Category: Nativities

Chiron in Taurus, the Wound of Insecurity

When the centaur Lord Chiron is in the sign of Taurus, the woundedness manifests in the realm of comfort, security and self-esteem. Indeed, the pain of Chiron here is likely to be felt as discomfort, insecurity and low self-esteem. As with all matters of Venus’ realm, there is a sharp dichotomy between material and spiritual manifestations of the placement. Venus rules both money (material) and love (spiritual), and to some extent, you will dictate which expression of Venus’ domain is expressed through the pain of Chiron here. This does not mean that you will be immune to one or the...
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Frida’s Forge

Frida Kahlo is well known as a trailblazing artist. She was, for example, the first Mexican artist to have a painting displayed in the Louvre. But her passion for painting was discovered almost by accident. Well, literally because of an accident, that nearly killed her. In 1922, a bus she was embarked upon collided with a car, and she was flung clear of the wreckage and impaled upon a metal handrail. She later claimed that the length of steel entered her flank and exited through her vagina, this was perhaps untrue. She also broke her collarbone, two ribs, her leg...
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The Shadow part I: the Conundrum of the Luminaries

The Shadow is the collection of unresolved, unrecognised and unreconciled facets of personality. It is accepted that integrating the Shadow into one's consciousness can have enormous creative and healing benefits, but this unexamined self is difficult to apprehend, for precisely the reason that it is hidden from consciousness, and when revealed, uncomfortable to gaze upon. Add to this the distortion of subjectivity, a liberal measure of childhood scripting, the occasional resurgence of the panicked inner child in times of distress, all these factors and many more, and you have a confusion which makes it supremely awkward to get any easy...
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Aspects in Balance

Here is another perspective too on the nature of Jupiter and Saturn, and the received wisdom about those planets. Specifically, it allows us to reframe the simplistic idea that Jupiter is good, and Saturn is bad. It is better to say that Jupiter is easy, and Saturn is hard. But as we all know, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, and it is commonly held by almost everyone, that while they did not choose the great hardships and challenges of their lives, they would invariably not choose after the fact, to have not lived through them. Often, the...
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Vladimir Nabokov: No Rest for the Wicked?

Vladimir Nabokov was a sensitive and complex man. Highly intelligent and with an exotic past he was born into the Russian aristocracy before being forced, in fear of his life to flee his homeland in the 1917 revolution and spent his remaining years wandering the earth, never truly finding his home. He is best known for his novel Lolita; about the foolish love a middle-aged man has for a young girl. It is a taboo subject. Nabokov wrote it very skilfully, and the book is perceived to be a moral tale which exposes the cruel tragedy of its protagonist’s...
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The Astrology of Healing

Feature image: A Visit to Aesculapius 1880 Sir Edward Poynter 1836-1919 Aesculapius is identified by the snake curled around a staff. In a scene taken from a poem by the Elizabethan Thomas Watson, Poynter shows him being consulted by Venus who has a thorn in her foot. Venus is identified by the doves, which are... Continue Reading →

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The Other Side of Paradise

If it is true to say that there are, in an esoteric, but nonetheless verifiable manner, no ‘easy’ aspects, then this ought to be simply demonstrable; let us find a chart which evinces no hard aspects, and gaze agog at the cosmic realisation that perhaps we have been looking at the entire puzzle of the nativity from a flawed perspective; that rather than seeing things in a binary manner, as in good versus bad, what we are instead witnessing are stylistically differing itineraries leading to a common destination. To digress for an instant: in spiritual terms we are all engaged...
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D.H. Lawrence and the Astrology of Outcasts

David Herbert Lawrence is one of the great writers of our time. His major works are considered to be among the finest literary works of the modern age, which when you consider his beginnings in working class obscurity during Britain’s late industrial age, and the relative fleetingness of his life – he died aged just 45 – marks him out as a truly remarkable character. And even within the scope of his successful years, he was continually attacked for the subject matter of his novels, viewed with suspicion and hostility because of his pacifism and his marriage to a...
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Final Thoughts on Planetary Ease

There are a few more observations that we can make in order to complete our study of the ancient and profoundly insightful principles of dignity and debility, after which I hope we can close the topic as a study focus and move on to other things. What we are trying to achieve is an insight into how and why the rules of dignity that we follow work as they do, and what it means in practical terms. Therefore, we need to cover all of the principles so that we at least understand what the considerations are. Once we understand, we...
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Poor Reception: Our Fatal Flaw

One of the most fundamentally oversimplified concepts in astrology is that of mutual reception. It is a complex idea that is generally assigned a crude remit. That is to say, a simple reception confers benefit because each planet has access to it’s native domain. We all understand this. As a simple rule, we can infer that an otherwise ‘ordinary’ placement might have recourse to a smoother mode of operation. And this is true so far as it goes. What this perspective lacks is an appreciation of nuance. This is most likely because we do not stray beyond the rule for...
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Not Enough Pluto

Not enough Pluto. Yes, it really can happen, and it's potentially devastating. We have looked closely over the years at several cases where a person is born with a surfeit of Pluto energy. The principle is that to have sympathy with an energy does not always mean to have more of it, indeed, Pluto is subtle, deep and most of all hidden, so to have Pluto in positive, outgoing and extrovert signs, like Leo, Libra and Sagittarius is uncomfortable for Pluto, who enjoys Scorpio for precisely the reason that he can remain subtle, deep and hidden. The cautionary tales...
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The Rising Sun of the Montmarte

As we have seen from our recent study of US President, Donald Trump, issues of paternity are of supreme import in understanding matters of identity. Identity is an ever-evolving and ever-elusive construct that has to be understood by the astrologer in order that they can help an individual refine and conceptualise their sense of self. It is arguable that there is no greater mission in all of astrology. Roman theatre masks. Carl Jung first devised the concept of a ‘persona’ as a psychological term of reference. Originally, it was a Latin word for an actor’s mask, which presented the...
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Superpowers and Kryptonite

One observance that the keen witted will have already pondered is that whilst we can identify and lend advocacy to a point that measures highest in a nativity, there may also be one or more points which are especially weak. It is not inevitable that a point of especial debility exists, but usually it is... Continue Reading →

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Ikigai and the Earth Houses

Searching for Ikigai is a life’s work for many people, and that’s even before they get started on the actual task that has been found to be ‘the one’. It is little surprise therefore that it is one of the areas for study in which I am most frequently consulted in my work.

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Hadean Times: the Rise and Fall of Rolf.

The rise and rise of Rolf Harris was always somehow improbable, and though his fall has only just begun, it makes an excellent study of how easy it is to fall into the trap of misplaced self-belief. Many of my generation are reeling somewhat from the news that Rolf Harris, whose cheerful, positive and uplifting... Continue Reading →

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Feeling blueprints…

Transit theory. Actually, let's talk for a minute about building a house. Let us say, for the sake of argument that you decide that you want to build your dream home. You probably have some vague ideas about how it will look, about the various features and styles of decor, about the layout. You're quite... Continue Reading →

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Fate, Free Will and the Arc of Pluto

Free will. This concept more than any other has the power to invoke all sorts of impassioned reactions when the study of astrology is in the spotlight. I read once that a scientific conference had to be called off in the United States due to the ferocity of the protests outside the venue: its subject?... Continue Reading →

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The Transneptunian Massacre…

Today I wish to examine certain of the so-called Transneptunians, those hypothetical points proposed by Alfred Witte, founder of the Hamburg School during the 1920s and 1930s. The fact that the Transneptunian points are not known to physically exist was as much a problem for astrologers back then as it is for some today; indeed,... Continue Reading →

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