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Venus returning

January 17, 2014, 9:14 am
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Since around the year 2000 I've been keeping an eye out for significant events occurring around the heliacal rising of Venus, when she returns to the morning sky. According to Bruce Scofield in Signs of Time, there can often be plane crashes, but specifically ones caused by pilot error or rash behaviour (remember – this is the rash, brash and sometimes aggressive face of Venus). Apparently the ancient Mesoamericans believed that the rays of heliacal rising Venus were so dangerous they boarded up their doors and windows, and even blocked their chimneys, to avoid being struck down by them. Thus the heliacal rising can also coincide with someone being 'struck down' by death or illness, or being brought low, most likely by scandal.

2006 was an interesting year in terms of the Venus cycle.  There was a Sun-Venus inferior conjunction on 13th January and Venus emerged from the Sun's beams around the 19th. One person brought low during this period was the former MP Mark Oaten. He announced his bid for leadership of the Liberal Democrats on 10th January, following the resignation of then-leader Charles Kennedy. Then on 18th January, he became embroiled in a row about the leaking of an email. On 19th January he withdrew from the contest, citing lack of support for his candidacy. And on 21stJanuary the News of the World ran a story about his involvement with a male prostitute a couple of years earlier, with further allegations following over the next few days. Oaten resigned from the Lib Dem front bench on 21st January 2006 and left Parliament at the 2010 election.

This next example is not of a heliacal rising, but of a Venus return which is also the completion of a Venus cycle after a gap of eight years: 

(Click to enlarge)
 I had originally thought that Ariel Sharon had been 'struck down' by the rays of a newly birthed Venus in 2006, but when I checked the dates it was a couple of weeks too early. He suffered a massive stroke on 4th January 2006 and never emerged from his coma, so this is not a heliacal rising event. But in terms of the thirteen phases of Venus, it becomes even more interesting, for when he was initially struck down transiting Venus was in the Completion phase of her cycle. This phase begins with Venus' station in the evening sky, following which she turns retrograde. The phase lasts around 15 days, with Venus high in the sky and very bright to begin with, but getting increasingly lower and dimmer each evening as she accelerates towards the Sun. By the end of the phase she's been consumed by its rays, and Venus was close to this point when Ariel Sharon succumbed. As Venus shifted from high to low and from visibility to invisibility, Sharon moved from an elevated position in the external world to one where he was no longer seen by the world, and we can only assume that any activity that was going on was purely internal. 
 
(Click to enlarge)
As we know, he remained in a coma for eight years, then on 1stJanuary 2014 doctors issued a statement to say his condition was deteriorating. He died ten days later on 11th January at 14:00 local time, which is less than half an hour before the exact inferior conjunction of Sun and Venus. That means he died during the dying embers of the Venus cycle eight years on, in the final, thirteenth phase of Transition. And transition is exactly what he did, his soul being released from his body when Venus was just two minutes short of an exact conjunction.  


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Venus and Transformation

January 19, 2014, 9:37 am
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The nineteen month cycle of Venus involves a very elegant dance between four partners: Venus, Sun, Earth and Moon. At inferior conjunction, Venus is between the Sun and the Earth, and at her closest point to Earth. At superior conjunction, Venus is on the other side of the Sun, at her remotest point from Earth. Thus at the former, she is mediating the energy of the Sun to the Earth, and at the latter, she is mediating between the Sun and the rest of the Universe.

So where does the Moon fit in? Well, Adam Gainsburg – who devised his thirteen-phase Venus cycle in The Light of Venus by actually going out and looking at the sky – points out that in the eight months when Venus is Morning Star she makes a monthly conjunction with the Moon. But the interesting thing is that the conjunction is always with a balsamic Moon. It's so obvious when someone points it out to you. After all, in the early morning you can only have a thin crescent of a Moon, as she's making her way back to the Sun. I'm not an early morning person myself, and have rarely if ever seen a morning conjunction of Moon and Venus. I have, however, seen plenty of conjunctions of the crescent Moon and Evening Star Venus but I suppose I just thought myself lucky. I didn't realise that, in the evening, Venus can only be conjunct a new crescent Moon for exactly the same reason: the Moon has just met the Sun and is setting out on her next monthly journey.

I've been playing around with this and I'm pretty sure that, during the Morning Star period, the Moon-Venus conjunctions begin at their furthest apart (45o) and the angle decreases as Venus moves further from Earth and becomes lower and dimmer in the sky. When she disappears from the morning sky, the next Moon-Venus conjunction is at or very close to a New Moon. The exact opposite occurs when she re-emerges after her lengthy period of invisibility around the superior conjunction. There's a Moon-Venus conjunction around a New Moon just before she reappears, and then the angle between them increases over the next few months until it reaches 45oagain, shortly before she disappears from the evening sky.

This brought to mind an image of a cup or a goblet, and set me thinking about what this cycle's about. There are many similarities between the Descent of Inanna to the Underworld and the journey of Venus, but personally, I don't fancy my corpse hanging on Ereshkigal's peg for an indeterminate period, even if it does lead to transformation. It smacks too much of the angst-ridden, renunciative guilt-trip that we've been led to believe is all there is. But life is much more rounded than that.

And then inspiration struck. There's an obscure poem from the Matter of Britain called The Spoils of Annwn. No-one's quite sure how old it is, or indeed what it means. I like to think that it carries several layers of meaning and so can be appreciated by many different people in the same audience, all at the same time. Thankfully it was crafted in an age where you didn't have journalists and interviewers hammering away until they had wrung the Ultimate and Undisputed Truth from its author. This is simply a different way of thinking – it's like holding up a diamond and watching it shift and change as the light catches it. It's like any good myth – it can be enjoyed by many as a cracking good yarn, but it also carries pearls of wisdom that only a few will understand.

But back to The Spoils of Annwn. It tells of a raid on the Underworld (Annwn) by King Arthur and three shiploads of men. The raid seems to have had various purposes, such as rescuing a prisoner, stealing the Cauldron of Inspiration or maybe they were just generally behaving like hooligans and coming away with a bag marked 'Swag'. They met with mixed success, as each verse ends with the dolorous line 'Except seven, none rose up from …' (whichever one of the seven Fortresses they had to pass). These seven Fortresses are much like the seven Gates of the Underworld that Inanna had to go through. They could refer to the seven traditional planets, the days of the week or it could just be because seven was a magical number. The overall impression is that it was a risky business, but the prize was worth it. (Why do I think of oil and Iraq here?). Anyway, you can imagine it going down a storm with the feudal lords and their merry men. This superficial layer, however, doesn't have much bearing on the cycle of Venus.

My cup or goblet had by this stage turned into a cauldron, and as I turned it over in my mind I realised I could map out the whole Venus journey on the Cauldron of Annwn. One of the 'hidden' meanings of the poem could be the quest for poetic inspiration, as Taliesin – the Welsh bard – was one of the seven that returned with Arthur. The relevant lines are:

My original song stems from the cauldron,
By the breath of nine maidens was it kindled.
The Chief of Annwn's (i.e. Lord of the Underworld's) cauldron, what is its power?
Ridged with enamel, rimmed with pearl,
It will not boil the coward's portion …

Just briefly, the Nine Maidens are the Daughters of Memory, or the Moon – effectively the Nine Muses. There are simply too many mythical cauldrons to explain all their meanings, but Taliesin gained his poetic insight by stealing from another cauldron three drops of inspiration that were meant for someone else (he was only meant to stir the brew); and there are several magical cauldrons that will not boil meat for a coward. I take that to mean, in this context, that you can't be certain of success – much as, in the lunation cycle, you can't guarantee that the New Moon seed will flower and fruit.

While we're back with the Moon, I should mention that when Venus is Morning Star she's young and fresh and the Moon is old. Thus the Moon acts as guide and mentor to Venus as she descends to the Underworld. However, as morning Venus is somewhat adolescent in nature, she might not always take to that too kindly. But Evening Star Venus has matured. Joining with a Moon which is carrying the seed of its recent conjunction with the Sun, Venus can use the new impulse of the solar-lunar cycle to assist her in fulfilling her own purpose. And, returning to Arthur's raid on the Underworld for a moment, he travelled there by ship – not so common in classical mythology, but quite usual in Celtic legends.

But before we embark on a voyage around a cauldron, what exactly is the journey about? I think it's about getting in touch with your creativity in whatever way is meaningful to you and then applying it for the greater good. Sometimes it'll happen, sometimes it won't. We have little control over the process or its outcome – however much we like to kid ourselves.  

So we start at the rim of the cauldron, which is edged with pearls. The light catches one of them – this is Venus' heliacal rising, her first brief flash as she appears on the horizon after the inferior conjunction a few days earlier (Birth phase). Over the next two weeks, she establishes herself as Morning Star (Emergence phase). She is still retrograde at this point. Now at the point where the cauldron bulges out, we reach the phase called Fullness. It starts with Venus' station and turning direct and ends with her at her maximum distance from the sun, hence she's at her brightest and highest in the sky. This phase lasts about seven weeks. From this point on, Venus is moving away from Earth and closer to the Sun. Over the next five and a half months (Surrender and Discovery Phase), Venus gradually decreases in brightness and height. Remember too that since Emergence Venus has joined with the old Moon each month in the morning sky. At the end of this period, she disappears from the morning sky and begins her Underworld journey.

We have now reached the flames and bits of wood on the cauldron, which cover the phases Immersion, when Venus begins her period of invisibility and is moving at her fastest direct speed, and Transmutation, when she reaches the superior conjunction with the Sun. This is where an alchemical process takes place – the cauldron is set deep within the earth and is warmed by flames. The water within it is concocting … something … and the breath of the nine maidens is both fanning the flames and cooling the mixture. These two periods last about three and a half months and after the conjunction Venus' thoughts once again return to home.

At the end of this period of invisibility, Venus is reborn as Evening Star (Rebirth phase – about a week). She then begins the long, five and a half month ascent (Remembering and Embodiment phase), during which she becomes increasingly brighter and higher in the evening sky. She is now moving towards Earth and away from the Sun. And, of course, she is accompanied by a new crescent Moon each month (up until the Transition phase). She reaches her maximum brightness and greatest height at the Wholeness phase (about seven weeks and the full bulge on the cauldron), after which both start to decrease until she reaches her station at the Completion phase (about two weeks) and turns retrograde.

The next three stages are collectively called Transmigration as you're now moving on to something else. I see these collectively as the mouth of the cauldron and the steam above it, where what's been fermenting since the superior conjunction can be reaped. In all, the period is very short – barely two weeks – so you have to be quick! The period begins with the retrograde Venus' disappearance from the evening sky at the Transition phase (again, visualise one of the pearls on the cauldron's rim quietly flashing and then disappearing). This is like the final stage of the lunation cycle, when the seed – which holds the essence of the old cycle and the promise of the new – is released. This is followed six days later by the inferior conjunction (Inception phase), which might yield the quintessence, the distillation of the cauldron's brew, like the three drops of inspiration that young Gwion imbibed, transforming him into Taliesin. Venus is now at her closest point to Earth once again. The final few days are the Gestation phase, when you prepare yourself for your return to the world, just like Venus at her heliacal rising.

Well, it all makes perfect sense to me, so I hope it does to you also. If you want to find out more about this subject, I really can recommend Adam Gainsburg's book – he maps Venus' journey differently and he gives a lot more information about each phase. You can also find out which phase you were born under.
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Ukraine Independence Chart

February 24, 2014, 6:57 am
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I don't know enough about the history or culture of Ukraine to do an in-depth analysis of it, but it strikes me that the shape of its Independence chart says a lot about where it finds itself today.

If you take a look at it on an atlas, Ukraine is a large landmass that's almost completely split into east and west by the Dnieper river. To the north and east is Russia, to the west is Europe and to the south is the Black Sea.

Compare this to the chart – imagine superimposing it onto the atlas. You have two sets of planets gathered around the Ascendant-Descendant axis, almost a mirror image of each other. At the top of the chart is Pluto and some way below it Mars. I see this pair as the greater landmass of Russia to the north and east, which is not at all happy about the developments over the weekend and is making aggressive noises, raising the spectre of tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia in 1968. Interestingly, that happened under a Uranus-Pluto conjunction and what's happening in Ukraine right now is happening under the Uranus-Pluto squares. And to the south, where geographically you have only sea, there are no planets.

(Click to enlarge)
(Ukraine Independence chart is based on that in The World Book of Horoscopesby Nicholas Campion, but amended to EET zone as shown in Solar Fire Gold).

If you look at the planets on either side of the divide, again you find interesting pairings or opposites. On one side you have Sun, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and the South Node; on the other you have Moon, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and the North Node. (I've listed them according to how they link up to each other).

The group led by the Sun speaks to me of the past glories of Empire (the Soviet Union – Sun, Jupiter and South Node) and Putin's desire (Venus) to set up a free trade (Mercury) area called the Eurasian Union – the Russian equivalent of the European Union. BBC Correspondent Mark Mardell (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26299178) says that Putin desperately wants Ukraine to be part of this project, because otherwise all he has is Moscow and a bunch of Central Asian dictators. He's already lost virtually all the other former Soviet vassal-states to the European Union, and were Ukraine to join them it would be a further erosion of Russia's power.

On the other side you have the People (the Moon) calling for change (Uranus) and seeing their future (North Node) as lying with the West and the European Union. Saturn lurks just below the Ascendant, suggesting that the old order could still rise up and crush the changes. But perhaps more powerful is the Uranus-Neptune conjunction which has already risen. I think this conjunction is key to what's happening here. Most of the people occupying the central square in Kiev were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They have no memory of life under Soviet rule, whereas most of the people in power were brought up under the old system. They also have little time for politicians, including those of the opposition. They have their own vision for the future – as might be expected for those born around the Uranus-Neptune conjunction. They don't want colourful politicians with big personalities and lots of empty promises. They've seen what's happened since the Orange Revolution a decade earlier – corruption, bickering and rivalry between those in power. Significantly, the word being used for the kind of government they want is 'technocratic'– now what is that if it isn't Uranus-Neptune in action! And though it hasn't really been mentioned much, I imagine internet, social media and mobile phones have all played a big part in mobilising and motivating people – another manifestation of Uranus-Neptune.

It could all go horribly wrong. Tanks could roll into Kiev, or the revolution could fall flat or fizzle out as it did in the Sixties, when most of the nice middle class revolutionaries who'd manned barricades in Paris or staged student demos and sit-ins in London exchanged the long hair and beads for suits and ties, and the vision of a utopian socialist future for free market capitalism. It could descend into thuggery, criminality and lawlessness (transiting Pluto is hovering between the Ukrainian Uranus and Neptune at the moment). I also fear that if or when Ukraine is admitted to the European Union they'll be horribly disillusioned (Neptune again) by what they find, realising all too late that the grass wasn't that much greener on the other side after all. We must also acknowledge that the Arab Spring hasn't turned out to be an outstanding success. But this is the Uranus-Neptune generation standing up and showing their mettle. There's no guarantee that this will be any more successful than previous uprisings have been, but at some point one of these struggles for change will break the mould and point to a new way of doing things.

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Chariklo has rings!

March 27, 2014, 2:45 pm
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I've just discovered that Chariklo - my favourite Centaur - has rings.  Two very thin ones.  And when there are rings, there are often 'shepherd' moons so astronomers are now looking out for them, too.  More information here: 

This is the first small astronomical body that they've discovered with rings.  Chariklo is, in fact, the largest of the Centaurs at 258 km (160 mls), but she's absolutely tiny compared to the gas giants, with their elaborate ring systems.  "We weren't looking for a ring and didn't think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery — and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system — came as a complete surprise!" said Felipe Braga-Ribas of Observatório Nacional/MCTI in Rio de Janeiro.
 


This is an artist's impression of how Chariklo's ring system might look.  Not as exciting as Saturn's, I admit, but nevertheless these small bodies are constantly surprising us.

Does it have implications for how we use Chariklo in astrology?  I think it's too soon to say.  It'll be interesting to see if they find other centaurs, asteroids or trans-Neptunians with rings.  Often once they find one, they find them everywhere.

I've been working with this amazing little Centaur for about a year now, which has been a deeply rewarding experience.  I've written about her previously, but for those who are unfamiliar with her, Chariklo was Chiron's wife and, like him, she orbits between Saturn and Uranus.  Her orbit is longer than Chiron's, however, at around 63 years.

I'm giving a talk on the Chariklo-Uranus cycle at the May meeting of Exeter Astrology Group so do come long if you want to learn more about this unusual little Centaur.

 
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The Centaurs and Longevity

April 13, 2014, 8:10 am
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These thoughts arose from a comment Melanie Reinhart made at our Spring Seminar on 'Ancestral Healing: Chiron and the Centaurs' yesterday. She made the observation that Pholus – the second Centaur to be discovered – has a cycle of around 92 years and therefore still operates on a personal level, as many people are now living into their nineties. Nessus, however – the third Centaur to be discovered – has a cycle of around 122 years and so goes well beyond the present lifespan of a human being.

There's been an increasing number of super-centenarians in the last couple of decades but on the whole they haven't lived much beyond the age of 115. I haven't explored this fully, but I have a suspicion that the cycle of Pluto might be a factor here, as they were born when Pluto was at its slowest, staying in a sign for about 30 years. For example, someone born in 1900 would not experience their first Pluto square until they were 63, whereas someone born in 1969 would experience it at 36. There are, of course, many other factors at work here – not the least being the very different lives led by those born around the beginning of the twentieth century compared to our own. Their lives might appear to have been harder, but amongst other things they ate real food and were physically active. I'm not sure that those of us around now will fare so well on processed foods and sedentary lifestyles.

I wonder too if Chiron might have something to do with longevity. He was, after all, immortal and eventually surrendered his immortality so that he could be released from his suffering. Lifespans seem to have increased since he was discovered in the late 1970s. Again, I haven't looked into this in any depth.

(If Pluto seems out of place here, well no it isn't. Most of the Centaurs have orbits very much like Pluto's – very elliptical and highly inclined to the ecliptic. Centaurs are generally thought to be escapees from the Kuiper Belt, drawn in to the Solar System by Neptune. The Kuiper Belt is Pluto's realm, therefore the Centaurs can be viewed as Pluto's emissaries. It's thought that the Centaurs will not be permanent residents in the Solar System – so we should perhaps ponder why they're making their presence known to us now).

(Click to enlarge)
 But back to Nessus. There is one person who has lived long enough to experience a Nessus return. Her name was Jeanne Calment, she was born in Arles, France on 21 February 1875 and she died 122 years and 164 days later (on 4 August 1997), again in Arles. Her birth data has been verified and she is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest-living person. I had looked at her chart in the past as longevity is a theme in my family (both sides), but it was only last night that I found a time of birth for her on Astrodatabank. To my astonishment, I discovered she had Nessus on the Midheaven! In fact, she has a very Centauric chart as she also has Pholus conjunct Saturn and Chiron conjunct her North Node.



(Click to enlarge)

 She had her Nessus return on 9 January 1997, about six weeks before her 122nd birthday.  Interestingly, Pluto was quite close to Nessus in the return chart.
 
Sadly, Mme Calment outlived both her only daughter (who died, aged 35, from illness) and her only grandson (who died, aged 36, following an accident) so if she possessed a longevity gene it hasn't survived.
 
I don't want to say any more about her chart.  I just found such a prominent Nessus in the chart of the only person to have had a Nessus return quite amazing.



You can read more about her life here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment. 

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Vocation, Daimon and Destiny

April 19, 2014, 7:02 am
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'If you have a vocation, you work to support it– not the other way round.' This came up in our seminar last week and I've been pondering it ever since. 'Vocation' literally means a calling – it's that nagging inner voice you can't ignore. I tend to think of it mainly in religious terms but it could equally be applied to artists, poets, composers and others in the creative sphere, in the healing professions and no doubt others too. The key thing is The Call. Now for some people, their vocation and their profession will be one and the same thing. But for others – perhaps most – the vocation will be something other than how they earn their living. If you're one of the latter, you'll do whatever you must to earn a living while at the same time doing whatever's necessary to satisfy that inner voice. This begs the question who or what is doing the calling – and can we find it in the birth chart?

Well, to me there's only one thing that fits the bill, and that's a point that's little used these days: the Lot (or Part) of Spirit. This is the counterpart to the more familiar Lot of Fortune, which has also fallen out of fashion in recent times.

So what do these two points mean? Let's start with Fortune, as that's probably the most familiar of the two. According to Kenneth Johnson1, in ancient times the Lots of Fortune and Spirit were treated not as abstract concepts, but as characters in a horoscope who were every bit as real as the planets. Fortune, for instance, was a Goddess known as Tyche in Greek and Fortuna in Latin. She was capricious in nature, as likely to bestow good fortune on a thief as she was to mete out misfortune on those it would seem least deserved it. Fortuna was sometimes depicted at the helm of a ship – the ship of our destiny – piloting a course now through calm, now through stormy waters … and sometimes even steering us onto the rocks.

 Spirit was known in Greek as the Daimon – a fiery spirit somewhat similar to but far more, well, spirited than the kindly guardian angel who helps you find your car keys. We come across the daimon in Plato's Myth of Er, which outlines what happens prior to our birth. The tale goes that we're allotted a personal daimon to act as our guardian and help us fulfil the life we've chosen. The daimon carries our personal blueprint and remembers it for us, because we forget all this once we're born. It also brings us back to the path whenever we stray from it. But like Fortuna presiding over the ups and downs of our journey through life, the Daimon is just as capricious where our inner desires and motivations are concerned. Sometimes it impels us to do things we would rather avoid, or forces us onto paths we would not choose to follow, but always, always it's driving us to fulfil the destiny of which we have no memory. So that inner voice belongs to our daimon, calling us to our true purpose, our vocation. 

The system of Lots comes from Hellenistic astrology, and there's a Lot for each of the visible planets. The Lots of Fortune and Spirit are assigned to the Moon and Sun respectively. Fortune represents chance and Spirit destiny. Like yin and yang, they're inextricably linked, suggesting that chance and destiny are two sides of the same coin. It all depends on whether you're looking through the eyes of Fortune (from the outside) or Spirit (from the inside). For example, what looks like chance or misfortune (such as getting onto the plane that crashes) from the outside seems quite different when viewed from the inside, the daimon's perspective. For the daimon would see it as the fulfilment of your destiny. 

We all have a personal daimon, but for the vast majority of us probably the best we can expect in the way of contact is a nudge or a warning at times of danger, a hesitation before we embark on a venture that will take us away from our destiny, or similar. For some great souls, however, their vocation is so strong that they have an exceptional relationship with their daimon. One example which will be familiar to many astrologers is that of Jung with his guide or daimon Philemon, but there are many artists and poets who have had similar relationships with inner guides. These relationships are far from cosy, though. The daimon expects much and can be ruthless in its determination to steer the individual towards creative fulfilment. Indeed, Patrick Harpur2 quotes Jung as saying 'A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon. The daimon of creativity has ruthlessly had his way with me.' And we can probably all think of creative people who have paid a terrible price for their art in terms of health, relationships or personal happiness.

It's easy enough to find out where both Fortune and Spirit are placed in your chart, and in some programs you can reset your chart so that Fortune appears on the Ascendant. This can give a different take on your journey through life. But I couldn't resist drawing up a chart with my Spirit on the Ascendant, which I did by hand as the software didn't extend to it. And when I did, something inside me gave a little leap of joy – which I like to think was my daimon expressing its approval. In fact, I found the Spirit chart a more accurate depiction than either my birth or my Fortune chart, although perhaps others might be the best judge of this.

These Lots can be a useful addition to the birth chart, but there are other reasons for getting to know your daimon a little better. Tradition has it that as we get older and our powers wane, the daimon grows stronger. And when we finally pass over to whatever is beyond, rumour has it that we'll be greeted by the guide and companion whom we've known all our lives: our personal daimon. Best, perhaps, to be prepared...

(1) Kenneth Johnson, 'Fortune and Spirit: reclaiming astrology's lost archetypes' in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2013
(2) Patrick Harpur, 'A Complete Guide to the Soul'
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Nessus – revenge from beyond the grave

May 2, 2014, 9:15 am
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When I heard that Gerry Adams had been arrested and was being questioned about the abduction and murder of Jean McConville yesterday, my immediate thought was that there must be a Nessus connection. If you're unfamiliar with the story of Jean McConville's disappearance, you can read about it here:


Nessus was the third Centaur to be discovered a little over 21 years ago, on 26 April 1993, and, like most centaurs, he's an orbit-crosser. He travels between the realm of Saturn and that of Pluto, which gives you an idea of the kind of energies he embodies. He's about anger and resentment that smoulders and burns. It's also about the desire for revenge, which may well come from beyond the grave – so there's an ancestral or generational aspect to it. Nessus energy is visceral and indicates a place of deep, deep pain. Nessus manifests in other ways too – some of which are relevant to this story, such as being an outsider and being scape-goated – but here I want to focus on the timing of this event.

In mythology, Nessus was a ferryman on the river Evenus who was instrumental in the death and transformation of Heracles, a typical hero figure. The bare bones of the story is that when Heracles and his wife Deianeira came to the river, Nessus was captivated by Deianeira and offered to waive the fee for taking her across, so desperate was he to carry her. However, once he reached the other side his animal passions got the better of him and he violated her. Heracles took up his bow and arrow and shot Nessus through the heart. The dying centaur bade Deianeira to collect his semen and mix it with the blood flowing from the wound, as the elixir would act as a love-potion when Heracles' love began to wane. But the arrow that killed Nessus had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra and was deadly poisonous, as Nessus well knew. The inevitable happened, and Deianeira smeared the love-potion onto one of Heracles' shirts and sent it to him. As soon as he put it on, the poison burned into his flesh. Unable to remove the shirt, he ran wild trying to relieve the pain. In the end, he climbed onto a funeral pyre and was taken up into Olympus.

Nessus has a cycle of around 122 years so it goes well beyond the span of human life at present. That, and the proximity to Pluto's realm and Nessus' role as ferryman, suggest that he operates on a more collective level than Chiron or Pholus, the first two Centaurs. So the rage that comes screaming to the surface can often be ancestral. Possibly the most likely place to find ancestral rage in this small corner of the world is the island of Ireland, where the recent Troubles are only the latest in a long line that stretches back hundreds of years. So I looked at Gerry Adams' birth chart yesterday, well aware of his strong republican links that go back at least a couple of generations and also of the history of abuse in his family – which is another Nessus theme. I was rather disappointed to find that the only aspect to a personal planet was an opposition to Mercury and his South Node, which are both on 5 Scorpio. They express his role as a spokesman for the republican cause, with the South Node showing it was a role he assumed with ease – but it wasn't as visceral as I'd expected.


(Click to enlarge)
Then it came to me this morning: his Nessus is very close to the degree of the solar eclipse on 29th April. In fact the eclipse degree (8 Taurus 51) nestles between his North Node on 5 Taurus 2 and his Nessus on 11 Taurus 28R. Moreover, transiting Nessus at 0 Pisces 57 is opposite his natal Saturn at 1 Virgo 47. The latter suggests that the universe is saying 'time's up, Gerry – it's time to face the music,' especially as Nessus is in Pisces, the sign of the victim. Or, as Melanie Reinhart puts it: the buck stops here.

(Note: Noon chart as birth time unknown)




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Jean McConville's date of birth is not in the public domain, but one of her sons said yesterday that she would have been celebrating her 80th birthday in the next few weeks had she still been alive. Because Nessus was near aphelion in the 1930s, and was thus moving at his slowest, it makes little difference whether she was born in early May or June 1934: in both cases Mrs McConville's Nessus was on the same degree as the Sun in the lunar eclipse of 15th April (25 Aries). Again, Nessus was at the very beginning of Pisces, having made his entry a fortnight earlier.

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He also said that he knows who abducted his mother and still sees them as he goes about his business, but he won't divulge their names for fear of reprisals – he has young children. He himself, aged 11 when his mother disappeared, was taken away by the IRA some days after she was abducted and intimidated into silence. He said that every time he sees these people 'his blood boils'– which is Nessus speaking. Later yesterday Mrs McConville's eldest daughter said she's prepared to talk to the authorities and name names, regardless of the consequences.

(Oh, and the cherry on top of the cake is that Nessus, in the discovery chart, is conjunct Adams' natal Mercury and South Node in Scorpio).

It's as if this has been building up since the entry of Nessus into Pisces on 1st April, with the lunar eclipse releasing the pain and anguish of the murdered woman. This paved the way for the arrest of Gerry Adams at the solar eclipse, two weeks later.

One of the lesser known parts of Heracles' story is the prophecy that a dead enemy would be his downfall. We don't know what the outcome will be for Adams, but the chances are that this arrest has at the very least destroyed his political career in the south of Ireland, something he's been carefully crafting for a number of years. Over forty years on, the spectre of Jean McConville continues to haunt Gerry Adams, like Banquo's ghost.

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Pholus: lid on, lid off and in the Underworld

May 14, 2014, 8:58 am
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The Centaur Pholus has a very elliptical orbit which takes him from the realm of Saturn to that of Pluto, crossing the orbits of Uranus and Neptune as he goes. So he covers a lot of territory and has contact with several of planets on the way.

 Melanie Reinhart uses the phrase 'the lid comes off' for Pholus. That relates to him being the Keeper of the Sacred Wine Jar (given to him by Dionysus) which had been kept sealed for four generations – a reminder that all Centaurs have an ancestral dimension. The story of Pholus and his downfall is that Heracles came to visit one day and Pholus took the lid off the jar to give some to Heracles. Chaos ensued! The wild centaurs smelt the wine and became intoxicated. They came thundering to the cave and began to hurl rocks and tear up trees. Heracles got out his arrows and started to fire them into the centaurs.  They dropped like flies because the arrows had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra, which was deadly poison. The remaining centaurs fled with Heracles in pursuit. Pholus, left behind to clear up the mess, pulled an arrow out of one of the dead centaurs and examined it, marvelling at how such a tiny thing could fell such an enormous beast. However, the arrow fell from his grasp and pierced his foot, and he died instantly.

In 'Saturn, Chiron and the Centaurs' (pg 224) Melanie mentions the possibility that the brief period when Pholus is within the realm of Saturn – and so subject to more constraints than when in the realms of the three transpersonals – may be times when the lid should stay on the jar. This idea fascinated me and I've been mulling it over since the seminar. There are two things to consider here. Not only is there the matter of what difference it might make to mundane events and people born when the jar should be kept sealed, but also how does it change Pholus' expression in the period that he ventures out past Neptune's orbit and moves through Pluto's realm?

All Centaur cycles begin at their perihelion, when they're at their closest to the Sun. When they're at aphelion, they're at their farthest way from the sun and closest to Pluto's realm, which  is the Kuiper Belt astronomically and the Underworld mythologically . Some Centaurs go further into Pluto's realm than Pholus, but that doesn't concern us here.

To get an idea of how it might work in individual charts it's easiest to start with what was happening in the world when Pholus was at the extremes of his orbit, as that's the ground from which individuals emerge. And it's important to remember that Pholus isn't operating in a vacuum. In fact, Pholus seems to be linked in to the Uranus-Neptune cycle, as for the last couple of hundred years every other Pholus perihelion has occurred quite close to the Uranus-Neptune conjunction (understandable, as this cycle is around 171 years and Pholus' is about 92 years). There are also links with the Uranus-Pluto cycle, though these are more spasmodic.

Potentially there are six different phases in Pholus' cycle. The waxing phase starts at perihelion when the lid is kept on, then the main part (the lid comes off) and the period in the Underworld. Aphelion begins in the Underworld still, but with things now being brought back to the surface world.  This leads to another period of 'the lid comes off' when things spill out of the jar then, at the very end of the cycle, the jar is once again sealed.

 The sealed jar suggests a womb-like environment, where things can ferment or develop in the dark. It's like the period when the Moon is dark, which encompasses both the end of the old cycle and the beginning of the new. Using the analogy of the seed, it's released towards the end of the cycle and drops to earth. It beds itself down as one cycle ends and starts to germinate as the new cycle begins, which in this case is when Pholus is closest to the Sun. Or at least, it might – after all, not every seed develops. That's why the lid has to stay on – to provide a safe and nurturing environment from which new impulses can emerge. And what better place for things to begin to take form than in the realm of Saturn?

During the next phase – the lid comes off – we get the new shoots emerging and growing ever stronger. Pholus at this stage is like the genie who escapes from the bottle: once the cork's out, there's no telling what he'll get up to. It could be an inspirational and creative journey, or a disastrous one. Life's like that. There are no certainties, and uncertainty is very much part of Pholus' nature.

Pholus entering the Underworld is about encountering forces that are beyond our understanding, and beyond our control. They're cold and impersonal, like Pluto. You can't bargain with them, or do deals – this is not the realm of the mischievous but genial genie. What you encounter here are chthonic forces that are utterly indifferent to humans. And they can be terrifying. I think here of bumbling Uncle Andrew in C S Lewis''The Magician's Nephew,' who unwittingly lets loose the terrifying, titanic figure of Queen Jadis on Edwardian London – She who has spoken the Deplorable Word which destroyed her own world. We, of course, are Uncle Andrew.

Aphelion is the midpoint of the cycle, and from here we're bringing something back from the deepest part of the Underworld and letting it loose on the world. As Pholus once again crosses into Neptune's realm, the lid is off the jar again and who knows what will arise or where it'll lead us. Then, as the cycle draws to a close, the lid is shut again. This both closes the door on the old cycle and carries the seed of the new, which may well be something else that was brought back from the Underworld, but which hasn't yet  manifested.

I will pause there, and explain how this plays out in Pholus' recent cycles separately.
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Pholus in the nineteenth century

May 20, 2014, 1:07 pm
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I've been looking at, and musing over, the last two cycles of Pholus – which conveniently span two centuries. But they're so different, I've been asking myself where does Pholus fit in all this, if at all.

The answer may lie in the fact that Pholus is strongly linked to the imagination. He travels further than most of the Centaurs I've worked with, in the sense that he crosses the orbits of several planets. By way of comparison, Chariklo orbits sedately between Saturn and Uranus and she's the most 'steady state' of the Centaurs. Pholus picks up on more than most on his journey, and he spends more time in the region of Neptune and Pluto than he does around Saturn – so he's a free spirit for the greater part of his cycle.

If we look at the nineteenth century, this Pholus cycle encompasses two major Neptune conjunctions – the Uranus-Neptune in the early 1820s and the Neptune-Pluto at the beginning of the 1890s. Neptune too is strongly imaginative – our ideologies, world-views and so on arise from the mass consciousness that is Neptune. And even though we talk about living in the real world, or harangue people to 'get real,' we actually have no idea of what really is real, because what we call the real world is simply a mutually reinforced delusion which shifts and changes and eventually disintegrates when that particular version of reality no longer serves us. (And then the Uranian 'awkward squad' comes along and blows holes in the failing consensus of what's real – but that's another story!).

As well as being Keeper of the Sacred Wine Jar, Pholus is also Storyteller to the Gods. Storytelling, like fairy tales and imagination itself, has been relegated to the 'trivial pursuits' level in our bright, shiny, techno-world, but it's an ancient tradition which stretches back to a time long before Homer (who simply started writing the stories down). The storyteller was custodian of the tribe's traditions and also their memory. When storytelling comes from a deep source, the words spring from the visions, not the visions from the words. The storyteller's task was to bring the story alive for the whole tribe, so things like literary style didn't come into it.

All Centaurs are liminal figures, go-betweens, so Pholus in his role as storyteller can draw tales out of that vast, imaginative Neptunian ocean and bring them through into our consciousness. And that's what seems to be happening in the nineteen century, as some of the most imaginative writers – many of whom are still read and enjoyed today – were either born or published during significant parts of the Pholus cycle, or when Neptune was in one of its major conjunctions.

However, at the very start of Pholus' cycle in the 1800s – when the lid was firmly on the jar – there's no discernible Pholusian activity. The period that Pholus was within Saturn's realm extended from 1807 to 1813, with the perihelion on 3 March 1810. It was business as usual, namely War, Industry and Empire. I couldn't find any notable births nor marked signs of imaginative activity. For sure the lid was well and truly on.

 The period around aphelion is a different matter altogether. It extends from 1843 to 1868, with aphelion on 20 July 1855. Firstly, Neptune was discovered in 1846 – once again emphasising the Neptunian feel of this cycle. Events that followed include the rise of spiritualism (the Fox sisters' table-rapping), the foundation of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the publishing of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, all quite Neptunian. Also in 1848 – but perhaps more to do with the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that was building – was a wave of revolutions in Europe, though these fizzled out almost as soon as they began. Then in 1854, shortly before aphelion, the essay 'Walden' was published. Written by Henry David Thoreau (born 1817, shortly before the Uranus-Neptune conjunction) this is a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings which is often cited by environmentalists today. 

Then after the aphelion, we have a remarkable cluster of births ranging between 1859 to 1868. Many of them wrote imaginative fiction but there are others who used their imagination in other ways and many of their names are iconic. To give a few examples: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859) author of the famous Sherlock Holmes stories and also a spiritualist, Rudolf Steiner (1861) educationalist and mystic, Henry Ford (1863) who introduced assembly lines and mass-produced cars, Arthur Machen (1863) author and mystic, W B Yeats (1865) poet and mystic, H G Wells (1866) author and socialist, Marie Curie (1867) researcher of radioactivity and winner of two Nobel prizes (and the first woman to be awarded one), and Robert Falcon Scott (1868) leader of the ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic. Additionally, Jules Verne's imaginative work was first published during this period, including Journey to the Centre of the Earth published in 1864.  All of these individuals have Pholus contacts in their charts, with aspects to Moon, Venus and Mercury occurring frequently.

There are incidents associated with two of these writers so reminiscent of Pholus''genie out of the bottle' side that I just have to share them.  The first is the story of the Mary Celeste, the ship that was found abandoned. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story loosely based on this, but with fictional elements introduced, such as accounts that the ship was in an almost perfect state when discovered (when in fact it had been in heavy weather and was water-logged) and that all the life-boats were still present (when one was actually missing).  The fictional account then took on a life of its own.  Written as an eye-witness account, it subsequently appeared in the press as a true account of the event.  Even the fictional name Marie Celeste was the one that stuck in the public's mind.

The second is similar in that Arthur Machen published a short story called The Bowmen in the London Evening News in September 1914, following the British retreat at the Battle of Mons the month before.  It described how phantom bowmen from Agincourt, summoned by an English soldier, had destroyed a host of German troops.  Machen received several requests for permission to reproduce the story in parish magazines, and on one occasion was asked to give details of his sources.  When he replied that there were no sources as the account was fiction, he was told he was mistaken because the incident really had happened.  Again, The Angel of Mons assumed a  life of its own and acquired embellishments, including accounts of German bodies on the battlefield with arrow wounds. As Machen ruefully said, 'The snowball of rumour has been rolling ever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to a monstrous size.'

As Pholus' cycle drew to a close at the end of the nineteenth century, passing once again into Saturn's sphere in 1897, there was a final flowing of imaginative writers such as C S Lewis (1898) and Jorge Luis Borges (1899).  Indeed, the entire decade gave birth to  some impressive names, including J R R Tolkien (1892), Aldous Huxley (1894), Dane Rudhyar (1895) and Robert Graves (1895).  But once Pholus reached perihelion in 1901, things changed completely.  More of that later.

I'll end with a few lines by Walt Whitman, a poet born around the Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1821, which suggest something of Pholus' journey:

 Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.



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Pholus in the twentieth century and beyond

May 26, 2014, 9:16 am
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Pholus was next at perihelion at the start of the twentieth century, on 4 February 1901. The period he was in Saturn's realm – and the lid was on the jar – stretched from 1897 to early 1904. I'd found this part of his previous cycle very quiet, as if the lid were not just on, but firmly screwed down. The situation this time round couldn't be more different. You would need someone with the strength of Heracles to keep the contents in the jar, at least in the period following the perihelion. The reason for this – and the keynote for the whole of this Pholus cycle – was that on this occasion Pholus was dancing not with Neptune but with Uranus and Pluto. The result is a much darker experience of Pholus. It is not an exaggeration to say that, by the time he had passed from Neptune's and into Pluto's realm, Pholus was staring into the Abyss.

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This perihelion occurred shortly before the first of several exact oppositions between Uranus and Pluto during 1901-2 which formed the backdrop to the scientific revolution that shaped the twentieth century. There were notable births and significant events in the years following Pholus' perihelion. The first was Werner Heisenberg, a theoretical physicist who contributed to early work on quantum mechanics and is best known for the Uncertainty Principle – a term which, though it refers to the behaviour of sub-atomic particles, could well sum up the entire century. Heisenberg was born on 5 December 1901, and exactly a week later (12 December) the first radio signal was sent across the Atlantic. Two years later, on 17 December 1903, aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight and, shortly after Pholus left Saturn's realm, Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity (1905). We were not so much sailing into uncharted waters as cutting the ties that bound us to the planet.

Culturally, there was one interesting birth during this period, namely that of Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell, who was born in 1903. Gone were the fantasy worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia.  They were replaced by a gritty realism in which Orwell described experiences like being down and out in Paris and London, and fighting in the Spanish Civil War.  He also wrote perhaps the most famous of dystopias, 1984, the background of which is loosely based on wartime Britain. It's interesting to compare this with the other famous dystopia that was circulating round my class clandestinely in the mid-60s – Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. (Both were much more interesting than our set books and ever so slightly subversive). Huxley was born in 1894, during the decade of the Neptune-Pluto conjunction. Many astrologers point to this conjunction as the start of a new era because it's such a long cycle – nearly 500 years. Huxley's story is about a hedonistic, consumer-oriented society in which anything old is despised, whereas Orwell's is of a grim society in a perpetual state of war where your every move is monitored and even your thoughts aren't private. We used to speculate about which of these was the more likely to happen. Nearly fifty years on, we seem to have achieved the impossible and manifested both.

Moving on to the period when Pholus travels beyond Neptune, between 1934 and 1957 with aphelion on 9 July 1946, the first thing that struck me was that Pluto was discovered shortly before (in 1930) and as we know very quickly made his presence felt through the Great Depression and, in Europe, the rise of National Socialism. This has such a different feel to it from the previous period in the mid-1800s when Neptune was discovered, the utopian Communist Manifesto was published and the Fox Sisters were table-rapping – although once put into practice, Communism didn't remain utopian for very long (Orwell's Animal Farm is relevant here).

The early part of this period was one of rising tension as the war machine started to crank into action, embarking on a six-year period of wholesale slaughter which was finally ended by the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The technology that made these bombs possible had, of course, arisen as from scientific discoveries such as Einstein's earlier in the century. In my book, they have 'Pluto' stamped all over them, as does the Holocaust. Interestingly, the word itself means 'burnt offerings,' which again is very Plutonian, whereas in fact the many people who went to their death in Nazi concentration camps were gassed, which is very Neptunian.


While the image imprinted on the mind for the first part of this cycle is that of conflagration, that for the second is of cold and iron. As the world emerged from its period of temporary insanity, the Iron Curtain came down and the Cold War started. In fact, they continued for the remaining part of Pholus' cycle, as the world divided into two camps on one side of the Curtain or the other until the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. The threat of nuclear war dominated this period, with many countries building up their nuclear arsenal and testing nuclear weapons, especially in the 1950s.

As Pholus once again returned to Saturn's realm in 1988, things began to change. It was as if the immense forces that were unleashed in the 1940s were finally settling down. It marked the end of the Reagan-Thatcher era, during which the Market Economy became established. A year later, the Berlin Wall fell and over the next few years the Communist bloc fell apart. By the end of 1991, only a few months after the Pholus perihelion, the Soviet Union no longer existed.

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Neptune had not been a major player throughout this Pholus cycle, but it once again came to the fore as Pholus reached perihelion on 24 September 1991. Take a look at the chart, which is set for London. Two things stand out: the Pholus-Saturn opposition and the beginnings of a Uranus-Neptune conjunction, which is exact during 1993. Pholus left Saturn's realm again in 1994.

The major manifestations of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction to date are the Hubble telescope and its opening up of outer space, virtually back to the Big Bang, and the internet, which has made it possible to link up people all around the world. Wonderful though they both are, they're technological (hardly surprising with Uranus involved), superficial and deceptive (Neptune). What I mean is that the wonderful images we see from deep space are just that: images. They're not real. Even if we could travel that far out, we'd never see those abstract shapes and beautiful colours because they're not there, they're just computer-enhanced images. Likewise, though the internet might have spawned the beginnings of a global consciousness, it could also be likened to the experience of swimming in shark-infested waters. People on the net aren't necessarily who they say they are and there's a dark underbelly of very nasty stuff lurking not very far beneath the surface. 

It's also striking that, though we can now travel to the farthest reaches of the universe and link hands with our brothers and sisters around the globe, there's as much reluctance as ever to plumb the depths, both our own and those of the planet. People seem to be more obsessed than ever with surface stuff like looks, status and celebrities (the glamour of Neptune) to the detriment of values such as honour and integrity. And the disappearance of Flight MH370 has brought home only too well how little we know about the deep ocean depths.
 
A word about the Pholus-Saturn opposition: Juan Revilla, an astrologer and one of the pioneers of Centaur research, has pointed out that Pholus and Saturn remained in opposition (on and off) from perihelion until February 1999, when the last opposition occurred on the final degree of Aries (http://www.expreso.co.cr/centaurs/essays/winged1.html). He suggests that Saturn clipped Pholus' wings during this period but once the oppositions were over it left him free to fly. We're still in the early days of the 171 year long Uranus-Neptune cycle, so it remains to be seen how the rest of these cycles play out.  Those born at the start of them are barely into adulthood, for one thing.

Pholus, however, is now working with Neptune again, which suits his nature and has the potential to yield many rich gifts when he moves into the Unknown Region once again, a period which begins in 2023.



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Titanic - a personal quest

October 7, 2014, 9:39 am
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When I arrived at the Astrological Association's Library Open Day last Saturday, the Librarian was holding a book in her hand. 'I think you'll find this interesting,' she said. How right she was!

The book was Titanic Astrology: the Grand Design of a Famous Shipwreckby Eileen Grimes. I've been fascinated by the story of the Titanic since I was a child. However, it gained a new dimension a few years back when my brother told me that one of our distant relatives (a cousin of my Irish grandfather) died in the disaster. An internet search revealed quite a lot of information about her, and her story is particularly poignant.




Margaret Rice (née Norton) was born in Athlone, Ireland, on 6th October 1872 but emigrated to Canada with her family while still a child. She married William Rice when she was 19 and they had six sons, though the first-born died when he choked on his dummy. The family moved to Spokane, Washington State, where William worked on the railway. However, he was killed in an accident at work on 24 January 1910, leaving Margaret with five small sons to bring up. With the compensation she received, she bought property in Spokane and also had her husband re-interred in a more expensive grave. The re-interment took place, almost unbelievably, on 15 April 1910 – two years to the day before Margaret Rice and her five sons perished in the icy cold waters of the North Atlantic.

She moved back to Ireland with her children for a while but decided they would have a better future in America. She bought a third-class passage on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, departing from Queenstown (now Cobh) in County Cork on 11th April 1912. In 1998 a Memorial Stone was unveiled in Cobh in memory of the 113 passengers from that port who died on the Titanic (all but ten of those who had boarded). The bronze picture on the Stone shows some of the Irish emigrants on two small boats as they were ferried out to the Titanic. Margaret Rice and her five young sons are also depicted on the monument.
 
I digress here a minute to say that I was always slightly bemused by the lack of synastry between me and my immediate family. I have read and heard of some quite remarkable family patterns that often work through the generations. In fact, as a young child long before I knew anything about astrology, I wondered if I had been adopted as I felt no connection to the people I was living with. When I looked at Margaret's chart, there were some interesting links, but at the time I thought of them as no more than that. I did some work on her chart in the months leading up to the 100th anniversary of the sinking and then moved on to other things.

However, as I skimmed through Eileen Grimes' book on Saturday I knew I had to look at Margaret's chart again. She mentions 'Titanic degrees'– those between 21-25 of cardinal signs – which are present in the charts of many of the passengers and crew of the Titanic. (They derive from the chart for the Titanic hitting the iceberg). Moreover, they're also prominent in their descendants and in people who are fascinated with the story. These degrees are very significant in my own chart, and I had a vague feeling they figured in Margaret's too. Indeed, I was pretty certain that I was reading about this on or very near to her birthday.

 
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In fact, she has only one planet on a Titanic degree and amazingly it's Neptune, which is conjunct the Sun and Mercury in the Titanic chart. Mercury might be less to do with communication here than with the role of psychopomp (bearer of souls to the Otherworld). 


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I was curious to see if the Titanic degrees turned up in any of her sons' charts, but so far I've had little success in finding their dates of birth. The only one which seems to be reliable is that of her youngest son Eugene, born on 13th October 1909 – little more than three months before her husband's death. He has a Grand Cross in cardinals that picks up a similar pattern in my own chart, but falls just outside the Titanic degrees. However, if you progress his chart to the date of his death (at two and a half years old), his progressed Sun has moved into the Titanic degree area.

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I should add that I don't have times of birth for either Margaret or Eugene so I've chosen the liminal times of dawn and dusk – they felt more appropriate than the harsh glare of the midday sun. This just happens to give them Ascendants on or near the Titanic degrees but of course they aren't necessarily correct. Likewise their Moon positions can't be considered reliable.

I'm still looking at these charts and I'm hoping to continue writing about this over the next few days.
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Into Neptune's Realm

October 9, 2014, 3:13 pm
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 When the Titanic left Queenstown, County Cork, at 13:30 on 11th April 1912, it left behind the safe haven of land and entered the realm of Neptune, Lord of the Sea. If the chart is turned to put Neptune on the cusp of the first house, a very powerful picture emerges. The Sun and North Node are closely conjunct the Midheaven, suggesting a fateful voyage, with Mercury the Psychopomp and Saturn the Grim Reaper also nearby. Saturn is widely squaring the Moon. Pluto and Mars are in a wide, out-of-sign conjunction in the twelfth house of hidden  matters. As we know, the ship never made landfall.


 
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Looking back at Margaret Rice's charts for the period leading up to the Titanic sinking, I can see many things that suggest a rocky road ahead for her. This is not just with the benefit of hindsight, it has a lot to do with Pluto – which of course was unknown in 1911-12. So in the unlikely event that she had consulted an astrologer in late 1911, perhaps wanting to know whether she should stay in Ireland, the land of her birth, or return to America, where she could most likely give her sons a much better future, the astrologer would probably have seen a year of mixed fortunes, but nothing out of the ordinary. After all, who in the autumn of 1911 would have foreseen the tragedy of epic proportions that was soon to unfold?

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I looked at three charts for the period. In Margaret's 1911 Solar Return, Pluto and Mars are riding high at the top of her chart. Mars in the ninth might signify accidents on a journey, perhaps caused by recklessness. But Pluto in the tenth suggests something much deeper and more ruthless that is played out in public; something perhaps that sears itself into the collective consciousness. With Gemini on the Midheaven, communication is emphasised … and indeed the story of the Titanic has been replayed over and over again ever since in a constant stream of books, films and articles. I'm sure Margaret would never have imagined that she would be caught up in such an event, nor that a century later her story would be available for all to see via the internet.

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I haven't got a birth time for Margaret Rice so I'm reluctant to put too much emphasis on her Moon as it might not be correct, but I found that, in the progressed chart for the date of her death, her progressed South Node had reached her natal Moon. As if to emphasis this, in the Solar Arc chart for the same moment, her South Node and Moon are conjunct in Capricorn, both applying to her natal Saturn. And her Solar Arc Sun-Mercury conjunction is opposite her natal Pluto.


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I can't help feeling that Margaret Rice was destined to be on the Titanic when it left Queenstown. Whether you use the Neptune chart or the standard one, there are three powerful contacts:

- the Queenstown Sun conjunct Margaret's Neptune;  
- the Queenstown Saturn conjunct her Pluto;                                  
- and the Queenstown Ascendant conjunct her Jupiter

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I said earlier that Eugene Rice was the only child for whom I had a reliable birth date. I also found one for George Rice, but I'm not sure it's accurate because his age is given as eight elsewhere. The next one up and oldest boy, Albert, is described as being ten years old. This date is inbetween. But if it does belong to one of these boys, it shows two interesting areas of contact between mother and sons. One of these is in the early degrees of Sagittarius (Margaret's Moon-South Node, George's Sun-Venus and Mercury and Eugene's North Node and Venus) and the other in Aries (Margaret's Neptune, George's South Node and – a bit wide – Eugene's Saturn). George's Saturn is also on one of the Titanic degrees.

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Eugene himself has an interesting chart, dominated by the oppositions between Sun-Saturn and Uranus-Neptune which form a Grand Cross close to the Titanic degrees of 21-25 of cardinal signs. (Bear in mind that the Uranus-Neptune opposition was around for some time so wasn't personal to him. In fact, it's almost a signature for the Titanic disaster: the last word in technological design being overcome by the forces of nature and ending up at the bottom of the ocean). Because his life was so short, there's not much movement in any of the charts I drew for him. The only point of interest I could see in his 1911 Solar Return was Solar Return Mars hovering around his natal North Node.

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By progressions, the only bodies that have moved are the Sun and Moon, and we can't be sure of the accuracy of his natal Moon. The most striking chart is the Solar Arc, because at his date of death Sun, Saturn and Neptune had all moved into the Titanic degree zone (Uranus remaining just outside). His progressed Sun had, of course, also moved into the same area. 

(Click to enlarge)
 


Margaret Rice's body was recovered from the icy waters of the Atlantic by the ship Mackay Bennett. Her body was taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was buried in the Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery – as were many victims of the Titanic. Sadly, none of her sons' bodies were ever found. 

 

One more piece to follow, bringing things up to the present.

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Life goes on

October 11, 2014, 3:11 pm
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Do the dead remain active after they've left us? They live on in our memories, of course, but what if one of those major forks in the road – like the return of one of the slow-moving planets – presents itself some time after death? For a public figure, could this mean the person once more steps onto the public stage? I haven't done a lot of work on this, but the idea does interest me. And I had an example of it recently, again related to the Titanic.

Edward Smith, the Captain of the Titanic, was born on 27th January 1850. When I saw his chart about a year ago I was immediately drawn to his Neptune on 3 Pisces 29. I knew Neptune was in that general area because it was squaring my own Sun-Jupiter-Mercury conjunction in Gemini. So that meant Captain Smith was more or less having his Neptune return when the centenary of the Titanic sinking was being commemorated.

(Click to enlarge)


The first of three exact returns occurred on 10th March 2013. It's by far the most interesting of the trio because of the number of planets concentrated in – of all signs – Pisces: six plus Chiron! There's also a Yod with Saturn and Pluto at its base and Jupiter – the traditional ruler of Pisces – at its apex. Is this a reminder of his violent death, leading to a watery grave? Incidentally, this Jupiter in the Neptune return chart is almost exactly conjunct the Sun at the moment of the Titanic's birth – its launch on 31st May 1911 (Sun was at 8 Gemini 56). I imagined the ghost of Captain Smith pointing to the Titanic as it slid down the slipway at Harland and Wolff shipyard and into Belfast Lough, as if to say 'this is the architect of my undoing.'

I also noticed that Captain Smith will be having a Uranus return fairly soon – again, the first of three will be exact on 20th May 2016. Funnily enough, this was around the time that Titanic II (a replica ship proposed by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer) was due to come into service but it seems this might not be happening now … or with Uranus involved, maybe it will after all ...

(Note that I have no time of birth for Captain Smith, but when I saw that his nodal axis was almost exactly conjunct the Ascendant in the Queenstown departure chart, I constructed a chart for him with the nodes on his MC/IC).



Returning to Margaret Rice, I decided to check her progressions for 6th October 2014, the date I started this piece of work. Her Sun had by now progressed to 7 Pisces 14. This was a jaw-dropping moment, because that's almost exactly where Neptune is in my Solar Return this year. And indeed, her nearby Mercury is conjunct my Solar Return Ascendant. Neptune to me is – amongst other things – about dissolving the veil between worlds and it seemed to be saying that the time is right for me to work with the Rice family.

(Click to enlarge)

As if to confirm that, when I checked Eugene Rice's progressions for the same date, his progressed Sun and Mercury were both conjunct my natal North Node (all on 5 Aquarius) and his North Node was on my natal Mercury (5 Gemini).

Because their birthdays are so close, Margaret and Eugene have similar Solar Returns. Of the two, Eugene's is the stronger. With his Sun in close conjunction to the North Node and the IC (so right at the bottom of the chart) I'm reminded of a soul trapped in the Underworld – or in Eugene's case in the depths of the ocean. In The Amber Spyglassby Philip Pullman, an opening to the upper world is cut for souls trapped in the land of the dead. They quiver with excitement, and when they step out into the night air they see the stars for the first time in years – centuries even. And as soon are they're free they merge with the sky, leaving a vivid burst of happiness, reminiscent of the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

(Click to enlarge)

While I've been writing this, Venus has been moving further away from Earth and into the Sun's beams, on her way to conjunction with the Sun. This is one of the deepest parts of the Venus cycle, when we're taken away from our familiar selves to be immersed in our inner lives more than usual. It's a time when we could find ourselves surrounded by the dead, and/or feel moved to journey to the Underworld. We might discover abilities we didn't know we had and the courage to use them.

So it sounds like this is the ideal time for me to work with these long-dead relatives, to listen to their story, to soothe their troubled souls and release them from their unquiet graves. And perhaps one cold, dark night I might even catch sight of one or more of those bubbles bursting with happiness as their spirit is freed at last.
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The October Lunar Eclipse and Ebola

October 11, 2014, 11:27 pm
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The recent lunar eclipse, although not visible in West Africa, has Mars rising through Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. This country is currently struggling to contain the disease and has experienced the most deaths. 


8 October 2014 - Lunar Eclipse - Monrovia, Liberia

Mars is at the midpoint of Pluto and Saturn, and a range of other midpoints in the chart. Ebertin gives the meaning 'necessity to fight for one's life or existence' to MA=SA/PL. AS=SA/PL is described as 'mourning, seperation and bereavement' in Ebertin's Combination of Stellar Influences.

The eclipse, set for Monrovia, constellates the grand fire trine referred to with a high degree of accuracy for this place. To me, the grand trine in fire seems to symbolise the very high risk of rapid spread of a viral haemorrhagic fever, Mars being associated with illnesses of this nature.

Jupiter, Moon and Uranus give associations with swiftness, acutness and speed and rapid spread or expansion of the reach of the disease. Moon is associated with body fluids, the vehicle through which the disease is spread. Mars is also closely semisquare Mercury.

A positive indication that this outbreak of Ebola may be contained is that the MC=SO/JU=MO/JU. So there is the grave difficulty of MA=SA/PL combined with the more hopeful indications MC=SO/JU=MO/JU all on the same midpoint. Ebertin gives SO/JU to 'health, joy, recognition'. Ebertin also gives this midpoint to indications of wealth.

Of course this is little comfort to the people in West Africa at the moment who are suffering. However, we must hope that an urgent response by the wider world will contain the disease, perhaps with lessons learnt for the future management of outbreaks. It seems to me that nations more fortunate (SO/JU) than those in West Africa must help.

The full midpoint range associated with these degrees in mid-mutables and early fixed is as follows:

Jup/Ura 30 49' 15 Gem 49'
Ven/Sat 30 59' 00 Sco 59'
Sun/Jup 31 07' 16 Vir 07'
Mon/Jup 31 07' 16 Gem 07'
Sat/Plu 31 09' 16 Sag 09'
=Mer= 31 26' 01 Sco 26'
=Mar= 31 56' 16 Sag 56'
Mar/Asc 32 07' 17 Sag 07'
=Asc= 32 17' 17 Sag 17'
Mar/MC 32 24' 02 Sco 24'
Asc/MC 32 35' 02 Sco 35'
Sat/Ura 32 52' 02 Aqu 52'
=MC = 32 52' 17 Vir 52'
Sun/Sat 33 10' 03 Sco 10'
Mon/Sat 33 10' 03 Aqu 10'
Jup/NNo 33 12' 18 Vir 12'

The range is about 2 1/2 degrees.


 The dial shows the axis that is referred to above.
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Venus and the Eclipse

October 21, 2014, 10:28 am
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As many of you will know, there's a solar eclipse on 23rd October at the very beginning of Scorpio – 00o 24'. However, there are a couple of other events around the same time involving Venus. The first takes place about an hour before the eclipse, when the Moon meets Venus while hurrying towards the Sun. Moon and Venus make an exact conjunction on 00o Scorpio 01'– just creeping into Scorpio. The only two feminine planets in the intensely dark and magical sign of Scorpio suggest a tapping into the life force that lies hidden in the depths. Indeed, the three brightest objects in the sky are so close that effectively they're all conjunct at the solar eclipse.

(Click to enlarge)
Two days later, on 25th October, there'll be a Sun-Venus superior conjunction at 01o Scorpio 48' (on the Ascendant in Exeter). When this conjunction takes place Venus is far away from us, on the other side of the Sun. The last time this pair was conjunct was in January. On that occasion Venus was at her closest to Earth, between us and the Sun, and she was retrograde. It was a particularly powerful conjunction, most noted for the fact that little more than an hour beforehand, Israeli politician Ariel Sharon died. He had been in a coma for almost exactly eight years, which was the last time that Sun-Venus had met in Capricorn at inferior conjunction, with Venus retrograde. On that occasion she re-emerged from the Sun's rays a few days later as the Morning Star. This time it'll be several weeks before she reappears and it will be as Evening Star.

I don't think many astrologers differentiate between the two types of Venus but they really are very different. A Morning Star Venus is young, brash, impatient, more of a warrior than a lover – and when she does appear as a lover, well let's say she has an edge to her. The Irish Morrigan or Battle Crow is a more apt description of a Morning Star Venus than the Roman Venus. Goddess of Love, War and Death, the Morrigan finished off at least one Irish hero who spurned her advances after a hard day on the battle field. An Evening Star Venus is closer to the modern astrological Venus – sensuous, sultry, enticing and generally more mature.

The transition from warrior Venus to sultry Venus occurs during her long period of invisibility – roughly 14 weeks – when she is furthest from the Earth, as if she needs to be free of our influence in order to change, or grow up. I am reminded of the numerous folk songs about two sisters – one dark, one fair or one sweet-natured and one cruel. In many ways, Venus is our sister, or even our twin – the two planets are the same size, are close neighbours in the solar system and they engage in a beautiful cosmic dance to a 5:8 rhythm (5 synodic cycles of Venus = 8 Earth years). When she's on the other side of the Sun she can merge with the cosmos rather than with us, and in doing so she transforms herself into the magnificent Goddess of Love. She is then reborn as an Evening Star, the one you're most likely to see with any regularity unless you're an early riser, as you have to get up pretty early to catch Venus as Morning Star.

When Venus disappears from our skies and undergoes her long period of invisibility, it's a chance for us to go deep within ourselves and receive inspiration from a hidden source. And while Venus is undergoing an alchemical process of transmutation on the other side of the Sun, we too may undergo a similar process. I feel that Evening Star Venus is particularly well placed for this in the sign Scorpio, where her magnetic nature can draw individuals into the depths to explore the mysteries of life and death (although there is always the danger of it manifesting in a darker form through the murky world of pornography and the 'dark net'). At the conjunction on the 25th, the trine from Sun-Venus to Neptune in Pisces can only enhance the lure of these mysteries, and the sextile to Mars adds a bit of spice to the mix.

(Click to enlarge)
There's one other thing that makes this conjunction of Sun-Venus special, namely that it's the last time the Evening Star conjunction will occur in Scorpio for 250 years. The next conjunction, in 2022, will take place on the final degree of Libra, because Sun-Venus conjunctions move backwards through the zodiac. There will, however, be two more Scorpio Morning Star conjunctions, with Venus retrograde, in 2018 and 2026 before they too move into Libra in 2034.
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Solar Fire 8 on Linux Mint 13

October 26, 2014, 2:35 am
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Linux and Astrology

One of the major barriers that astrologers face in adopting the Linux operating system is the limited choice of astrological software available on the platform. If you wish to explore the options, you may like to visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Astrology. Unfortunately most of the commercially available packages, such as Solar Fire and Janus, are written using Microsoft programming packages like Visual Basic and are not designed to run on alternative systems. Solar Fire claims that the program can be run on a Mac system using virtualisation software. But the options seem to be limited for using SF, or alternative commercial astrology programs such as Janus, on Linux.

Happily, however, this is not the case. I have been experimenting with Solar Fire, Janus, Solar Maps, Nova Chart Wheels and Delphic Oracle on Linux. I have them all running on Linux using the Wine facility. In virtually all cases, I have got the Windows-based software to run extremely well on Linux using Wine. In the case of Solar Fire, following a breakthrough with a font problem, I have been able to get the program running perfectly on Linux. In this case, the functionality and performance of the program is identical to running Solar Fire on Windows. This is a significant development as it now means that Solar Fire users can move to Linux without any concern about losing access to their astrological software and data.

In this blog I will describe my experiences running Solar Fire on Linux, including all the tips that you will need to get a perfect installation of the software. I have been experimenting with Solar Fire on Linux using Wine for some years now so I have built up a good working knowledge of how to achieve a trouble-free, stable installation. The steps I will describe below should not be beyond a capable desktop user. However, I would recommend that you familiarise yourself thoroughly with the process described before attempting any of the steps. If you are confident with the workings of the Solar Fire program, with Linux and Wine, and with basic computing tasks such as managing fonts, you shouldn't have any difficulties with the process.

Disclaimer

Before you try any of the following steps, please ensure that you are satisfied that you have a robust backup of any files that are personally valuable or critical to the functioning of your computer. If you have any critical program installations that you don't want to lose, you may want to make an image of your hard drive. None of the steps below should lead to catastrophic data loss. However, it is essential that you have taken steps to protect your files before proceeding. If you have existing SF user data files, please ensure you have at least one copy, and preferably two copies, of these files on a physical medium such as a CD-ROM or backed up on a flash drive or external hard drive.

First, a little about Linux and Wine.

Linux is a desktop OS that has been developed by enthusiasts and volunteers, with some commercial input, since the early 1990s. It is now a very mature, stable, secure and attractive OS that is a rival for Mac and Windows. The original impetus for Linux came from Linus Torvalds. He pioneered the development of the original kernel and is still actively involved in the development of the OS. The desktop that is the front end of Linux is developed by various teams of individuals around the world. There are variety of desktops, which gives the end user a range of choices about how to interact with their PC - some of the desktops include Cinnamon, KDE, Unity, LXDE and xfce. Linux is one of the central parts of the free software movement.




Wine is a program that can be downloaded through your Linux software repository. This piece of software is designed to allow Windows based programs to be installed and run on a Linux system without using virtualisation software or a virtual machine. This means that you do not need to install a copy of Windows on your linux system to run Windows software. You can find out details about Wine at www.winehq.com. This is how the Wine team describe the program: "Wine (originally an acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator") is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop." (from www.winehq.com/about)

Wine is a very neat solution to the problem of running Windows-based software such as Solar Fire or Janus on a Linux system. I believe it is preferable to installing a virtual copy of Windows because it maintains the integrity of the Linux OS. After all, I can't see the logic in running Linux on a desktop machine if, at the first problem, one installs a virtual copy of Windows to run software. The downside of Wine under Linux is that not all Windows software will run perfectly on Linux. However, as far as I can see, Solar Fire installs and runs perfectly within Wine. In fact, most of the astrological software I have tried runs very well, or perfectly, using the Wine/Linux system.

Solar Fire 8 on Linux

The following instructions relate to the installation of SF on Linux Mint 13 with Mate desktop. The system specifications are listed below:

Kernel Linux 3.5.0-23-generic
Linux Mint 13 32-bit
Mate Desktop
Wine 1.4.1
Pentium 4 Machine
2.5 GB RAM

Solar Fire runs very smoothly on this set-up. In principle there is no reason why these instructions should not apply to other Debian derivatives of Linux such as Ubuntu. In fact I have plenty of evidence that it runs as well on these OSs - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Lubuntu 12.04 LTS and Linux Mint 14.

Installation Instructions

If you have not already installed Wine, download and install the program through your software manager. This will ensure your software comes from your software repository which gives added security and peace of mind. At the moment, most distributions such as Linux Mint are offering Wine 1.4.1 from their repositories. All my comments relate to an installation based on Wine 1.4.1. This version of Wine provides the most complete solution to the installation of SF on Linux. Later versions of Wine introduced a bug that impacts on the Animate Chart function which causes the program to crash.

If Wine is already installed and you have Windows programs already running in Linux, make a copy of .wine folder as a fall-back if installation of the SF program does not work. This will be renamed .wine (copy) by default. You can find .wine by opening your file manager and displaying your Home folder. You will need to be able to see hidden files, so go to View->Show Hidden Files or hit Ctrl-H once you have your Home folder window open. You will find .wine towards the bottom of the list of files in your Home folder. If this is your first Windows-based installation in Wine you can ignore this instruction.

To install SF

The first thing to do is to install a vital file called mfc40.dll. This is done through Winetricks. SF won't run on Linux without installing this dll. If you can't boot SF, it is probably because this file is not present. You can install this dll file by opening Winetricks from your main program menu. Look for Wine->Winetricks. Go to Select the default Wine prefix->OK->Install a Windows DLL or component->OK. Scroll down the list, click the check-box next to mfc40, click OK. Winetricks will then ensure mfc40.dll is available to SF8.

Next load your SF installation CD and double click or right-click->Open the desktop icon when it appears. This will open the folder containing the files on the CD. Find the install.exe icon and right click. When the menu appears, choose Open->Wine Windows Program Loader. This will open the main SF installation screen. Choose SF from the list of options and click the Install button. To install the program from a downloaded file, just right click on the .exe file you have received and choose Open->Wine Windows Program Loader. In both cases the installation routine will begin. When prompted, enter your registration details - username, password etc. This should perform a basic installation of your chosen version of SF.

You may be asked if you want to run the program at the end of the installation routine. I would not recommend this as there are some further steps to take to get the program running. Firstly you will need to copy your existing SF user files to the Solar Fire User Files folder that has now been set up in your Home folder. If you are an existing SF user, you should have a copy of this folder on your old computer, or, better still, backed up somewhere on a CD-ROM or flash drive.

Open your existing user files folder, copy all of the folders, and paste them into the SFUF folder in your Linux Home folder. If this is the first time you have installed a copy of SF, you will need to copy the User Files from your .wine folder. To do this, display the hidden folder .wine and open it. Find the drive_c folder and open. Open the Program Files folder and go to SolarFire8 - double-click to open. Open the User Files folder and copy all the folders. Return to the Home folder, find the Solar Files User Files and double-click to open. Paste all the folders and files into this new location. You may be prompted to over-write files. Go ahead and do this as long as your are absolutely sure there is nothing that you may want to save from the SFUF.

Font solutions

One of the difficulties with running SF on Linux has been a long-standing problem with one of the fonts. You can see the history of attempts to deal with this difficulty on the Solar Fire page at http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=2392. Unfortunately these solutions have only been partial. The complete solution is to use a program called Font Forge (downloadable from your repository) to change the Windows font, Etsans3.fon in the case of SF8, to a font compatible with Linux. This is easily done by opening the .fon font in Font Forge and using the Generate Font command to convert the font to a Win Fon type.

To open the .fon font go to File->Open and from the file browser follow these steps: .wine->drive_c->windows->Fonts. Choose Etsans3.fon. When the .fon font is open in Font Forge go to File->Generate Fonts... and choose this option from the right-hand box below the font name - "Win Fon". Click Save back to the Fonts folder.

You can find the relevant font in your .wine folder. Again you will have to follow the instructions above to make the .wine folder visible. Open the folder and find drive_c. Open this folder and go to the windows folder. Open the windows folder and find the Fonts folder. In this folder you will find three fonts relevant to the SF8 installation: EtAst1.ttf, Etsym3.tff and Etsans3.fon. The .ttf fonts work fine with Wine and Linux. However, you have to convert the Windows format .fon font as per the instructions above.

To get a perfect installation of SF within Wine, you will need to install a fourth font. I am not sure why this makes a difference. However, without installing the fourth font – ETSYM2.TTF – you will experience residual display problems. The program will be perfectly usable however. The 'fourth font solution' is the final piece of the fonts problem in Linux. Within Windows, SF8 runs on three fonts: EtAst1.ttf, Etsym3.tff and Etsans3.fon. However, for some bizarre reason you need to install ETSYM2.TTF from SF7 to get the font display working perfectly in Linux. This font should be placed in the .wine->drive_c->windows->Fonts folder with the other three fonts. You will need to have a previous version of SF7 to achieve this. There is no complication introducing this .ttf font into Wine, unlike with the tweak required for the Windows-based .fon font Etsans3.

Running SF

You should now be able to run SF8 in Linux using Wine. Double click the desktop icon and the program should run. In all respects you should now be able to use SF8 just as if you were working in Windows.

Upgrading SF

You may wish to upgrade your version 8 of SF to the most current version. This is 8.1.5 and the .exe file is downloadable from the Astrolabe website. This should be a straightforward installation. However, I have discovered that it is important to back up your user files before doing so. This is because the installation routine attempts to overwrite the contents of the Solar Fire User Files folder and does not like doing so, at least in Linux/Wine.

If you don't empty this folder, the upgrade process will be stalled and lead to an unstable installation. It is essential, once you have made some copies of your user files for security, to empty the contents of the SFUF folder in Linux Home folder. However, leave the empty SFUF folder in situ. Following these steps ensures that the upgrade is not interrupted leading to a partial, and unstable, installation of the software. Once you are ready to upgrade, right-click on your .exe upgrade file and choose Open->Wine Windows Program Loader. The installation process will start. You may be prompted to confirm that you have a legitimate copy of SF8 installed on your machine. If you have a personally licensed copy, click OK.

Once the installation has been completed, copy your user files back to the SFUF in your Home folder. Check that you have the correct Etsans3.fon font still installed in the fonts folder. This completes the process and you should have a perfectly installed upgrade of SF8 to the latest version 8.1.5.

If you use a lot of asteroids as part of your astrology, you may wish to copy the updated EtAst1.ttf font file from the program folder SolarFire8 to your fonts folder in Wine. This is a straightforward Copy->Paste from the program folder to the fonts folder. You can rename the original EtAst1.tff (orig_EtAst1.ttf) before doing this. This is a precaution that ensures the original asteroid font file is still available to you and is not overwritten.

Conclusions

The comments above relate specifically to Debian-based Linux desktop systems such as Ubuntu, Lubuntu, and Mint. You will have to experiment if you wish to try SF on other systems such as Arch, SUSE or Redhat based operating systems. The most complete solution seems to be with systems based around Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which is supported until April 2017. The Wine version to use is 1.4 or 1.4.1. I will highlight the regression identified above which crashes the Animate Chart function in more recent Wine versions to the developers through the bug report system. If you can live without the Animate function, you can happily proceed to use Ubuntu derivatives such as the more up-to-date 14.04 LTS, Mint 17 and the latest Lubuntu OS (based on Ubuntu 14.04) with the latest Wine release.
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Charles Carter's Forgotten House System - Poli Equatorial Houses

December 20, 2014, 12:24 am
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Charles Carter was one of the great English astrologers of the twentieth century. With Alan Leo, John Addey and Charles Harvey, Carter transformed astrology in England. He introduced technical and philosophical innovations and participated in a number of key institutional developments.

Charles Carter was born on 31 January 1887 at 10:55PM in Parkstone, Dorset. He had an Aquarian Sun in the 4th house, and Uranus rising in Leo just into the 12th. At his birth, Saturn had just culminated in Cancer. With this combination of rising Uranus and an elevated Saturn, Carter was well-figured to lead the astrological world. He died in October 1968. 1

His astrological service included a number of key appointments. In 1922 Carter followed Leo as the President of the Astrological Lodge of London and revived the institution. In 1948 he became the first Principal of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. In 1958 he became a founding Patron of the Astrological Association of Great Britain. Carter's legacy is remembered at the annual Astrological Association conference. A leading astrologer is invited to deliver the Carter Memorial Lecture as the central plenary session of the event. This invitation is one of the highest accolades an astrologer can receive.

Carter wrote a number of significant books including The Principles of Astrology (1925), Zodiac and the Soul (1928) and Essays on the Foundations of Astrology (1947). He reflected on key philosophical issues in The Seven Great Problems of Astrology (1927). He advocated the use of some innovative directional methods in his slim volume Symbolic Directions in Modern Astrology (1929).

Charles Carter introduced a technical innovation that is almost forgotten today - his poli equatorial house system. He described his system of domification in Essays on the Foundations of Astrology. The method is found in Chapter 8, Problems of the Houses. In the chapter, Carter reviews many of the principle systems of domification including the Regiomontean, the Campanean, the Equal and the Placidean. He then introduces his own method so nonchalantly that the reader may miss the significance of the text.

Carter writes that in his poli equatorial method “...the houses are demarcated by circles passing through the celestial poles and dividing the equator into twelve equal arcs, the cusp of the 1sthouse passing through the ascendant. This system, therefore, agrees with the natural rotation of the heavens and also produces, as the Ptolemaic (equal) does not, distinctive cusps for each house....” 2

Calculation of the cusps is a relatively simple affair. The ascendant degree is converted to right ascension in degrees. Thirty degrees (or two hours) of right ascension is then added for each subsequent cusp. The right ascension so found is, for each cusp, then converted back to celestial longitude and expressed in zodiacal degrees. The tenth house cusp will not generally coincide with the MC degree. The second cusp is opposite the eighth cusp, the third opposite the ninth and so on.


Figure 1: Charles Carter's Poli Equatorial House System - Diagram







Carter notes that the Regiomontanean system of domification also uses equal division of the equator as its foundation. In fact, Carter's poli equatorial system is one of a family of house systems derived from equal division of the celestial equator. The others are the Morinean and the Meridian (or Axial Rotation) house systems.

The following table sets out the basic elements of the four equatorially-based systems of domification.


SystemPoleNotes
Poli equatorialEquatorial (Celestial)The 1st house cusp will coincide with ascendant but the 10th house cusp will not generally coincide with the meridian
RegiomontanusHorizontalThe 10th and 1st house cusps coincide with the meridian and the ascendant respectively
MorinusEclipticNeither the 10th house cusp nor the 1st house cusp will coincide with the meridian or the ascendant
Meridian (or Axial Rotation)Equatorial (Celestial)The 10th house cusp will coincide with the meridian, but the first house cusp is the equatorial ascendant

Table 1: Comparison of Equatorially-Based House Systems


Holden describes Regiomontanus, Morinus and Meridian as house systems as space-based methods of domification. Although the Earth's rotation determines the length of our day (a time factor), Holden's view is that the equal division of the equator in each system is primarily a division of the celestial sphere as a spatial unit. 3

 
Figure 2: The Equatorial Frame of Reference


In Carter's poli equatorial house system, we find a method of domification that draws on ideas from Platonic cosmogony and cosmology, being derived from equal divisions of the circle of the Same (celestial equator) projected onto the circle of the Different (ecliptic). The ascendant is used as the cusp of the first house. In developing a method of house division that uses the circles of the Same and Different, Carter gives us a system of domification that is integrated with Platonic philosophy. This philosophy is so often the unspoken foundation of much astrological lore.

A good example of the poli equatorial house system in action is the Exeter Astrology Group's own natal chart. (See below) In this chart the important Venus-Uranus opposition is moved to within a few minutes of arc of the 4th-10th axis. This symbol describes the purpose of the group of the group very clearly - a public gathering of friends (Venus-10th cusp) built around the foundations of a shared interest in astrology (Uranus-4th cusp). 

The solar identity of the group is in the collectively focused 11th house, and Mercury, being the classical symbol for astrology is close to the cusp of the 12th, the spiritual house. Jupiter, often in the 2nd house using mainstream systems, moves to the cusp of the 3rd house, a symbol for a group dedicated to learning and sharing information of a spiritual and philosophical nature. The poli equatorial system is clearly effective in this delineation.


Figure 3: Exeter Astrology Group (using Poli Equatorial Houses)

The cusps are listed below:

Cusp 1: 6 SC 19
Cusp 2: 5 SG 53
Cusp 3: 3 CP 40
Cusp 4: 1 AQ 44
Cusp 5: 2 PI 0
Cusp 6: 4 AR 21
Cusp 7: 6 TA 19
Cusp 8: 5 GE 53
Cusp 9: 3 CN 40
Cusp 10: 1 LE 44
Cusp 11: 2 VI 0
Cusp 12: 4 LI 21

(Note to programmers - if you would like a simple BASIC program to calculate poli equatorial house cusps, please contact the author via the EAG website. This program is provided on an open source basis to promote the inclusion of poli equatorial houses in commercial and non-commercial astrological software. You may adapt it to your own needs/programming language.)

It is disappointing that Carter's method of domification is so little used. It is not mentioned in key texts that describe the principles of house systems. It is not offered in any of the main programmes available in the astrological software market. Furthermore, there is very little information about the system available on the internet. I have never seen a published chart delineated according to the poli equatorial system apart from Carter's own examples. 4

In Carter's day, his method had one undeniable advantage – it needed a single table of houses. This meant that calculation of houses cusps was simplified. Once the ascendant had been calculated, the other cusps could be read directly from a page of data. This is because poli-equatorial cusps are not latitude-dependent (once the ascendant has been identified). Carter's system has other benefits. It creates houses that are more or less equal, in terms of the twelve divisions of the ecliptic that they demarcate. This minimises the issue of intercepted signs.

The system will occasionally fall down in charts where the calculation of the ascendant is problematic. This only occurs in extreme polar latitudes. However, Rob Hand notes that this difficulty is more theoretical than practical. The identification of an ascendant in these latitudes is only impossible when the horizon and ecliptic coincide. According to Hand “...this occurs for only an instant and only on the infinitesimal band of the Arctic and Antarctic circles, so it is not a serious drawback in practice.” 5

Carter's system has a clear advantage over quadrant based methods of domification in polar latitudes because it does not rely on the need for an identified midheaven and ascendant. This issue can be a difficulty because the ascendant and meridian can coincide at times. More commonly, the midheaven and ascendant can fall close together on the ecliptic in high northern latitudes. This leads to gross discrepancies in the size of quadrant houses when measured on the ecliptic.

In Essays on the Foundations of Astrology, Carter provides a number of interesting case examples to illustrate his poli equatorial system. He looks at charts for Tennyson, the great Victorian poet, King Edward VII, and Emily Popejoy.

In the King's chart, Carter points out that with the poli equatorial system, “The presence of the Moon, in close square to Saturn, on cusp 10 seems peculiarly appropriate to the native's strict upbringing and suppression by his royal Mother, who refused for many years to allow him to take part in public affairs. Venus in the 10thagrees with his popularity and that of his consort.” 6 In other systems, the moon would fall variously in the eighth or ninth houses; in most systems Venus would fall solidly in the cadent ninth.

Carter notes Tennyson's tight Mars-Uranus conjunction falls in the sixth house in many house systems. He concludes that this symbolism “...seems inappropriate to the native's robust health....” 7 Carter suggests this pair “...would be much better placed in the 5th, indicating the emotional tragedy which led to In Memoriam and the death of the poet's son of fever.” 8 Using the poli equatorial method, Uranus and Marsfall in the fifth house, suggesting the unexpected death of a child. He also notes that in the poli equatorial system, Jupiter moves from the cusp of the twelfth house onto the cusp of the eleventh house which “...seems to agree much better with the poet's phenomenal success....He won fame, rank and money.” 9

Carter's method of domification also has some practical benefits, including house cusps that fall more or less equally on the ecliptic and have unique degrees. The astrologer has to accept that the midheaven is unlikely to form the cusp of the tenth, but, as Carter has demonstrated, this may, in practice, yield important interpretative insights.

We should do Carter the honour of looking at his own nativity using the poli equatorial method he devised. In many systems, including all quadrant based methods of house division, his highly elevated Saturn falls in the cadent ninth house, being just beyond the culminating degree in the diurnal circle.

Despite Saturn's lack of traditional dignity, this placement is an adequate symbol for his fine philosophical mind. His astrological vision moved subtly between the realms of the Platonic world of Ideas and the mundane world which we inhabit. However, this image does not carry the authority of a man who served the astrological community at the highest levels for many years.

In the equal house system, we note that his Saturn is on the nonagesimal degree. This degree, falling exactly square to the ascendant, marks the 10th house cusp in the simple equal house method of domification. 10 The nonagesimal degree is the highest point of the ecliptic above the horizon; any planet placed in this degree is given prominence within the horoscope.

However, when we use his own poli equatorial method of domification, Carter's Saturn falls a few degrees inside the tenth, the cusp being at 14 Cancer. This is testament to Carter's own observation that his poli equatorial method, having many of the advantages of the straightforward modus equalisor Ptolemaic system, has thefurther benefit of yielding cusps that carry a unique mundane signature. 

 
Figure 3: Charles Carter's Horoscope (using Poli Equatorial Houses)

This symbol – Saturn in the tenth house - clearly identifies Charles Carter's authority and acumen. He worked to establish and maintain the institutions that still embody the mainstream traditions in English and British astrology. He took a large share of responsibility for the good governance of some of the key political and educational institutions that represent our cosmic art. There can be no higher recommendation for Carter's poli equatorial house system than this signature from his own nativity.

Notes and References

1.      Further details of Carter's life and astrological legacy can be found at www.charlescarter.co.uk, a memorial site established and maintained by the Wessex Astrology Group. Charles Carter's birth details are published on this site.

2.      Charles Carter (1947, 2nd ed. 1978) Essays on the Foundations of Astrology. Theosophical Publishing House, London. p. 158-159.

3.       For detail discussions of these systems see R W Holden (1977) The Elements of House Division. Urania Trust/Faculty of Astrological Studies, London.

4.       A pdf copy of Carter's original Poli-equatorial Table of Houses can be downloaded from http://www.charlescarter.co.uk/marriage-house-system.html#housesystemfor readers who may wish to try the system. Carter produced this table in January 1946. In a charming aside, at the foot of p. 159 of Essays on the Foundations of Astrology, Carter invites readers to contact him for “A set of tables may be obtained from the author, price 6d, post paid, for those who wishto experiment.” The cloud-based software, astroapp (www.astroapp.com), has the poli-equatorial method programmed as oneof their range of house systems.

5.      Rob Hand (1982) Essays on Astrology. p. 136. Hand says that what is critical when working with charts at extreme latitudes is to have a clear definition of what is to count as the ascendant. See Hand (1982) p. 132 for more details on definitions of the ascendant.

6.      Carter (1947, 2nd ed. 1978) p. 160.

7.      Carter (1947, 2nd ed. 1978) p. 162.

8.      Carter (1947, 2nd ed. 1978) p. 162.

9.      Carter (1947, 2nd ed. 1978) p. 162.

10.    Jeff Mayo (1995) Midheaven, Zenith and Nonagesimal. In Z Matthews (ed.) An Astrological Anthology: Essays and Excerpts from the Journal of the Astrological Association (Vol. 1 – 1959-1970). The Astrological Association, London. p. 397-399. Originally published in the AA Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 24.



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December 27, 2014, 1:47 pm
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SOME THOUGHTS ON THE FORTHCOMING UK GENERAL ELECTION (7 MAY 2015) 

by Richard Burch. 


Though the effects of the current 3-year long Uranus-Pluto square may be starting to wane, the last of seven occurrences of this aspect is on 17 Mar 2015, just seven weeks before the election is due. So it will colour the background, particularly since it falls at 15°17', exactly opposite and square David Cameron's Sun, presenting extra challenges for him and his party, but maybe keeping him in power. On 1 Nov 2013 (on the exact 20th anniversary of the European Union coming into force) the fourth and central Uranus-Pluto aspect fell at 9°25', square and conjunct the UK 1066 and 1801 Suns, suggesting long-term, deep-seated change. This may take several years of transition and upheaval. Nevertheless the immediate result following election day should be discernible from the two charts for the start and close of the polls.


Start of polls

The expectations and probable trends in the run-up to the election are indicated in this chart:



Conservatives/Cameron: As the existing main governing party they are shown by the first house. Mercury is strong, rising here in its own sign, though some way into the 12th house, and separating nicely from an opposition to Saturn. It is the strongest planet in the chart. In addition it is applying to trine the north node. Notably, George Osborne (perhaps the most crucial figure in any Tory victory based on perceived economic strength) is Sun Gemini. Venus in the first house also has a role, reflecting the presence of Sun Librans Cameron and Theresa May. But Venus, unaspected, weak in Gemini and at the end of the sign on a critical degree, gives some indication that Cameron's reign as leader may be coming to an end, and that May might not be able to succeed him. The Moon's final opposition to Venus further suggests rejection by the electorate.

There is undoubtedly an expectation among the Conservatives that they ought to win enough seats to form the largest party. However, Mercury makes no applying aspect to the Sun, lord of the 5th (the house of victory in a competition) nor Saturn, Lord of the 10th (house of government). There is nothing here to show success.


Labour/Miliband: As the official opposition they are shown by the 7th house and Jupiter. The setting Moon (the electorate) in their house shows that the voters are with the party, if not the leader, to some extent. But the Moon may also signify the SNP taking ground from under Labour's feet. (The next SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is Sun Cancer.) Jupiter is on the IC (outcome) in royal Leo, which becomes the 10th house (of government) for Labour when the chart is turned 180º to read directly. It strongly suggests a Labour win, or an expectation of one at the start of the day. Perhaps it is false optimism, though. As with the Tories, their significator (Jupiter) makes no good aspect to the Sun or Saturn (whether ruling the natural 5th and 10th, or the turned 11th and 4th). Again, there is no clear victory shown here.


LibDems/Clegg: In the past, as an opposition party, Jupiter (or sometimes Uranus, even Neptune) appeared to work as their significator. Jupiter is taken this time by Miliband, and Uranus now seems highly unlikely. As part of the previously-existing government they could be shown by Venus in the first house, in which case all the remarks about the Conservative leadership based on the planet's weak position seem applicable to them too. If, however, by competing in this election independently they are allocated another planet, then their fate could alter. If allowed Jupiter, being now a part of the opposition (though that's a moot assumption) they could still be the kingmaker and partner, as Jupiter sits on the IC (final outcome) in Leo. No doubt this is what Clegg and others secretly hope or believe. If allocated Neptune, its square to Mercury (Cameron) makes a resolution tough but not impossible. However, if given the Sun (and Clegg's natal Sun at 16 CAP is exactly trine), it does not suggest another Lib-Con coalition because there's no aspect to Mercury. In fact the Sun is void-of-course in the 12th, signifying that nothing will come of it, the LibDem's record in office being their self-undoing.


UKIP/Farage: They seem to be shown by Saturn, as the most reactionary party, that nevertheless points out some unpalatable realities. Their appeal is strongest amongst older voters. Saturn in Sagittarius points to their colour being purple. Retrograde and cadent in the 6th house (concerning employment issues, the NHS and the armed forces), and easing away from an earlier opposition to Mercury (the Conservatives), they may now be experiencing a drop in support. The Moon's last conjunction was with Saturn, and her separation suggests the electorate's focus on Europe and immigration has moved on somewhat, though not yet totally.



The Greens: They seem to be shown by Venus, (and maybe Uranus too) as the party advocating a better balance within and between societies and between exploiting and preserving the Earth's resources, but also as simply the most feminist, with two female leaders. The Moon's only applying aspect (very late on) is an opposition to Venus. But Venus is weak. So although there might be an opportunity in this election to set out their stall more prominently for the voters (who in the end may be more prepared to listen), it seems the latter still won't vote for the Greens in any number.


Others: It now seems the SNP could take twenty or more seats from Labour (who currently have 41 out of the total of 59 Westminster seats). This would obviously do considerable damage to Labour's chancing of forming a government. Nationalism, with its patriotic, emotional content, seems likely to be represented by the Moon, angular here in the house of Opposition and with an opposition aspect to Venus (the Greens). If a rainbow coalition (led by Labour) were to be contemplated, it suggests that these two parties would have very different demands to be met. But the Moon in any case is well past its helpful trine to Jupiter (Miliband), so such arrangement seems fairly unlikely.


Summary
At this point, the most likely outcome seems to be an inconclusive result. It looks fairly certain that no party will form a majority. If a coalition does develop it will likely be between Labour and the LibDems, though just possibly involving the Greens and nationalist parties too.



Close of polls

The result is shown by this chart in conjunction with the first. The Moon (the electorate) has changed sign (allegiance). A decision of sorts has been made and a corner turned.



Conservatives/Cameron: They are now shown by Jupiter as first house ruler. He is situated deep in the 8th house (tax-and-spend issues, bank regulation, death duties – or even a spying or sex scandal!). Most strikingly, Saturn has arrived on the ascendant, suggesting that a limitation and capping of the Tory vote has occurred, and is due to UKIP parking its tanks on their lawn. Saturn in part signifies the Conservatives as well as UKIP, but the symbolism of the rising planet left behind by the Moon is stark for both parties. However, as Saturn now disposes Luna, it appears UKIP has had a more lasting influence on (and more notable support from) the voters than was predicted. Jupiter's applying trine to Uranus may bring an unexpected piece of good fortune for the Tories, but again their significator, Jupiter, neither receives an aspect from the Moon nor makes any aspect to the ruler of the 5th (Mars) or the 10th (Venus); and neither does Saturn.



Labour/Miliband: They are now shown by Mercury as 7th house ruler. He is strong, dignified and angular but, like the Tories, Labour has a significator that makes no aspect to either Mars or Venus (ruling both natural 5th and 10th, and turned 11th and 4th). Nor does it receive an aspect from the Moon. There's nothing here to show a convincing win for Labour, but they may just scrape home.


LibDems/Clegg: If now allocated the Sun as significator, they are in a new situation. The moon is again in play and will aspect the Sun in due course. If allocated Uranus, they may in time benefit from the trine (an offer) from Jupiter (Cameron). If they're not given Sol or Uranus, it's hard to see anything at all resulting from the election, because two other key planets, Venus and Jupiter, are still void-of-course (Mercury turns retrograde before it can sextile Jupiter). And Mars is largely spent.


The Moon makes first a sextile to Neptune, then a conjunction with Pluto, a trine to the Sun, a square to Uranus and finally a trine to Mars. For the electorate (and indeed the Queen and her advisors), they are presented with, or go through, a series of options. Neptune signifies dissolution and confusion at the outset (just possibly it stands here for Clegg and the LibDems). It could also could stand as a secondary significator for Labour (whose 1900 foundation chart has the Sun adjacent at 8 PIS) while Pluto indicates complications and power struggles. So Labour might get public support to try and form a coalition with the LibDems, but leadership complications get in the way. Then Labour could try to form a government alone - a highly challenging task – and may fail. Next, Pluto in Capricorn could stand as a secondary significator for the Tories (their 1867 foundation chart has the Sun at 19 SCO), who would be disposed by – i.e. under the thumb of – UKIP (Saturn) in any coalition talks with them. But with the recent exit of Saturn from Scorpio, its former mutual reception with Pluto no longer holds sway. So this potential Con-UKIP coalition is very unlikely to happen, given all other factors. But in desperation, with Pluto yet again squaring his natal Sun, it is just possible Cameron will capitulate to try and save his – and the Tories'– skin.


The Moon moves on to further aspects. Uranus in Aries stands for a radical new departure. But it is hard to see what this is, other than a second election. The trine to Mars, finally, prompts a question: could Mars here be seen as a secondary significator for the LibDems? In Taurus he is in detriment, weakly opposed to Saturn (UKIP) but otherwise unaspected (friendless) and depleted late in the sign (losing seats). Nevertheless, a LibDem role in any government arising – even temporarily perhaps – cannot be ruled out.


UKIP/Farage: see above under Conservatives and LibDems


The Greens: Just possibly involved in a rainbow coalition with Labour (if they have any MPs!).


Others: If symbolised by the Moon, the SNP are now in a new position (new sign) to consolidate gains made following the 2014 Scottish referendum. After a sextile to Neptune, thus helping to re-energise their dream of independence, the Moon comes, however, to a conjunction with Pluto before trining the Sun. This seems to imply complications arising in their pursuit of power or influence – but what exactly remains unclear.


Summary
At the close of play, in my judgement, the most likely outcome (though by a narrow margin) seems to be a minority Labour government. The second, somewhat less likely, outcome is a coalition of Labour and the surviving LibDems, possibly including any or all of these: the SNP, the DUP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens. Though firmly based on astrology, this prediction accords with that of most political commentators at present.


Therefore it remains probable there will be a second election a few months down the line (as happened with Labour in 1974).


Written 15 October 2014
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The Definition of the Midheaven

January 18, 2015, 1:46 pm
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The midheaven, or MC (from Medium Coeli), is one of the angles of the horoscope. The other principal angle is the ascendant. The identification of the angles seems unproblematic, and astrologers are often able to cite some sort of definition for each one. However, a technically correct definition for the ascendant or midheaven can be elusive.

For example astrologers will often say that the midheaven is the highest point in the chart. This is a disarmingly simple statement, but once considered in detail, turns out be a crude and problematic definition of the MC. Firstly, which point in the chart is being identified. To say the midheaven is the highest point in the chart doesn't really clarify the issue of what, exactly, this point is in the horoscope. Secondly, and most problematically, 'highest' in relation to what? Terms like 'highest' and 'higher' are relative and need to be defined in terms of some sort of absolute position.

Robert Hand provides two useful and more precise definitions in his essay on the ascendant, midheaven and vertex in extreme latitudes (for reference see below). Hand's first definition is that the midheaven may be the point of intersection of the meridian and ecliptic in the south. His second definition is that the midheaven may be the point of intersection of the ecliptic and meridian above the horizon. (p. 132)

These definitions do advance our understanding because we now know that the midheaven or MC is the point where the ecliptic meets the meridian. The meridian is the great circle through the running north and south points of the observer's horizon, and through the zenith, the point exactly overhead on the celestial sphere, and the nadir, the point on the celestial sphere opposite the zenith. 

The following diagram illustrates the points made in the previous paragraph. Note that the midheaven is shown crossing the ecliptic above the horizon and due south. This is a fair representation of the midheaven for a northern hemisphere observer at mid-latitudes. The diagram is for illustrative purposes and the situation will vary for observers at other latitudes.




Figure 1: The Celestial Sphere (Horizontal Frame of Reference)

But how do we decide between the definitions of the midheaven that Hand has offered? By direction? Or by altitude above the horizon? This is critical because in polar regions and at the equator both definitions become ambiguous for different reasons.

Let's consider the definition by direction. Firstly, to be accurate, the definition by direction must be made relative to the hemisphere of the observer. For those in the southern hemisphere, the midheaven is generally to the north. So for more precision, the definition of the midheaven must be extended to refer to the hemisphere of the observer. However, a problem immediately arises for observers in the tropics (those living close to the equator). For an observer who lives just north of the equator, the midheaven will be to their north when signs of northern declination (those north of the equator) are culminating.

So our definition by direction and hemisphere has already broken down. To correct this problem, we have had to qualify the directional definition further, by reference to the latitude of the observer. What seemed to be a straightforward description of the midheaven has now become complex and unwieldy.

What about the definition with relation to the horizon. In this definition the midheaven is always above the horizon, irrespective of its direction. This, on the face of it, seems quite reasonable. After all, it is true for anybody living in the tropics and temperate regions. However, when we get to the polar regions (beyond on the arctic or antarctic circles), we find that the midheaven so defined may again be to the north for northern observers. Others also claim that the MC is always to the south in polar regions even when it is below the horizon.

I think there are good reasons why we should be critical of both definitions of the midheaven - by direction (south/north) and by position relative to the horizon (above/below). Neither seems to have offered an unambiguous definition of the concept we are examining.

The definition of above and below the horizon refers to altitude above the horizontal plane. So, in the case of Hand's second definition of the midheaven, the point of intersection of the ecliptic and meridian will have an altitude above the horizon. But let's consider the phenomenon of the midnight sun. In northern polar regions, the sun in summer (at its most northerly declination) will spend 24 hours above the horizon - it neither rises nor sets in the sense of being above or below the horizon.

Now when the northern winter solstice (00 Capricorn 00 in the tropical zodiac), the point on the ecliptic with the most southerly declination, is due south of the observer in polar regions it will be below the horizon. At this time, the Sun at the northern summer solstice will be due north of a northern polar observer but above the horizon.

If we accept the definition of the midheaven as being the point of intersection between the ecliptic and the meridian above the horizon, then the Sun at 00 Cancer 00, the northern summer solstice (in the tropical zodiac), will be on the MC. However, consider the situation twelve hours later: the Sun at the summer solstice will be on the meridian again, this time in the south, but at a point much higher in the sky with relation to the horizon. The winter solstice will still be below the horizon, but also on the meridian due north.

What should we make of this? The summer solstice Sun seems to be on the MC again. It is crossing the meridian and clearly above the horizon. The other point of the ecliptic crossing the meridian, the northern winter solstice, is still below the horizon in the north. So the sun seems to have been on the MC twice in one day if we use the above/below definition of the midheaven in polar regions.

It's my view that it is the second instance of the Sun crossing the meridian that we want to call Sun-MC. This is because it is both on the meridian and at its highest point in the sky in a single diurnal cycle. In short the Sun is at its closest approach to the zenith, the point immediately above the observer. Of course, in polar regions it won't actually be immediately above the observer, but it has attained its minimum zenith distance. It is this observation that finally provides us with an unambiguous definition of the midheaven or MC.

The midheaven or MC is the degree of the ecliptic which, at the time and place of casting the horoscope, has its minimum zenith distance (MZD) measured on the meridian; that is, it is the point at which that particular degree makes its closest approach to the zenith in any single diurnal (24 hour) cycle. This definition does not mess up in the tropics, where directional definitions become unclear, and it means that being above or below the horizon is not relevant, which has been shown to be a problem in polar regions.

The definition of zenith distance is taken from Mitton's Dictionary of Astronomy. Zenith distance is "the angular distance from the zenith to a point on the celestial sphere, measured along a great circle." (p. 416) In our case the great circle of interest is the meridian because in any one diurnal cycle, the minimum zenith distance for any particular point on the ecliptic will occur along this circle.

What about the tropical northern winter solstice? This point never comes above the horizon in northern polar regions. It will still be on the MC according to this definition because when it is due south of a northern observer the particular degree associated with the northern winter solstice – 00 Capricorn 00 in the tropical zodiac - will have reached its minimum zenith distance (MZD) in that diurnal cycle. That is, at that particular time and place, it will be at its closest approach to the zenith despite being below the horizon.

This may seem quite counter-intuitive at first. After all the Sun will still be higher in relation to the horizon in the north than the winter solstice degree below the horizon in the south. But the critical point is that the Sun at this time is not at the closest point to the zenith that it can be during the course of the day. This point will come when it attains its MZD on the meridian twelve hours later.

And consider the midwinter Sun at these latitudes - say, just above the arctic circle. It will rise to a point just below the southern horizon at  noon when it attains its MZD. Although the Sun in midwinter will be below the horizon, a glimmer of noon-day light will come over the horizon. Is this not what we would want for a Sun-MC conjunction, even one below the horizon. It's as light as it is going to get for a midwinter Sun on or just above the arctic circle. Twelve hours later, with the Sun on the IC defined by MZD, it will be midnight and deep dark. 

The following diagram illustrates these points. The summer solstice Sun (identified by CN for Cancer) is shown just above the northern horizon (the midnight sun). In the course of 12 hours it will move along the dashed orange line to the point on the meridian due south of the observer. It is moved there by the rotation of the earth on its pole (marked NCP-SCP). The purple line from the zenith to the highpoint of the Sun shows the MZD (minimum zenith distance) at noon - the Sun-MC. Note that the Sun in the course of those 12 hours has moved to a position much higher in the sky than the midnight Sun - the Sun-IC.

The winter solstice Sun (identified by CP for Capricorn) is shown deep below the northern horizon at midnight. In the course of 12 hours it will move along its dashed orange line to the point on the meridian due south of the observer, just below the horizon. However, note that it has still moved towards the zenith, the point at the top of the sphere. The MC defined by MZD is marked. The difference in zenith distances at both points is shown by the light blue line.



  Figure 2: Illustrating the Concept of Minimum Zenith Distance Marking the Midheaven

At any particular time in the day there may be points on the ecliptic that have less zenith distance (i.e. are closer to the zenith) than the point on the MC. An example is the nonagesimal point, the degree on the ecliptic with the maximum altitude above the horizon at a particular time and place. In general the nonagesimal degree won't be the MC at the time for which the horoscope is cast because it will have had its minimum zenith distance (it's closest approach to the zenith) at some other time during the diurnal cycle.

For example, a nonagesimal degree west of the meridian will have attained its MZD (i.e. been on the midheaven) at some time earlier in the day. A nonagesimal degree east of the meridian it will attain its MZD some time later in the day when it will be the degree of the ecliptic on the meridian.

In fact, the nonagesimal can be precisely defined as the degree on the ecliptic with the minimum zenith distance measured on any great circle running through the zenith and nadir at a particular time and place. 

It is worth noting that exactly at the poles all definitions of the MC become problematic, partly because all directions from the north pole lead south (towards the southern pole) and vice versa in the southern hemisphere. This makes the definition of the meridian itself difficult. However, this is not really a serious issue because as soon as one moves away from the pole, the definition of the meridian becomes possible once again.

So: the MC cannot be defined by direction (fails at the tropics) nor by its being above the horizon (problematic in the polar circles - the 'double midheaven' issue). The definition is unambiguously made using the concept of minimum zenith distance. The midheaven or MC is the point of intersection between the ecliptic and the meridian where that particular degree attains its minimum zenith distance during its diurnal cycle, irrespective of its direction in relation to an observer or its height in relation to the horizon.

Perhaps we should rename the MC the MMZD - minimum meridional zenith distance!

Postscript

Since posting this blog the author has discovered an article in the Astrological Association Journal by Norman Blunsdon that covers this issue. Members of the Astrological Association may wish to explore this piece online (as a benefit of their membership) or at the AA Library. 

The reference is:

N Blunsdon (1967) Low Thoughts on High Latitudes. Astrological Association Journal: Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 30.

It is reprinted in the AA's compendium of early classic articles from the Journal - An Astrological Anthology: Vol. 1 (1959-1970). Selected and arranged by Zach Matthews.

In this piece, Blunsdon points out that the midheaven is the same at all latitudes, and changing the midheaven to conform to a definition (always above the horizon) transgresses this principle. 

Blunsdon writes: "Let us first consider the MC and its derivation. As this is formed by the Meridian for the subject's birthtime, it is both personal and constant. We use the Local Sidereal Time and usually find the corresponding MC in our house tables: this is the same for all latitudes."

References:

Robert Hand (1982) Essays on Astrology: The Ascendant, Midheaven and Vertex in Extreme Latitudes. Whitford Press.

Jaqueline Mitton (1993) The Penguin Dictionary of Astronomy. Penguin Books.
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Some thoughts on the Greek General Election

January 24, 2015, 7:29 am
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Belatedly, I decided to take a look at the chart for Greece as the people prepare to vote in what could be a ground-shifting election tomorrow. I've used the chart drawn up for the swearing-in of Constantine Karamanlis as prime minister following the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1974.1 One of the interesting things about this election is that the man who's widely tipped to become the next prime minister of Greece – Alexis Tsipras – was born only four days after the republic was formed. Therefore apart from the position of his Moon (of which we can't be sure as we don't have a birth time for him), he has almost the same horoscope as Greece itself. And there are very significant transits to these charts on election day.

Traditionally, voting takes place between sunrise and sunset in Greece2so I've erected a chart for election day based on sunrise in Athens, which is both the capital and Tsipras' place of birth.

(Click to enlarge)
One of the first things I noticed was that Uranus (13 Aries 04) on election day is almost exactly square the Ascendant in the chart for Greece (13 Cancer 08). Also, Mercury is retrograde in the election chart. It's being drawn back to the Sun, having turned retrograde just a few days ago. In terms of Mercury's synodic cycle (a subject dear to my heart at the moment), the cycle is drawing to a close so Mercury is being pulled toward the future with its eye firmly fixed on the past. Greece has been in economic melt-down for years and I freely admit to being biased because I love the Greeks, but I feel they've been very cruelly treated by the EU. Many Greeks have suffered terribly during this period – you can 'listen again' to some of the interviews John Humphrys made in Greece this week for the BBC Today programme3. Many Greeks are saying that all the other politicians have failed them so this time they're going to give Syriza (the radical left coalition that Tsipras heads) a chance. They're looking for change, and this shows in the transiting Uranus, which is also squaring the Greek Saturn (just risen in the national chart) and Mercury.

There are, in fact, many significant transits to the Greek Ascendant-Saturn-Mercury. Transiting Pluto is also exactly opposite this trio and the nodes are square. Interestingly, the North Node is in Libra, a sign that's concerned with social justice but whose shadow side is totalitarianism. The South Node in Aries suggests the root of Greece's problem was selfishness and rampant individualism during the Good Times – or the 'snout in the trough' sort of behaviour that came to light here in the UK during the MPs' expenses scandal. The shadow side of this – a bright shadow – is that people were forced to find other ways to survive once the money ran out. Some didn't make it, but in other cases it built strong networks and communities based more on what people are than on what they have.

Coming back to the retrograde Mercury in the election chart, this can also be seen as either a people who have turned in on themselves and their problems or who are turning against the tide. They've had enough of the 'business as usual' approach of mainstream politicians and they're willing to give Syriza a chance. Of course, we can't be certain that Syriza will win and we certainly can't be sure that Syriza will be any better for them than what has gone before. They could be lured onto the rocks by a siren's song, or they could find that their dreams of a better life come true. Note that transiting Neptune is square the natal Neptune of Greece and Tsipras – though transiting Saturn is approaching their Neptune. When Saturn reaches that point could be when they get a reality check.

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Those seem to be the most important things to me, but I'd just like to mention Alexis Tsipras' chart in relation to the opening and closing of polls in Athens. The Sun on election day is exactly opposite his natal Sun, and at dawn his Sun has just sunk below the horizon of the election chart. When the polls close ten hours later, his Sun has just risen above the Ascendant in the close of poll chart. That, together with the fact that the Moon is riding high at the top of the election chart suggests to me that he'll be the people's choice. Moon is conjunct Uranus and South Node and all three are in the ninth house, a sign that people want change and they have faith in him to deliver it.

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References

(1) Campion, Nicholas The Book of World Horoscopes Wessex Astrologer, Bournemouth (2004) pp 146-7




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