The creatures of the Zodiac cavort in a loop through the sky that takes us from midwinter to midsummer and back again. We are used to thinking of them as starting with Aries the Ram and ending with Pisces, the Fishes. But there is another way of ordering the Zodiac that can help you to […]

Marc Chagall The Eve of the Day of Atonement Today, 27 September 2012, is the Jewish Day of Atonement. The Books of Life and Death have been closed, the tally of good and bad deeds has been taken for the year, and you’ve apologised to your family, friends, colleagues, the milkman for the [...]

Ivan Shishkin. Autumn My mother is celebrating the end of Saturn’s passage through Libra with a new hip. The symbolism could not be simpler. She has a Sun-Mars conjunction at 24° Libra. This represents both her actual body and her physical energy among other things. Saturn, which rules [...]

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 […]

Imagine you are…Classical Lady by John William Godward OK, we are back in Rome, sometime in the 2nd century AD. It’s autumn, the grape harvest is in. We’ve all been celebrating in perhaps too Dionysian a fashion. Imagine that you are a togaed Roman with time and money on your [...]

Unspecified Mark Rothko (September 25,1903)  Sun, Mercury and North Node in Libra.  Is one expression of Libra the erasure of ego? A reflection of the viewer Moon in Scorpio  Profound emotion Jupiter in Pisces  Encountering endless compassion Venus in Virgo  Artistic [...]

BB Some people are emblems of their Sun sign. These three women all have Libra Sun, but more than that they have Libra at a critical angle of the chart. Venus, the goddess of beauty, rules Libra. Catherine Zeta Jones Brigitte Bardot – Sun Libra, Libra MC Catherine Zeta Jones – Sun [...]

Happy Birthday Mrs. T. Enjoy the Iron Lady in her element. When Mrs Thatcher said no she meant no, displaying all the qualities of a truly hard-core Libra. Of course, it helped having Saturn smack on her Scorpio ascendant. Boy, she can really kick ass. Can you see what makes her so storming?

Vladimir Putin – Russian president and Libra You know, when I read about Librans in most astrology books I only half recognise them. I mean that fairly precisely. I recognise the need for beauty, the ability to accessorise, the instinct for grace, the love of socialising, but the [...]

Bright blue Venus seems suspended in the black branches of my neighbour’s cherry tree these evenings. When I tuck my daughter into bed, I look out her window and see the planet shining more brightly and steadily than anything else in the sky.I am looking west. Venus is in her guise as [...]

Jews praying on Yom Kippur (1868) by Maurycy Gottlieb courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The wheat is threshed, the apples are picked. It’s time to weigh and measure this year’s harvest. And I mean that metaphorically. We’re coming to the end of the the ten days that observant [...]

I could trade some apples. I’m rather pleased. I have just arranged to exchange astrology lessons for acupressure sessions. I like barter as a form of exchange. You don’t have to get any banks involved – nor any middlemen, sales reps or big corporations. The scales of Libra are [...]

Born on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi epitomised that wonderful Libran quality – grace. He also had Scorpio rising with Mercury, Venus and Mars in the first house: tenacity, bravery and the ability to find the right words to expose flimflam and woolly thinking. Here’s a link to piece [...]

Ophelia by John Everett Millais. We’ve been deep in the dark waters of Scorpio lately. You may have been diving for pearls, but sometimes it gets quite hard to breathe down there – all that psychodrama can be suffocating. Breathe easy now. Venus slipped backwards out of Scorpio and into [...]

As you know, there are seven heavenly bodies in traditional astrology. The boys – Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The girls – Moon, Venus. Five against two. Now does that seem fair to you? Does that even seem like life? Ceres, goddess of fertility, is sometimes assigned to [...]

Baroness Thatcher has Libra Sun and Leo Moon like Mahatma Gandhi and David Cameron. A belated Happy Birthday to you, Mrs T.  (ex-PM Margaret Thatcher Oct 13, 1925) And to you Silvio.  (PM Berlusconi, Italy September 29, 1936) And Bibi, Happy Birthday, to you in advance.  (Netanyahu, the [...]

Mahatma Gandhi. Libra Sun/Leo Moon   Here’s something to think about while the Sun sails through the last ten degrees of the sign of justice and balance, Libra. Mahatma Gandhi, that arch-Libran, said there were seven social sins Politics without principles Wealth without work,  Pleasure [...]

I find reading old astrology books a very good way to get to sleep. Dane Rudhyar is marvellously soporific. I hope some of it will filter into my dreams, and be reborn as a brilliant insight. Last night I turned to CEO Carter, who is an old stand-by in the wee small hours. And in […]

I spent Saturday at Art in Action, the local shindig at Waterperry Gardens here in Oxfordshire. It’s a hugely enjoyable event. Artists and craftspeople come from all over the country and there are always a few from much further afield too. As a visitor, the thing that really sets it [...]