Every single woman that I know has experienced a straightforward sexual assault — raped, groped, flashed — mostly by someone she knew. And from her working life, every single woman I know has a catalogue of the occasions when she was manipulated, intimidated, pestered, ignored, frightened or [...]

Autumn is here. There is magic in the air. After the high winds: still, dull skies, yellow-leaved birch, bronze beech. Delicious fall smells: woodsmoke, rot, mushrooms, apples. The nights are reaching into the hours of day, here in the north. But everywhere, the season of magic opened today. [...]

Within the earth, beneath the mountain, through the dark lake, there is another world. Sunlight does not penetrate. You must bring your own light. This is the realm of the dead, a place of ghosts and shades, a place of buried wealth, secrets, hidden desires. Gilgamesh, Inanna, Psyche, Demeter, [...]

This month’s video was shot in my garden.

I couldn’t help but note that on the day American footballers staged a peaceful protest across the country, Neptune, the higher octave of Venus (planet of peace) and Mars, the planet of warriors, came into perfect opposition. The athletes chose to kneel when The Star-Spangled Banner was [...]

This week, Mercury, Mars and Venus, the three rocky little planets closest to our own planet Earth are visible at dawn, and today, Lady Luna sails in front of those planets in a multiple “occultation”. What is more, the Royal Star Regulus is part of the show too. “The last time the moon [...]

A man, who feels himself to be half wolf, wanders through the rainy night streets of a European city. He comes across a strange door in a wall and sees this sign, or thinks he sees it, but then does it disappear? Magic Theatre  Admission not for everybody — Not for everybody — MAD PEOPLE  ONLY [...]

Homeric Hymn to Poseidon About Poseidon the great god first I sing, mover of the earth and the barren sea, marine god, who possesses Helicon and broad Aegae. In two parts, Earth-shaker, the gods assigned you your privilege: to be a tamer of horses, and saviour of ships. I salute you, Poseidon, [...]

    As the goddess of grain and agriculture,  Ceres was one of the most important deities in Rome. The “world of Ceres”, a pit with a stone lid, was ceremonially opened three times a year – August 24, October 5 and November 8 – and offerings were left for the goddess of abundance. [...]

…and yet the children eat figs on the beach, fight, splash. The wine tastes good. Sun sets. Everything, everything is precious. This summer is not like other summers. A magnifying glass hovers over the human world, making our invisible bonds almost visible, gossamer threads ruffling, [...]

Angry faces reddened by torchlight, mouths agape spewing hatred. The sight of those men — and they were almost all men — scarring the beautiful campus of the University of Virginia was stomach churning, horrible, familiar — even on the small screen of this laptop, You’ve seen that same anger [...]

“I pictured a rainbow, you held it in your hands I had flashes but you saw the plan I wandered out in the world for years while you just stayed in your room I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon The whole of the moon” The Waterboys We have all known […]

The fourth wall of that apartment was sky — straight out west to infinity. At sunset, the colours were delirious: orange, magenta, fuchsia, red, burning in the west. And then, through dusk, subtle mauve and bruises. In the distance the planes circling to land at Heathrow blinked in the [...]

It’s true the world around us is in upheaval. We are in a time of transition, with all the dangers, obstacles and dramas which that entails. And astrologically on this Solstice we can expect the collective emotional temperature to be turned up to boiling point — (with Mars and the Sun in [...]

“There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.” Julius […]

There has been so much fiery energy this spring with planets spending unconscionably long in the sign of impulse and initiative, Aries. The Ram’s fiery inspiration is usually what we need to kick off the astrological year. But in the last seven years, we’ve had an awful lot of it — because [...]

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” Shepherd, naturalist, philosopher, traveller, mountaineer, writer, defender of the wild, environmental activist and immigrant, John Muir  through his passion and [...]

Today, Mars, the planet of physicality, action and Iron John moves into the sign of the Bull. Strangely, this is traditionally considered a difficult position for the planet of masculinity — maybe there’s just too much testosterone there. However, I note that people with this placement natally [...]

The late Alexander McQueen said that he wanted people to feel afraid of the women who wore his clothes. His shows were legendary: shocking, emotional, Gothic, visceral — absolutely exquisite. In 1995’s The Birds — inspired by Hithcock’s movie — models stumbled down the catwalk, dresses torn [...]

Fiery energy is gathering around the coming eclipse on February 26. We are in an unusually unstable period. The times are angry enough and polarised enough already. Know that the planets are stirring the pot this week and next, adding a huge dollop of chilli to the cosmic soup. Be cautious, [...]