In May 1941, Germany and Japan were winning the war. Britain and her fraying empire were alone. More than half the population of Europe was under Nazi control. The Luftwaffe was decimating British cities. Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, and his seemingly unbeatable Panzers were storming across North [...]
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Where The Hell Are We? One Year On
I gave this talk this time last year (2021) for Aquarius Severn, putting our times in their historical context. This ia a broad overview of the current astrology, exploring the spirit of these times — a vision which sometimes gets lost as we leap from one lunation to the next. Context is [...]
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Astrology of Eris: Cultural Disruptor, Truth-Force
You know the story, but it bears repeating. The hero Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis had a magnificent wedding on Mount Olympus. Everyone was invited, except for the goddess Eris, or Discordia, as she’s known in Latin. Big mistake. Just to mess things up, Eris threw a golden apple [...]
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Thoughts on the Great Conjunction
Details from the Journey of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Palazzo Medici. These are the two senior kings — Balthazar and Melchior. The mightiest planets known to the ancients, great Jupiter and stern Saturn, will meet on December 21, 2020 for the first time in 20 years. They will [...]
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Your September Horoscopes
Consequential cosmic events this month: Mars lays down his armour, Jupiter takes up his sceptre, Saturn picks up his scythe. Meanwhile, Venus, Mercury, the Sun and the Moon dance a complex quadrille. If you’re already a member, click here to read your monthly horoscope. Or If you’d [...]
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The Asteroid of Love Stories, Fairy Tales and the Soul’s Journey
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a country far away, a girl of breath-taking beauty lived with her family. Her two older sisters were “successfully’ married, to wealthy, middle-aged men, but her father was perplexed. Who was good enough to marry his darling youngest, [...]
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America’s Pluto Transit: The Ravaging
A few weeks ago, The New York Times carried an editorial by Charles Blow, which begins like this: “America, as we knew it, is lost. “Not completely gone and not irrevocably ended, but forever altered. Or, maybe it is fair to say that our concept of America itself was a concoction, [...]
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Thinking Aloud: A Stroll Around the Bodleian
Just thinking aloud while walking around Oxford, reflecting on how ideas are categorised. Of course, the Bodleian Library has one of the greatest collections of books on magic, alchemy and astrology. Enjoy!
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Astrology of Now: Refound Beauty
Sometimes the music of the planets is pure magic. On the news this morning: the discovery of a painting by the Renaissance master, Sandro Botticelli — a version of the famous Madonna of the Pomegranates which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It had been considered a fake, but [...]
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Phenomena: The “News”
This morning I woke up and turned on the radio. The news poured out like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: pestilence, famine, war, death. So I changed over to a music station and had my mind cleaned by Bach. This set me wondering though, about the effect of constantly hearing the news on [...]
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Barren and Fruitful Signs
At the fag-end of this luscious autumn, with the scent of rotting apples in the air, and a surprising, last flush of magenta roses on the other side of the pond, my thoughts have turned, briefly, to fertility. Here is what the English Renaissance astrology William Lilley, had to say about the [...]
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Pallas Athena 4: Nations and Treaties
In the fourth part of this talk, I look at nation-building, treaties and politics. If you’re catching up, here are links to Part 3 https://youtu.be/ksDTL3rfKfI Part 2 https://youtu.be/6Zx-UZxurIQ Part 1 https://youtu.be/yIU0_3WsboQ
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Video: The Goddess
We’ve just had a wonderful weekend here in Oxford discussing the meaning of Ceres, Vesta, Juno and Pallas in the horoscope. This is my general introduction to the weekend. Enjoy!
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Juno in the Garden (Part One)
“Th’ whole world’s in a terrible state o’ chassis” Captain Boyle in Juno and the Paycock In Sean O’Casey’s play, Juno and the Paycock, Juno Boyle is the matriarch of a broken family. While her children are wrecked and her husband is a wastrel, she [...]
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Astrology of Now: War or Peace?
No doubt about it: this is a tough and dangerous month. Here’s why. Mars, the planet of war, aggression, action and passion, is pounding his way through the sign of Capricorn. At the start of April, he contacted sombre, stony Saturn, sitting there in his own sign, and at the end of the month, [...]
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Saturn in Capricorn: Winter is Coming
This video was made during the one-day workshop held in January by The Oxford Astrology Group here at Trinity College, Oxford. I took a look at the UK chart during the talk as well as touching more generally on Saturn, Capricorn and the shape of 2018. I note that the comment on UK property [...]
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Maimonides’ Letter On Astrology
“Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.” — Maimonides Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon, was without much argument, one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Not only was he [...]
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Astrology and Freedom
I have quite a few Asian clients, brought up in the Vedic or Chinese systems of astrology. At first, I was curious that they should seek out a Western practitioner even though they were steeped in a more culturally-accepted tradition. But after several enlightening conversations, I started to [...]
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Clare Hollingworth’s Appointment With Destiny
It was August 1939 when 27-year-old Clare Hollingworth spotted rows and rows of German tanks, hidden under burlap on the German border . She might have been a rookie, but she knew a story when she saw it. She wired back to London warning “the German war machine is ready for a swift stroke”. [...]
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