NOT A TALKING HEAD

I've recently created a video course for Watkins Books, as a companion to my book The Medicine Wheel. There are 11 sessions, and I had a fun time doing it: it brings something out in me that writing alone cannot. I think you'll find my style engaging - it's more enthusiastic fireside chat than polished talking head 🤣 

 

The intro is free and the link to that is here

 

The course itself can be found here 

 

ISRAEL WILL DO WHAT SHE FEELS IS NECESSARY 

 

Here is the New Moon chart for 13th November, set for Tel Aviv. You don't need to know much astrology to see that it's pretty powerful. Sun-Moon-Mars in Scorpio, on the Midheaven. It is, however, easy to get down on Scorpio, and think this chart has to be pretty horrible, and what a nasty country Israel is. It probably will be horrible in many ways, but for a Scorpionic reason: Israel is attempting to ensure her long-term survival, which is a Scorpio issue. If this line-up were in Aries, I would say it is a war of conquest. But in Scorpio, it is defensive.

The line-up is opposite the Israeli Sun at 23.39 Taurus, so there is a national renewal, a re-setting of goals. Uranus is opposite the Sun-Moon-Mars, so it is impossible to predict how Israel will go about reaching its goals. But reach them she will, by whatever means necessary. It is a one-way fight, so as painful as it is likely to be, it could be a lot worse. This chart does not concern gratuitous violence: just whatever is necessary so that Israel cannot be attacked in the same way again. She is looking with an unwavering Medusa eye to this end. And she probably has the international backing to do so.

This is not about fairness or justice or morality. This is about survival, quite a different thing. It is Pluto's realm, that is not human. By the same token, the New Moon will be in pretty much the same place above Gaza: in their case, it signifies the pulverising and dismemberment that is also Scorpio territory. What will be left to rise from the ashes is, at this stage, imponderable.

 

 

THE LUNAR ECLIPSE 

 

The Full Moon this weekend is an eclipse. So pay attention to the Taurus-Scorpio axis: do you need to lighten up from your dark broodings, and enjoy the pleasures of the senses and the natural world? Or are you consumed by everyday life as a way of avoiding your demons, and your deeper, more demanding gifts?

 

 

THE VEIL BETWEEN THE WORLDS

We are in Scorpio season, and Halloween aproaches. This is when, we are told, the veil between the worlds is thin. If the veil wasn't originally thin on Oct 31st, it is now, through the power of repeated ceremony.

Scorpio is comfortable with death and blood and guts and transgressive behaviour, because she understands they are just part of life. She understands that there is in reality no veil between the worlds. Life and death are one. Death is completely normal, no-one even notices it, from the point of view of death. Or so I was shown in a dream a while back, where death was happening by the thousands every moment. "It is as natural to die as to be born", said the philosopher Francis Bacon.

So keep doing those things that give meaning to your life, while you have the time. If you do that, you will have nothing to regret. Just remember to have that coin in your mouth to pay the ferryman.

 

 

MERCURY CONJUNCT MARS IN SCORPIO 

 

Mercury will be in an applying conjunction with Mars in Scorpio until 29th October. Time to speak truthfully and directly all those things that need saying, but which get put to one side because they are inconvenient, or because you want people to like you. This is about the truth you see directly, that you know in your viscera. The force of that will prevail against those who can usually dance around you with words and logic.

 

 

WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING IN THE BEDROOM....

Behind Venus, through which a man is attracted to a woman, lies the Moon, the mother figure that he seeks, who he imagines will take care of his emotional needs. And behind Mars, through which a woman is attracted to a man, lies the Sun, the father figure that she seeks, who she hopes will provide protection and financial security. Of course, this is schematic, and it's never that simple. It is generally unacknowledged, or it would kill the romance. And it may be necessary, it is not 'bad'. It is normal, it is where the idea of the 'other half' comes from.

A relationship begins in the 7th House, and then moves to the 8th House, the House of Sex and Intimacy, which catalyses our unconscious longings. You may find yourself there for many years, before you move into the clear light, the wisdom of the 9th. If indeed you make that shift. And you will probably find yourself on your own if you do.

 

 

 

AQUARIUS SEVERN, ISRAEL, CRAZY ASTROLOGERS and MORE

Here is a link to me talking with the Aquarius Severn Astrology group earlier this month. I had a good time, I always do when I talk Astrology. 

 

ISRAEL and MARS IN SCORPIO

 

Mars in Libra is responsive rather than offensive, and it was in Libra in Israel's 1st House when Hamas attacked last week. With natal Libra Rising, this militarily responsive position generally characterises Israel. Though when it does respond, it has a mighty Mars in Leo trine Jupiter in Sag with which to do so. 

 

Mars has since moved into Scorpio, the other sign, along with Aries, that this planet rules. In Aries, Mars is offensive, in Scorpio defensive. Israel is now involved in an operation to secure its borders. Scorpio isn't always pretty. An animal or a human defending itself is at its most savage, for its survival is being threatened. I am not justifying what Israel might or might not do in Gaza: I am just trying to give an astrological picture of her motivations. 'RealAstrology'.

 

 

CRAZY ASTROLOGERS and THE MADNESS OF CROWDS

Who am I to criticise anyone's crazy beliefs, when I'm an astrologer, for heaven's sake? But I think astrology does for that reason teach us to hang loose to all beliefs, especially those rigid ones that ironically stop our vast collectives from going completely insane. It used to be religious beliefs, nowadays scientific and political beliefs are used in the same rigid way.

 

We don't really know anything about the important stuff, like where the universe came from, who we are and why we're here, how life started..... we console ourselves with the idea that science will one day tell us, or maybe God is the one who has the answers.

 

Embracing the uncertainty is the way to go. But that isn't an intellectual position. It's about spending years doing the spade work so that you can tolerate yourself. Then there becomes no need to cling convulsively to those collective beliefs and the massive sense of authority behind them. It becomes natural to be open and fluid. And here's a thing: it means you can afford to think honestly and logically, because you no longer have anything to lose by doing so.

 

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Pluto is now moving forward. If you are having a transit from him, anything you have begun recently that has not died is likely to have a long life, for it has deep roots that go all the way down to the underworld source of new life.

 

BAD GUY SCORPIO

Why have astrologers designated Scorpio to be the bad guy of the zodiac? I think it is because we are afraid of visceral engagement, of those demons that the medieval Church said astrologers summoned. We keep our craft safely cerebral, to which it readily lends itself. Scorpios are the scapegoats. If it wasn't Scorpio, we would find some other sign to carry the shadow for us, because we are fallible human beings. Virgo gets a bit of a bad press too, we project our coldness onto them. Below is Holman Hunt's painting The Scapegoat.

 

There is no place for moral judgements in astrology based on the chart alone. It does not contain that sort of information. It is our job as astrologers to cultivate sufficient self-awareness that we can withdraw these projections, because the collective at large isn't about to. That is why people come to us: because we offer them something outside their usual prejudices. Of course, some come just to have them confirmed, and you can probably make more money as that sort of astrologer.

 

Maybe traditional astrologers need to be held to account on this score, for perpetuating the myth of good and bad placements. It is psychologically primitive.

 

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How much of the Venus journey involves finding that your soul partner isn't that after all?

 

 

APOCALYPTIC THINKING and THE YOUNGER GENERATION

 

'Grim' Greta Thunberg, the pony girl of the apocalypse, has been arrested again at a protest. We don't hear so much of her nowadays, but she is still protesting about climate and fossil fuels. We do not know her time of birth, but Pluto is currently conjoining her Mercury - her mind - at 27-28 Capricorn. And how does her mind work? She has Aspergers, which lends itself to literal-mindedness. You can see how Capricorn, which is practical and serious, could describe Aspergers. The adults told her the world was in danger from a human-made climate apocalypse, she believed them and chose to try to stop it. Religious leaders fawned over her, and world leaders talked respectfully of her, but ignored what she told them they must do. Bad adults. Her thinking, like that of a child, is black and white. And has got stuck there.

 

She first began campaigning as a way out of the depression caused by what the adults had told her. (My son told me very early on not to talk to him about global warming. It was scary, and too much. I still feel sorry I did that.) So Pluto on her Mercury is changing how Greta thinks. Will she become obsessional? Probably. Will she have some kind of breakdown and stop campaigning? With any luck yes, if only for her own long-term mental health. When Greta began her campaigning by skipping school on 20 August 2018, Pluto was somewhere in the vicinity of her Moon, and the Moon was conjoining her Pluto that day. A double Moon-Pluto message. The signs were Sagittarius (religious belief, righteousness) and Capricorn (a heavy weight on young shoulders). And a betrayal (Pluto) of her childhood (Moon.)

 

I think an honest position on climate has to include a degree of agnosticism. It is such a complex field with, inevitably, so many different arguments. The one thing I will confidently assert, is that if I am told there is a 97% consensus about anything, anywhere, I will not believe it: it is not how humans work. It only happens when dictators run 'democratic' elections: the 3% is for a show of credibility.

I have a sneaking suspicion that global warming might turn out to be overall a good thing. But I won't insist on it: even saying it sometimes provokes a big negative reaction. 

 

What Greta shows us, I think, is that we need to be careful not to give messages of despair to the younger generation. It is the opposite of our adult responsibility to children, our duty of care.