The writer Jeanette Winterson has made some people rather cross today (apparently). She’s created a media storm in a teacup for posting this picture on her twitter account. That rabbit ate her parsley, so she killed it, skinned it and ate it. Umm Scorpio anyone? Yup: Scorpio Rising, [...]

Many years ago, in a time before mobile phones, when  skateboards were cool, trousers were high-waisted and hair sharp, a shadow came across the land. Dozens of beautiful princes were cut down in the fullness of youth by a mysterious wasting plague. The sexually transmitted disease AIDS was [...]

“…Syrians and Iraqis are both trapped between dictators on the one hand and extremists on the other. An unhappy choice.” from today’s Economist on-line. Yes, that sounds like the situation for a lot of people — more or less — caught in the crossfire of the [...]

I went for a run the other morning, starting through the University Parks — orderly paths thick with joggers and dog-walkers, an arboretum of specimen trees, a lily-pad spattered pond, smooth green playing fields — and crossed over the River Cherwell to run through the [...]

Right-wing nationalists have won the elections for the European parliament here in the UK. This is the first time a fourth party has won a nation-wide election for more than 100 years.  For anyone living in England, this victory has been quite obviously on the way, an unstoppable freight-train [...]

We all know it’s been a right old spring so far, or should that be a rite of spring (a ballet which ends with a ritual sacrifice)? With Jupiter in Cancer, emotions have been huge, billowing things, like overfilled water balloons leaking all over the place. Then there were the eclipses in [...]

The word icon is applied haphazardly to every passing celebrity these days, but there are some modern faces that have unarguably become iconic. It might not be what you expect from Venus in Aries, but there are more icons in this group than any other. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey [...]

Three things are changing right now that will have an affect on every single citizen of this planet. They are the global economy, the climate and power. I’m writing this as the Lunar Eclipse in Libra completes, and Pluto, the planet of transformation appears to stand still in the sky. [...]

“There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.” — […]

Since, apparently, the end of the world is upon us, it seems like a good time to indulge oneself a little. Venus – the planet of indulgence, luxury and lolling about on a chaise longue having one’s toes oiled by light-fingered lovelies – has just slipped into Pisces, the sign where she [...]

Before time began, gods emerged from chaos. Uranus, the god of the sky, made love to the earth, Gaia, every night, and from their union were born giants and Titans, both hated by their father, who, consequently, imprisoned his children in the deepest depths of the earth. One, Saturn, escaped. [...]

You still have until May 20 to use the energy of Mars, the planet of passion, retrograde in Libra, the sign of negotiation. This retrograde began on March 1, so we’ve had a few weeks to begin to see and feel how it works. Personally, I have noticed a surge in my vitality. I’m not [...]

War (1924) by Otto Dix, who had Mars in Libra and turned his experience of battle into art Planets traditionally have signs which they love or hate, where they are comfortable or uncomfortable. The assignment of these rulerships happened a long time ago though — in another time and [...]

Now, if I could just get Wolverine to sort these people out… Mercury Retrograde, brought to you by the people who brought you the Mayan Prophecy, dun dun daah. Communications go crazy, your electrical goods grow teeth, your commute turns into the Normandy landings, the internet crashes [...]

On the first day of the Mercury Retrograde, February 6, I found myself deep in my attic, surrounded by piles of junk: old bedsteads, mysterious boxes, a couple of boogie boards, a broken dollhouse even. I’ve been meaning to clear out the attic since last year, but every time I thought [...]

Chart data is from astrodatabank. I can’t tell if Woody Allen is a child molester from looking at his astrological chart. No one can. But I can tell you that transiting Pluto-Venus is smack-dab on his North Node in Capricorn in the fifth house of children. The North Node is your point of [...]

The defence ministers of Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. Here a picture truly does say a thousand words. You don’t need me to explain why it’s momentous. The photograph  was taken on Saturday February 1 at around 3pm and on the telephone of the Dutch minister. From [...]

Within a moment that distinctive, deep voice, rich in inflection, complex in character could take you away to another place or into another’s soul. No wonder Paul Thomas Anderson cast Philip Seymour Hoffman as the mellifluous, mesmerising guru in The Master. It’s so sad that Philip [...]

Vasilisa in the Wood, Ivan Bilibin (1899). Vasilisa the Beautiful escaped from the child-eating witch of the deep, dark forest Baba Yaga, using one of the witch’s own torches, hand-crafted, as they might say on etsy, from a human skull. Baba Yaga, a drooling hag who terrorises the [...]

Narcissus (detail) John William Waterhouse. When the hunter Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection, he was looking into a pool of water. Self-love is so much easier these days: we have mirrors. Even 200 years ago, if you were an ordinary person you might have seen your reflection in a [...]