RECENT DEBRIS

 SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS

When you're an astrologer, you get your stories from Mount Olympus. They are different to the stories that collective humanity tells itself. We need to be able to stand apart from these stories, all of them, especially the ones that come with the authority of our modern state religion: science. Political parties and their stories too, that division into good guys and bad guys that so many mistake for reality. Otherwise we won't be able to listen to these ancient guys who, for whatever reason, have chosen us as messengers.

We are in the world but not of the world. It's a big ask, and I'm sure the gods don't expect us to be perfect. And I'm sure sometimes they roll their eyes at the way we treat modern stories as reality. I say this especially around the sense of crisis that seems perennial to humanity. Our job is to stand outside of all that, it is largely illusion, and it is not how the gods live.

 

PRESIDENT RAMASWAMY?

 

 

Donald Trump doesn't have the empowering transits to win another election. He will have Uranus on his Mars and Angles next year, which makes his trajectory highly unpredictable and unstable. Vivek Ramaswamy, on the other hand, is at the start of a long series of empowering transits: Pluto squaring his Pluto-MC, then Neptune squaring his Venus and Asc, carrying him through 2 terms as President. He was reportedly the clear winner at the recent debate between Republican candidates.

 

 

 

 

THE SUN, THE ASCENDANT and THE ANGLES

The Ascendant is the point on the horizon where the Sun rises and brings new light. The Ascendant is therefore intimately connected with the Sun. It is the doorway through which we find alignment with our deepest self, with who we always were: the Sun, which is both universal, yet unique to us. As an Aquarian, I find my Sun through the service and inner joy of my Virgo Asc. 

 

 

Not only that, but the other 3 Angles - Home, Relationship and Vocation (IC, Desc, MC) - naturally unfold when the ASC is balanced, when it is listening to the Sun. In other words, we incarnate, our spirit makes the often difficult journey into matter, which is what we are here to keep doing.

 

 

BLOWING MY OWN TRUMPET

"I couldn’t put this book down! Astrology has always been a bit of a mystery to me but in the reading of the book I want to learn about astrology now! Thought provoking and intense, yet explains astrology in a way that makes you want more! Barry tells it how it is, pulls no punches yet is gentle in its teaching. You can’t help but know more at the end of the book yet long for even more!"

 

One of the many 5 star reviews of my astrology book on Amazon. And here's the deal: you buy it and leave a genuine rating on Amazon, and I will give you a free astrology reading!

 

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The astrological chart is your Fate, a Gift from the Moirai. It cannot be changed: it is writ. The chart tells you who you are, and the trajectory

of your life. It has a pulse, it lives and breathes.

 

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I don't always pay attention to transits to outer planets, as their sign is generational. But the House is personal. Saturn is backing into an opposition with my 12th House Pluto, and I am having significant dreams. One was particularly about power: a nurse was trying to anaesthetise me to perform an unnecessary operation on my big toe (a symbol of the masculine). But I couldn't be anaesthetised. The Wolf in me, who has loomed large lately, is here for good.

 

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Conventional reality is the matrix. It always has been. It is a shifting set of stories that the collective needs for psychological stability. Neptune can be the blue pill that subsumes us in the collective stories. Or he can be the red pill that wakes us from the dream. Which one you take is an ongoing choice. All strongly held collective beliefs are blue pill territory.

 

 

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Very few people know how to think. What passes for thought is usually just the finding of arguments to support what it is they prefer to believe. Political astrologers beware!

 

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Jupiter, Chiron, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto will all be retrograde until early October. We have an exceptional period of inner alchemy upon us. Pay attention to dreams and the sense of new patterns being laid down within.

 

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Astrology is founded on cycles. It is not going anywhere. It simply advises us on how to live well, in accordance with the planetary gods. This is the ancient, indigenous perspective. It relieves us of the modern pressure to be going somewhere: the Protestant Work Ethic, our imbalanced Saturn.

 

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For the astrology chart to speak through us, we need a felt relationship with the 4 elements: Sun, Rain, Soil and Wind, which are more fundamental than the zodiac signs. We need in this sense to be indigenous, as the first astrologers were. It's something you can do in your back garden.

 

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CHIRON'S 'WOUND' 

 

Chiron is the bridge to the outer planets. The area of life he highlights will often not work in a normal way: it may as a result appear 'wounded'. There is calling, vocation to be lived in order for that area to function well. In this sense Chiron is 'the crack where the light gets in'. He is the crack in conventional reality through which pour the creativity, imagination and renewal of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto respectively.

 

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Mercury is the messenger of the gods. Until 15th Sept he will be off on one of his thrice yearly consultations with them. If you think through carefully (Virgo) anything you want to begin, you might be able to overhear what is being said, and get it right. Otherwise, Mercury is liable to turn up in his trickster form. Which for him is great fun.

 

 

THE DARK GODDESS SEDNA

 

 

Sedna, Inuit goddess of the ocean underworld. Discovered in Taurus in 2003. The outermost (dwarf) planet. Glaciers calve (Taurus) icebergs, 90% of which are below the surface in the ocean underworld. Does Sedna rule glaciers and icebergs?

In 2024 she moves into Gemini. In the Inuit myth, she had her fingers chopped off by her father. The fingers became seals. Fingers are Gemini. She is an ambivalent figure. In one version, her father threw her out to sea because she attacked her parents. She is both the power of woman and the shadow of that power. Like Gemini, the light and the dark twins. She is the Underworld, which is beyond light and dark, good and evil, it just is.

There is so much in this coming astrology. Astrology is the translation of mythology into human affairs. The astrologer has the gift of glimpsing the shapes behind the veil, the larger designs, while honouring the context of mystery, of unknowability. Sedna had her fingers cut off by her father. What a powerful story. It makes me think of the horrors of transgender surgery on teenagers. And the need for the masculine to listen to the feminine, in her dark as well as light aspects. It speaks to me of both sexes allowing the other to be dark as well as light, and not lashing out, as Sedna's father did.

Sedna in Taurus (since 1965) has been a time of huge economic growth (Taurus), in which billions of people have come out of poverty. But which has had consequences for the natural world, also Taurus. Gemini, as an air sign, gives the ability to reflect on that. At present, we are very polarised about it, with many people only seeing the bad. We can't collectively move forward with wisdom unless we can take both sides into account. Gemini has that potential.

 

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Transgender surgery on teenagers is a Pluto in Aquarius theme: using science to do something inhuman, in the name of helping people.

 

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Astrology is the translation of mythology into human affairs. The astrologer has the gift of glimpsing the shapes behind the veil, the larger designs, while honouring the context of mystery, of unknowability.

 

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Jordan Peterson's Mars, on the face of it, doesn't look promising at all: in its fall in Taurus, hidden away in the 12th, opposite Neptune and square to Saturn. Yet he is one of the most combative people you'll find. He never makes it personal, except when it comes to certain public individuals who he finds reprehensible. He fights the battle of ideas consistently and practically (fixed earth) on behalf of the collective (12th and opposite Neptune) with tremendous focus and control (square to Saturn). His ideas have power for many people (trine to Pluto). 

 

So you never know. It demonstrates to me that there is no such thing as good or bad placements. What the chart does show is how to use the placements. What it doesn't show is the moral character of the individual and the choices they will make. That is why you never know. The chart, if you like, shows the type of car we are driving, but not the driver, who remains a complete mystery. Which doesn't mean we won't have intuitions about them that go beyond what the chart says. In fact, that needs to happen if we are to be a good astrologer.

FATE and the RELATIONAL SELF/ THE ASTROLOGY OF CREATION

FATE and the RELATIONAL SELF

For indigenous peoples worldwide, the self is seen as relational rather than as autonomous, which is how we tend to see ourselves in the modern world. Hence the right way to live is by finding balance between oneself and the world, for they are not separate.

This perspective was held - or should I say experienced, for it was a reality for those people - by the creators of horoscopic astrology. ChatGPT is very definite about this! It also makes the point that astrology "is inherently relational, as it posits that human beings are connected to the larger cosmos and are influenced by cosmic forces." Well said Chat GPT!

Of course we do our best to cram astrology into a free will/autonomous/psychological model, because for us that is reality. Given the choice, I always go with the universal outlooks of early peoples. That is why I am also Shamanic. I have faith in those ideas.

So we distort the foundations of astrology when we emphasise free will and choice. It is Fate that needs to be emphasised, in the sense of that which is writ in the stars, the reading of which is our job as astrologers. Fate in this sense is magical rather than deterministic. It says "the universe knows you", and that is a moment of enchantment for the client. You don't, in a sense, need to tell them anything about themselves they don't know already. Just the fact you are able to say things about them they consider to be true enchants them, and that is sufficient. And it shifts them from being isolated and autonomous - which one could view as a modern disease rather than as a valid alternative - to being relational. And we breathe a big sigh when we experience that connection with the universe.

The Fates were living presences for the ancients

In this way astrologers are healers. As well as teachers and goads: showing people their callings, why it is the universe wants them here (our callings are not personal), and nudging them to have the courage to live them.

Free will is doing gladly and freely that which one must do (CG Jung).

So where does that leave the planets? Are they different bits of us, as I admit I usually say in readings? No, they are not, and I must change that. They are gods and goddesses, forces at large in the universe, and the chart shows the pattern of callings that they make upon us. It is not ours to question why we have been given that pattern or - reductively and I think falsely - reduce that pattern to our childhood experiences.

Our demons are in the chart, they have been given to us, and it is our job to come into relationship with them and let meaning and perspective reveal themselves over time.

You have your own unique chart. But Mars is not 'your' Mars. He is much bigger than that, he is vast, and if you honour him, he will work well for you.

So I would see the real purpose of the chart to be religious rather than psychological. It is not so much about understanding yourself in a narrow sense (though that has its place) as it is learning to honour the gods that call upon you. They are your friends, your allies, your sky spirits, and an element of awe is always required if our approach to them is to be balanced.

The self which we cling on to so tightly is, from this point of view, a necessary but illusory prop in a much bigger cosmic drama. As any decent mystical tradition will tell you.

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URANUS TRINES PLUTO

Uranus is starting to trine Pluto, the latest unfoldment in a long cycle that began with the conjunction in Virgo in the 1960s. The power (Pluto) of technological (Virgo) inventiveness (Uranus). The trine, which won't be exact for 3 years, could be seen as the natural outcome of past efforts, catalysed by the square of 10 or so years ago.

In recent years an enormous amount has gone into areas such as sub-atomic research, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, AI, space telescopes, quantum computing, DNA technologies and theories of everything. We could be entering a golden era of scientific and technological advance. When the trine is exact, it will have moved from Cap-Taurus to Aquarius-Gemini. Pluto in Aquarius especially suggests powerful new inventions.

 

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THE ASTROLOGY OF CREATION

Creation myths sit at the foundation of who we are. And we are probably the first peoples in history for whom our primary creation myths do not have magical or miraculous elements. For the material universe, we have one story: the Big Bang. And for life we have another story: Evolution.

I once asked a Native Canadian guy if his people (the Chippewa-Cree) got fundamentalist about their Creation Myth, and he said no, because they had more than one story, and they contradicted each other. Which I thought was a great answer.

We don't just have a story. We have a 'fact', what 'actually' occurred, leaving room for no other stories, and creating rigid minds. The tyranny of facticity, that is what I call it. As if everything is not the Great Mystery, in the last analysis. IMO, it is better to believe in both the Big Bang/Evolution AND the Biblical Creation rather than just one of them.

The Biblical Creation

Preamble done, I thought it could be interesting to try to generate some astrology around our 2 creation stories.

Evolution came first as a theory. Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species was published on 24th November 1859. We don’t know the time of day, so I have done a midday chart. What is immediately striking is the New Moon at the beginning of Sagittarius. Both the New Moon and the early degree suggest the start of something. The mutability suggests the new start comes out of the dissolution of something rigid (the sign before – Scorpio). The Moon may still have just been in Scorpio, we do not know, but it was about to leave, at any rate.

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Sagittarius declares loud and clear that Darwin’s book is a religious narrative. Which it is, for it tells us where we came from. The Sun is opposite Uranus: that is perfect too, for it was a deeply disruptive and controversial thesis. No prizes for guessing that Darwin was an Aquarian. He most likely had Moon in Capricorn – one foot in the past, straddling 2 ages. And a Mercury-Pluto-Jupiter stellium in Pisces: a mind (Mercury) that delved to the root of things (Pluto) in the sea of life (Pisces) and found a new meaning/story (Jupiter).

Click to Enlarge

The Big Bang was first proposed in 1931 by George Lemaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest. He said that the universe began with a ‘primeval atom’. We do not have a date of publication of his paper, so I will have to make do with the year itself, through the whole of which there was a t-square between Saturn in Capricorn, Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Cancer. As a divinatory astrologer, I trust in the fact that I have just been given a year, forcing me to focus on the outer planets.

Lemaitre claimed that his theory had nothing to do with religion, and as a scientific theory, I am willing to accept that. But emotionally/intuitively/metaphysically, I think it had everything to do with religion. How could it not? Religion comes from a root meaning to bind together, and that is exactly what creation myths do: they give a point of reference, a foundation, for the whole people.

To digress, one could argue more widely that the scientific quest with its particular kind of truth is itself an essentially religious quest, with its origins in Christianity. “The truth shall set you free”: that is the religious belief behind the scientific endeavour.

So, the Big Bang and Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. Start with the outermost and most powerful planet as overall meaning and context for the others: Pluto in Cancer. Cancer is the mother, the womb of life. That is why Cancer is a cardinal sign, which begins things. And Pluto is the tiny but immensely powerful seed out of which the universe grew. Jupiter was conjunct Pluto until July 1931. Jupiter is exalted in Cancer, and arguably declares this to be a religious event.

Uranus in Aries was the divine spark that began this process. We take the universe for granted, it is just what is there. But if it wasn’t there, who could have imagined it? That is the genius of Uranus. And, being in Aries, maybe this is the first time a universe has happened? That is what Christianity would have us think, at any rate. Maybe it is indeed the case.

And then Saturn in Capricorn. Saturn is the planet that makes stuff happen. Until he intervenes, you just have the outer planets doing their profound cooking in the alembic. Saturn is in his rulership in Capricorn, so it was easy for him to let the energies of Pluto and Uranus flow through him and to create a universe.

Scientifically, the Big Bang was a purely material event. But as Terence McKenna said (paraphrase), “Everything suddenly coming out of nothing? If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is. Science’s attitude is give us one free miracle, and we’ll explain the rest.”

Lemaitre was born 17 July 1894. He had a Cardinal t-square (and probably Grand cross, if you include the Moon in Capricorn) that overlaid closely the t-square of the Big Bang. It was like he was born to do it, the universe was using him to give us a new story about itself.

You could argue that, by showing that astrology applies to the Big Bang and to Evolution, magic has been introduced into those theories 😊 Certainly neither of them are very provable in the usual scientific way. Maybe they get a bit of a free pass because they are Creation stories.

GENDER and THE SACRED

I've got a new handle on X: @theXastrologer. Quite pleased to have got that one before anyone else took it. 😀 You can find me on threads and instagram as the_x_astrologer.

GENDER and THE SACRED

 

If something occurs that is unusual, then for indigenous people it is sacred, because it takes us out of the ordinary and the everyday. So lightning is sacred, dangerous animals and poisonous plants are sacred. And so are the Two Spirits, those unusual people who feel themselves to be both genders, though being of one biological sex. For Native Americans, it has always been accepted that some men want to live as women, and vice-versa. These people are looked to as leaders and healers, because they have both gender perspectives, each to a high degree.

 

It seems to me like such a mess. We have taken a gift from Spirit and turned it into a curse, and an epidemic amongst teenagers who do not yet know who they are. And we have also reduced it to sexual orientation, when it is about something much broader: 'gay' is a wholly inadequate term for what I am talking about.

 

There is maybe a lesson here in what happens if you try to make the sacred ordinary. There is a difference between a man living as a woman, and a man claiming he has become a woman. The former has an element of the sacred, the latter is a violation of nature, of what is possible, and people are not necessarily prejudiced to feel repelled by it.

 

The quest for the other gender is natural in both men and women in the second half of life, if not earlier. I deal with it regularly in the astrology readings I do. Men are seeking Venus: learning to listen, to themselves and to others. And women are seeking Mars: no more people-pleasing. It is a sterotype because it is so commonly the case. And it is not just about adding on new pieces to the personality. It is a soul journey to the divine feminine or masculine. Mars in a woman does not look the same as in a man, it is not about becoming like a man, it is about something different and bigger: there is an archetypal, sacred dimension to it. And the same for Venus in a man. It is a compelling journey of the Spirit. We find these opposites on the East-West of the Medicine Wheel, the Blue Road, the road of Spirit, that is not under our control. It is about gifts of Spirit that become our inner path.

 

People for the most part need simple categories with which to understand the world. The sacred moves us out of this black-and-whiteness, but it needs to be approached with caution, or you'll frighten the horses. With our transgenderism, we are trying to make the sacred normal, and it has resulted in dogmatism on one side, and revulsion on the other.

 

I am thinking out loud here, because I don't think there are any easy answers. But I think there is a case for doing away with surgical transitioning, which I think is the literalising of a spirit gift. And for people who want to live as the opposite gender to be seen as part of a sacred calling, as monks and nuns are. We have, by and large, done away with the sacred, and that is perhaps a big part of the problem.

 

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ON SATURN NOT BEING THE BOSS PLANET

Saturn is still getting used to not being the boss planet, since the advent of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. He keeps his job of providing form and boundaries and making stuff happen, while the outer planets get on with deeper alchemies. But Saturn frequently messes up by not yielding, creating madness, addiction and terror respectively, or variants thereof.

I am thinking of the current transit of Saturn through Pisces. This sign is ruled by Neptune, and the transit involves giving form to the formless. That is not easy, because Pisces is not tangible. If you can open yourself to channelling the whole universe - not my Will but Thine - then you are in with a chance. More than a chance: this is as powerful as it gets. But it probably takes many years to be an adequate vehicle for this kind of energy, and not attempt to appropriate it as one's own. It is great for divinatory astrology, and it is interesting that I changed the name of this group under this transit.

Boris Johnson is a good example of natal Saturn in Pisces. He could win elections, because he could communicate a collective vision, whether or not you agreed with it. But on a personal level, he had little in the way of discipline, and that was his downfall. With his second Saturn return underway, he is experiencing the consequences of his actions, via censure from Parliament. I think this illustrates quite well the 2 ways this placement can go.

 

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Men need to yield to Venus; women need to claim Mars. This can be catalysed through relationship. It is the anima/animus journey that Jung writes about.

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As astrologers, we are essentially helping people find their genius. And to see Fate as a living, guiding thing, that enchants the universe by showing us that it knows us: through the chart, all those gods with their callings on us. And the difficult process of incarnating them: Saturn.

 

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There is nowhere that can give you a certificate in your own genius: etymology - spirit attendant from birth. What you were born to do. It gradually reveals itself, as long as you keep doing the next thing. Don't worry about the long-term plan, that is taken care of: Fate, a living principle for the ancient Greeks. And Nordic peoples. 

 

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Astrology shows us that we belong to the universe, not to ourselves. As such it is a remedy for modern individualism. Politically, it would tend to lean us towards responsibilities (transpersonal) over rights (personal).

The IC, the Shadow and Fate

The 4 Angles of the Chart – the Top, the Bottom, the Left and the Right – are our 4 main points of connection to the world. The MC, the IC, the Ascendant and the Descendant respectively. If someone has major transits to all 4 them, you often see their whole life change.

And I think the IC particularly can get overlooked compared to its more glamorous counterpart, the MC: career, vocation, how the world sees us, our place in the world.

The IC is hidden, it is the sign directly below our feet at the moment we are born, and is therefore invisible. (Imum Coeli means 'Bottom of the Sky'.) If any point can lay claim to the personal unconscious, it is surely the IC (Just as the Moon, the natural ruler of the IC, is the planet associated with the personal unconscious).

Planets and Angles are different things: the emphasis with planets is on what is within, whereas the emphasis with Angles and the other house cusps is that which is without, our connection to the world. The distinction, though, is not rigid. So the IC becomes those aspects of our behaviour which are invisible to us – unconscious - but often visible to others.

We’re on shadow territory here. The things your friends think about you but tell you at their peril. The way it comes out of course also involves the Asc/Desc axis, but I'm proposing it starts here, in the hidden recesses of the personality. 

With Aries on the IC, are you a pushover, underneath your reasonable front? With Taurus, do you put your own comfort before emotional commitments (as Mr Obama is alleged to do)? Gemini: do you see the world in black and white terms and polarise around that? Cancer: are you, like Tony Blair, secretly narrow and partisan in your outlook? And Leo, do other people feel life has to revolve around you and your needs? Virgo: are you secretly judgemental of others? Libra: do you, like George W Bush, present a decisive front to compensate for an inner uncertainty? With Scorpio, are you quick to take offence, and less reasonable than you like to think? Sagittarius: Do you wander from teacher to teacher, unable to find your own sense of meaning within? With Capricorn on the IC, do your friends find you rigidly attached to the ‘proper’ way of doing things? Aquarius: have you really thought about those groups you’re involved in and whether they’re doing more harm than good? Pisces: do you put up a sign saying 'do not disturb' and project your aggression onto those who break your rules?

There are any number of ways the shadows of these signs could be put, this what I have ‘divined’ for now, maybe you’ll find they apply!

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But the IC isn’t just the personal shadow, it is much more than that. It is the foundation out of which a healthy MC can grow. It is childhood, it is family. It is where we are private and personal. It is the place where we regroup, 'downtime'. (It is not the solitude of the 12^th House, which has a more collective and imaginative emphasis.)

The MC-IC axis is like a tree, with the IC as the roots and the MC (Medium Coeli: the Middle of the Sky) the branches. If you like, it is the World Tree of Norse tradition, Ygdrassil, on which we each have our place; or rather, among whose 9 worlds we are spread. At the top is the eagle, with his broad vision of the world. And underneath, among the roots, is a dragon, a symbol of the hidden power of strong foundations.

At the base of the tree are the Norns, the Fates who water Ygdrassil from the Well of Wyrd and who allot each child his or her future. The Norns are therefore associated more with the roots of the tree, with the foundations and the beginning of life, than they are with the branches.

Norns

So maybe in that hard-to-know place within, the Fates are at work, the pattern of our life is woven, and the MC is the expression of that pre-existing weave. The IC is in one sense our Fate in a psychological sense: often that which seems to ‘happen’ to us is a consequence of that which is within, but unexamined. As Jung said, Character is Fate. But the roots of Ygdrassil are very deep, they are not just ‘personal’. The IC takes us way back to a place we can only think about mythologically: past lives, timeless patterns, the Mind of the Creator – powerful archetypal images that we can connect with more consciously through the solitude of the 12^th House. And the idea of Fate has these sort of resonances. Who knows what the gods have dreamed up for us? For Fate is also a dream, with all its multi layers and fluidity, and always with a mystery at its heart.

So encountering the IC is a matter of how deep do you want to go?

Moirai: the Greek Fates

I don’t want to get into a discussion of Fate and Free Will here. But I think Fate is best considered as an image rather than as an idea on its own. Those Norns are a very powerful image, and they suggest Fate as something living and human rather than dry and deterministic, which is something most of us reject. They suggest some bigger pattern that we are all part of. It is outside of time, and therefore in a sense ongoing, rather than set in stone at birth. Free Will doesn’t seem to have the same powerful imagery around it (try googling an image of it!), maybe because it is a more recent idea, and maybe because it suggests an autonomous humanity, freed from the ‘deterministic’ shackles of the gods who we imagine we have become, and who are the source of such powerful, archetypal imagery.

A transit to the MC is also a transit to the IC. In a way, the transit to the IC needs to be considered first, for any growth in the MC will emerge from the heightened self-knowledge that the transit to the IC will bring.

And a starting point with the IC is, like the Moon, an awareness of what it is that nourishes us, and the gaps we have that tend not to get nourished. This can be looked at not just through the sign on the IC, but through the condition of its ruler, the natal planets aspecting the IC and any planets in the 4^th House.

But with the IC there is more emphasis on connection to the world than there is with the Moon: so it is not just about exploring feelings, it is about looking at home and family and the way that is an expression of what is most personal and close within ourselves.

The IC is much harder to ‘get hold of’ than the MC, but in a way it is more important, in that the MC flows naturally out of the foundation of the IC. The MC as career is one thing, and it is usually tied in with the necessity of earning a living. But the MC as vocation is another, and I think the MC in this sense is not something to worry about, to scratch your head over its absence and feel somehow inadequate for not knowing what it is. 

That fretting itself is a sign of gaps and holes in the IC, along with modern notions that we need to be able to define our life and have a direction to it. That is the shadow side of Saturn, the natural ruler of the MC. Why not just live? say the IC and the Moon. Who says we need a ‘vocation’? 

Who are we to judge that our lives are inadequate if ‘all’ we do is muddle along reasonably happily?

On the Norse World Tree a squirrel scurries between the Eagle and the Dragon, carrying malicious messages. Maybe there is an inherent tension in human beings between the MC and the IC, between the things we can imagine doing and what, if we consult ourselves, is the right thing to do. Through the MC we can do amazing things, but we forget the foundations. For the Greeks, this was hubris, and nemesis was the gods' way of restoring the balance.

In a way the MC and IC are not separable. The source of the IC is ultimately timeless, and the MC reaches to that same place, but in a way that has been lived. If we pay attention to that hard-to-know IC place with a wide, mythological perspective, what to do with our lives will tend to present itself to us.