Under the bridge astrology

Category: Astrology

The shamanic work of David Lynch and the astrology of Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks had a huge impact on me. I first watched the series as a teenager and it’s been on my mind since reading about the passing of its creator David Lynch.

So what can astrology tell us about the nature and meaning of the show?

Twin Peaks premiered April the 8th 1990 at 9PM. I’m using Los Angeles as the location, mainly because it feels right (but ABC has their headquarters in Burbank, so perhaps that gives the choice a bit more legitimacy).

The chart has Scorpio rising with Pluto near the Ascendant. Very fitting for a tv-show about a murder, but also for one that revolves around a mystery and things not being quite as they seem.

The Sun is in Aries in the 6th house. This was a pioneering show, not afraid to take the soap opera formula (6th house-ish) and use it to go somewhere completely different.

The Moon is in Libra in the 11th house so the visual style was an important part of the show’s DNA and that’s what gave it mass appeal (11th house).

That Moon is also part of an interesting t-square – there is a tension between it and a Neptune/Uranus conjunction in Capricorn in the 2nd house and a loose Chiron/Jupiter conjunction in Cancer in the 8th house.

This is the key to understanding the nature of the show.

Here we have that beautiful and pleasing Libra Moon in the house of the collective, in a tense aspect with the planet of the dream world (Neptune) and the planet of creativity, genius and sudden shocks and insights (Uranus) in the second house of safety and security.

Those placements in turn connect with an inner wounding (Chiron) and the planet of blessings and luck (Jupiter) in the sign of home and the homeland (Cancer) in the complex 8th house of sex, death and money.

The show spoke to something deep in the American psyche. And, as many writers have mentioned in the days following the passing of its creator, Twin Peaks turned the American dream on its head. It used the visual language of the small town with its picket fences and diners, its football stars and prom queens to worm its way to the rotten juice underneath it all.

There were the woods where things are not quite what they seem. There was domestic violence, abuse and corrupt businessmen, and a darkness at the heart of the seemingly perfect and “respectable” nuclear family.

This was exposed in almost a subliminal way and people kept watching – partly because of the feeling and the look (that Libra Moon) of the show.

The traditional chart ruler Mars also speaks of the show’s purpose. It sits almost right on the IC, the point of home, in Aquarius – close to the North Node in the 3rd house of communication (also conjunct the IC).

So the show also highlights all that is different and eccentric about the homeland (Aquarius IC) and the absurdity of the stories the country tells itself about itself.

I think the astrology also suggests that David Lynch, like many genius creators, was able to tap into something larger when he was creating the show. A story from the collective flowed through him and the people involved.

What is lovely to see in the many articles about him and the show that have been published recently is how he allowed space for that to happen on set.

In an article in the Guardian the actors remember the atmosphere:

Michael Ontkean (Sheriff Harry S Truman): David was purely and absolutely attentive to what’s in the air. He was always ready, willing and completely able to incorporate anything and everything into a scene. He calmly conducted the orchestra with all six senses. Number six being instinct/intuition.

Wendy Robie (Nadine Hurley): He would create something and then it was up to you. He’d leave this big empty box for you to fill. It was wonderful, an absolute faith: whatever bonkers thing he was going to set before you, your job was to fill it, to make it real, to make a human story.

This is a good lesson for all of us who create. To leave enough space and room for the magic to flow, for the right story to appear.

As this happened on a film set it makes me think of family constellations therapy, where the participants act out a role that’s been prescribed to them by someone in the group – and somehow (if it all works) there is magic, there is healing, there is something coming through the participants to create a resolution and a release of tension.

Twin Peaks was cathartic in the same way. Perhaps it was a bit like family constellations therapy for the US as the American dream started to crumble following the end of the Cold War. “What we thought was perfect wasn’t actually perfect.”

But perhaps there was something even more magical going on.

In a fascinating profile in The New Yorker the author speculates that David Lynch was able to tap into numinous forces in his work – that he was in fact a sort of shaman.

The actor Michael Horse, who plays Hawk in Twin Peaks, talks about feeling relief after being able to leave the room where the cast was filming a scene where Bob is possessing Leland Palmer.

“We were all in that room and I knew we were calling on evil”.

The article moves on to looking at surrealism and how surrealists like André Breton and his contemporaries believed they were investigating a higher reality and through the art they were connecting their audience to that higher reality.

The article continues:

“An acquaintance of mine is an energy healer: she sees spirits and auras, describes her past lives, goes on journeys out of her body at night, and converses with the dead. I can’t bring myself to believe in her experiences—I’m too rational—but I’m moved and fascinated by David Lynch, who explored the world she inhabits … Lynch knew that the old ways of being were still inside of us, waiting to be found.”

David Lynch was a shamanic creator. And the numinous was revealed and glimpsed through his work – often it seems as if he was able to channel darker forces and I wonder how he was able to work with and contain this in his own life.

It would have been part of his natal astrology with his North Node and a Mars/Saturn conjunction in the 8th house of the occult. A big part of his life probably revolved around figuring out how to contain and work with these forces. His Virgo Moon on the Midheaven might have helped as he channeled these energies into his work, he gave them a container and he kept his own mind safe by a rigorous mediation practice.

So what was it he channeled into Twin Peaks?

The synastry between the US and the Twin Peaks chart spells it out quite clearly:

The Twin Peaks Sun sits on top of the US’s inner wounding: Chiron. The Twin Peaks Chiron is on top of the US natal Sun.

This show brought the nation’s wounds into the light.

January 23, 2025
Why 2025 and 2026 are huge for the British royal family according to astrology

The British royal family is going to be shaken to its core by the astrological weather during 2025 and 2026. The events during the next two years are going to affect all of them and have an impact on the UK as a whole.

This is a continuation of the events last year when various health issues and conspiracy theories relating to Kate Middleton lead to another period of heightened interest in the royal family.

In January 2024 the palace announced that King Charles was being treated for cancer. Later the same month Kate, or Catherine as she is known as now, was taken into hospital for unspecified abdominal surgery. She then disappeared from public view for a few weeks which lead to an avalanche of conspiracy theories and online sleuthing related to her health and her marriage.

On the 22nd of March she released a statement saying she had been treated for cancer and the speculations mostly died down.

That was two days before a lunar eclipse at 5 degrees Libra. This was the beginning. What we are seeing this year and the next are the following acts of this story.

Several members of the royal family have placements in the early degrees of fixed signs – which will now be pinged by powerful Pluto moving into Aquarius. Especially four degrees seem to be a particularly sensitive point for many.

But Pluto, the planet of the fates, is only one part of the story. Several of the outer planets move signs this year. They are power players in astrology, they move slowly and when they form an aspect to a point in our natal charts we tend to feel it.

The royal family will be affected by the outer planets changing signs. And it will affect all of them, not just the family members in the UK. Prince Harry and Meghan are also particularly sensitive to this astrological weather, as is the UK’s natal chart.

There are some ethical questions around going into what this might actually mean. These people might be royalty – and astrologers have written about royalty since day one – but they are also just people.

My personal view is to take a step back from predictions relating to the lifespan and health of people in the public eye. It isn’t a nice thing to do and it also gives the astrologer more power than he or she deserves or should take upon themselves.

The astrological weather affecting the royal family during the next two years does speak of change and upheaval, but this can manifest in a myriad of different ways. When looking at the transits it seems like the underlying theme here might be the media storm, not the health of the family members.

So what can we expect to see in 2025 and 2026?

It could all start around another eclipse – this one a lunar eclipse on the 29th of March at 9 degrees Aries.

Eclipses were momentous events in ancient times and they have traditionally been connected to the rise and fall of kings and leaders.

The royal family also seem to be particularly sensitive to eclipses. Both Prince William and Kate Middleton were born on an eclipse so their birth charts would also naturally resonate more strongly with eclipses.

The eclipse on the 29th will oppose Prince William’s Mars from his 3d house of siblings and the media. His Mars, his inner warrior, is in the 9th house of foreign places and philosophy. Could it mean a clash of views, playing out in the media?

This is the start of a massive astrological period for William as Neptune, the planet that dissolves, will square his Moon and then Sun from his third house and Pluto will square his status point, the Midheaven, from his first house.

A square can be a challenging aspect, it forces us to grow – often because of something happening outside of us, sometimes someone or something challenging us.

This eclipse affects his brother Harry too, but he might have an easier time as it will trine his Uranus in the 11th house of groups and sextile his Chiron in Gemini the 5th house of childhood, love affairs and children. These aspects speak of an easy flow. Will the flood gates open for Harry? Will he take to social media (or something similar) with that maverick Uranus and speak about some wounding in his childhood (Chiron in the 5th) to a large audience? The eclipse happens in his second house of finances, so it is possible that there is some financial reward in this for him.

This eclipse is opposite Kate Middleton’s Mars in Libra in the third house of the media, with transiting Mars on her destiny point the North Node, conjunct her Moon and opposing her Sun on the day of the eclipse.

When the Nodes are involved it often suggests that there is a larger story at play behind all of this. Perhaps an ancestral theme is coming out at this time – and she is part of it. The points in her chart that are affected during the eclipse are very close to Queen Elizabeth’s Ascendant/Descendant axis at 21 degrees Capricorn/Cancer. So whatever happens could also reverberate back through time.

The eclipse will be huge for King Charles too, as it’s very close to his career point. the Midheaven. Pluto has already squared his Moon and is moving towards the sensitive 4/5 degrees in his chart when it will square his Nodes and cross his Descendant in February 2026.

The epic-ness of the astrology here shouldn’t be underestimated. The king is a symbol of the country, of its people, and whatever befalls him also affects the whole country. His chart carries with it the echoes of those who came before him and it is also linked with the chart of the UK itself.

The astrological weather also affects his wife, who astonishingly has almost exactly the same Midheaven and Ascendant as Charles. The eclipse on the 29th will be opposite her Neptune in the third house – so the media might be part of the story for her too. It also squares her Moon and Neptune in the 12th house and trines her Saturn in the first house. A more complicated picture, suggesting it will activate her fiery and steely Saturn in Leo, which is a very visible side of her personality, but might also cause her private pain.

The other (ex)-royal wife, Meghan Markle, also has almost exactly the same Aries Midheaven and Descendant/Ascendant axis as her father- and mother-in-law. So this eclipse will also be on her career point, with Mars on her Cancer Ascendant.

The eclipse opposes Meghan’s Moon/Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Libra in the third house, a very significant placement in her chart that will get a helpful trine from Pluto when the planet of the fates starts to square and challenge many in the royal family.

Will she be the power player that sets the whole thing off?

Early 2025 Pluto will cross her South Node, the point that can stand for an ancestral wounding (or a past life wounding according to some). Could that be a clue to the larger story here? Some astrologers have suggested that Meghan is a reincarnated Anne Boleyn coming to seek revenge on the royal family.

Symbolically that is interesting, but the Windsors are not direct descendants of Henry VIII.

The simplest explanation to the meaning behind all of this might be to look at the story so far. What is the thing coming up again and again with Meghan, Harry and the royal family? Depending on where you stand on the political spectrum it can be described as either a story of racism and institutional oppression or a story of over-zealous wokery.

But underneath all of this is an undercurrent, a slow moving theme connected to racism, oppression and imperialism. It is a story that has slowly been developing over the last century – with flash points and sudden breakthroughs.

The royal family is part of this story, because for better or worse they still represent the British Empire.

Starting in March 2025 everyone in the family will have a role to play in this drama. It will unfold over the next two years, possibly leading to a permanent change to the royal family and how it is seen by the public – possibly even affecting how the UK is seen by the world.

This eclipse on the 29th of March is significant for the UK too. It falls on the Descendant of the 1801 birth chart, with Mars on the UK’s prominent 10th house Moon and Pluto opposing the country’s Jupiter from the 4th house of the structures of the nation.

Astrologers’ have long predicted that William will be the last King of the UK. Stranger things have happened and we live in turbulent and unpredictable times.

If this is the end of the line for the monarchy as we know it then the beginning of that story will start in 2025 and 2026 with Pluto in the early degrees of Aquarius.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

January 16, 2025
What is next for Elon Musk according to astrology

He’s now even wealthier than the incredibly rich robber barons of the 19th century – and he’s the so called first buddy. So what can astrology tell us about the rise of Elon Musk and what’s next for him.

A clear connection with the US chart

Elon Musk has amazing synastry with the US. His Sun is exactly conjunct the country’s Jupiter, his Ascendant and Mercury are on the US’s natal Cancer Sun.

Like it or not he embodies and gives a voice to an aspect of the country.

Let’s look a bit closer at that American Sun and what it means to try to tease out who and what he speaks for.

America’s natal Sun in Cancer in the 7th house of relationships forms an exact square to Saturn in the 10th house in the country’s natal chart. It is a patriotic Sun, but being in the 7th house, it is also enmeshed with the “other”, it is concerned about others. And it wants to share its vision of the homeland with others.

If the country was a person this could speak of someone who cares deeply about relationships, but struggles to express it fully because of burdens and/or an ambition related to status. Or someone who expresses their views quite forcefully, because they think they know best.

So perhaps Elon Musk embodies the US’s need to care – and also to meddle. Cancerians can sometimes be quite self-interested and are often willing to go to great lengths to protect those they care about, those in the inner circle.

What is Elon Musk doing at the moment?

He is throwing his weight around, he is commenting on, trolling, governments in Europe, seemingly suggesting that he can influence elections and change the political winds on the continent.

Is he speaking for America? There are probably many in the country who agree with him, even though much of what he says is either ill-informed or actual misinformation.

Pluto playing a part

Part of the astrological reason for his rise to power is his synastry with the country he now speaks for.

But Pluto might also have had a role to play. As it’s traveled through the late degrees of Capricorn over the last few years it has sent a positive sextile to Elon Musk’s career point, the Midheaven, from his 7th house of relationships. His connections have been crucial to his success.

When Pluto is involved it means the fates are playing a part in this – exactly how this story ends remains to be seen though. What we are seeing now is the first act, the rise to power.

And Pluto has been generous. It has also sextiled Elon Musk’s lucky money making Jupiter in Scorpio in the 5th house of the gambler, trined his natal power-player Pluto in the 3rd house of communication and is now moving to a trine with his natal Saturn in the 11th house of groups – leadership.

The astrology suggests this has been a lucky period for the so called chief troll officer.

But what’s next?

Pluto’s journey through Aquarius over the next twenty years will reveal what the fates have planned for him. And just to caveat this, I’m not a fatalist, I believe we can bargain with the Gods and the choices we make are important, but as with many famous people a larger story is playing out through Elon Musk. He has chosen to play that role and that sometimes means being swept along by forces beyond his control.

The lessons of the Russian oligarchs

An astrologer might tell Elon Musk to watch out. His natal Sun is in his 12th house. That can sometimes speak of a spiritual person, a person connected to something larger than just the mundane. It is also a house that was traditionally linked with prisons and hospitals.

When the Soviet Union fell many people feasted on the ruins and took the country’s wealth as their own. They became the oligarchs, but the story didn’t end happily for many of them. Those who disagreed with Vladimir Putin or were seen to have become too powerful ended up dead or in prison.

Donald Trump has often expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin. Someone like Elon Musk might want to study the story of the oligarchs who flew too close to the sun. As the fates lift you up they can also tear you down.

A more challenging time ahead

In about four years transiting Pluto will start to form the apex of a yod with Elon Musk’s natal Sun and Moon. This is another astrological pattern that speaks of the Gods playing a part in the story. This aspect is also called an inconjunct, it can be difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes speaks of endings.

At the same time Pluto will cross the US’s South Node in the 2nd house of finances and security, sextiling revolutionary Uranus in the 6th house. This is a transit that could speak of financial turmoil causing an uprising of some kind. The US will also have its Uranus return, the last time this happened was when the US entered World War Two, the time before that was during the Civil War.

During this period and the years that follow Chiron and then Saturn will cross Elon Musk’s career point the Midheaven. Revolutionary Uranus will square his Moon from the 11th house of the people.

Then Pluto moves on to a conjunction with his point of fate, the North Node, and Mars in the complex 8th house in the 2030s.

Chiron in Aries

It’s interesting that Elon Musk’s rise to power coincides with his Chiron return – one of the astrological milestones in life – when we are faced with our wounds and weaknesses in our early fifties.

Elon Musk’s Chiron sits in the 9th house in Aries – a Chiron that speaks of a wounding around being the pioneer in a foreign land. His family emigrated to South Africa, a country that was segregated and suffered from deep inequalities.

He moved to the US – a country where those same wounds around equality and civil rights lie closer to the surface than many might want to acknowledge.

And the US has almost exactly the same Chiron placement as Elon Musk. It is just a few degrees later in Aries and in the 4th house of home in the country’s birth chart. His wound is also the nation’s wound.

It will be part of the story playing out over the next few years.

The transits coming up for Elon Musk could be described as challenging – but as always with astrology it is difficult to predict exactly how they will play out. And if he leans into his Chiron wound as the asteroid crosses his Midheaven, it is possible that he will be able to use that wound to speak to a part of the US population. Which part though?

Perhaps he will speak to the descendants of immigrants and settlers who voted for Trump, who are right leaning and who feel scared of and oppressed by the society that surrounds them. They are, just like his family, pioneers in a land where civil unrest lurks not far from the surface.

Musk comes from a country which for decades othered and dehumanised its black population. Where the wealthy shut themselves in gated compounds and drive from one heavily guarded place to the next. Violence still ripples through the country.

Is this where the US is heading? If so Elon Musk can draw on his experiences from having grown up in South Africa as he will understand what the US population is going through. He will understand this particular expression of Chiron in Aries.

But all of that will be more difficult if he falls out with Donald Trump. The two men have a very interesting composite chart with a Sun/Saturn conjunction in late Gemini in the 11th house trining a Jupiter/Neptune conjunction in early Scorpio right on the IC. Both placements also form a sextile with a first house Pluto in Virgo.

This is a fated relationship, a partnership allowing both men to becoming even wealthier. It will be severely tested as Pluto crosses its Ascendant/Descendant axis starting in 2027.

What is interesting is that the North Node in the composite chart sits at 17 degrees Aries in the 9th house, right in between Musk’s and the US’s natal Chiron.

It all comes back to the pioneer, the settler, themes that are so prominent in Donald Trump’s chart as well. Here we have the settlers, yet again conquering a foreign land, ready to crush all who oppose them and then there is the wound created (Chiron in Aries) in both those who oppress and conquer and crush and those who are oppressed.

What exactly does that wound look like? Perhaps a stuntedness and a myopic focus on the individual – an inability to work for balance, harmony and for holistic solutions that serve all (Libra).

Mega-wealth

If I was Elon Musk’s personal peppy astrologer I would suggest that he is now entering a period that will allow him to become even wealthier.

In March he will have a progressed New Moon conjunct progressed Venus in Leo in his second house of finances. This is the start of a new thirty year chapter in his life. For some reason the fates are clearly pushing him towards incredible wealth.

But why?

It doesn’t always end well for the people who throughout history have gone down this path. Astrologers have long spoken about Pluto in Aquarius being a time of revolutions. The last time Pluto worked his way through the sign of the people gross inequality lead to the wealthy being beheaded during the French revolution.

It doesn’t have to end that way this time. But that means those involved in this particular play by the fates have to make enlightened choices and think about what is best for the people (Aquarius) – all of the people – not just the ones that are part of the inner circle.

The people might of course also have a say in this too, and they have a will of their own. Take that Aries wounding too far and Libra will rise up to restore the balance.

January 8, 2025
Is football coming home? What watching the Euros taught me about astrology

During the World Cup in 2022 I started looking at astrology and football. Messi had some astonishing transits going on and leading his country to victory was clearly hugely important to him. If I remember correctly the Moon crossed over his Midheaven as Argentina won the penalty shoot-out.

I thought I’d make another attempt for the Euro 2024 tournament and so far it’s taught me a lot about astrology and perhaps also a little bit about football.

1. It’s difficult to predict a winner

Those of us looking at the tournament through an astrological lens aren’t seeing the full picture. In most cases there isn’t a birth time so we’re working without the houses and angles.

It turns astrology into a slightly more blunt tool and some of the transits are playing out over a long period. Pin-pointing what will happen during one game is difficult.

Different transits also mean different things to different people, depending on their birth chart.

So how do you then disentangle what is positive and what is negative?

Watching how the games unfold and what the astrology means for the players and the managers suggest to me that a transit that might look tough and challenging can also be turned into a positive. It often comes down to how we’re able to work with what we’ve been given.

2. Working well with what we’ve been given

England manager Gareth Southgate has a perfectionist, detailed-focus Virgo Sun and a Pluto/Mercury in Virgo conjunction. He has a conservative and stubborn Saturn in Taurus which might find it difficult to adjust and go with the flow, he might be quite fixed and set in his ways.

He also has a T-square between that Saturn, Mars in Virgo (or Leo depending on when he was born) and Neptune in Scorpio. So that intuitive, instinctive part of his nature could potentially be in conflict with an innate conservatism and a difficulty to change when needed. He might instinctively hold back, or be convinced he’s right, when he should change and listen.

This is mitigated by the Mercury/Pluto conjunction in Virgo, linking up the placements in a positive way. So perhaps he thinks very deeply about stuff, he’s analytical, he can see patterns and he can communicate this to his players.

And if the structure is correct at the outset, if he’s made the right calls at the beginning there is no need to change – if he hasn’t then winning comes down to being able to work constructively with the pattern that makes him fear change and spontaneity.

This tournament is challenging him to do that.

3. Identifying a transit of the tournament

The major astrological event for the tournament is a Mars/Uranus conjunction in Taurus which will be almost exact during the final on the 14th of July.

What does this mean? Perhaps that the nature of the tournament is one that speaks of sudden events or surprises, goals scored late in the game, sudden bursts of energy or a touch of genius on the pitch that will secure a win.

Several players and managers have placements that are pinged by this conjunction.

For Southgate it sits almost exactly on his Saturn, trines his Pluto/Mercury and opposes his Neptune. It calls for him to break his pattern, to step away from his innate conservatism. He might need to go with the flow and dare to tap into his instinctive ability to read the game and see patterns (Neptune in Scorpio sextile Mercury/Pluto in Virgo).

But no matter what happens on Sunday his life and fortune will change when Pluto moves to square his Jupiter early 2026. Too late to be connected to an England win, but a change for him nonetheless.

4. How to spot a winner

During the semi-final between England and the Netherlands both players and managers had transiting Saturn opposite Moon aspecting important natal placements in their charts.

Southgate had it near his natal Sun. Harry Kane had it on his natal Mars i Virgo. Bukayo Saka had it forming a loose grand cross with his Sun, Saturn and Chiron. Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford had it near his Pisces Sun.

Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman had Saturn on his natal Mercury, which could mean both depressed thoughts or steely resolve. Striker Wout Weghorst had Moon opposite Saturn on his natal Jupiter, so his planet of good luck was activated.

How come England won?

Lucky Ollie Watkins scored 90 minutes into the game.

But was he actually lucky? The astrology shows that the Moon/Saturn opposition during the game hit his natal Saturn and he is having his Saturn return. Not the transit you might associate with success at first glance.

So the astrology of this tournament has meant a slight reframing of Saturn, which can bring constriction and hardship, but is also the planet that rewards hard work and grit. These players worked hard. Capricorn Ollie Watkins must have worked very hard and dug deep to have this be the moment of his Saturn return – and Saturn has rewarded him.

5. Who will win the Euros?

With all of this in mind. Will England win?

The final is held on the 14th of July in Berlin.

As I mentioned before I think the big astrological event will be Mars/Uranus at 25 and 26 degrees in Taurus, so I’m keeping this in mind when looking at the charts.

Spain

Spain manager Luis de la Fuente has the conjunction trining his natal Saturn, which is also very near retrograding Pluto in Aquarius. Big stuff astrologically. But is it positive or negative?

The day after the game transiting Mercury is moving towards his natal Uranus and Mars and the Moon is moving towards his natal Neptune. Will his heart swell with the joy of victory or will he be swamped by feelings of anger, frustration and sadness?

For captain Alvaro Morata Mercury is moving towards his natal Chiron after the game, so his mind might be focused on mistakes and errors. He does have Pluto’s support though, trining his lucky natal Moon/Jupiter conjunction in Libra.

“Spain’s wonderkid” Rodri has some potentially good astrology with Jupiter, the bringer of good fortune on his Mercury/Mars/Venus conjunction and tapping into a pattern that affects most of his chart. Looks pretty lucky to me. Or big, a big moment in his life.

Spanish goal keeper David Raya also has some powerful astrology at the moment. The Uranus/Mars conjunction is affecting a powerful and mostly positive pattern in his chart.

England

After the game the Moon will cross England manager Southgate’s natal Venus and Jupiter, his feelings might be focused on love and/or victory.

Jupiter is separating from a trine to his natal Moon and Uranus, so the planet of luck is still sending helpful beams to his natal chart.

And as mentioned before the Mars/Uranus conjunction taps into several patterns in his chart. The key to his success might be to bend instead of to break, to be flexible even though he might find it difficult.

After the game Venus will move to conjunct Harry Kane’s natal Sun. Love and adoration iare coming his way, but a few days later Mercury will cross his Chiron so he too might be ruminating on some inner wounds or mistakes.

The Mars/Uranus conjunction is less helpful for him and is activating some tough points in his chart.

Saka has Jupiter on his Saturn, opposing Pluto, squaring his Sun and trining his Moon. After the game Venus will return to its natal place and trine his Moon, that looks pretty positive.

Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has some tougher transits. Saturn on Sun. Chiron square Moon. Mars/Uranus loosely squaring his natal Mars, but sextiling his Venus.

After the game the Moon will transit his Jupiter and then Pluto/North Node conjunction in Scorpio.

So what does this mean? Maybe that the game will go to penalties, so there will be a lot for the different players to process and come to terms with after.

But what is the clincher? Maybe looking at the 1066 birth chart for England will help?

On the 14th of July Chiron, the wounded healer, is on England’s Ascendant and the Moon is on the Descendant (the opposite team). Saturn is on the South Node. Neptune is on the natal Moon, squaring Uranus in the 9th house – broken dreams due to something surprising and foreign perhaps.

Spain has equally powerful astrology. Pluto is on the Ascendant and Venus is on the Descendant. Mars and Uranus are exactly conjunct the IC, the point of home, and opposing the Midheaven. Jupiter is sending lucky beams to natal Pluto/Venus and Jupiter.

Pluto is transformation, it can mean being lifted up, or falling down. Mars/Uranus is surprise and shock to the homeland. And Jupiter, Jupiter is the giver of gifts and blessings and he is much more active and helpful in the Spanish chart.

Good luck to both of them on Sunday – a sentence that will probably say more about my understanding of football (outside of astrology) than anything else in the article.

Photos by Abigail Keenan and Izuddin Helmi Adnan on Unsplash.

July 11, 2024
Walking with the fates – A Pluto transit survival guide

I often mention Pluto in my readings because I know how important and transformative a Pluto transit can be.

Pluto is fate. He comes in and can often change everything, he pulls us up at the roots, he pulls the rug away from underneath our feet, he’s the forest fire that clears away the dead wood so new green shoots can grow.

A Pluto transit is often a process of deep transformation, of death and rebirth.

Some of us will have had more experiences with Pluto than others. The dwarf planet moves slowly through the skies and can stay in a sign for many decades. Those with many placements in Sagittarius or Capricorn – or the two opposite signs, Gemini and Cancer – would have felt Pluto’s power since the mid 1990s.

The meaning of Pluto in astrology

Pluto was named after the Roman God of the Underworld and often a Pluto transit, which lasts on and off for around three years, can feel like a descent into his realm.

But, as we learn how to work with the energies of the transit and with what Pluto is trying to teach us, we start to climb back up, into the light.

Pluto is power and a Pluto transit can also bring power, fame and empowerment your way. Pluto can lift you up if you’re down, because at its core Pluto is transformation.

One example of this is Taylor Swift, who had Pluto on her Sun as she began working and performing in Nashville in 2004 and 2005. Pluto lifted her up and brought her onto a predestined path – and someone as successful as her will often channel and represent something in the time or in the collective. Since the early 2000s Pluto has crossed or opposed almost all of the important placements in her chart and brought her mega-fame and wealth.

As someone born in December in the 1980s Pluto has also crossed or opposed most of the placements in my birth chart. For me the process brought self-knowledge and a slowly unfolding process around how to use storytelling in a helpful and healing way.

Pluto transits can affect us in many different ways. By working with the planet these periods can be both empowering and bring healing.

1. Figure out how Pluto will affect your natal chart

Go to a website like astro.com and find the Extended Chart Selection. Type in your birth details and in the section called Chart Types choose Natal Chart and Transits.

Then look at your Birth Chart and locate your natal Pluto, the symbol looks a bit like the letter “P”.

Look up the sign and the house for your natal Pluto. This can tell you, among other things, a bit about the generational experiences that might play out through your life and in which area (house) those experiences might fall. I’ve written more about the generational nature of Pluto in a post about the Pluto square Pluto transit, which all of us will have in our mid-life.

Your natal Pluto can also give an idea of the flavour your Pluto transits might have. A Pluto in Scorpio in the second house might be confronted with themes around security, safety and finances. A Pluto in Libra in the 5th house might have experiences around relationships, love-affairs and infidelity – or channel that placement into becoming a successful artist.

The next step when looking at your chart is to find out where Pluto is now. Locate the “P” for Pluto amongst the green symbols circling around the birth chart. That’s where Pluto is in the skies at the moment.

Which house is he in? And is he aspecting any of the planets in your natal chart? Is he on top of a placement, or perhaps opposite one? Other aspects to look out for are squares, where Pluto sits at a 90 degree angle to a placement in your chart, or a trine where he is at a 120 degree angle. Squares can feel a bit abrasive, trines are often supportive and positive.

The conjunction (Pluto on top of a placement) or opposition (opposite a placement) are often the transits you will feel the most.

The easiest way to start figuring out the astrological story is to do some research around the house transiting Pluto (the green symbol) is in. And if you’re having an opposition, square or trine – look up that house too. Those houses will speak of the areas of your life Pluto will be working on.

Then look up the personal planet that is being aspected. That’s the part of you that will be asked to transform. Pluto on your natal Mercury could mean studying a new subject or your worldview changing somehow. Pluto on your Venus might mean that your relationships, how you love and how you’re loved, will go through a process of transformation. Pluto in your Ascendant might mean that the way you’re perceived in the world and the way you yourself present yourself to others will change.

Finally look up the signs involved in the story. Pluto is in Aquarius now, the eccentric and egalitarian water-bearer. Over the next twenty years people with placements in the fixed signs Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio and Taurus will be exposed to the power of Pluto.

2. Let go

Pluto often asks us to let go of something. And sometimes he takes something away from us. The earlier in the transit you can figure out what it is you’re supposed to let go of the easier the ride might be. The more you cling on to the past or to an old version of yourself the harder Pluto might make you work. So figure out what it is you’re supposed to evolve away from and let go.

When Pluto transited my Sun in my late teens I suddenly knew I had to walk away from a dysfunctional relationship that was causing both me and my first boyfriend pain. With Pluto there is sometimes this inner knowing that you don’t really have a choice anymore – I knew I was done with the relationship and there was no going back. A wall had been raised between what was becoming the past and my future.

When the transit was over I had left my boyfriend, my old circle of friends and my hometown. I had graduated high school and I moved to a big city several hours away to go to university. My life changed completely.

Shamanic healer and spiritual guide Tansy Alexandra, who has also had many significant Pluto experiences in her life, speaks of how Pluto teaches us to step more fully into who we are. Pluto’s transits achieve this by making us let go of old stories around who we thought we should be and what we thought we should do with our lives.

She puts it beautifully when she says Pluto has brought her: “an understanding of who I am, where I am, and in what existence/experience I am in, which makes what I thought I wanted appear as something of a diversion from what I truly needed and fundamentally wanted in this life”.

That is the power of Pluto, he teaches us about what the fates want from us. And the earlier in the transit we can take a deep breath and let go of the old. To shake off our old skin and bravely step up to what is asked of us, the easier the transit will be.

And that’s where Pluto can show us his other side. He can empower us and lift us up.

3. Ask for help if you need it

Sometimes it isn’t possible to work through a Pluto transit on your own. Especially as what the planet asks of you is often a deep and profound transformation. I wish I would have known this when Pluto opposed my Moon. This was the most difficult Pluto transit for me – and from listening to my clients’ experiences I know that Pluto opposite Moon, more so than any other Pluto transits, can be very challenging.

The Moon is our inner emotional nature, it’s also a point of emotional safety. To have the planet of transformation, the Lord of the Underworld, opposite that tender spot in our chart can feel like a free fall.

For me it meant that all my coping mechanisms and places of safety were stripped away and I had to find new ways to feel safe.

Up until that point I had been a confident and extremely self-reliant person. I thought I could take on almost anything and for a long time I had told myself a story of not needing anyone – that relying on other people was somehow a weakness.

Then Pluto opposed my Moon and brought me many different experiences that took away that confidence and self-reliance.

I started having panic attacks. For a while I felt like I was walking with death beside me and what was asked of me was to learn how to live with the knowledge that everything can be taken away from you.

At the time, before I knew this was a Pluto transit, I described those three years as walking into a dark valley, walking through the darkness, and then climbing back up again – which is exactly what a Pluto transit can feel like.

With hindsight I know that it would have been helpful to seek out healers and helpers at this point in time. Pluto was in my 12th house of the subconscious and spirit opposing my Moon in the 6th house of health, service and worry. Energy work, bodywork and shamanic work – even prayer – would all have been extremely good tools to use had I known it at the time.

But I didn’t. Instead what that Pluto transit brought me was a budding knowledge that it’s OK to ask for help, that I can’t walk through life alone, that I am and need to be vulnerable.

We all fall down sometimes, that’s just how life is for most people. And we can’t always do it all on our own. We live in a society where we’re not supposed to show weakness or fear or vulnerability. That makes it so much harder to deal with some elements of a Pluto transit. These can be moments when we do fall down and accepting that is also part of the process, as is being able to ask for help and to let our loved ones know that we aren’t OK. And that’s often where the healing starts.

Photo by Elly Endeavours on Unsplash and the rest from the British Library on Flickr.

June 24, 2024
What’s up with the water? The astrology of contamination

The rivers are full of E coli and we’re told not to go wild swimming. The shores stink of untreated sewage. The Thames is turning into a sewer – again.

And while this is happening the privatised water companies have payed their shareholders and directors millions and millions of pounds in dividends and bonuses over several decades as the infrastructure crumbles around them.

It’s bad. But it’s not the first time its happened in the UK.

Some of you might have heard of John Snow. Not the guy from Game of Thrones, the scientist who was much derided in the 1800s for suggesting that it was the bacteria in the water that was causing waves of cholera outbreaks around the country.

Back then no one had been able to see these little bugs and Snow’s ideas seemed too far fetched. The medical establishment laughed at him. Even though people were finding pieces of toilet paper in their drinking water.

This went on for decades. Thousands of people died a horrible death. It wasn’t until after John Snow himself had died that people started to take matters into their own hands.

They started to boil their water, then they started suing the water companies that had pumped unfiltered water straight from the Thames into their homes. Then the thinking shifted. But it took a long time.

And now it seems like we’re having to learn the same lessons again here in the UK.

So why is this country seemingly so bad at looking after its water?

The astrology of the Great Stink

One event to look at is the so called Great Stink in 1858, when the stench from the Thames became so intolerable that parliament finally decided to build the city a new sewer.

What’s interesting about the chart for the day when parliament started to debate what to do with the Thames is the grand trine in water signs.

Neptune is in Pisces in the 6th house of hygiene trining Mars in the second house and Saturn in the 11th house in Cancer. So the collective had had enough, they had decide to start caring for their water and made sure there were funds available to do it.

Neptune is in the last quarter of its transit through Pisces in the chart. The issues had been building and building until a point where there was finally a decision to do something about it.

Neptune is currently in Pisces as well. The watery planet has been in its own sign since 2011 and will stay there until 2026.

The astrology of the Brixham water contamination scandal

On the 18th of May there was a modern water scandal here in the UK. That day residents living in an area of Devon were told to boil their water after the bacteria cryptosporidium was found in the supply. Several people fell ill.

The chart for that day also has Moon in Leo. And there is a positive pattern linking Neptune in Pisces to Sun/Uranus/Jupiter/Venus and Pluto.

There is an urgent need in the collective (Pluto in Aquarius) to find innovative ways of sorting things out (the very healing and practical Sun/Uranus/Jupiter/Venus conjunction in Taurus). And it’s connected to how we treat our water – Neptune in Pisces.

Water, the general election and astrology

The UK is soon about to vote in a general election. And what I’m interested in is if it will have an impact on the 1989 Water Act – that’s the legislation that privatised the water companies and it might be one reason for the current mess we’re in.

The Act was given royal assent at midnight on the 6th of July 1989.

The Ascendant is at 27 degrees Pisces. A chart point that Neptune will cross a couple of times before it leaves the sign in 2026.

This chart also has the Moon in Leo. This time its in an uncomfortable conjunction with Mars/Venus in the 5th house square Pluto in the 8th house. A gambling, dare-devil and devil may care risk taking – leading to financial rewards.

Neptune/Saturn are exactly conjunct in Capricorn in the 10th sextiling that Pluto. This Act will make some people very rich. And it’s the people – Chiron/Sun in Cancer in the 4th – who will suffer.

Unfortunately there isn’t much in the transits indicating that things will change soon. Pluto will start to oppose the Water Act’s Venus, Mars and then Moon from the 11th house of the collective as it moves through Aquarius over the next twenty years. The people might speak up.

Saturn and then Uranus will cross the IC and then Chiron and the Sun, opposing the placements in the 10th. This will change things, but it will play out over the next decade or so.

What sort of person do we need to sort this out?

Perhaps someone like John Snow with his grand trine in water signs, a powerful Pluto/Sun conjunction in those final degrees of Pisces, connecting to Jupiter in nurturing Cancer and a genius Uranus in detailed focused and perceptive Scorpio.

There is also a health focused T-square between a physicians Moon in Virgo, the wounded healer Chiron and Venus in Pisces and visionary Neptune in Sagittarius.

Just the sort of person we might need to end this sad chapter in the story of the sacred waters of this country.

But I didn’t answer my question – why has the country gone through periods of neglecting and abusing its water?

Perhaps the Moon in Leo offers up a clue. It’s a Moon that potentially doesn’t care about anything but itself. Is that Moon having a good time? Is it rolling in money? Then everything is fine. So there is no need to worry about the toilet paper in the drinking water – until the people (Aquarius on the opposite side of the Zodiac) rise up and say they’ve had enough.

Pictures via Unsplash by: Benjamin Elliott, Paul Macallan and the blowup.

June 5, 2024
The astrology of turning 40 – dealing with your first Pluto square Pluto

Pluto squares itself around the time when we turn 40. Something that will activate a generational imprint in our birth chart and can bring themes of the collective into our lives.

Many cultures don’t have initiation rites in a traditional sense any more. But we do have several thresholds to cross as we journey from childhood into adulthood and then old age – thresholds that can be tracked astrologically.

Between the age of 27 to 30 we experience our Saturn return, when transiting Saturn returns to its place in the birth chart. It’s a time to leave childhood behind, to grow up and take responsibility for our actions and lives. Its exact expression will depend on who you are and where Saturn can be found in your birth chart.

Then we have Pluto square Pluto around the age of 40 (and also Neptune square Neptune and a bit later the Uranus opposition). These all fall slightly differently depending on when you were born – but they are often described as the mid-life crisis transits.

First Pluto will shake things up then Neptune might make everything a bit foggy, then Uranus comes in and tells us to break free. Or so the story goes.

Healing stories of Pluto square Pluto

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to assist during an astrological workshop run by my friend Amy Bird. With her Leo Sun in the 4th house, Gemini rising and Capricorn moon in the 9th she is a natural and gifted teacher who by being her joyful self conjures up a hearth fire where women feel at home and safe enough to share their stories and bare their scars. What a powerful place that can be.

We were a mixed group – different ages, different experiences, different lives. And we were exploring how to find purpose in the birth chart. It was only natural to go to those big, generational turning points in life.

I’m about to leave my thirties behind and I’m coming up to my first Pluto square Pluto transit. At the workshop everyone else had crossed this particular threshold. And hearing their stories impressed upon me how pivotal this time can be for many of us.

The meaning of different Pluto generations

Pluto stays in a sign between 12 and 30 years (the difference is down to his elliptical orbit) and the genertional nature of Pluto is a lovely reminder that we are part of a collective. We are born into a particular time and the nature of that time will play out through us and our lives.

The generation with Pluto in Libra, born between 1972 and 1984, might find that stories and themes around relationships and finding balance are coming up in their lives. They were born to a generation of parents where the woman was able to be other things than a mother, where divorce and new kinds of family set ups started to become more normalised and accepted. They might also have seen their parents having to, or choosing to, work very hard and in some cases look for a different way to live or a different set of values.

Pluto in Virgo (1957 to 1972) might have had themes around health, work and service playing out through their lives. They would have been born into a time when the giddy relief felt after the war had already become embedded in the baby boomer generation (Pluto in Leo, 1939 to 1958).

The lucky Pluto in Leo generation has lived through an era where in many parts of the world house prices kept rising, jobs were for life and there was an underlying sense of stability and that things kept getting better.

Individual stories might of course bring forth different experiences of this, but many of those born with Pluto in Leo were, or are now, able to enjoy a comfortable retirement with the help of the wealth that has been built up during their lives. They are learning how to shine, how to take up space.

Things weren’t as easy for the following cohort. Pluto in Virgo had to work harder and probably also felt like it had to work hard. This is the rat-race generation, the health conscious generation, the trying to do everything right generation.

My own cohort is the Pluto in Scorpio generation, born between 1983 and 1995. This is a generation that has popularised astrology, that is turning to mysticism and magic, in order to understand themselves and other people and make sense of the world. This cohort has also made it acceptable to talk about mental health – it’s a generation that is aware of the darker themes in life.

As young adults or teenagers we experienced a global financial crisis, suddenly the upwardly mobile path was taken away. Then, as many of us were starting a family or had young families, the pandemic hit. So there is a generational theme of learning how to deal with loss, trauma and uncertainty, that deeply transformational nature of Scorpio. We were also the first generation to grow up with the internet – connected to and merging with the collective and its unconscious urges and drives.

Pluto square Pluto brings the collective into our own story

At the workshop the collective themes of Pluto could be seen in the stories that were shared. Two women with Pluto in Virgo talked about being pregnant around their Pluto square Pluto and then learning about healing in order to help their child. During the transit they were called to working with, in one case healing minds, and in the other healing bodies, both of which are expressions of Virgo.

I’ve heard other friends speak of how the Pluto square Pluto transit was a time when they started to do some serious inner work or were set on their spiritual path, when the fates pushed them towards the next phase of their lives. Both are now successfully helping others by working with different healing modalities.

As I’m waiting for this part of my own Pluto story to unfold I’m also thinking about how we can use the story of the birth chart and its transits in an empowered way – like my friends and the women in the workshop.

Working proactively with transits with the help astrology

In an episode of the Astrology podcast fertility astrologer Nicola Smuts Allsop talks about dealing with transits proactively and how she worked with a tricky one in her own life.

She had an upcoming potentially difficult transit to her ASC/DC axis – the self and the other – and knew there was a risk of her marriage breaking down. She talks about working with the energies of the transit and events fate had brought into her life – she moved abroad and lived separately from her husband for a while. And her marriage survived.

She uses this story to explain how she helps her clients work with the energies in their own birth chart and with the energy of a transit in a constructive way.

It’s a fascinating take on astrology and one I’ve come across before, but her way of explaining it made a lot sense to me. She talks about among other things recommending that some of her clients with challenging Saturn/Neptune aspects take up analogue photography in order to express those energies in a helpful and healthy way.

The point is that we can sometimes take the fates by the hand. By using ritual, by doing, it is possible to find new and different and exciting expressions of the energies and themes playing out through us and in our lives. And the beauty of astrology is that it gives us a hint of what might be coming up and how to work with it. It also places our own lives and selves into a much larger narrative.

Pluto square Pluto is an opportunity to work with a big generational transit. And to see how our lives fit into the story of the time and the cohort we’re born into.

I’m inspired by the women who have used this transit to work on themselves and used that knowledge to help others.

All images from the fantastic British Library Database on Flickr.

May 14, 2024
Writing with the help of the stars – famous authors and astrology

Astrology is story-telling. The symbols in a birth chart are the raw data that allow me to start shaping a story. And I’m not the only writer who’s been drawn to this ancient art – but how can we use astrology as writers?

First we can look at our natal charts to try to figure what sort of writing that works with our astrological wiring.

JK Rowling

The most famous writer known to have used astrology is probably JK Rowling. It seems like she didn’t just dabble in it. Recently a handwritten and illustrated natal chart that she’s drawn up for a couple she met during an antenatal class came up for sale. According to the vendor of high end collectibles that sold the document for $20 000 “Rowling displays a strong knowledge of astrology, referencing texts such as the influential 15th century French work The Kalendar and Compost of Shepherds“.

She is known for writing the mega successful Harry Potter-series and then becoming a hate figure because of her combative views on trans issues.

But what does her birth chart tell us about Rowling as a writer?

Like many people who write she has several planets in Virgo, a sign that’s ruled by the messenger Mercury. Virgo placements can create an active and precise mind. Virgo can also be pedantic and overthink things and several planets in that sign could create a writer known for their intricate plots – and/or a writer who struggles with perfectionism and writer’s block. For Rowling the former seems to be more on point, she famously plots out all her books on a complicated and detailed grid pattern.

She has an influential Neptune in Scorpio in the 9th house of publishing. Here is someone who can dive into the undercurrents of society, the urges and drives of the collective consciousness and then shape what she’s picked up into stories that connect with something in the zeitgeist, stories that are published and read.

With Harry Potter she connected with a long tradition of story-telling and children’s fiction in the UK – fantasy, boarding schools and a brave orphan standing up to the forces of darkness.

Her Sun in Leo in the 6th house is able to pour a lot of energy into her work. It wants to shine, but it also wants to be of service. There is a sort of moralising tone to Harry Potter – be kind, stand up to bullies etc.

Finally Jupiter, the planet of blessings, is in the sign of the writer – Gemini – in her 4th house. Stories and story telling about home and family are part of her strengths as a writer.

The main thing that pops out to me when I look at her chart is a powerful and interesting pattern. She has a so called T-square, a dynamic and sometimes challenging aspect, between stern Saturn and the wounded healer Chiron in her first house, her Jupiter and her many planets in Virgo in the 7th house of relationships and her inner nature the Moon in the potentially tricky 8th house.

For a writer this could mean that she will be naturally good at stories about wounded heroes who set out to complete a quest that is hard and will challenge them, through this they are confronted with questions and learnings around home and family and also their relationships. But with that Moon in the 8th there is almost an obsessive quality to it, a compulsive need to exorcise demons – real or imaginary.

And perhaps that also describes the writer herself.

Eleanor Catton

This is an author who has been open about using astrology in her writing. Eleanor Catton, a young writer from New Zealand, took the literary world by storm with her second novel The Luminaries, which won the Booker prize in 2013 when she was just 28 years – making her the youngest author so far to win the prize.

The book is over 800 pages long and follows the stories of twelve men in 1860s New Zealand. These twelve men all represent the twelve signs of the zodiac. Catton also tracked the planets during the year when the novel is set and used that to inform the plot – quite a clever way to use astrology as a writer.

She has said that she became slightly obsessed with astrology when writing the novel.

Her take on it?

I like to think of the zodiac as having a lot in common with the Greek pantheon: less of a thing to be believed in, and more of a repository of cultural knowledge and history that is archetypal, and mythic, and responsive to close study.
Eleanor Catton interviewed by The Age.

So what does her birth chart tell us about what kind of story-teller she is?

There are planets and angles in Virgo, Gemini and Libra. Signs that rule communication and the arts. She has a conjunction between her Sun, her self, and Mercury, her mind, in Libra in the first house. It’s connected to her inner self, the Moon, and Jupiter in strong-willed Aquarius in the fifth house of creativity and creative projects. She also has Venus and Mars in the 12th house of the subconscious in meticulous Virgo.

The placement that really stands out to me is her Chiron, our core wound but also a point that can stand for healing, right on top of her Midheaven – the highest point in the sky when she was born, signifying our career or our status in the world.

What sort of stories would an author with this particular birth chart create?

They would be beautiful and deeply informed by the author herself. They would be different, unusual and with a strong sense of right and wrong, they might help the reader see the world through a different lens by showing them unusual and fascinating characters. Finally they would probably be ambitious works, dealing with topics like home, politics and the author’s country of birth (here I’m looking at her Neptune in Capricorn in the 4th, which is connected to her Mars and Venus).

But what does that Chiron mean? Perhaps that fame will be difficult for the author, that it could cause her some feelings of anxiety or insecurity, but that she – through being her beautiful Libra self – can help promote harmony, balance and empathy through her writing.

Olga Tokarczuk

What a birth chart and what a writer. Polish writer and Nobel prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s powerful book Drive your plow over the bones of the dead has a protagonist that uses astrology. The book itself deals with themes around the destruction of nature and how we treat each other – and in that other she includes both humans and animals as equals.

Tokarczuk is also a clinical psychologist and an activist. When she was interviewed about why she created a protagonist who uses astrology she put it like this:

I don’t know what it’s like here in the United States, but in Poland, astrology is a pseudoscience worthy of ridicule and contempt. The intellectual establishment neither values nor is interested in it. It’s considered to be the delusion of old women or hysterical girls; it’s part of the newspaper culture. Because I was creating a character who was supposed to be a bit rebellious, even as an older person, I gave her the astrology to annoy all those who treat astrology as something silly and frivolous.
Olga Tokarczuk interviewed at the Brooklyn Library.

She then described how her own attitude to astrology is that it’s an old science, or art, “that foreshadowed psychology, perhaps even some kind of sociological way or thinking”.

So what does astrology tell us about her?

Most of her chart is concentrated in one corner – creating a forceful personality in whose life certain themes will crop up again and again. She has a stellium, several planets in one sign, in Aquarius – the sign of the maverick, the genius, the free-thinker and the activist. A part of that stellium is a Sun/Venus conjunction. There are also planets in Pieces and Capricorn on either side. Her Aquarius placements are squaring a Moon/Neptune conjunction in fixed, perceptive, deep-diving Scorpio in the 3d house of the writer. Phew!

So writing will be activism and there is a sense that she as a writer wants to be of service, she works hard to try to change the world for the better – and she has very strong views on how to do it. Partly because her life and her character have given her challenging, but important and formative, experiences around the human psyche and the human soul. She knows what is going on underneath the surface. In a different time she could perhaps have been a healer or a shaman. What she knows isn’t always comfortable and she’s willing to be confrontational, to shake people up.

She also has Pluto on her Ascendant, the lens through which her personality and chart is projected into the world. Pluto is in the 12th house of the unconscious and it’s in Virgo – the sign of the writer, the doctor and the nanny.

I’ve only read Drive your plow, but after having written this I think I’m going reach for her back catalogue.

Tips for writers who want to use astrology

Astrology and writing go together quite naturally. Astrology can inform a plot or create characters, a technique that has been used successfully by both JK Rowling and Eleanor Catton.

It’s also possible to look to the birth chart to identify our strengths as writers and figure out how to make the best use of our talents and skills. Olga Tokarczuk’s activism and hard won knowledge of the human psyche and the archetypal forces playing out in the world are all part of why she’s had such an impact as an author. Those talents stand out clearly to anyone who look at her birth chart.

But this is just scratching the surface of how writers can use astrology. As a writer it’s a topic I want to keep coming back to.

April 26, 2024
Why I believe in astrology

I had practiced astrology for a long time, and seen it work in my own life, before I managed to explain to myself how it worked.

This shift happened because of a book.

Last summer I finally read cultural historian Richard Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche. In it he lays out a world view and an argument I had come across before – but at this point in my life the penny dropped, I was ready.

Tarnas argues that the modern mind believes that we are separate from the rest of existence. We’ve become these lonely, lofty individuals following a linear path towards some fancy destiny, separate from each other and standing above nature and life itself. We fear our seemingly chaotic universe which lacks meaning, we fear death and we fear each other.

But there is a different way to view the world:

“The primal human being perceives the surrounding world as permeated with meaning, meaning whose significance is at once human and cosmic. Spirits are seen in the forest, presences are felt in the wind and the ocean, the river and the mountains. Meaning is recognised in the flight of two eagles across the horizon, in the conjunction of two planets in the heavens, in the unfolding cycles of the Moon and Sun.”
Richard Tarnas

This is how my ancestors would have thought about the world, they were part of it, not above it or separate from it. Richard Tarnas calls the primal world “ensouled”. It communicates and has purpose.

When my world view shifted and I was able to grasp the idea of an ensouled world, astrology suddenly made sense. I’m still figuring out who is doing the communicating and why, but thankfully I’m not alone in that quest as it’s been one of the fundamental question we humans have asked ourselves for millennia.

This communication with the ensouled world can happen through the Tarot, the i Ching and through astrology and there are many, many more methods and ways and tools out there. They all tell us stories and through those stories we can start to weave a pattern that helps us make sense of our existence.

Does astrology predict the future?

No, but it can give us an insight into the themes, archetypes and patterns that are playing out in our lives and through us. It can also give us a weather report about what’s to come.

A Pluto or Uranus transit to your IC would in most cases mean changes to your home – perhaps you’re moving, renovating or maybe you’re having a baby. But the symbols can sometimes mean many different things. It’s through the skill of the astrologer and in the conversation between an astrologer and the person whose chart is being interpreted that the meaning starts to come into focus. But, just like the weather report, astrology or the astrologer isn’t infallible.

So what’s the point?

To me astrology is a shortcut, a language of symbols that helps me to spot patterns and trends in my life and in the lives of others. It also helps me to accept who I am – with my Moon in Cancer in the 6th house I know I need to be of service and that being family-focused and a mother is of huge importance to me – even though that part of myself has sometimes been at cross purposes with my weirdo 10th house Sun in Sagittarius conjunct Uranus and my striving Capricorn Ascendant. This tensions exists in my personality and psyche and that’s OK.

Astrology has also helped me by showing me that everything is cyclical. There will be good times, bad times, stressful periods and quiet ones. Sometimes the only thing to do is to wait for the storm to pass or for the wind to puff up your sails again.

Different kinds of astrology

As some of you know there are many different kinds of astrology, which in itself is an ancient art that has been practiced for over 4000 years. Astrology was used by ancient rulers, by kings and queens (and if some are to be believed, also by modern kings) and by common folk.

Traditional methods were quite different to the type of woolly astrology we’re now used to seeing in newspaper columns. There was a time when astrology was seen as a hard science and predictions could be dire – these astrologers were predicting your fate and neither they nor fate was messing around.

Since then we’ve gone through the Enlightenment and lost our belief in the fates. We also have more agency, we have, or think we have, more control over our lives. And in the West this lead to a decline in the popularity of astrology and a shift in how it was practiced. Instead of seeing the planets as Gods who rule over our lives they became aspects of our own psyche.

In the last decade or so there has been an explosion of interest in astrology. And perhaps because life now feels more uncertain for so many of us, perhaps because we feel the hand of fate more strongly, traditional astrology has had something of a renaissance.

Anyone who looks up astrology on online or on social media will come across young and ambitious astrologers talking about using Hellenistic astrology and methods like Zodiacal releasing – popularised by an impressive guy called Chris Brennan who puts out four hour long podcast episodes about astrology.

There also seem to be endless debates around house systems and between different schools of astrological thought. It’s all very interesting and new and exciting things are often born out of creative differences. It’s also great that so many people at this point in time seem to be discovering astrology.

How I work with astrology

My practice is rooted in looking at ancestral patterns and stories. And I am a story-teller, not a therapist. When looking at a chart I’m trying to find meaning and the goal is always to promote clarity and self-acceptance.

To me astrology is a form of story-telling and one of the many tools we can use in order to grow, heal and thrive. I use a blend of modern and traditional methods to shape a story about a person, an event, a life or a family.

I also see astrology as a useful method when doing ancestral work. The birth chart isn’t just you, it’s your family, your ancestors and the many things you’ve inherited from those who came before you. The chart placements and the aspects between the planets tell the story of your ancestral line and its strengths, its shadow and the trauma those who came before you might have experienced.

It’s a powerful tool for those who want to look at their ancestry and work on repairing the ancestral line, healing some of the patterns they have inherited.

Finally I believe we are all expressions of the creative energy of the cosmos. Our birth chart is like the sheet music for a particular segment of a larger symphony. Those notes can be played in many different ways, loudly, quietly, with joy or sadness. There are, in other words, many different ways the chart can be expressed. There are no good or bad placements, only what we make of them. And what astrology offers us is an insight into the particular themes we’ve been given to work with.

April 24, 2024