Shakyamuni and his two attendants. Source: The Tibetan Museum Jupiter is going to be in Gemini until next summer. You have a full year to take advantage of this very interesting, rather unsettling energy. But it only comes every 12 years, so start paying attention to it now. In the first air [...]

Just in case you’ve missed it, 50 Shades of Grey is a story about a young woman who meets an insanely wealthy, mysterious, tortured but alluring older man. They have a passionate affair during which she discovers herself as a sexual being – and his tough facade is penetrated by her sheer [...]

Gandhi’s morning walk, photographed by Margaret Bourke White (b. June 14, 1904)   In the tangled intricacy of the natal chart, the Sun sign is so often dismissed as too vague or too broad an indicator. But when it comes to career, it should never be overlooked. Migrant Mother by [...]

“This day prov’d as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Clowd was to be seen … and the Air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Suns disk: we very distinctly saw an […]

My good friend Isy pointed out in a recent comment that  we should not think of Pluto as a simple lump of rock spinning through space, but as a group of objects with a great big hole in the middle. So I asked her to write about it. Understanding the astronomy of Pluto can help […]

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Cor blimey, ma’am; 60 years on the throne, god bless her. For a while, it seemed as if it were mainly a marketing opportunity for paper napkin, bunting and biscuit-tin makers. It’s been Union Jacks agogo for a month in the shops and nothing anywhere else. But [...]

Yes, I know we like to talk about roses and kisses and sweet romance, about Romeos and Juliets, the ones that got away and the ones that might just come back now that Venus has turned retrograde… But Venus is not just the planet of love – she rules money, cold hard cash. And she’s [...]

Mercury, which rules thought and communication, is currently in practical Taurus. This is good for everybody, because it means we have a real chance to get a few things done. You have until May 24, when we return to just talking about everything a lot. Mercury rules the hands, so do any tasks [...]

A couple of weeks ago I was banjaxed by a stomach virus. I spent about 24 hours wrapped around the toilet bowl weeping. Naturally, I looked at my chart to see if anything jumped out at me. I felt as if Pluto himself had put his arm down my throat and pulled up the contents […]

A while ago I was asked to talk about astrology to some teenagers at the Museum of the History of Science here in Oxford. For  a bit of fun, I asked them each to fill out a short questionnaire. They were to choose three words to describe themselves from a list of different character traits. [...]

André Durand – Prometheus Stealing Fire* A long time ago, Prometheus, one of the lesser immortals, stole fire from the great god Zeus and gave it to humans. That immortal flame set them free. Ironically, Prometheus himself was punished by being chained to a rock. Prometheus was a [...]

As I was making soup just now, I had some (very obvious) thoughts about Anthony Robbins chart that I thought I’d better share immediatement. Right now, of course, Mercury is over his South Node and Mercury, so it makes sense to think about him again. Also he has just resold his abortive [...]

Anthony Robbins, self-invented Anthony Robbins is a phenomeon. If you haven’t come across him yet – well, you will. In a nut-shell he is the top, or one of the top, personal development salesmen in the world – hosting seminars, writing books, making the infamous [...]

The action planet Mars has slowly toiled backwards through Virgo for months, but now there is only one more week to go. He turns on the 14th. Then we’ll still have another two months of Mars in Virgo as he makes his way back through almost the entire sign. On July 4, he moves into […]

Steal away with the fairies for the next few months while Venus dances in Gemini “At the beginning of each summer, when the milk-white hawthorn is in bloom, anointing the air with its sweet odour, and miles and miles of golden whin adorn the glens and hill-slopes, the fairies come forth [...]

Ha – I bet you thought I had forgotten, but we are now in full retrograde season, so I am ready to pick up this Saturn Return series where I left off. (Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all doing the backwards shuffle.) In previous posts I gave an overview of Saturn Returns in general (Part [...]

Mars, the planet of the physical, is going backwards slowly, coming to an opposition with Neptune, planet vague, which drifted into his own sign, Pisces, just a little while ago. Mercury has slipped backwards into Pisces too for another brief swim in the sea. Pay attention to your dreams, your [...]

Zeus to the Greeks; Jupiter or Jove to the Romans A friend wrote this to me recently. “I have a terrible time when Jupiter is aspecting things. Rather than being a benevolent and blossoming force, he’s like the biggest bitch in the world, but too mean-spirited to even talk to me [...]

Ingres: The Turkish Bath. Aries is the sign of beginnings, haste, inspiration. It’s the fire sign that strikes the spark that sets the world aflame. So what happens when the planet of speed, Mercury, turns tail and retreats in such a go-getting part of the Zodiac? And hang on, [...]

Second Afghan War Six British soldiers were killed in Kandahar province this week. The oldest was 33, the same age as Jesus when he died, and the youngest was 19. The Afghan War has been going on for 10 years and 153 days. World War Two lasted just under six years in comparison. British [...]