Saturn in the Birthchart

My first audio blog had a mixed reception: some liked it, some didn't have the time to listen to it. Well, I guess you can always download it and listen to it on your mp3 player while you're driving!

I used to communicate this way quite a lot 12 years ago in my Buddhist days: I'd just stand up and start talking and out it would all come. Someone interviewed me for a magazine at Glastonbury Festival last week, and I thought hey I can do this, I want to do more of it.

For the record, here is what the guy at the festival wrote about me. I think I was interviewed as some sort of contrast! Starting with a healer called Mark he writes: "... he gave up his job and now dedicates his life to bridging this world and the angelic dimension, working with, among others, the archangels Gabriel, Raphael, Valentine and Michael. Holding his hands above and below mine, he says nothing, looks steadily into my eyes and eventually tells me the pain has gone. It doesn't feel like it, but apparently the benefits can take a day or two to manifest themselves.

Dharmaruci is a shamanic healer, tarot reader and astrologer. With a halo of greying hair and an unusual physical charisma, it's no surprise that, during shamanic healing, he shape-shifts into "something like a bear". "I don't know what shamanic healing is," he admits with a lusty laugh. "I guess it's putting back the bits of people that are misssing, or removing the bits that shouldn't be there. The problem is that it does take a lot out of me physically. Afterwards I need a good steak and some red wine."


Anyway, here is today's offering on Saturn.

Instructional Video

For those who aren't English, the humour is at the expense of the men (permissible) rather than the women:

Michael Jackson

I've spent the afternoon trying to work out how to do an audio blog. I half succeeded: if you follow the link below, you'll hearing me talking for 20 minutes, but you'll be on a different webpage and won't have the chart in front of you. But I think you can click back and keep the sound!


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So here is the link!

The Power of Perspective

Here's one for the Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron conjunction that's been forwarded to me from the Daily Om.

The Power of Perspective
Hawk Medicine

Hawks have the power to soar high above the earth, giving them a perspective previously only available to the inhabitants of the heavens above. Because of this, people from various cultures throughout history have seen them as messengers of spirit, bringing wisdom from the heavens and the value of their higher vision down to earth. From their vantage point, riding on the wind and sunlight, they remind us today that there is a bigger picture to be seen. When we get bogged down with the details of what is right in front of us, hawks help us remember that we are part of a larger plan and that everything fits together beautifully and perfectly. Once in this expanded frame of mind, we can harness their reputation as visionaries, using their keen eyesight to focus on the exact spot that truly needs our attention. With inspiration and focus on our goal, hawks teach us how to interpret and then follow our personal vision.

Hawks were thought to be able to look directly into the sun and see what is not visible to the rest of us. Using our spiritual vision, we too can look deeply into the inner light that guides us, seeing clearly what is not visible unless sought: our personal truth glowing within us. With that knowledge, we, like the hawk, can confidently ride the winds of chance, moving as one with the flow of whirling energy. This ability is what inspired the Egyptians to make hawks the hieroglyphic symbol for the wind.

The hawk’s ability to live on land but visit the sky is a good reminder for us all. They remind us that their strength and survival comes from communing regularly with the spirit and bringing the guidance received into earthly affairs. Soaring in the province of the heavenly bodies of the sun, the stars, and the wind that moves the clouds reminds us to consider a larger perspective, one that inspires us to move through the world we inhabit with strength, certainty, and grace.

Liz Greene on Barack Obama (sort of...)

At astro.com you can buy a computer generated horoscope reading, text written by Liz Greene. Somebody has obviously bought one for Barack Obama, because I found a Liz Greene computer reading for Obama on another site. Here is a section of it, which I take to be describing on the one hand Obama's Sun in Leo, Aquarius Asc and Moon in Gemini, against the fact that his Moon in twin-sided Gemini is square to Pluto.

The gifts of objectivity and civilised behaviour

You possess the gift of a clear, strong and objective mind, and you are a lover of truth and integrity in all your dealings. You will always favour reason over chaos, and principles over personal reactions. But there is considerable conflict within you - a dilemma between your rational, detached spirit and your intense and sometimes overpowering feeling.


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Another way of describing your nature might be to say that you tend to live in your head - because it seems safer, more civilised, and more "decent" - yet your heart often contradicts what your mind tells you you "ought" to feel, leaving you confused and vaguely guilty about "bad" or "selfish" reactions. Although you may not be an intellectual in the conventional sense of the word, you are naturally quick and articulate, and possess an impressive capacity to assess, weigh and analyse diverse facts and ideas objectively and fairly. This has probably earned you the reputation of being broad-minded, reflective, ethical and considerate of others’ points of view. You are also an excellent planner and can transform chaos into order with the penetrating power of your mind. What you do not wish others to know about you, and what you often try to hide from yourself, is that your real feelings give you a completely different and much more subjective picture of life and of others -and these neglected feelings are often more genuinely perceptive than your usually reliable mind.

Astrodatabank is free

I only found this out recently, but as of 12 March 2009 Lois Rodden’s astrodatabank has been free to use. There are about 31,000 charts available there, mainly of public figures, but also mundane data. Since Lois Rodden died in 2003, her site had gradually declined, but this move has brought it back to life. It’s a wonderful resource. You can find it at http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Main_Page. Thank you astro.com and whoever else made this happen!


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The chart for the scheduled release of this data shows the goodwill and desire to be of help behind it. Sun in Pisces, Moon Rising in Libra: the authorities behind it (Sun) are thinking altruistically (Pisces) about astrologers (Sun conjunct Uranus) to whom they are releasing this body of analytical work (Sun opposite Saturn in Virgo). The people - i.e. us astrologers - are represented by the Moon, and our centrality is shown by the Moon being conjunct the Ascendant. The sign of Libra represents the cultural endeavour we are engaged in, as well as the generosity and fairness in making this resource available. Venus on the Descendant, opposite the Moon, gives a similar message.

The North Node in Aquarius, widely conjunct Jupiter, shows how this project has moved from being the creative work of one person (South Node in Leo) to an expansive community project (it is now a wiki).

It's a great project, and I hope the Pluto transits in a few years time to the Moon and Angles prove empowering rather than anything else.

Wounding and the Will to Live

I'm away at Glastonbury Festival at present (look for an astrologer in a yurt in the Healing Field and you will find me!), so I've set up a few pieces to be published while I'm away. Below is an extract from an article on Chiron by Liz Greene:

The will to live is a great mystery. Every medical practitioner, with any experience of life-threatening illness, knows that the will to live can affect physical as well as psychological well-being, and survival often depends upon the sick person's desire for life, rather than on the doctor's ministrations. Nor is the will to live necessarily what we claim we feel. We may cry out that we want life; but somewhere inside, we want to go home, and this longing for oblivion may be more powerful than any conscious declaration of intent to "get better". Some people react to conflict, pain and disappointment with a creative response that transforms their perspective and even their circumstances. Other people become bitter and hopeless and live in a grey twilight world, or entirely lose their will to live.

There are not only active suicides amongst those who have inwardly given up, but also those self-architected "accidental" deaths which, although unconscious, are nevertheless fuelled by a powerful yearning to bring an end to suffering and unhappiness. Self-destructive behaviour does not always involve the obvious gesture of the bottle of pills or the knife slash to the wrist.

There is no easy formula to determine why some individuals rise to life's challenges, despite severe misfortunes and handicaps, while others turn their backs on the future, even if fortune favours them. Moreover, loss of the will to live may not always result in self-destruction. It may be expressed as the urge to destroy others, as though, on some deep and inaccessible level, the projection of hopelessness and victimisation onto another gives the suffering individual the illusion that he or she is strong and in control of life. Thus the individual who has, secretly, lost the will to live may, in extremis, try to deprive others of joy -and perhaps even of life - by finding a scapegoat who can be burdened with all the despair that is felt within.

This mystery may have its origin, as so many mysteries do, in the enigma of inherent individual character, and the birth chart can provide us with many insights into the patterns which underpin that character. With any polarity in life, we, as astrologers, always need to look at a polarity of planets; and the polarity of hope versus despair, the will to live versus hopelessness, may be illuminated - at least in part - through the symbolism of the polarity of the Sun and Chiron.

I do not believe we can really understand either of these planets without considering the meaning of the other one. Although they are not in actual aspect in every individual's chart, nevertheless they are both present in every chart, and they form an energy dynamic within the personality. A direct aspect sharpens this dynamic and often becomes the focus of the individual's journey, but the polarity exists in each of us regardless. All the planets, up to and including Saturn, serve the development of the individual ego, best symbolised by the Sun itself; in fact, we might even say that the personal planets "serve" the Sun as the centre of individuality. But Chiron lies at the interface between Saturn and the outer planets, and therefore mediates collective issues which impinge on and wound the individual. By its nature, Chiron's collective implications signify something collectively "unhealable", because the wound exists in the collective and is ancestral. By its nature, the Sun reflects each individual's sense of purpose and meaning in life, and these are intimately bound up with the will to live and to become oneself. Each of these planets needs the other; but if the balance tips too far to one or the other, certain psychological difficulties may ensue.
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Life Creates the Universe, not the Other Way Round

Lynn has put up a piece on “biocentrism, a belief that life creates the Universe… An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.” (more…)

It’s good to be reminded of this. In western philosophy, this position is known as Idealism, “the theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas. It holds that the so-called external or "real world" is inseparable from mind, consciousness, or perception.” Kant was an idealist, while Buddhism maintains that the universe is Mind created.

Idealism is contrasted in the philosophy of perception with Realism “in which the external world is said to have a so-called absolute existence prior to, and independent of, knowledge and consciousness.” And in the philosophy of mind it is contrasted with Materialism “in which the ultimate nature of reality is based on physical substances.”

All this can sound fascinating but ultimately still just an idea. That Idealism is not just another philosophical position, Buddhist or otherwise, was imprinted on me quite forcibly about 25 years ago when I read Oliver Sacks’ The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.

Sacks is a neuropsychologist, and his book tells the strange tales of some of his patients, all of whom who had various brain dysfunctions. There was, for example, the man who could tell you what something was in general - e.g. that it is a playing card – but not what is was in particular - e.g. that it is the Jack of Hearts. And there was another patient who had the opposite brain damage, so that he could tell you it was the Jack of Hearts, but not that it was a playing card.

Then there was the person who had lost his sense of ‘left’, and could only experience the right-hand half of anything. So he would eat a meal with his right hand, and would eat only what was on the right half of his plate, and then pull his plate round to the right and eat the right half of what was now there, and so on. These patients did not necessarily have a sense that anything that was amiss, even though they had not always been like that, because the part of the brain itself concerned with that function had been wiped out.

As bizarre example piles on bizarre example (including, of course, the man who mistook his wife for a hat), the reader realises in what a profound and basic way his/her external reality is created by the brain. You realise that Idealism is not just a philosophical position, and that the function of the brain is not to order and make sense of a 3-D reality ‘out there’: that 3-D reality itself is created by the brain. It’s quite shocking when it sinks in.

And this brings me back to the start, the idea that “Life creates the Universe”. I find this idea so refreshing. Our basic western conditioning is that the material universe created life, and that is all we are. This deadening materialism is something we all have to struggle against if we have any spark of imagination. So it’s great to see it turned on its head, and see that science itself, pursued far enough, subverts the philosophical materialism that it has done so much to bring about.

It is hard to know what the outcome of the present mass protests in Iran against the rigged election will be. Khameini, the Supreme leader, is starting to clamp down on them, but they don’t look like they are going to go away. More bloodshed seems almost inevitable. There has been nothing like this in Iran since the popular revolution in 1979.

In the usual chart for Iran, that for the establishment of the state in April 1979, we see a Uranus-Mars transit. These transits bring about unrest and protest, but they come and they go. Things can revert to how they were afterwards.

The crucial chart right now is that for the revolution in Feb 1979, because it was about what the people wanted . This chart expresses the desire of the people at that time (Moon Rising in Aries) for a return to traditional government (MC at 2.47 Capricorn).


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Pluto is conjoining Iran’s revolutionary MC all this year and, crucially, the transit will conclude in Sept next year when Pluto stations at exactly 2.47 Capricorn, which is extraordinary.

The Pluto transit shows that things are not going to go back to what they were. The popular feeling may for now be suppressed by force. But there is a process of deep change going on, and in the last analysis, the leadership will be powerless in the face of a determined collective. The Pluto transit shows that the more the government stamps on the protest, the more powerful the protest will eventually become. This issue, in one form or another, is going to dominate Iran until at least the autumn of next year.

Here's a photo of Uma Thurman's Dad, Robert Thurman, who is a professor of Buddhist Studies in the USA. And here is him talking on Youtube about the shortcomings of blind faith.

Uma is named after Dbuma Chenpo, meaning Great Middle Way. You wouldn't have thought it, would you? Uma also stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access. That's more like it.

Robert Thurman is a pioneering, individual Leo, who with Moon in Capricorn has a need for tradition. It is an interesting combination to try to bring together. In his podcast, you could say it is the Capricorn that has allegiance to the Buddhist tradition, and the Leo that is going to make damn sure there is room within that for individual intelligence.