I've been continuing to make 10 minute video blogs on astrology. I suggest you subscribe (for free) on youtube, and you will be notified when I publish a new one. For now, I'll just keep this blog for my written pieces.
THE AI APOCALYPSE: WHERE ARE WE NOW?
ChatGPT was launched on 30 Nov 22, as Pluto first entered Aquarius. Bard was launched on a New Moon in Aries, 21 March 23. Gemini, the re-naming of Google's Bard, was launched on 6 Dec 23. So there we have a bunch of astrological signatures for the LLM (Large Language Model) phenomenon.
There are 2 that I want to highlight:
(1) Pluto entering Aquarius. People were both stunned and spooked. These bots gave instant coherent essays in response to questions. But they were eerily human; they were a step in the direction of the Holy Grail of AI, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The robot-takeover archetype was instantly constellated after years of sci-fi films on this theme. Remember Hal? Calls to legislate were widespread, there were hearings in government, and the apocalypse - never far away in one form or another - was widely predicted.
(2) ChatGPT and Gemini were both launched under Sun in Sagittarius. And Google re-named its LLM after a Zodiac sign: we have to pay attention to that, just as we do when astronomers name a planet after a Greek - or Inuit - deity. What we have is the Gemini-Sagittarius axis: on the one hand, information, and on the other, truth and meaning.
Elon Musk, in promoting his own LLM Grok, said that if ChatGPT or Gemini had been around 450 years ago, when Galileo was presenting evidence that the Earth went around the Sun, these LLMs would have said that the Sun went around the Earth. This is because they do not give truth (Sagittarius). They give the conventional opinion (Gemini). Musk's aspiration for Grok is that it should present truth. He has said: "the danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly".
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| GALILEO |
Whatever you think of Musk, he has highlighted the Gemini-Sagittarius axis of LLMs. The challenge is to present truth, not conventional opinon, which is also often politicised - as it was in the time of Galileo, and as it is now around so many subjects, such as climate and gender.
As for the AI apocalypse, that has faded from the news. As has the climate apocalypse: COP28 barely made the front page. Maybe this reflects the shift from Pluto in Capricorn to Aquarius. Pluto is how we survive. Capricorn is cautious. Aquarius is more daring, and has faith in human inventiveness.
THE SEVENTH HOUSE
The function of the 7th House is to show us the parts of the psyche that need claiming, that we tend to unconsciously project onto others. The purpose of a transit to the Descendant is fundamentally that of integration. If a significant relationship begins or ends at this time, it is a mirror for the inner work.
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| NARCISSUS |
CARPE VITAM NOVAM
Major transits from Pluto or Neptune can thoroughly discombobulate us. They can take away people, careers, homes, health, our very sense of who we are. But they also clear the ground for a new self to emerge, the next stage in that mysterious tapestry that is our life, the pattern of which was laid out at birth, and which a good astrologer can divine from the chart.
You may be floundering, but destiny is also calling. There will be certain points during this night-sea journey when it is time for you to make decisions about who it is you are going to be, and what it is you are going to do. You may not think it is possible, that you've always been a certain kind of person, and who you would like to be is too much of a leap, too much of an ideal. But no. The new life is somewhere in the destruction, in the shambles of the old: the way has been cleared for the new life whose time has come.
It is that new life in which you need to have faith. It gives you the power to make the decision about who you are going to be. Seize it, do it, become it, it is what you are here to do.
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Pluto abducts, dismembers and renews; Neptune maddens, drowns and re-ensouls.
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ASTROLOGY and THE MEANING OF LIFE
What are we here to do? To achieve something? Or to live in balance? A linear model sees life as a progress from higher to ever higher peaks. That, perhaps, is how Aries sees the world. It is new-born, it is naive, and it is fresh. By the time we get round to world-weary Pisces, we are holding our head in our hands, declaring, "All is vanity."
It is Pisces that has the wisdom. Aries energy is vital, or nothing new would ever come into being. But it is Pisces that provides the context. Pisces that knows that life is not a series of glorious achievements, but a circling round the mess that we always were. And being at peace with that. Pisces at its best is looking up at the stars, but from its home in the gutter.
We live among collective pressures to do this, to think that, to dress like this. And who are we amidst all that? For example, the pressures to think in particular ways around gender, climate and race are very strong at the moment, and who can resist that? The way to resist it is by looking at your Mercury, which shows how you think. And find the balance point, which is the opposite sign. Pairs of signs are complete in themselves, they are axes of wholeness.
If you have Mercury in Cancer, you will tend to think in ways that promote your sense of belonging. Which is constructive up to a point. But you can see where you can be compromised: think like this, or you will not belong. The balancing point is Capricorn, whose priority is not belonging but responsibility for the community. He does not let personal needs cloud his judgement. He sets practical boundaries. "Of course there is such a thing as a woman," he will say, "and of course we need to weigh all the climate evidence and not push it all into one narrative."
The chart teaches us that life is a process of continually finding balance, with all the planets. Life is not about going anywhere or achieving anything. On our deathbeds, it is who we are that matters, and this connects us to other people. At your funeral, the eulogy won't be about the car you had or the big house you owned. It will be personal.
Astrology has its roots thousands of years back when we were indigenous. When we knew we belonged to the earth and to the universe, and life was a matter of living in balance with that. Life is a series of cycles, and astrology understands this. By perceiving our individual destiny in the sky, it also understands that we are each intimately connected to the universe.
In this way, astrology brings us back to our indigenous souls. And it holds a defiant two fingers to modern rationality. There is nothing that is rational about astrology at its heart, and yet it speaks so deeply to us.
So you can put down your burden of achievement, and put down your burden of being a 'good' person. As the poet Mary Oliver says:
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees 100 miles across the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
That is the indigenous soul for you. "Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
The Native Americans describe this need to find balance using the system of the Medicine Wheel, in which you balance the same 4 elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water that you find in astrology. Balance is a universal.
There IS demand on us. But it comes from within. Life is not about bearing your cross, as Christianity would have it. Yes, we need to learn to bear life's difficulties, and that changes us. But that is within a bigger context of rising to the callings within. We are not here primarily to suffer. We are here to unfold the tapestry that was written in the sky at the moment of our birth. The push to unfold that can be very strong, and it can make us ill if we try to ignore it.
I can feel that the main purpose of an astrology reading is to help people own what it is they love, and run with it, despite their inevitable self-doubts.
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I wrote the piece below a couple of days before the Princess of Wales revealed her cancer diagnosis. The post was on Facebook (the Divinatory astrology group, which I admin) and I thought maybe I should take it down. Some people thought I should, others didn't. So I left it up. But we all wish her well. And I feel the point I make here needs making. NB There are different charts, an hour apart, for her. But the difference is not huge.
WILLIAM AND KATE'S MARRIAGE
The rumours you see on the front of the Celeb mags about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales have substance. Uranus is currently conjoining his Venus, while Neptune squares his Descendant.
Meanwhile Pluto is entering the sign of her Venus/Descendant at 7/9 Aquarius. Expect this to take a few years to work its way out. Neptune is due to square William's New Moon in Cancer in the coming 4 years, as Pluto becomes exact in Kate's chart, and we may see both his accession to the throne and the end of his marriage in that period.
William's chart, unlike Kate's, seems quite soulful to me, with his Neptune Rising and Cancerian nature. Who is William already drawn to that addresses that need? Kate's chart is harder - Sun in Capricorn, and Saturn hard-aspecting her Sun, Moon and MC. It doesn't get more ambitious than that. (This is not a criticism, just a description.) She would never sacrifice her position to desire. William, on the other hand, does not have that to lose.
They were both very young when they got together. This may be a natural mid-life process as their different natures gradually reveal themselves. But it will be a field-day for the public.
HEALTH CHECKS and THE OUTER PLANETS
King Charles and Princess Kate both have Leo Rising, meaning (as in most cases) that Pluto is currently changing signs in their 6th House of Health. Cancer was caught at an early stage in each case, because Pluto was only just starting. So it might be worth getting a check-up if you have this happening in your 6th. Same in 2025 if you have Libra Rising: chances are that Neptune will be changing signs in your 6th. Or Sagittarius Rising: Uranus will be changing signs in your 6th. It could also mean a rejuvenation in your health! Or it might have nothing to do with your health😼
FROM CAPRICORN TO AQUARIUS
I've spoken to 3 musicians in recent weeks - 2 singers and one violinist - all of whom felt they needed to start going beyond the rules and 'improvising': that can feel superficial compared to the depth and solidity of tradition, but it's actually where the real depth lies, because it's coming from you. It's the transition from Capricorn to Aquarius. It applies to anything, astrology included. Learn the rules, live them, then wing it. That's what I've been doing for years. People feel it, it feels authentic to them, it has a special something, and that is because it's coming from you.
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| MILES DAVIS |
It is a major and crucial transition, that we may only do gradually, and it can happen at any age. There is usually an intiatory fire of self-doubt to go through. You just have to do it anyway. Confidence and ease has to be earned. That is Saturn speaking, from his rulership of both Capricorn and Aquarius.
There is usually a major transit associated with it, because you are claiming something new in yourself, that is more uniquely your own than anything you have lived before. But it needs to be recognised and claimed. You may need to be brought to a point of desperation before you will do it, because nothing else works anymore. You are being initiated into a new level of your being. But when you throw caution to the winds and stop worrying how it will look to other people, there is joy to be found, there is your soul to own. This is the gift of Aquarius' co-ruler, Uranus the outsider.
