-order/

(ii)Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV) 

“The astro-view from Scotland” was the bi-monthly column I wrote for Dell Horoscope Magazine from January/February 2017 until the last issue of  Dell in March/April 2020. This ninth column first appeared in the May/June 2018 issue.

1200 words ©Anne Whitaker 2022