A still from the TV show Mad Men Henry Kissinger said power is an aphrodisiac. Well, it works for some people, but you know what, a lot of us don’t find it that attractive. The two top stories in the news here in the UK today are about sex and power.  The gay-bashing head of […]

There’s a lovely little google doodle today of the planets moving around the our star, the Sun. It’s there in celebration of Nikolaus Copernicus’ 500th birthday. Copernicus’ book, On The Revolution of the Celestial Spheres, in which he posited that the Earth and planets [...]

Nuns in St Peter’s Square, Ash Wednesday 2013. On Ash Wednesday several thousand people queued around St Peter’s Square in the slanting afternoon sun. Above pulsed the blue dome of the a perfect Roman sky, ahead the pearly dome of the St Peter’s, mother church reaching out [...]

The Moon from De Sphaera As I write, the Moon is running the gamut of an opposition to Pluto. She’s in her own sign, Cancer, so she’s no pushover, even for the lord of the Underworld. But as she slides through the sea of Cancer, she brings into action all kinds of interesting [...]

Jodie Foster is one of the few movie stars who has managed to transmute her juvenile brilliance into adult excellence. Now, she’s 50 and still at the top of her profession. It’s a remarkable career. But just as remarkable has been her determination to keep her private life out of [...]

This mysterious disc is said to be the oldest known map of the heavens. Two nights ago the stars sparkled so fiercely above our house. Jupiter was a perfect, tiny orange disc, suspended between bright burning Aldebaran, the Watcher of the East, and Orion. The Pleiades were easy to see, a [...]

Indians have taken to the streets to protest against violence against women. India, the world’s biggest democracy, is a great big bhel puri of languages, religions, customs and manners.  Special interests are as diverse as religious customs, but for the past month Indians have been [...]

With his customary impeccable timing (Saturn in Virgo), jazzman Dave Brubeckwas died yesterday, just two days short of his 92nd birthday. But today is his actual Solar Return, the moment in the year the Sun returns to the place it was when you were born. The planets of ending and [...]

Yesterday evening my daughter told me that her friend has been receiving nasty anonymous notes. These have been left in her desk for about a week. It is a recrudescence of previous bullying but in a new form. I thought it was a perfect example of astrology in action. Mercury, the planet of [...]

This lunar eclipse today puts an enormous amount of pressure on the poor old Moon in Gemini. It’s as if all the bullies in the playground are standing in a semi-circle pointing an accusing finger at her. Just look at the chart (see below) and you can see that every planet except Mercury [...]

A detail from Hieronymous Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights “Beware the slinking whisperer who whispers into the hearts of people, whether he is from the world of spirits or the world of humans.” – Sura 114, The Qur’an “The mind is its own place, and in [...]

Where is Woody Harrelson when you need him? (as Tallahassee in Zombieland) My friend the doctor has some really hard choices to make. He told me this week that he’s having to write up the “Do Not Resuscitate” protocol for one of the care homes he visits. The problem is this. [...]

Amy Winehouse (born with Saturn in Scorpio) Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just gloss over the nastier side of human nature and pretend there’s no jealousy, no murderous rage, no stomach churning fear, no madness? We could all live in a happy, smiling Libra world…. but we [...]

Evelyn de Morgan: Spirits of the Storm It comes as no surprise that this Full Moon is the eye of a massive storm. The chat is criss-crossed with red lines. There are five oppositions including the Full Moon itself. Going counter-clockwise from the Taurus Moon. Taurus Moon opposes Scorpio [...]

Gadgets, car chases, kiss kiss, bang, bang. Was there ever a deeper examination of the modern condition than James Bond? Just kidding. A Bond film is about wallowing in style over substance, stuff over emotions, materialism over spirituality. Ian Fleming: debonair For this country, of course, [...]

October by James Tissot, who was born with Sun Libra, Saturn and Mercury in Scorpio. Saturn moving into Scorpio represents a major energy shift, and it’s time to apply some astrological knowledge instead of just theorising about it. Saturn likes rules, boundaries and organisation, so [...]

William Turner: Snowstorm at Sea Neptune, the planet of illusion and delusion welcomed Saturn, the planet that rules old age, acquired wisdom, maturity, rules, boundaries, reality into the realm of water this month. What could this mean? Saturn is at 0° Scorpio trining Neptune at 0° Pisces. [...]

Little Red Riding Wolf: The fairy tale give some good advice about how to deal with predators. A while ago I met someone who had been molested by the late kid’s TV host Jimmy Savile back in the 1970s. I won’t disgust you with the details; he was a little boy at the time and […]

Marc Chagall The Eve of the Day of Atonement Today, 27 September 2012, is the Jewish Day of Atonement. The Books of Life and Death have been closed, the tally of good and bad deeds has been taken for the year, and you’ve apologised to your family, friends, colleagues, the milkman for the [...]

Ivan Shishkin. Autumn My mother is celebrating the end of Saturn’s passage through Libra with a new hip. The symbolism could not be simpler. She has a Sun-Mars conjunction at 24° Libra. This represents both her actual body and her physical energy among other things. Saturn, which rules [...]