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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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.    

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 [...]

"...I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should […]

Intelligent, emotional and true — Nancy Wilson called herself a “song stylist”. She managed to mix irony and compassion in her interpretations seemingly effortlessly. She died today at the ripe age of 81. Listen to her caught-you-red-handed song, Guess Who I Saw Today, for an [...]

                    It’s that time of year again, and I have had a shufti around the internet and found some astrowonders to stiffen even the floppiest stocking. Every year one or other couture house goes astrowild — and this year [...]

Although he was born on December 7, 1988, Benjamin Clementine sounds like he’s lived for a thousand years. Wow. Here is his chart. Sadly no birth time. But I think you can hear that Sagittarian freedom and wildness in the way he unleashes his voice. And the generation with Neptune in [...]

Wishing all my readers a glorious conjunction of Jupiter with the Sun — expansion and light, vitality and joy, optimism… What will you grow in the next 12 months? What will you give light and warmth? Conjunction is exact at now.

Part 3 of my talk on Pallas Athena in Oxford this September.

The god of communications, Mercury, and Venus, the planet of peace and love, meet a few times a year to catch up on some gossip and maybe even steal a kiss. These two usually get along well since much of the time they are either in the same sign or sextiling — at least by […]

Today, Juno, the asteroid of marriage, partnership, contracts, fidelity, and promises, stations retrograde at 0° Gemini, the sign of the storyteller. In fact, she will spend most of her retrograde (until Christmas Eve) in Taurus, where she may be taking another look at some of the decisions [...]

Every eight years, Venus, the planet of harmony and beauty takes a prolonged trip into the Underworld of Scorpio, where everything she stands for — from money to social skills to femininity — comes into question. As she goes deeper, she leaves behind her jewels, her silks, her [...]

And now the Sun enters Libra, the cardinal sign of autumn. Again we are at the beginning of a season. The equinox is behind us (September 23) and in the North the days will get shorter as we stumble towards the dark of winter. Now, this autumn season is the moment when we weigh and […]

The great Leonard Cohen: born on this day, September 21, 1936. Ascendant and Sun are both at 27° Virgo — a great heart — and they make a perfect square to the MC in Gemini (a career as a wordsmith). The two planets of art, Venus and Neptune, are also exactly conjunct too — at [...]

” Halloa! here’s signs and wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I’ll get the almanac and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll’s arithmetic, I’ll try my hand at raising a [...]