The Sun is a pilgrim on a year-long journey that begins where it ends and ends where it begins. It’s a cycle, of course, and a spiral too. And within that solar cycle — above and below it perhaps — are the cycles, longer and shorter, of the planets. Especially there is the [...]

Our attention has been on the cacophony of the Cardinal Cross of late, but another actor in the solar system has been playing a subtle role in the drama of the skies. The asteroid Chiron — teacher, martyr, medicine man — has been sextiling Pluto for much of the past three years. [...]

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. [...]

Detail from the Stigmatisation of St Francis. Tiepolo (March 5) Tiepolo, a vivid conjuror of imaginary worlds, painted ceilings. So did Michelangelo. It was the fashion in those days, of course, to paint visions of heaven… What follows are works by artists born between March 5 and 21 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Winter Afternoon — Yuli Yulievich Klever — It’s just after four in the afternoon and night already. Daylight went in a blinking here in the deep of the year. Tomorrow the Sun moves into Capricorn, Saturn’s sign; the sign of responsibility, of the father, of old age [...]

Hygeia by Gustav Klimt Imagine that you are a citizen of Ephesus. The time is just over a two thousand years ago. You’re rather well off and everything in your life is just super — except that you get these terrible headaches every now and then. So you decide to try a cure across [...]

Walter Crane imagined the beast as a boar. Once upon a time, in a country rather like this one, not very long ago, lived a young woman called Belle… Anne Anderson imagined a sort of beaky beast The first written version of Beauty and the Beast comes from mid-18th century France, but such [...]

Well, Mercury has begun his long walk out of the Underworld. Today he is at 2° Scorpio — only another 28° to go. It’s was a powerful retrograde, as you might expect when the planet of mind goes through the sign of depth psychology. Of course, Mercury is still in Scorpio until the [...]

Jean Marais as a modern Orpheus, in Cocteau’s visionary and beautiful movie of the same name. Someone said: “Bring the bodies upstairs.” The house I’m staying in is 300 years old with walls as thick as the span of your arm. The room I sleep in is as dark and close as a coffin. I […]

Jean Seberg in A Bout de Souffle (1960). Sweet and sexy. Scorpio Sun, Venus in Sag. I’ve been looking at loads of pictures of actors with the planet of attraction in the sign of the centaur – and I have to say the stand out quality which they all share is sex appeal. Gerard Depardieu, [...]

The Neighborhood Bully – John George Brown Politics just go nasty again in the UK. Let me explain. In this country, there’s a “Leader of the Opposition” in parliament who is the head of the main party that’s out of office, and whose job it is to question the [...]

Saint Michael defeating Lucifer in the guise of a dragon. Jean Fouquet For most of us, September is still imbued with feelings about the academic year. Even if we have no contact with school or university, we remember for ourselves the sharpened pencils, the smell of new notebooks, the feeling [...]

God or, more correctly, G-d opened the Book of Life on Wednesday, the first day of Rosh Hoshanah, and will be snapping it shut again next Friday, September 13. During these ten Days of Awe, he’s going to be watching you, taking notes and making a decision about your coming year. You have [...]

You know about Leo and hair. Big and fluffy, long and flowing: remarkable. The state of the tresses can be a big clue to Leo Rising. But it turns out that hats are good too. And failing that, maybe a wig. You’ll see what I mean… Everyone here has Leo Rising. How to wear a […]

Reading a baby’s chart is seldom a useful exercise. It tends to lead to too much projection and expectation on the part of the parents. But taking into account my misgivings about babies’ charts, this child is an exception. Because he is a future king, for better or worse, his life [...]

Sea Nettle jellyfish. Photo by Fred Hsu from Wikimedia Commons. I have just been attempting to write a post inspired by the following aphorism. “Madness is the exception in individuals; the rule in groups.” On the whole, I think Nietzsche had a point. Yet, the more you think about [...]