On Culture Archives - Page 22 of 22 - The Oxford Astrologer

Category: On Culture

Art, music, books, poetry, fashion, dance, television… the products of our imaginations and the people who make them.

Why Capricorn Nigella is a Modern Vestal (Un)Virgin

A priestess of the goddess Vesta, “tutelary deity” to Capricorn.Here imagined by 19th century painter Lord Leighton. Capricorns is a dull sign, ruled by that old curmudgeon Saturn – right? It’s all about status and work and dads and being sensible bla bla bla. [...]

Captain Beefheart: Creativity Nurtured by Saturn

Captain Beefheart (far right) and the long-suffering Magic Band, back in 1969. A creative visionary died this week. Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) (born January 15, 1941 at 4.25pm) was a legendary avant-garde musician and performer and a damn fine painter. In both his chosen [...]

Death and the Maiden

Death and Life, Gustav Klimt 1911. Death catches up with us all – but in what guise. As a virus? A car crash? Will it come slowly or will it be sudden? Are our days numbered from the moment we are born? Medieval astrologers certainly believed they could foretell the hour of your death. The [...]

City of Books – ha!

St Giles at Dusk by Francis Hamel. For more of his Oxford views click here. Sometimes, on a winter evening when the yellow lights in the buildings that line St. Giles cast a glow on the frozen street, I like to to imagine that I can see through the walls of stone. And behind the […]

Uranus in Pisces: Liberating the Imagination

Prometheus, the revolutionary fire-stealing Titan whom historian Richard Tarnas argues should be associated with the planet Uranus. I agree with him Uranus has navigated the Piscean ocean with panache over the pat seven years, making waves in all kinds of directions. At the same time, [...]

Was Dracula a Scorpio?

Creepy thoughts should never be limited to autumn nights. In fact when I started this blog back in the summer the very second post was on the subject of horror movies. Back in July, my five year old’s musings on vampire squid lurking behind the shower curtain prompted me to investigate [...]

Equal Rights for Goddesses?

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 [...]

Nobody’s Perfect: the astrology of Curtis and Monroe

Two kids from the wrong side of the tracks play pretend. Norma Jean Mortensen teaching Bernie Schwartz how to kiss – one of the sweetest scenes on celluloid. That great movie Some Like it Hot. still makes me laugh. Of course, Norma Jean and Bernie had blossomed into Marilyn Monroe and [...]

A God for Every Sign – yay

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 […]

Heavenly grrrl power!

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Brazil. Is the mother goddess giving a helping hand? In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff; in Australia Julia Gillard, who’s next? Are sisters finally doing it for themselves? Here’s what I think happened in the heavens that might give us a clue. On the [...]

A Fairytale Ending for Milibands

Once upon a time there was a miller who had three sons. When he died his oldest son took the mill, his middle son took the donkey, and that left the youngest son with nothing but the cat. Well, we know who got the better deal in the end. Puss-in-boots helps the youngest son to […]

Lady Gaga vs Madonna

Can you believe the shoes? Lady Gaga has finally sauntered onto my middle-aged radar by wearing that outrageous dress. Wow – it’s punk and glam rock simultaneously! She’s got chutzpah. Every generation has (at least) one – popstalala with ass and attitude. So it’s [...]

A little girl names the dark lord

Hades (Pluto) Oxford is a small town with a famous university in the middle of England. But it’s much more than that too. It’s the centre of a web of influence that stretches forward and backward in time and across continents. This influence is intellectual and political, but also [...]

Synchronicity, dreams and a case of exact astrological aspects

I’m going to tell a story that starts off badly and ends up well. Last night I dreamt that I was the only person left in the world and I could not find anything with which to kill myself. I woke up abruptly, terrified, with these words going through my head: “The world will not [...]

Let your Sun shine

So on the subject of artists, I did a little exercise recently on Sun signs for my workshop at the Jam Factory. This was based on two ideas. First of all, our Sun sign is our creative centre – and secondly, all signs are creative in a distinctive way. I found a top-notch artist of […]

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 [...]

Vampire Squid – Pluto vs Neptune?

I was taking a shower this morning with my five year old and she started to play a game about a “vampire squid” which was attacking us around the curtain. (Yes, apparently there is such a thing.) That’s a pretty scary monster, right. Well, it also seemed rather a good image [...]

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