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 [...]

James Bond (Daniel Craig) Mars, the god of war has emerged, dripping wet and sulky from the sign of his fall, Cancer. He’s ready to light a bonfire and roast some chillies on the hot beach that is Leo.Mars, of course, rules Aries, the number one fire sign, and as such is all about taking [...]

There is something very cool about Agatha Christie even as a child. Could it be Virgo Sun, Virgo Rsing and Saturn in Virgo Many years ago, I moved from  working in (weekly) magazine publishing to editing books. It was truly a move from Gemini-land to Virgo-land. The magazines were all about [...]

You may have read some of my previous posts on the “tutelary deities” used by Roman astrologers. These came as a surprise to me when I read about them last year since I’d not come across them in any astrology texts or lectures that I’d attended previously. Suffice to [...]

Shiva, god of tranformation, dances his cosmic dance within a ring of fire. Image courtesy Wikemedia Commons. Art by Arumugam Manivelu. Copyright Himalayan Academy Publications. As I start to write this, the Sun, Venus and Mercury are clustered at the Midheaven in Leo. The Sun is [...]

6. Give an abandoned cat a home. This one is called Bean and he’s staying with me. Mercury the messenger shimmies backwards in Leo until the 27th, so you still have time to redo all those leonine things. Here are some suggestions. 1. Go see a revival of an old favourite at the theatre 2. [...]

Peter Falk gained his wings this weekend. He was born September 16, 1927 in New York. What a superb actor. Sun in Virgo (craft/a working class hero), Moon (probably) in Gemini (that twinkle in the one good eye). His Uranus Return is right in the middle of the current cardinal afray; Uranus [...]

Ron (Pisces), Hermione (Virgo, obviously) and Harry (Leo) I’m afraid that my entire family is so gripped by Harry Potter frenzy that it’s quite hard to think of anything else. We started reading it together last winter and now we’re are just finishing the sixth book. If ever [...]

The priestess of Apollo – the oracle at Delphi – imagined by the Victorian painter JW Waterhouse. Imagine that you are a rich resident of Alexandria in, say the second century AD. Your culture is Greek with a dash of Egyptian; your rulers live in Rome. But you have a dilemma [...]

The establishment’s darling Damien Hirst The king of contemporary art in Britain is Damien Hirst, who morphed from enfant terrible to the richest artist who has ever lived in a matter of a decade or so. Despite his repeated efforts to shock the bourgeoisie, Hirst has been clasped [...]

Yes – three of the artists do look as if they are just about to speak to us down the centuries. That is what you’d expect from a Gemini Sun. But I’m not sure any of them are going to say anything too complimentary. More along the lines of – well – I’ll leave [...]

Some songwriters are storytellers. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Ray Davies of the Kinks were all born in the 1940s under a Gemini Sun. Take a look at these charts – the differences are as intriguing as the similarities. Ray Davies, writing about the neighborhood, commenting on the times (3rd [...]

Pippi Longstockings, teller of tall tales, eternal child and a favourite of Mercury. This is a still from the Swedish TV series For the Romans Mercury was the protector of thieves and liars. He is that trickster god whom we find tiptoeing through the backdoor of so many cultures: he is Loki, [...]