Towards a Post-Modern Astrology

I'm away at Glastonbury Festival, so here is another post-published piece, an extract from a talk given by Robert Hand in 2005:

First of all I should define the term “post-modern”. Post-modernism as the term is usually used refers to a set of philosophical movements largely arising out of contemporary French philosophy featuring in particular the work of Jacques Derrida, post-structuralism and the philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

This is not what I refer to, because something else has been going on in astrology. Astrology has never been part of the modern world and cannot have in the same way a post-modern period. I would actually suggest that astrology is ideally suited to be both pre-modern and post-modern in the French philosophical sense.

But what I refer to instead is a very real historical phenomenon in astrology, which is this: we have astrology up until about 1700, which had certain consistent patterns, ideas and principles and which had a more or less a continuous tradition from something like – this date is extremely flexible – the fifth century B.C.E. Then, in the 18th century we had a very long break. Conventional historians refer to this as the Enlightenment. I prefer the term “Endarkenment,” based on what happened in astrology – it almost died. And then in the 19th century a revival began, which for most of the 19th century was a revival of a portion of the tradition that had nearly died in 1700.

But then with Alan Leo, and more recently people like Dane Rudhyar, and on another level people like the Hamburg School and Cosmobiology of Ebertin, a rather new kind of astrology began coming into existence, which it might be appropriate simply to call 20th century astrology, but I would like to call modern astrology. So what I am really going to be talking about is the question, what next?

The beginning of what I will call – for lack of a better term – post-modern astrology actually happened quite a few years ago now. Two people are largely responsible for this new beginning. They are in the United States: Robert Zoller, who began studying medieval astrology in the original Latin in the 1970's, closely followed in this country [Great Britain] by the late Olivia Barclay, who began teaching her students horary directly from William Lilly’s text. In both cases what was being taught was a reborn pre-1700 or pre-modern astrology. They had tremendous impact. In the States this led to the movement of which I was a part – or am a part, but am no longer associated with the name – the project called Project Hindsight, of which I and Robert Zoller along with Robert Schmidt were founders. Subsequently Robert Zoller has gone his own way, and I have gone my own way, but the movement continues. There is also of course an extremely meaningful translation movement in Spain, and also one in Italy.

So the pre-1700, pre-modern type of astrology is coming back fairly rapidly. The influence these movements have had is not quite what you might expect. Yes, there are people – and I think I can say this without offering any insult – such as Robert Zoller, who are really trying to revive completely an intact pre-modern astrology, otherwise known as traditional astrology. However, since some people regard Alan Leo’s astrology as traditional astrology, pre-modern may be a clearer term for pre-1700 styles of astrology. My favorite image of Robert Zoller – and believe me, I don’t think he would object in my characterizing him this way – is that he would smile, sublimely rub his hands together and say: “The old ways are the good ways!”

Yet, what appears to be happening, and what I certainly align myself with, is not really a revival of traditional astrology. Rather it’s a healing of the break that occurred in the 18th century. We are not trying to do astrology exactly as it was done, rather we’re trying to recreate astrology as it would have been if it had never stopped being an active tradition. Understanding this point is very important, because it is often stated and believed that traditional astrology must not have been all that effective because it died out – almost. Surely, it is said by some, traditional astrology must have been terribly lacking, and therefore modern astrology represents an evolutionary improvement from it.

This is not the case. Traditional astrology died out for reasons that are much better described as socio-political than scientific. If you want an example of what I mean I refer you to Patrick Curry’s excellent work Prophecy and Power, where he describes the process of astrology’s near death in Britain. But I assure you, that process was not limited to Britain. So, we are not doing traditional astrology, we are healing the break that occurred in the 18th century.(more...)

I'm away at Glastonbury Festival, so below is an extract from a 2002 interview with Liz Greene, conducted by Nicholas Campion (who compiled the Book of World Horoscopes.)

Nick Campion: One of the prevalent themes throughout all your work is the dynamic idea of astrology as a process or astrology as a path, and that we are all on a journey to somewhere. As I read what you wrote about Saturn-Pluto on my way here, I realised that you were also emphasising the concept of process and the passage through growth and decay that comes with linear time, which is evident through nature, society, and the human psyche. You also state that "these are esoteric concepts."[17] On another occasion, when a member of the audience at a seminar tried to involve you in discussion of reincarnation in relation to Saturn and Pluto, you responded: "I really don’t know about the metaphysical side of all this."[18] So, what I’m asking is whether you, personally, have a metaphysics which influences your astrology or a grand metaphysical explanation of astrology? Or does it just not concern you?

Liz Greene: It concerns me on a personal level in the sense that I would like to know what in hell we are doing here. So, I will certainly raise the question. But I don’t think that astrology itself contains metaphysics. There is no belief system attached to it. People bring belief systems to it; in a sense, you can’t avoid doing that, because every human being has a set of preconceptions. So, it is impossible to say: "Well, I am not bringing my belief system to astrology." Everything I have just said reflects my belief system. I can’t guarantee that the patterns that I perceive in life are really there. But I am pretty sure that something like them is there, because enough other people have been perceiving them for millennia. But as far as reincarnation, evolution, and questions about where the spirit goes after death are concerned - Do we have souls? Do we go to heaven or hell? Should we be Christian or should we be pagan? - I really have no idea. I don’t think the answers to these questions are relevant to astrology itself. Astrology is simply a set of symbols describing patterns. If we impose a spiritual or religious or metaphysical order on those patterns, that’s fine. But it is a personal imposition and not something inherent in astrology itself.

Nick Campion: Would you say that astrology itself is a belief system?

Liz Greene: No, I wouldn’t, any more than any symbol is a belief system. I don’t know what symbols are, except that they seem to emerge organically as containers of a multitude of conflicting and complicated patterns that are connected in some way. We don’t manufacture them, and we certainly don’t believe in them. They are there anyway. We perceive them, notice them, and make connections between them. "Believing" in astrology makes no sense to me. It is nonsense to say, "I believe in it," because belief is something you do when you have no direct experience. Astrology is something that requires experience and hands-on work to see whether it conveys any meaning or relevance. So, it is like saying, "Do you believe in your car?" No, I just drive it. I have no idea how it runs, but if it works, well, fine. People who say they believe in astrology are either using the wrong word or don’t know what they are talking about. You can believe in God or you can believe in reincarnation, because we have no direct experience of these things. There are people who would say they know there is a God and that it’s not a matter of belief. Okay, I can’t argue with that. Maybe they do. Some people say they know there is reincarnation, because they remember the 16th century when they were burnt at the stake. Well, I am not in a position to say they are idiots or are delusional - or that they are fantasising something profoundly relevant, symbolically. I just don’t know, and because I don’t know, I don’t feel it is appropriate to bring this into an interpretation with a client.

Nick Campion: So, turning to clients, then, have you formed any general impression as to what they want from astrology? The criticism is sometimes levelled at people who go to astrologers that they are looking for meaning - as if that is a negative thing - or that they are in search of security.

Liz Greene: There are as many different reasons why people go to an astrologer as there are people. I also think that skepticism and belief are two faces of the same pathology. The skepticism that makes people say, "People who go to astrologers are just insecure," is the result of a misleading generalisation. You have to take it one individual at a time. How many years ago did I start seeing clients? If I started when I was nineteen, that’s 36 years. I couldn’t say that all the people I have seen over that period are looking for the same thing - or for one specific thing. They fall into rough groups. Some people come for purely pragmatic concerns. They simply assume that astrology might be useful and that they can use a horoscope reading to find out how and when to make a practical decision. They are not really anxious about why it works. Others come for psychological insights. Some come because they have run up against a wall with a relationship dilemma. Some come because they are quite wretched and deeply depressed, or they are on the edge of a breakdown and they are hoping that they can get some insight. Some people come for meaning. Some come because they want to know about their spiritual development. You name it! So, I don’t think they fall into any particular category. And some of them, perhaps most of them, don’t "believe" in it. They are interested solely in seeing whether it can help them, which is not the same thing.

Nick Campion: Do your clients share a recognisable socio-economic background? I’m thinking of accusations I’ve heard that people who go to see astrologers are on the fringes of society.

Liz Greene: No, there’s no pattern. When I started doing charts, my circle was limited because of the scene I was around in the 1960s. There was certainly a "type" of client then. My clients came mainly from the New Age hippie world, with an overlap of people in the music business and the theatre. People in all sections of society have always been interested in astrology, and there is no single type of person I have seen over the last 20 years. Any kind of client and any reason for a consultation that you can think of, they have come for a chart.

Nick Campion: Do you not even see a majority of women? Wherever I go, that’s the dominant gender in astrology.

Liz Greene: That used to be the case, but increasingly now I have a lot of male clients. Interestingly, since I have moved to Switzerland, the percentage of men has gone up. I’ve also noticed it at my Zürich seminars, where there are many more men than there are in my London seminars.

Nick Campion: That’s quite surprising, because I am used to the overwhelming preponderance of women in astrology in the U.K. and the U.S.

Liz Greene: I think it’s cultural, that one. I wouldn’t say that there are more men than women amongst the Swiss students, but certainly, in some seminars, there are as many as forty or fifty percent. It depends on the topic. If I am doing a seminar on the Moon or Venus, more women will come. But there are differences in terms of how the collective perceives astrology in Switzerland. I get people from the Swiss government coming to seminars, as well as biologists and mathematicians - men who have no problem with being seen going to an astrology seminar.

Nick Campion: Is that particular to you, in the sense that you are known as a Jungian, and Jung was a man and Swiss?

Liz Greene: No, I don’t think so. I think it is cultural. There is something very deeply wrong with the British collective in terms of its approach to astrology. The British suffer from hyper-rationality, and people are very afraid of the irrational. That is why the British are into Freud-bashing, Jung-bashing, psychoanalysis-bashing, astrology-bashing. It is a problem in this collective. It is changing slowly, but I think it is changing faster in other European countries.

Nick Campion: Presumably, you are using the word "irrational" in a positive sense.

Liz Greene: Yes, "irrational" doesn’t mean "mad."

Nick Campion: It so often does mean mad.

Liz Greene: Well, it often does in Britain!

Nick Campion: Just now, you said that belief and skepticism were two sides of the same coin. This reminded me of a conversation I had with Alexander Ruperti at a British Astrological Association Conference around 1985. He was a student of Alice Bailey’s and was deeply philosophical and very influenced by theosophy. He started getting very critical of Jungian and psychological astrologers, saying, "Oh, they don’t know what they are playing with because they psychologize everything." I had an insight then that the theosophical astrologers who began the development of modern psychological astrology in the early 20th century had a spiritual metaphysics that was integral to their astrology, one that Ruperti accepted. But the psychological approach to astrology can, in fact, be deeply skeptical because it would argue that, if you believe in archangels and ascended masters (as a theosophical astrologer would), then such beliefs might be no more than your psychological projection.

Liz Greene: Yes, they might be. But looking at things psychologically doesn’t mean that numinous experiences are therefore necessarily a sublimation of a pathology. Metaphysical beliefs can exist totally appropriately on their own plane. Putting a psychological perspective on astrology simply postulates that, whatever these numinous experiences are, it is human beings who report them. Whatever it is that is being reported, psychology is not in a position to assess its truth or untruth. It is just that human beings bring their own psychological processes to bear on what they are perceiving. So, if a devout Catholic has a numinous experience, they are going to say: "I saw the Virgin Mary," while an Australian aborigine is going to say: "I became one with the land," and a Hindu will experience enlightenment through Krishna. Individuals create their own lenses through which these experiences are perceived. All that psychology can say is: "Okay, something extraordinary has happened, but we don’t know whether they are angels or not." Personally, I am not in a position to say whether angels exist or not. I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I am interested in the person who comes to me saying he or she saw angels, because that immediately brings in the individual and their psychology - and it is a good idea to know what kind of person you are before you assume that everything that angel said to you is the truth. That way, at least you have some room to breathe with it and to navigate round it. (more...)

Uranus and Jupiter in Aries

Uranus and Jupiter both recently moved into Aries. This is what Jim Sher has to say (I added the images):

It is hard to overstate the significance of a planet moving from the sign of Pisces into Aries. Pisces, being the last sign of the zodiacal system, is the archetype of the endings of cycles where one is asked to let go and even surrender to the inevitable fact that something must die in order for something completely new to be born. There is a sadness to Pisces that does express this internal sense that the old cycle is about to end, while the new one has yet to be seen, much less engaged. We are ‘turned toward a future we feel coming but cannot yet see’ is how Dane Rudhyar has described it. This is what makes this shift one of the most important for us.

The nature of Aries, on the other hand, is in complete contrast to Pisces. It represents the purest sense of the new. It is the new shoot that rises from the ground in early spring, tender and vulnerable, but full of hope and believing that anything is possible. There is a naiveté to Aries, which is a necessary part of what it must be if it is to be fully open to the emergence of new possibilities, challenges and worlds to conquer. The somberness of Pisces gives way to the exciting and enthusiastic embracing of the new represented by Aries. It is impetuous and seeks to plant itself in a new way into the world, not caring what anyone else thinks, for that would only serve to inhibit and even threaten the new vision that Aries inherently carries within its own being.

Yet, it is because any new vision will have to be integrated into already existing structures that Aries also must be willing to develop adaptability. Its very survival depends on this. But this adaptability is not meant to suggest compromise in any way. That would be the death knell of Aries. I refer to the awareness that the outpouring of energy given to the Aries cycle will necessarily be forced to face and confront the old ways of being and therefore must find a way to survive what could be a potential threat. On one hand, one must not give in to any threat to this new vision being carried out or care hardly anything about what the results of his action will be. Aries does not care about results. It must not care. For to do so will restrict Aries too much and this is what cannot be allowed. Concern with results is premature now. There is a lot more to be revealed before one can become concerned too much about where the new impulse will lead.(more…)

The Symbolism of the Deepwater Oil Spill

There is a lot of symbolism that can be attached to the Deepwater Oil Spill. For myself, I was listening the other day to someone who was in some form of breakdown. He was talking relentlessly, and had kept it up for hours, and it was all symbolic, archetypal, but with no processing or guiding by the ordinary mind. It was therefore incoherent. And the Deepwater Oil Spill sprang forcefully into my mind, where you see crude oil gushing unstoppably from the depths because the normal containing crust of the earth has been broken, broken somewhat recklessly by all accounts.

The symbolism works both ways. Could it be that the Oil Spill symbolises a collective madness on our part? Saturn, in a way, represents our sanity.He represents the order and containment that our fragile consciousness needs if it is not to be swept away by chaotic, instinctual forces. Saturn helps us process those forces, integrate them. But what if Saturn goes too far in the other direction, where order and containment and dominance is all? Sooner or later the unconscious, or life if you like, will break through uncontrollably. Too much Saturn is a form of madness (though not usually recognised as such) as much as too little can be. In neither case is there an ability to apprehend what is real.

At present there is a Saturn-Pluto square, which we can see as raw life (Pluto) breaking through human order (Saturn). Oil from the depths (Pluto) breaking through the earth’s crust (Saturn). The reckless exploitation of the earth and its resources that we see today is Saturn gone too far, and the Deepwater Oil Spill is literally, symbolically and astrologically a reminder of that.


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In the case of the US, where the spill has occurred, we have the country that more than any other symbolises the world’s malaise. And the IC of the US chart – the bottom of the chart, the ground beneath our feet – is being opposed by Saturn (the attempt to plug the well!) – having been punctured by Uranus (currently conjunct the IC) and is also being squared by Pluto: the unwelcome and uncontrollable flow of crude oil, raw life, from the depths.

At the time of the initial explosion, the Moon in Cancer was in the US 8th House, Pluto's realm, activating it; and Mars at 8 Leo was conjunct the US North Node which is also in the 8th House: so the explosion (Mars) took place in Pluto's realm and is of deep significance (North Node) for the US.

David Cameron's Fragmented Chart

David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, has a fragmented chart. It is divided into 4 sets of planets, 2 of them singletons, that do not aspect, and therefore do not easily speak to, the rest of the chart.

These 4 sets are:

(1) Unaspected Sun in Libra
(2) Unaspected Mars in Leo
(3) Uranus-Pluto opposite Saturn-Chiron, in harmonious aspect to Neptune
(4) Moon-Jupiter sextile Venus and square Mercury.


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In some ways it’s a bit early to be saying much about Cameron, because we haven’t yet seen what he can do, he hasn’t been tested. Or am I making excuses, because after all he has been leader of the Tory party for some years now? Certainly I wouldn’t have held back on commenting Tony Blair at a similar stage, because he made such a big impact, even before becoming PM. And this isn’t to do with whether I agree with his politics.

David Cameron seems nice enough, and he’s no doubt competent and intelligent and he certainly seems to try hard (Virgo Rising). But you don’t feel you’re dealing with a heavyweight, someone with powerful convictions who is going to change the country. Margaret Thatcher did have this quality, in case anyone thinks I’m being politically biased!

And this brings me back to the fragmented chart. Cameron’s planets do not work together: one of his long-term tasks is to get them to do so. To have weighty convictions you need your whole being behind you, or most of it. If you are fragmented – which Cameron’s chart strongly suggests – then you can do your best to sound convincing, but people won’t buy it. This is why the Tories did not gain an overall majority at the General Election.

If we look at the charts of Blair and Thatcher, then by and large all the planets do link up. In Blair’s case, his Mars-Jupiter Rising was out on its own, and this was his undoing: it was his rigid, even religious beliefs (Jupiter) about the Iraq War (Mars) which brought him down. This is a well-known characteristic of unaspected elements in the chart: they can act as autonomous sub-personalities that cannot be reasoned with, because you are no longer dealing with an entire human being, or at least most of one. Margaret Thatcher also went down this route, and it was her unaspected Uranus which was responsible: Uranus at its worst is wilfully individualistic and rigidly ideological (but not religiously so, like Jupiter and Blair.)


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But with Blair and Thatcher, in each case most of the planets in their charts did link up with each other, enough to lend weight to their convictions. It is psychologically interesting that they both changed after some years in power, moving from being politically sensitive to not giving a damn what others thought, as described by the unaspected point that they each had. It is as if you can only shut a part of yourself out for so long, and then eventually it comes back at you in its shadow or primitive form, because it has been repressed. The next stage would be to acknowledge it and integrate it in a more helpful form. But I don’t think successful politicians are necessarily that interested in their own psychological development.

So Cameron is not really like this. There is not enough weight to any part of his chart to shut out and repress another part. This could be good, but in his case I think it makes him a bit bland and lacking in conviction.

One feature that is fascinating about his chart is that all the outer planets from Saturn onwards link up to each other, but not to any of the personal planets! On a personal level, this can make it hard to have much depth. On a political level, it is potentially disastrous (though I am not predicting that.) Politics is all about putting the personal planets at the service of the collective planets: tuning into what the collective needs and responding to that. But what if you can tune into the collective and the personal planets are not part of that? It means you can be taken over by the collective will, that what is worst in it can have free rein because you as a politician have no ability to discriminate because you as a conscious being are not involved.

This classically is what we see in Hitler’s chart (and I am NOT saying Cameron is like him.) But Hitler was born with the Neptune-Pluto conjunction of his time in the 8th House, and it did not aspect any of his personal planets. His Uranus was also unaspected. His personal planets were reasonably well joined up in themselves, particularly because of his Sun-Moon aspect.


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So it was as if this mild vegetarian who liked children turned into someone else when faced with a crowd in crisis (as Germany was); he could channel and reflect back what they wanted to hear in a ‘pure’ form, with no interference from his personality. He was a medium.

So it’s as if at some point we could start to see 2 David Camerons, a split between the PR family man who loves the NHS and the David Cameron who appears when there is a crisis (which hasn’t happened yet) and a response to the collective will is required. What is on David Cameron’s side is that Saturn is involved in his outer planet link-up. Saturn is a bridge between the inner planets and the outer planets, and gives considered form to things. So Saturn will be the moderator here, Cameron will not be an out of control medium like Hitler. But I reckon there will still be a disjunct at moments of crisis because of the lack of personal planet involvement with the collective planets. We will see less of the considered Virgo, of the coalition Libra, and more of a populist puppet.

The astrology of the next few years suggests plenty of crises worldwide – they have already begun. In Cameron’s progressed Chart, we see both the Moon and Mars activating his Uranus-Pluto opposite Saturn-Chiron.


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And this activation of his outer planets enabled him to win an election, sort of. But if and when the pressure goes up, moderating Saturn may no longer be able to hold sway, and we could see a less reasonable, less fair-minded Cameron begin to appear. What may also not help is his Moon conjunct Jupiter in Leo, which at its best has great leadership qualities, but which can easily tip over into inflation. Margaret Thatcher has Moon-Neptune in Leo, which is not entirely dissimilar: Jupiter and Neptune both rule signs (Sag/Pisces) that don't know when to stop!

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” OK, we all know the quote that isn’t by Goethe. But the astrology for it right now is quite extraordinary: a Uranus-Jupiter conjunction at the beginning of Aries. You won’t see the like of it again in your lifetime. Aries is the sign of fiery new beginnings, particularly the start of the sign. Aries is the ‘begin it’ and ‘boldness’. Uranus is the ‘genius’. And Jupiter is the ‘power and magic.’

In about 3 weeks Uranus starts to go retrograde, a period of putting together the nuts and bolts of the new venture, the new idea. He will reverse back into late Pisces and then re-enter Aries next March, when the new idea will be firmly established, and new developments coming out of the original idea can arise. But Uranus will be 9 degrees from Jupiter by that time, and the firework display will be drawing to its end.

So the next few weeks are crucial for these bold new beginnings.

On the same theme, I was delighted to see President Obama seizing the initiative over the Deepwater Oil Spill. Up until now, the mood has been one of defensiveness, of proving to the American public that he is in control of the situation. And then yesterday he compared the effect of the spill on the American psyche to 9/11, and said that Deepwater would shape energy policy in the same way that 9/11 shaped security policy. He announced a campaign to change the way America produces and consumes its energy.


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It is interesting that 9/11 occurred when Saturn and Pluto were lined up along America’s Asc-Desc axis. The Oil Spill is occurring with Saturn conjoining and Pluto squaring the US MC. (There is also now Uranus opposing the MC, making the whole thing even more powerful.) So the astrology is confirming the comparison that Obama is drawing.


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Obama impresses me with his ability to seize and keep the initiative in difficult situations, like he did with the financial crisis when he came into power, and like he did with his health policy. It is interesting that before the Oil Spill, he was proposing more off-shore drilling (which had been restricted) in return for concessions over climate change. It was a bit desperate. To paraphrase: ‘Drilling for climate change is like f@*=ing for virginity’.

Now that off-shore drilling has gone tits-up, he is paradoxically in a much stronger position to get progress on clean energy. He is seizing the moment. And the astrology is right with him. Even though the US is the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter (or was: China is now the worst, which must be a nice feeling for Americans), they will probably also be the ones who come up with the new energy technologies. America is an extraordinarily resourceful nation when it has to be. And Uranus (technology) in Aries (new), empowered by its square to Pluto over the next few years, is just right for this.

Obama, Katrina, Deepwater and BP

Barack Obama’s natal Venus is at 1.47 Cancer. Venus describes how we relate to people, the ways in which we please (or repel) them, so in a politician it is the planet of popular appeal, of popularity.


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Saturn has recently turned direct and is moving in to make a square with Obama’s Venus. This represents a challenge (square) to earn (Saturn) your popularity. It is not about becoming popular through tuning into and manipulating collective desires (Neptune/Pluto) or about sudden turns of events (Uranus). It is about earning it, through doing a good job at a difficult task and being seen to do so.

And if you’re a Brit, like me, what you’re going to be focused on is Obama and the Deepwater Oil Spill and the fate of BP – if you’re American, it’ll be the fate of your shoreline and the industries around it that you’ll be focused on.

Obama is under a lot of pressure to perform over the Oil Spill, and he in turn is putting BP under pressure – some of it fair, some of it unfair. Obama also has transiting Uranus squaring his Venus, and this is described by the Oil Spill itself, a sudden twist of fate (Uranus) that affects his popularity (Venus). Because Uranus is an outer planet, it is not under his personal control, and Uranus will continue to square his Venus for another year or so yet.

Since the Oil Spill began, Neptune (Oil) has been stationing almost exactly square to Obama’s MC, his public standing, his reputation. The crisis has been likened to Hurricane Katrina, where George Bush’s slow response damaged his reputation. What left a nasty taste in the mouth with George Bush was the sense that if it had been rich white people, instead of poor black people who were affected, the response would have been more effective. In both cases the President’s competence is/was at stake, but with Obama the more personal question is not whether he is tribal and prejudiced, but whether he is too cerebral to be practically effective (I don’t think he is).

Like Obama and Deepwater, Bush also had Saturn (competence) and Neptune (the ocean) transits at the time of Katrina, with Saturn approaching his Leo Ascendant, and Neptune beginning to oppose his Venus.


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Both Deepwater and Katrina have Moon in Cancer (the environment) trine Uranus in Pisces (sudden, disruptive events in the ocean), which is rather startling. Astrology works! So these 2 events have a lot in common, both in themselves and in their effects on the President of the USA.


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As for BP, its current incarnation came into being some time on the 1st of May 2001. Venus as we know is popularity, and BP’s is at 3.45 Aries, where it is being hammered by transiting Uranus, Saturn and Pluto. Venus is also wealth, the raison d’être for a corporation, and this is also taking a hammering, particularly in the form of its share price, mainly due to the financial threats coming from the US government.


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I think it’s probably a good time to invest in BP shares (that is not financial advice!) because its value has halved recently and I don’t think the consequences will be as dire as they seem. The US government is having to be seen to put the boot in and make all sorts of threats to BP to assuage public anger, which can only make BP’s very difficult job of plugging the leak that much harder: they should be kicking them later, not now when they are down. And the US government also needs to take a big responsibility for the lax culture it has created around drilling permits. It’s all politics at the moment, and while there needs to be a big bill for BP to pay, once the thing is capped and the crisis recedes, I don’t think the US government will find it is in its interest to crush a major multinational company.

It is worth noting that BP’s Venus is square a Mars-Chiron conjunction in Sag. This conjunction suggests that its breaking of new frontiers in oil drilling has a narrow, damaging mentality behind it (Chiron) and is not always going to be good for the company’s finances (square to Venus); being a square, however, it can also be dynamic and productive, whether or not we agree with the mentalities of these big oil companies. BP's Venus is also square North Node in Cancer, a sign of the environment, of mother earth. This suggests that BP is more of a baddy than most when it comes to the environment, and that it perhaps has a role to play in our collective relationship to the environment.

The basics of BP's chart are Sun in Taurus (love of money) square Neptune in Aquarius (oil and technology); and Moon in Leo, which can suggest pride, in this case capitalist pride at being a big player.

BP has Saturn at 1.17 Gemini, which Neptune will square over the next few years. This suggests a dissolution and rebuilding of the way the company is structured. Tony Hayward, the CEO, has Sun at 0 Gemini, so I think he will be a casualty of the Neptune restructuring. It is interesting that he is a Gemini, because it is mistakes in his communication that he is being hammered for. He is, I think, right about the Gulf being a big place: the effects on the shoreline may not be as big as everyone fears. And as for wanting his life back, I think you could just as easily read that as Hayward implying that he really is doing a 120 hour week, and is therefore committed to it.

At the same time, I’m sure that we in the UK would be pretty pissed off if an American oil corporation had done the same thing to us in the North Sea. We would want to pile on the pressure in the same way, but we wouldn’t because we couldn’t afford to because America is more powerful than us.

The comment of Obama’s that I thought was most unfair was the suggestion that BP should pay the unemployment benefits of oil workers from other oil companies who are having to be laid off while a review of offshore drilling takes place. The review is needed as much because the American regulatory regime was corrupt as it is because BP cocked up. The whole issue is threatening to disrupt US-UK relations (you can tell that because it is being officially denied!), so I think Obama will soon be forced to stop deflecting his own political heat so much onto BP.

Astrozeitgeist Update

A wave of austerity measures is sweeping through Europe, to the discomfiture of its inhabitants. The discomfiture has been such that in profligate Greece there has been civil unrest, making it difficult for the government to make the necessary spending cuts: this has in turn threatened the stability of the Euro. With Europe being the world’s leading economic power (until China eventually supersedes it), this has in turn destabilised world markets.

These spending cuts are the domain of Saturn, the planet of responsibility and earthy reality. Since late April he has been virtually at a standstill, strengthening his presence and, as he has changed direction (which he did a week ago), forcing difficult decisions to be made.

Saturn is currently in thrifty, book-balancing Virgo, which he entered in the autumn of 2007, just before Pluto entered Capricorn in January 2008 and the long boom years started to dramatically unravel. Saturn will leave Virgo for the last time in July this year.

So his passage through Virgo has been textbook stuff: it began with warnings that the financial system was no longer stable, and concluded with the implementation of the spending cuts needed to balance the books.

In the UK, the government has not yet been specific about the cuts needing to be made. This is because the process was delayed by a General Election in May. But they are talking it up, preparing us for the cuts. They are, naturally, claiming that the mess is much worse than the previous government had said. David Cameron has also said that the cuts will affect ‘our whole way of life.’ As a sign, perhaps, of Saturn moving into fair-minded Libra, the Treasury plans to consult the public and various bodies such as the Trade Unions as to where the spending cuts should take place.

America, of course, is also an economic superpower, and since Monday world markets have been sent tumbling by bad job figures from the US. In the last month, only 20,000 new jobs were created, if you take out exceptionals, which is not what you’d expect from an economy that is emerging from recession.

The markets have tumbled because of fears of the long-heralded ‘double-dip’ recession. I don’t know whether there will or won’t be, but it kind of makes sense that since the governments borrowed so much a year ago to rescue the banks and avoid a Depression, which is much worse, sooner or later you have pay-back time, when governments have to cut their spending, and this threatens a further recession.

I’m not particularly anxious about a double-dip, because the chart for Pluto’s original entry into Capricorn is quite good.


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As you can see, Pluto was in a conjunction with the 2 Benefics, Venus and Jupiter, and trine to its dispositor, Saturn. So this is about an economy returning to a healthy balance after some Saturnian/Capricornian reality checks (which may include a double-dip recession) rather than a disastrous Depression. A Depression would be a swing to the opposite extreme from the mania of Pluto in Sag, and Pluto in Cap is not about that.

A planet entering a new sign suggests a new phase, a new beginning for the energy that planet represents, shaped by the sign it is entering. On 20th April Chiron entered Pisces; on 27 May Uranus entered Aries; on the 6th June Jupiter entered Aries; on 7th June Mars entered Virgo after 8 months in Leo (it usually spends 2 months or less in a sign); and on 21 July Saturn will enter Libra.

If we are talking about the planets from the Sun through to Venus, then they are changing sign all the time. But beyond those planets, to have so many changing sign in such a short period is highly unusual. It means the world is changing, that a lot of new things are starting to happen all at once.

Beginnings can be hard to see, but what is happening may become clearer as we move towards late July when 4 of those planets join Pluto in a Cardinal t-square, that will be very tight between Mars, Uranus and Saturn (about 1/2 a degree). This configuration is incredibly dynamic, acting as a trigger point for the underlying tectonic shifts that Saturn opposite Uranus (which is nearing its end) and Uranus square Pluto (just beginning) are bringing about. It is rather like an earthquake that has been building for a long time. Explosive military situations are technically very possible, but the Libra emphasis suggests diplomatic solutions, which reflects the instincts of the current leader of the world’s military superpower, the USA.


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What we have now, as I have said before, is crisis. Will there be a double-dip recession? Will the Euro survive? Will the Deepwater Oil Well be capped? The main crisis, however, is economic, so I expect the July t-square to involve economics more than anything else. And, as usual, I expect the main events surrounding this t-square to occur in the run-up to it, probably late June/early July.

There will be a relative suddenness to events. A second dip to the recession, that takes some years to emerge from, seems to me the likely outcome. A recession that will create a world economy based, for now, more on material needs and necessity than the overblown consumerism and borrowing and financial engineering of the Pluto in Sagittarius era. A recession that will inevitably also see power move towards India and China.

I don’t see this as inconsistent with my optimism around the chart for Pluto’s entry into Capricorn, because I don’t necessarily see recession as a bad thing. In the West, there is still enough food and shelter and clothing etc to go around – the difficulties in this respect are political rather than economic, and a boom won’t solve that – so what is the problem? A recession collectively gives us a time to reflect, to consider what sort of economy we want, what our values are, and I welcome that.

It’s never too late to become a Virgin…

I'm away for a few days, so here's a post from 2 years ago:

The US has a Federally funded programme which encourages young people to remain celibate until marriage. The programme is known as Silver Ring Thing, because the teenagers involved wear a silver ring (on their finger) as a sign of their commitment to celibacy.

According to BBC news, the US government is considering cutting the funding, following a report that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. And with some 750,000 teenage pregnancies a year, America has one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world.

"This national programme which has wasted $1.5bn (£750m) of tax money is a failure and our teens are paying the price," says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood "We've been wasting money on programmes that don't work and we're seeing the consequences every single day."

“State governments receive federal money they must match to fund abstinence programmes. At least 17 states have opted out of the system and others have suspended funding while Congress investigates whether such programmes work.

Critics say there is no evidence that they delay sexual activity and teenagers who have taken a vow of virginity are less likely to use protection if they break their promise.”

Such teenagers do not get taught about contraception. As 15 year-old Mildred from Arizona says: "We get sex-ed classes in school and that should be where teens get the right information - but that isn't happening."

The argument in favour of abstinence is put by a Texan lawyer, who describes himself as a member of the religious right:

"I am convinced that abstinence is the only way for kids," he says. "You begin by teaching the consequences of bad behaviour and the benefits of proper behaviour and you do that in a way that a child can grasp. "Self control leads to a happy, joyful life. If we can learn to control the most basic of drives - the sex drive - for good, then we can control drugs, gangs, alcohol and abusive anger."

If you’ve already had sex, it’s not too late: Teenagers who do have sex before marriage are given another chance by becoming ‘secondary virgins’. "Of course, if you view virginity as number one, and you've slept with someone, of course it's going to be different and you can never go back - but that doesn't mean there's no tomorrow," explains Ashley, who also says she believes teenagers who experiment with sex are laying the foundations for troubled relationships later in life. "A lot of the young people I know who go around having experiences with lots of different people are just preparing themselves for not knowing how to be committed to somebody. Once you get into the practice of doing whatever you want, it's hard to change when you're older."

16 year-old Josh has this to say: "I have a lot of close friends and we pretty much agree on the same thing so we keep each other in line most of the time.”

There’s plenty of room for comedy in all this. Exactly how do Josh and his friends keep each other in line? Do they spray each other with hosepipes? And how exactly do you control the sex drive ‘for good’? Do you have a special box with a pink ribbon on it called ‘Sex Drive’ that you keep in the attic? And where does celibacy end and sex start? When you hold hands? Or is it more akin to Bill Clinton’s definition of sexual relations? And then there are the secondary – i.e. 2nd class – virgins. Do they have to stand in the corner? Are they infectious?

The Silver Ring Thing began in 1996, but it gained Federal funding in 2003 under one of George Bush’s faith-based initiatives. As a Brit, it’s gobsmacking that this sort of stuff could be taken seriously enough to be funded by a government. It’s understandable that a country might have small religious cults that think like this, but not mainstream society. OK, you have Catholic countries which are in theory like this, but they don’t seem to take it seriously. They just go to the confessional and everything is all right again.

Astrologically, I’d see it as Mars (sex drive) square to Neptune (loss and confusion) in the US chart. Mars in Gemini also suggests hypocrisy (like Eliot Spitzer, with his unaspected Sun in Gemini), as well as there being another side to the issue, which is the glamorization of sex that you get in advertising, the film industry and the media generally.

It is interesting that the Silver Ring Thing got Federal funding in 2003, at a time when Pluto was starting to oppose the US natal Mars at 21 Gemini, and squaring natal Neptune at 22 Virgo. It was an attempt at sexual (Mars) repression (Pluto).

So is there an answer? What would you say to a client who turned up with this aspect, who was by turns priggish and licentious? And liked to play cowboys (Mars-Neptune again) at weekends? I’m not sure what I’d say. But I might start with the Sun square Saturn that you get in the US chart, because this is the major character challenge. It makes for someone – or a country – who is very driven and achievement-oriented, but who over-identifies with this and can never get enough and is not at ease with himself, does not feel a solid confident foundation within himself.

A lot of stuff can come out in the sexual arena when we are imbalanced elsewhere. Sexual excess and compulsiveness can be a compensation for the lack of ease and pleasure in the rest of your life, which Sun square Saturn can easily lead to. Sexual repression can be an expression of guilt about bodily pleasure (and the US has no personal planets in earth) and self-loathing: the over-achievement of Sun square Saturn can be a sort of compensation for this self-loathing.

So this is what I might say: as long as you keep driving yourself like this, as long as you have to keep proving you are number one (negative Saturn is very hierarchical), sex is going to remain a tangled and compulsive issue for you. If you can stop and face yourself, and stop running from the imaginary abyss beneath your feet, then your Mars will have a chance to be a bit more normal. Or as normal as Mars in Gemini square Neptune can ever be! If you want normal, try Mars in Capricorn, which is an expert at the missionary position and doing its bedroom duty. Mars in Gemini is more interesting and experimental and – square Neptune – imaginative.

But what about George Bush Himself, who was ultimately responsible for funding the Silver Ring Thing under his ‘faith-based initiatives’ scheme? I never think of GWB as having a sexual dimension, and I sometimes wonder where it is. I can say for sure that he has had sex at least twice in his life, because he has 2 daughters. Do George and Laura pray together for forgiveness afterwards? Do women have orgasms in his world?

What I feel with GWB is that he views sex as something to be controlled, and has channelled much of his own urge into the pursuit of power. This is complete speculation on my part. His ancestor Richard Bush was a member of the Plymouth Colony 300 years ago, and GWB seems to me to be a throwback to those times.

He has unaspected Mars in Virgo. So it may be quite easy for him to shovel his sex drive off to one side, for it is not well integrated with the rest of his personality. Virgo can have integrity, but can also be moralising, prudish and hypocritical. Virgo is the virgin, but is also associated with ‘oriental moon ecstasies’ (Frances Yates, Astrea, p32). Where does George Bush get his ecstasy? Probably in that more war-like manifestation of his Mars, whether it was blowing-up frogs as a kid, sending record numbers to the execution chamber while Governor of Texas, or creating carnage in his war against Islam.

NB Since publication it has been pointed out that Bush's daughters are twins, so we can only be sure that him and Laura have had sex once. Also, he had a reputation when he was in the Texan National Gurad for his taste in coke and hookers. There's the other side of prudish Mars in Virgo. Classic!

Sun in Leo, Uranus conjunct Jupiter in Cancer?

Any suggestions as to Sheyla's astrology?



Worlds Biggest Breast Implant Declared!

SHEYLA Hershey’s massive 38KKK breasts have been declared the world’s biggest breast surgery.

The 28-year-old American housewife and model has undergone nine ops to get her amazing figure. And even though medics have warned that her breasts are in danger of exploding, she does not seem to care. Sheyla, from Houston, Texas, said: “To me, big is beautiful. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”

She had to go to Brazil for her last op after US doctors refused to carry out any more surgery on her. Now Sheyla is in the record books for having the largest breast implants ever. Her British ex-boyfriend started paying for her plastic surgery, but she left him after he begged her to stop.

She said: “I loved him very much but I had to leave him to follow my dream.”