Capricorn is the Cardinal earth sign, initiating in a realistic, systematic way, and ruled by limiting, grounding Saturn. It is concerned with the way things actually work and the rules that must be observed if enterprises are not to come unstuck. Lots of us are having to rethink some ground-rules about how life needs to be lived. If this feels a bit chilling or scary, the good old Capricornian trick of making a virtue of necessity can stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood so that we feel more inspired than daunted. The Sun’s tense encounter with Uranus reminds us that the one thing sure to unstick us is clinging tightly to what we’ve always done, so let go and grasp the paradox instead: change is the new constant.

But this is the festive season, right? Fear not, the Sun has some good mates about him this midwinter. Taurean Jupiter favours feasting, Libran Saturn brings excellent judgement  and referees jollifications for good taste and fair play, Neptune helps us want to include those who might be left out, Venus and Mercury prompt sparkle and sociability.

The chart for Christmas day shows us Pluto, the dark lord of transpersonal power, sandwiched between the Sun and the New Moon. If you find yourself  – or anyone else – coercing family, friends or self into playing ‘We’re having the PERFECT Christmas’ it might be time to introduce the traditional Lord of Misrule and get some belly-laughs going that bring things back into proportion. Compassionate Neptune says do it with kindness, do it with music everybody likes – or if all else fails, keep passing round the drink!

New Year sees the Sun still paired with powerful Pluto, while the waxing Moon teams up with radical Uranus to start 2012 with a bang. This is an intense moment for those it touches, and if you have planets at the beginning of Capricorn, Aries, Cancer or Libra you might want to watch out for combative or reactive impulses. It’s also a great time for a vision of real change. This could work particularly well if you’re with those who share your ideals, as Venus in Aquarius especially favours being with your chosen group. Virgoan Mars and Libran Saturn apply the acids tests: is it possible – and is it right?

Throughout this solar month we still have Jupiter and Saturn locked in their odd opposition – odd because they’re not in opposite signs, but oddly compatible because both Taurus and Libra are ruled by harmony-loving Venus. Whatever we do that’s grounded in a love of being alive on  this beautiful Earth, and bounded by human decency and fairness, has a good chance of flourishing, I’d say, with a particular blessing from Neptune if it has an artistic or humanitarian theme. In those minutes when we’re not feeling inspired and high-minded the same planets may represent furthering our own interests and opposing whatever might rock our own little boat – a body’s got to make a living, after all. May both your person and your loving enterprises flourish in the New Year!

Currently we’re also getting an extra little kick to this connection from Uranus, whose inspired or insane messages on your wall may prompt some odd ideas that just might work. Mars in Virgo supplies the energy to test-drive rigorously before you buy into them; watch out for wheels rolling free! In this Capricornian month the Sun is specially empowered to illuminate ways of creating workable systems, so whether your schemes are for reorganising your room, revitalising your working life or re-ordering the planet, this is a good time to get on with it.

Happy Solstice! Merry Yuletide! Happy New Year!

My response to the news item in the The Times reporting that astrologers had to label their art ‘entertainment’

Entertainment only?

The cider bus man at Glastonbury Festival  looked pretty entertained last June as he greeted me on my first evening with a broad grin and the words, ‘Got your notice up then, have you? Entertainment Only?’

‘What? Ah, I see, you’re ridiculing what I do, jolly good,’  I rejoined cheerily (wearily used to it).

‘No, it’s the law of the land now, didn’t you know?’

I didn’t know, and as I  retreated to the Wheel of Astrologers’ encampment in the Green Fields,  it wasn’t fun speculating that Richard Dawkins was finally going to get his way and astrologers were going to be jailed for practising our art.  Fortunately a colleague had done a little legal reconnaissance. It emerged that the new law passed last March, reported in The Times as insisting that astrologers, effectively, wear a badge declaring  that no-one should take us seriously, makes no such reference to astrology.  There have yet to be test cases in the courts but it looks as if we just have to be careful not to make false claims about astrology’s acceptance in the scientific world, ability to make precise, concrete predictions, etc. That’s fine; we don’t. This article explores some of the value – and mystery – of what we do.

How do you use astrology?

While Mr and Ms Times Reader no doubt had a good chortle about astrology being legally relegated to the same division as Mickey Mouse, Shakespeare and any other cultural manifestation that has the cheek to present itself without its scientific papers in order, the question remains: what do you use astrology for? Whichever way you’ve just read that question, I’m asking it with the emphasis on the ‘you’, inviting you to think with me, not trying to outdo Her Majesty’s Government by laying down the law, but presenting some thoughts for your reflection, and suggesting that your response may have a lot to do with who you are.

Fulfil your every fantasy?

If you go with modern life’s first research reflex and  Google ‘use astrology’, pages of wonders appear. Far from being just a bit of a giggle, astrology can fulfil your every fantasy, if you believe all you read.  Want to play the market? Pick the soccer results? Plan that perfect wedding?  Astrology can make it happen for you, it appears. Astrology has long been credited with the power to look into the past and foresee the future, but alongside this traditional claim there are sites offering astrological aid to boost your libido, manipulate your boss, become a billionaire – oh, yes! JP Morgan’s words, ‘Millionaires don’t use astrology, billionaires do,’ recur many times. Astrology is seductive, and if you don’t see your personal fantasy in this parade of promises, it will probably find you if you do your own perusing.

To muffle this siren-song, many people, especially men, plug their ears and emit the intellectual equivalent of ‘la-la-la’, valuing astrology’s offer of benefits at about the same price as  a current shampoo ad’s invitation to ‘enter a whole new world’. I understand that response but have learnt more respect for astrology from experience. And, in affairs of the heart, soul and spirit, I also have more respect for seduction.

Seduced into astrology

I should. I was seduced into a lifelong study of astrology when a young man I fancied flipped through his ephemeris during a phone chat and uttered the fatal words, ‘Oh, you’ve got Mars in Scorpio – that means you can get anything you want’.  Reader, it doesn’t. The power of Mars in Scorpio to stop at nothing until the goal is attained is well documented in astrology writing, but having it in one’s chart doesn’t guarantee the least  victory – you’ve got to learn how to recognise, accept and direct it, as best you can in one short lifetime. I, in common with many people I know with this placing, have experienced this inner Ghengis Khan in projection on vile-seeming others, in deadly struggle with myself, in ghastly masochistic hanging on, in awful things I’ve done to people completely unconsciously, and in horror at the carnage caused by those who wield his axe heedlessly for their own ends. Trust me,  you can hop on a tiger’s back for a joyride far easier than you can use Mars in Scorpio to gratify your every whim. Oh, I love him now, my iron-in-the-soul-mate, couldn’t manage without him, use him to defuse others’ aggression and delight to find him in the face of my life-partner, but it’s been a long and bloody battle to accept this grim-faced gift from the gods.

Now I’m going to add something that may strike you as strange. It’s also been a long and bloody struggle for my Mars, whose avatar pronounced the magic spell that so entranced my young, disempowered self those decades ago, to recruit me to the ranks of those who trust their inner experience to the extent of transforming the world-view they inherited and putting soul on the bottom line. Notice your seducing fantasy about astrology, and how it relates to your chart; you may learn a lot.

Transit anxiety

Astrology speaks to our desires and, just as persuasively, to our fears: ‘What’s going to happen to me? In Tchenka’s article this quarter you can read about using astrology for prediction and get an idea of how the thing is done, and what you can and can’t tell about the future from studying your chart’s transits and progressions. One daft game most of us can’t help playing is to look at a potentially difficult transit or progression that we can see looming on the horizon and try to second-guess what it will bring.  ‘Ooh, what’s going to happen to me when Pluto squares my Sun? Will I survive?  When Uranus conjuncts my Saturn  will my house fall down?  When Neptune opposes my Mercury will I lose my marbles?’  Well…. possibly!  One theory says that if you use planetary energies positively you don’t have to suffer their negative effects, and I’ll testify that ‘going with’ a transit or progression works far better than resisting it. However, as Greek tragedy tells us, no desperate bargaining with the gods to ward off ill fortune is going to alter the human condition.  We are mortal, vulnerable, and fallible and we can’t stop nasty things happening to us sometimes, neither can we make ourselves so irreproachably nice that we always deserve good fortune, whether or not we believe that what goes around comes around. So what use is astrology to human terror in the face of its fate?

Cosmic Belly-Laugh

Three astrologers sitting together in late February sunshine, Tchenka Sunderland, Heike Robertson and myself,  recently compared notes on this apprehensive looking-forward. Tchenka, with her long professional experience of forecasting, can claim a decent hit-rate with clients, but she and I agreed  that in relation to our own charts we knew from experience that whatever  we expected – it would be something different! Hooray!! The universe duly fulfils its symbolic destiny but, joyfully playing with the boundless energy of symbols, comes up with the perfect manifestation we didn’t expect. Respect to Uranus, endlessly inventive widener of our mental horizons, and to Mercury, the trickster of the mind who takes us deeper towards our core selves. Heike is probably a bit psychic – a whole different ball-game – and said she did see the way things would go in her peripheral vision, but preferred not to look directly.  What we all agreed on is the humour of the way life riffs on our hopes and fears, coming up with tangents and twists to, reversals and mirror-images of,  satirical skits and downright sarcastic comments on, our anxious expectations. This is the source of the laughter that restores us to ourselves in the moment as we share the joke. Being in on a cosmic belly-laugh does wonders for your sense of proportion.

From Control to Contemplation

So, if you can agree that astrology may help desire for ego gratification to lead to a soul marriage, and mortal fear to dissolve in laughter – so far so good. It’s not exactly like having the power and control that we imagine would come through knowing the future absolutely, though, is it? One of scientists’ many gripes about astrology is that it cannot be used to make precise predictions. Personally, I thank the Powers that Be from my heart and soul that it cannot.  Fantasies of omniscience and omnipotence tantalise us through both science and astrology, and, while it’s wonderful what both can reveal and enable, we need to respect human limitations.  Cultural wisdom, from Oedipus Rex to Macbeth, repeats that trying to use knowledge of the future in the service of fears and desires will turn against the user. Astrology is better used as a lens for contemplating life, not as an instrument for controlling it.

Acceptance

If your aim is contemplation and not control, there’s only one way I know how to do that and it’s through acceptance.  ‘Astrology’s about recognising and accepting ourselves’ said my teacher when I was learning with the Huber School, now API(UK).

‘No, surely it’s about recognising and changing ourselves!’ retorted my restless, driven young self.  And the only way I have changed significantly in the last twenty-odd years has been – through the self-acceptance I’ve found in knowing myself through my birthchart.

The Heaven or Hell of Other People

Just as good as the sheer relief of accepting yourself can be the pleasure of accepting other people.  Have you ever thought, ‘Why does she have to be like that? Why does he always take that attitude?’  Hell can indeed be other people, as Sartre suggested in ‘Huis Clos’, but flashing the infernal other’s chart before your eyes can open up that blissful space where you say, ‘OK, she’s being her.  I don’t have to take this personally, batter myself against it, get tangled up with it.’  Or perhaps, ‘I don’t like his attitude but I see where it comes from.  I don’t have to try to kill it, I can dance with it’.  A cantankerous old bat like me (remember that Mars) might well have no partner, no close friends, no children on speaking terms and no idea how to live with herself a minute longer without the balm of the birthchart that dissolves the exasperated, rhetorical ‘WHY??’ into a much quieter ‘That’s the way it is’.

Playing with paradox

The magic is in the objective value of the chart, distancing us in a way that short-circuits reaction and, paradoxically, allows us to be with what is more intimately, with less resistance. But of course, once objectivity is mentioned in relation to astrology the scientists get understandably stroppy, not just on account of astrology’s basis in pre-scientific-age cosmology but because reading a birthchart, rendering symbols into words, can never be objective. ‘This is not the truth’, my teacher used to write in a little heart on the whiteboard at the start of each session.  Faintly scandalised at first, I came to appreciate the love, courage and honesty represented in that motto. I see what I see through my lens from where I’m standing when I see it, not the eternal truth, which is, in TS Eliot’s phrase, ‘probably quite ineffable’.

Your worldview in your chart

At this point things can feel pretty weird, and how much you like that depends on how you’re wired (your birthchart will have some revealing clues). My experience with astrology leads me, without pretending  that it’s a new thought, to conclude that the way we see the world as well as the way we see ourselves and each other, is reflected in our charts.  Thus, when Tchenka says she values astrology as way of learning to live in accordance with the laws of the universe, she is well aware that authority is hugely important in her chart and that this way of seeing things reflects what she’s been working with all her life. Heike, she with the touch of psychism  – and the transpersonal planets Uranus and Pluto on the ascendant – said she valued astrology as a way of ‘naming angels and monsters’, whereas my partner maintains sternly from his Saturn-Mars conjunction in information-loving Gemini that no-one should take astrology seriously until its validity has been scientifically established (Mars in Scorpio can enjoy sleeping with the enemy!).

The spark of the moment

So how the planets may shape and inform your worldview is something for you to consider, not for me to prescribe. Get to know your chart and listen for what it can tell you.  For some the observer state, symbolised in Huber charts by the blank space in the middle of the chart, is ‘the real me’ and beyond the influence of any planetary configuration. I, with Saturn conjunct Mercury in Virgo and no personal planets in air signs, respect this view but identify myself as grounded in my individual position, looking at the view from here. And for my fiery fifth-house Sun, astrology comes alive in the spark of the moment, in the shock of recognition when a planetary energy, evoked by apt words, answers to its name and appears in the eyes before me, glistening, glinting or gleaming with fresh life.  It lives also in the ‘intersection of the timeless with time’ (T.S Eliot again) when I talk with someone about their chart and we recognise, with hairs prickling on our arms, that although we have no idea how, this conversation is also with the world around us and the planets beyond.  Astrology is an adventure in consciousness – that’s entertainment!

The Sun, striding purposefully into Sagittarius, may feel too much responsibility to break immediately into dance-steps, party-animal though Sag is. He’s feeling lucky with smiles from wild-card Uranus, but other faces are more serious and with the Moon and Saturn in sober counsel this is no time for frivolity. In small ways and large, this could be a month of inspiration and opportunity – if we can keep our dreams alive in our hearts while sorting out all the fiddly bits needed to make them reality.

Ruled by expansive Jupiter, fiery, mutable Sagittarius has its shadow side cruelly exposed when we look back on Pluto’s 10-year rampage through it and rue the excesses of spending, speculating, boozing, foreign holidays and in-your-face sex, contrasted all too keenly with flaming religious zealotry. Fire burning out of control is not pretty, but when nature’s at her darkest time we need that vital spark, so let’s look on the   bright side. Many happy f-words are associated with the optimistic Archer: freedom, fun and good fellowship, flights of fancy, far horizons, philosophy – ok that last one’s a bit of a cheat on paper but it sounds right so I’m saying it counts; the big picture is more important to this sign than petty details!

Details, however, are exactly what must be dealt with in the first half of this Sagittarian solar venture. Mars in Virgo will bite our ankles if we’re so consumed by enthusiasm we can’t be bothered to check out the wiring of our big idea – he knows the lights just won’t go on if it’s faulty. We may also feel a bit defensive if what’s sparking us up is just a big bang for the hell of it, thanks to a spot of tension with the Neptune/Chiron nexus. This may reproach us if the party food’s not ethically sourced and there’s no cash left for the charity box or too bad a hangover to be bothered signing that important e-petition. ‘What’s it in aid of and how’s it going to work?’ If you can answer these questions with confidence your Sun-in-Sag. sparkle can become a beacon in the darkness.

Happily, Mars is still teamed up with big mates Jupiter and Pluto in the other Earth signs, and stays that way till the 26^th, so getting the practicalities sorted can pay rich dividends – oops! Bit of a fat-cat image there. The alliance of this powerful trio may well symbolise those happily plotting how to make caviar cat-food out of the misfortunes of the many – but you can use it to get an impressive act together, tapping its abundant power, energy and resources to turn things round and make a real difference. Mars chivvies, ‘Take the trouble to consult your chart and see where the early degrees of Earth signs fall so that you really know what you’re about’. He’s not wrong.

A partial solar eclipse on the 25^th comes a good hour before sunrise in the UK but will work just as well to make this new moon powerful for new directions. The chart for the 26^th spins a quite remarkable web of connections, showing how this new potential may manifest. At the beginning of the evening wise and generous Jupiter holds strings attached to Sun, Moon and all planets, like a cosmic bunch of balloons – a truly expansive moment, and not just a load of hot air, for his feet are well planted in loamy Taurus. Much sense can be made at such moments. At the same time the tiny, shiny, new Sag. Moon holds hands with fellow Sagittarians Mercury and the North Node, so that new and inspiring thoughts can be spoken (although Mercury’s gone retrograde so not everyone will understand what you’re on about!) Holding the Moon’s other hand are Capricornian Pluto and Venus, helping to midwife a regeneration of feeling that is born of our real needs and knowledge of the structures required to meet them. As always, there are a myriad possibilities, but I shall be meditating on some that I find good that night.

A fortnight later the total lunar eclipse in opposing Gemini is again invisible in the UK, although the moon may still be blushing a bit in the earth-shadow as she rises.  This Sun-Moon opposition in the Gemini-Saguttarius talk-and-ideas axis could make for some heady conversations, but Mars is still challenging from critical Virgo, ‘That’s all very well in theory, but…’ and no-nonsense Capricorn Venus agrees. Ground your ideas and they’ll take off, that’s the paradox we’re working with.

From Nov. 24^th we have another paradox to play with in the form of sternly idealistic Saturn in Libra opposing Jupiter’s celebration of the life of the senses in Taurus. When these two planets work together the result can be majestic, as opposed to miserable when they’re at odds, so it’s worth thinking synthesis rather than taking sides. From the 26^th Neptune/Chiron offers the chance to dodge the issue by retreating into dreams or – nice work if you can dream it up – finding a creative solution that helps to heal others. This link-up lasts till Solstice and beyond so there’s time to sit still and see what bubbles to the surface. One marvellous moment to do just that could be Dec 11^th, when the Moon moving into Cancer pals up with this group and together they make a big blue kite-shape with Jupiter at its tip. Keep it real and you can make it manifest. There’s even a hook-up with high-octane, unpredictable Uranus, who has just turned direct after five long months of back-pedalling. So, for those who can be disciplined and resourceful, inspired but realistic, steady yet responsive to the moment – the sky’s the limit.

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Marilyn Monroe figured sex out for us a while ago: ‘Oh, I think it’s here to stay’, but let’s hear it for death from the late Steve Jobs: ‘..Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.’ The fact that you’ve probably heard or read that quote several times in recent tributes to him shows how startling we find this fundamental principle, how seldom our current culture makes it to the bottom of the lake where this holy alliance of sex and death reigns in the fecund gloom. ‘Remembering that you are going to be dead soon is the best way I know of forgetting that you have something to lose’, he goes on, evoking the all-or-nothing attitude that typifies Scorpio. ‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life’.  He wasn’t a Scorpio either, but an uncompromising Saturn in Scorpio connected fruitfully with his Venus opposition to Uranus/Jupiter, fuelling his exceptional creativity. Let’s make the most of this year’s solar sojourn in the dark sign.

We can just make out a stern glint in our solar hero’s eye as he sets out on his mission. He is still connected to Saturn in Libra, so the quest – whether to assassinate or impregnate, rescue or renew – must be in a just cause, righting a wrong, restoring a balance, not just satisfying a hunger.  The inviting link to dramatic Mars in Leo may prompt a little swashbuckling, but there is a real opportunity to be generous in the rich tie-in to Neptune-Chiron. Scorpio can be cruel but knows pain too well not to feel compassion too. The revolutionary spark of the times has a part to play also, but it will take some figuring out. Uranus in Aries is not the obvious ally of a Scorpio Sun, but those who patiently follow the thread will be led to a revelation. More clearly visible are financial or sensuous prizes on offer through opposing Jupiter sitting confidently in the material world of Taurus, profiting from a juicy trine to Pluto. The wise will remember Libran Saturn and play fair to win squarely.

All this may feel jolly inspiring but if you don’t watch out your drive to dive deep could land you in a big smelly ditch, up to your neck in vengeful paranoia and indignant pride, slugging it out in a bitter row with the very one you hoped to be making love (or money) with. Thank you Mars square Venus, in Leo and Scorpio respectively, and respect is just what these fervent, tenacious, naturally-conflicted signs need to show each other, hard as they find it. Having lived with this square (the other way round but just as much trouble) for several decades I can testify that it’s strong and sexy but if you want to enjoy its intensity you have to lose the pride, halt the power games and own up: to vulnerability, to your own strength, to who you really are and what you really want. It’s scary, it hurts, it’s worth it; best of luck to those with planets lateish in these or the other fixed signs (Taurus and Aquarius), especially on the 26^th when the tension is tautest. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, this means you.*

Even later in the fixed signs, at around 28 degrees (out of 30), there is good news from Neptune this month if you’ve been feeling vaguely inspired but also confused and debilitated, unsure of what you’re yearning for, never mind how to reach and merge with it. The four-month backtrack this planet has been making has filled many a head with tickly, rainbow-coloured cotton wool, but it’s finally making a 12-day stand-still from November 3^rd to 15^th, in the middle of which it officially turns direct (hooray!). Longings for innovative artistic expression, emotional solidarity with the whole of the sentient universe, or at least the rescue of suffering mankind, have a chance of taking some sort of viable shape, even if it’s only joining a choir or making a donation. Hang on a bit before committing yourself, though – with Mars opposite and a recently-full moon at the pointy end of a triangle, winding both sides up to do something concrete, the idea you come to could still involve grand gestures you’ll soon regret.  Waiting till the Moon has moved on and Mars has busied itself in Virgo – say the weekend of Nov.12^th -  makes good sense.

Many of us will find ourselves celebrating something around the time of Celtic New Year or Samhain, neopagans or not. Whether it’s Hallowe’en or Bonfire Night, the urge to have one last blast of outside revelry before the dark wins dominion is still strong. The Christian commemoration of All Souls and All Saints echoes the more ancient sense that the dead are close to us at this time of new beginnings. The chart for the 31^st has that Neptune-Mars opposition strongly stimulated by Venus and Mercury at the end of their swim through Scorpio – this feels deep and could be trouble. A meditation on death and new life, bravely confronting deep feelings and working through to an intuitive sense of the way the personal connects us to the universal, would be a sound use of this energy. It could even be fun if it involves gazing into the fire and then leaping over it in roistering company. Judge for yourself whether getting drunk, then off with someone in a way you’ll want to conceal but may not be able to, is equally sound  -  it’s equally possible if that’s what you’re after.

Of course, all these possibilities depend on your chart and how they slot into it. Particularly the House system points up the areas of life in which these energies stage their encounters. If astrobabble gets you through a boring coffee break, fine, but if you’re looking for more, find out what it’s got to do with you by getting to know your chart. I’m not saying I know how it works; I am saying I’d be lost without knowing mine.

If November 5^th is more your thing, the chart features plenty of puzzles and some tensions but one lovely thing: a meeting of three happy, confident peaceful aspects to form a ‘blue star’. Whatever’s going on for you, there is a way that earthy, fiery and watery energies can combine to create a little bliss in a naughty world; I hope you find it.

*Sarkozy’s Saturn conjuncts the Venus’ Scorpio stronghold, Merkel’s Pluto is two degrees from where Mars will make his Leo stand on the 26^th. Let’s hope that their advisers include – if not an astrologer – a psychologist to guide them through the pitfalls of projection as they hammer out the future of the Euro.