Category: On Culture

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

Astrology of Now: Poised
When the Sun moves from the sign of Virgo into Libra (on September 22), we find ourselves at the halfway point of the year. Day and night are of equal length for a fleeting moment in perfect balance. The equinox opens the autumn season here in the North. Where I am, it is unusually warm […]
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Your September Horoscopes
Consequential cosmic events this month: Mars lays down his armour, Jupiter takes up his sceptre, Saturn picks up his scythe. Meanwhile, Venus, Mercury, the Sun and the Moon dance a complex quadrille. If you’re already a member, click here to read your monthly horoscope. Or If you’d [...]
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On the Death of My Father
My Dad died at around 8.30am on July 31. His passing was pleasant, I’m told. He was in his own bed, in his own house. His carer came to find him, breezily calling down the corridor, and sailing into his room. Seeing he was still supine, she said his name, he replied, “Oui”, [...]
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Mother, Memory, Cake: Inside the Cancerian Mind
“… one day in winter, as I came home, seeing that I was cold, my mother offered me some tea, a thing that I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then for no particular reason changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petite madeleine, [...]
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Issey Miyake: Engineering Beauty
  “All I want is for people to experience a sense of joy when they wear my clothes.” If you have ever owned a garment made from one swathe of cloth, folded and cut into a shape that drapes and clings, flares and flutters, or creates an alien silhouette; that felt like a second, [...]
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The Angel of Death, Adonis and Anemones
Fresh green ripples across the land; the garden is filled with bird song. Yet Easter is a festival of death. Christ’s Last Supper was Seder, the annual dinner party at which Jewish people all over the world commemorate the Exodus. Jews remember the Angel of Death passing over their [...]
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Mothering Sunday
  It’s Mothering Sunday here, and I’d like to wish you, mothers and children all, a peaceful and cosseted day full of light and beauty.   Even when your loved ones are far away, they are so close.
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Harry Styles: Beloved by Venus
She lives in daydreams with me She’s the first one that I see And I don’t know why I don’t know who she is … ” — She Talented, graceful Aquarian Harry Styles is much more than a pop star, indeed he appears to be channelling something bigger than himself [...]
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The Absolutely Fabulous Laura Dern
Laura Dern just won the Oscar for best supporting actress. A well-deserved tribute to an actress whose electric screen presence is always mesmerising — even when she’s just ordering a kale salad in Marriage Story. Dern’s chart is just so Hollywood, with a massive stellium in [...]
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On the “Other”: Lilith, Harvey Weinstein and the Fate of Nations
Why are there so many Liliths to choose from astrologically? I asked myself this question recently, and wondered if the answer might not lie in the archetype herself. Just to be clear. There are: True Lilith, Mean Lilith… and the asteroid Lilith… and furthermore, in some software, [...]
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The Asteroid of Love Stories, Fairy Tales and the Soul’s Journey
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a country far away, a girl of breath-taking beauty lived with her family. Her two older sisters were “successfully’ married, to wealthy, middle-aged men, but her father was perplexed. Who was good enough to marry his darling youngest, [...]
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Baroness Hale’s Spider Brooch
Baroness Brenda Hale, head of the Supreme Court, delivered the devastating verdict on the government’s attempt at prorogation, yesterday. Her language was exceptionally clear and easy for even the most unlearned friend to understand. Also she looks like a sweet grandma out of a story [...]
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Toni Morrison and Black Moon Lilith
I’ve been thinking about the American writer Toni Morrison today, the day after she died, and remembering her book Beloved, which won her the Pulitzer Prize, and is considered by most critics to be her masterpiece. Beloved tells the story — in densely poetic language and imagery [...]
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Karl, the Cat and Jacques de Bascher
The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld — wizard, shape-shifter, and, as he put it himself, vampire — died in February, leaving a fortune to his gorgeous pet, Choupette, the most famous cat on Instagram. Lagerfeld showed all the signs of being a kind of ultra-Uranian from the top of his [...]
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How To Get Ahead in Politics
One of the most noticeable phenomena of recent times is the rise of the comedian-politician. And by that I don’t mean a funny guy running the country, I mean professional comedians who turn to politics. In democracies that is.  Just the other day, a comedian called Volodymyr Zelensky won the [...]
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Astrology of Now: Refound Beauty
Sometimes the music of the planets is pure magic. On the news this morning: the discovery of a painting by the Renaissance master, Sandro Botticelli — a version of the famous Madonna of the Pomegranates which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It had been considered a fake, but [...]
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Oh The Magnficence: Scott Walker
I sometimes feel I need to shake myself like a wet dog after listening to Scott Walker, and, maybe, watch the droplets turn into glorious rainbows, transform into hummingbirds. Two lines into a Scott Walker song and you are immersed, taken into another, magical dimension. His perfect diction, [...]
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Best Astrology Books According To Astrologers
New York Magazine asked me to name my three top astrology books last week for this article — a round-up of astrologers’ recommendations. Of course, this week I might choose three different ones, and I did assume that someone else would mention Stephen Arroyo and Linda Goodman, who [...]
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Recognising Oshun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_QkhxfZjs With so much power now in watery Pisces — Sun, Neptune, Mercury and the asteroid Vesta — maybe it’s a moment to pause and listen to a story about another watery deity: Oshun, West African goddess of sweet water.    
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Your Monthly Podcast (Feb 19-Mar20)
Oh my!  We are deep into Poseidon’s watery territory this month. Watch out for the jellyfish and the sharks. On the other hand, look at those flashing schools of multi-coloured fish over on that coral reef, and some dolphins disporting themselves on those waves and a mermaid on that rock [...]
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