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On Culture

Art, music, books, poetry, fashion, dance, television… the products of our imaginations and the people who make them. The Oxford Astrologer’s blogs on astrology and culture.

Astrology of Now: Calculated Action

The Queen, you may be aware, has had a cold. For the entire period of this Mercury Retrograde, her Majesty kept out of the public eye. She didn’t even make it to the Christmas church services — and that was for the first time in — well, forever. Yesterday, when Mercury went direct, she [...]

When Scorpio Engages With The Camera

John Berger, art critic, author, poet, visionary, European became (almost) a household name when he made a four-part TV series called Ways of Seeing. This came out in 1972 and it’s a fascinating watch today — not just for the ideas, which became extremely influential (and still sometime [...]

Just A Little Broken: RIP George Michael

Fragile, strong, sweet, sharp — a little broken. George Michael was a superstar with a seemingly boundless musical gift, but it was his vulnerability that made him special. Something, somewhere, had been cracked (one felt), and, like a “golden repair” on a Japanese pot, it made George Michael [...]

A Street Called Hope

The shortest day of the year unfolded, unintentionally, as a meditation on our connection to God via a city break in Liverpool. In the morning, we went to the great hulking Anglican cathedral — which lours over the city from a high point overlooking the River Mersey and the Irish Sea. The [...]

8 Things To Do While Jupiter’s in Libra: Flamboyant Grace

The planet of luck, exaggeration and expansion, Jupiter, is in Libra until October 2017. Here are some ways to work with that rather flamboyant energy. Polish Your Politesse It’s time for manners to make a comeback. Make a conscious effort to say please and thank you, to respond graciously [...]

Magnified, Sanctified: Leonard Cohen

A poet, a mystic, a lover, a joker — a man. Leonard Cohen, who died last week at the age of 82, wrote complexly layered lyrics, with deceptively simple tunes. His songs coil and then unwind, as images and fragments of stories twist freely into your imagination. “There is no God in Heaven [...]

Astrology of Now: Through The Looking Glass

As some readers of this blog may have noticed, I couldn’t bring myself to take a close look at the close of polls chart for the US election. It was just too important — and I was scared of what I might find. However, a couple of weeks ago, when I was writing your horoscopes for […]

Terrorism, the Discovery of Chiron and Great Art

Chiron, the erratic asteroid that weaves between Uranus and Saturn, was discovered on November 1, 1977 on a photographic plate that had been taken on October 18. That second date might just ring a bell for you if you happen to be interested in contemporary art – because it’s also the [...]

Astrology of Now: Six degrees of Jupiter in Libra

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: a game based on the idea that any player in Hollywood can be linked, through the films they have worked on, to character actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. So say, Kevin Bacon has a value of 0 — he being the centre of the Hollywood universe — then try linking […]

The Autumn Equinox

Today the Sun moves from mutable Virgo to cardinal Libra and the night is as long as the day. It’s one of the four corners of the year, when the season turns and we start our walk to the darkest day of the year. We are at one of the four Cardinal points (0° Libra), a beginning. And this year, [...]

Brangelina Back To Just Plain Old Brad and Angelina

What a shame that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are splitting up. It’s a tale of mutable tragedy. Pitt is a Sagittarian Sun and Jolie a Gemini — opposites attracted. Both these signs have been shaken and stirred this year by eclipses and a Jupiter transit in their fellow mutables Pisces and [...]

Artist’s Birthday: Arthur Rackham

They say that the best way to see fairies is slantwise, out of the corner of your eye. Twisting, twirling, pirouetting india ink, delighted detail, subtle washes of colour and something sinister: the drawings of Arthur Rackham. Fairies swirl into trees, spin into trolls, spin into wild [...]

A Musical Zodiac: Interview with the Composer

Since music and astrology are in some senses soul-sisters, it’s surprising (perhaps) that so little music based on our cosmic art has been written in the classical tradition. So it’s hugely satisfying that award-winning composer, visiting professor at the Royal College of Music, [...]

The Book of Heaven

I have, beside my bed, a most delicious and strange book. It’s so rich and peculiar that I have found I can only dip into it one story at a time. Yet it is so delightful that I keep it there to pick up every now and then so that I can take my mind far, far […]

A Musical Zodiac (Tonight)

A Musical Zodiac, composed and conducted by Debbie Wiseman (with sleeve notes by Jonathan Cainer). Launched September 16. A crab yearns for the moon, a seamstress stitches in a pool of sunlight, twins play — Debbie Wiseman’s musical character sketches of the signs of the Zodiac are [...]

RIP Gene Wilder

“I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying […]

Muhammad Ali: Leo Rising

Self-named, self-invented, self-motivated, champion boxer Muhammad Ali was a modern embodiment of the archetype of hero. He was charismatic, strong, graceful, poetic in speech, courageous in deed. He spoke up for the millions and laughed at the powerful. He took his punishment squarely and [...]

The Wonderland Book

Kirsty Mitchell has a magical opposition between Venus in Gemini and Neptune in Sagittarius. Her imagination, rooted in fairyland, branches out into stranger worlds. She is an artist whose brush is a camera. She is a photographer — a province of Neptune — and she photographs beauty (Venus) in [...]

In the Key of Gemini: Charles Aznavour

In his long, long musical career, the great French balladeer Charles Aznavour has written hundreds of songs and recorded thousands. His Sun is at 0° Gemini, the sign of the songsmith. “I can write on any subject. Just give me the first line, which is the most important.” Aznavour will turn 92 [...]

Neptune rules fashion and glamour and it’s been interesting to watch what’s happened since he roared into Pisces in 2011. Men rediscovered their inner dandies; women went kind of dishevelled and started dying their hair crazy colours. Neptune in Pisces 2011 -2025 Hair has gone all the shades [...]

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