If you’ve been following these “Venus In…” posts for a while, you will know that your Venus sign does not necessarily describe what you look like — that is more for the Ascendant  or ruling planet — but how you are attractive. Over the year, quite a few [...]

  How appropriate in a week when we are playing Bowie back to back with Motorhead. The Oxford Astrology Group is hosting another set of lectures at Trinity College, Oxford on February 13. The subject looks fun: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Neptune’s going to come into that, I [...]

David Bowie must have known he was dying when he recorded ★ (Blackstar), his final album, released on his to birthday three days ago. It’s a privilege to hear from this liminal place, the place between this world and the next, from such a great artist and poetic visionary. The title song [...]

Happy New Year! What an interesting month awaits us. It could be rather a sticky start to the year, with both Jupiter and Mercury turning retrograde while Uranus, the planet of electricity is surging ahead. One aspect that is especially interesting kicks off right at the start of the month and [...]

I’ve been scouring the internet for some interesting, beautiful or at least audacious gifts for the astrologer in your life — or the astrologically inclined. Karl Stockhausen, the German composer of rather intellectual modern music, created 12 music boxes — one for each sign [...]

Here is a must-have Christmas present for the astro-enthusiastic young women in your life: The Essential Life Guide 2016. Along with a host of quality astrologers — Jo Tracey, Sally Kirkman, Kelly Surtees, Sam Reynolds, Joanne Madeline Moore, Gary P Caton and more — I contributed [...]

“I went to the consulate with a large-wide sugarcoated birthday cake upon my head with fifty flaming candles lit – I felt just so spunky and affluent! In my ear I wore sugar plums or matchboxes – I forget which. Also I had put on several stamps as beauty spots on my emerald-painted [...]

If you know your astrological symbolism, you will have realised that The Eagles of Death Metal*, who were playing at the Bataclan in Paris when it was attacked last month, are a Scorpio band. The eagle is one of the symbols of Scorpio, along with the scorpion and the snake. It is also used as [...]

Yesterday this painting was sold to Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian for $170m. Think about that for a moment. One hundred and seventy million dollars. Extraordinary. Christie’s chose the right month in which to sell it, with the Sun in Scorpio, since the subject of this picture is [...]

It’s always an interesting time of year — October. We are half way round the Zodiac now, in Libra, the sign of balance, measuring and assessment. Often there’s a weary contemplation of the self as we go into Scorpio, But this year, October seems full of potential. There are [...]

“Now, let me assure you that, technically speaking, however you want to look at it, this was all my doing and I take full responsibility.” — Chrissie Hynde could be talking about her whole life in that one sentence. Everyone had that album: the Pretenders first. Pictured: a line [...]

The warrior queen Zenobia passed under that Zodiac dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. By the start of her reign in the 3rd century BC, the Temple of Bel in Palmyra was already 200 years old. Its fabulous portico with the seven planets personified, surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac, would [...]

Last week, I did a talk at Aquarius Severn which included a short picture essay. I’ll show it to you here. Remember that Neptune and Jupiter, the planets that promote flow, meet across the mutable Virgo-Pisces axis once a century. Jupiter in Virgo, Neptune in Pisces — 1849 Jupiter [...]

The Heraklean Way, one of the most ancient routes in Europe, runs from the Sacred Promontory on the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the Matrona Pass in the Alps. It’s both a real road – you can still drive along parts of it today – and a mythical one, for it is said that the […]

I have been reading Deborah Houlding’s book The Houses, Temples of the Sky. It’s an excellent reference and should be on every astrologer’s bookshelf. Although Houlding is a traditional astrologer and her focus is on the horary and mundane, her research and ideas are relevant [...]

Big bushy, smooth furry, patchy, pointy, oiled, curled and swooshing. Beards — big ones or neat ones — are the facial fashion for dandies these days. It’s so much fun. And maybe the biggest change in men’s fashion since bell-bottoms. Neptune is, of course, the planet of [...]

I split myself into three people. I know what they look like. One speculates and one criticizes and the third tries to correlate. It usually turns out to be a fight but out of it comes the whole week’s work. And it is carried on in my mind in dialogue. It’s an odd experience. Under [...]

Spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, read no more. Jesse wears a manky greyish T-shirt with the word Neptune written across the body of a blue whale for about half the movie Before Midnight. Considering he’s an acclaimed writer of [...]

Despite scandals a-gogo, FIFA has just re-elected its president Sepp Blatter for the 5th time. Swiss-born Blatter is nearly 80 and he’s been in office for 17 years. His rivals have been trying to get rid of him for about half the time he’s been president and last week a whole [...]

You could say that the promise of romance keeps astrologers in work. Getting your love right — and that might mean lifelong celibacy, a series of mad flings or a nice, cosy 40-year marriage — is one of the cornerstones of living the “good” life. And creating that good [...]