Earthy Pleasures with the Sun in Virgo

Virgo, from the Zodiac Window in Chartes Cathedral

Question: What do farmers in northern France do when the Sun is in Virgo and the harvest is in?

Answer: Hold a local agricultural fair to show off the fruits of their labours and the produce of the land, demonstrate their skills and celebrate the bounty of the earth.

I spent the Virgo month of September in France, beginning with a visit to belle-fille's (daughter-in-law's) family in Picardy, and went along to the local agricultural fair where her farming brother was taking part in a ploughing competition. The whole event was very earthy, reflecting the earth element of Virgo, itself a practical Sign of precision, nurturing and attention to detail. With my Sun also in Virgo (and yes, a birthday coming up), I went along to this event and viewed it through an astrological lens.

Arriving by car at the venue (a very large field in the middle of nowhere), we were directed to another large field nearby to park. This was ploughed neatly and precisely into sets of long earthy furrows, with enough space between each to park 2 rows of cars. It was around then that my astrological eyes clicked open! We headed off towards the ploughing match area. Way in the distance the tractors on their allocated plots could be seen ploughing and turning up and down as they created precise furrows.


Belle-fille's brother had already spoken of how difficult it was to meet the exact requirements in this competition - each furrow has to be of a certain depth and width, each competitor has a judge watching and checking every furrow ploughed.

The contrast between modern farm machinery and traditional methods was marked. Belle-fille's brother was driving a large tractor and ploughing 6 furrows at a time. A demonstration of old style ploughing with 2 horses attracted a lot of attention.........

.......as did the sheepdog rounding up the flock in a Virgoan way, keeping things nice and tidy!

There were produce stalls of all kinds, with tasting and sampling included. And just to show that there's more to French bread than baguettes, here's a line up of organic flour and the many varieties and flavours of bread that was made from it.

There were farm animals on show too, and although I didn't see a Capricornian goat, I did touch Taurus when I stroked a beautiful creamy-white Charolais bull named Velours (Velvet). Astrology is vibrant, living and all around if we know where and how to look for it!

Fate and Free Will

  
One Monday morning in October 2007, I did a short live telephone interview on BBC local radio on the subject of "Fate". 

I'd given this a bit of thought in advance, but nothing had prepared me for the shock of hearing of the death of my friend Neill that morning, an hour before going on air. Was I "fated" to be saddened that very morning? I can't say, but I do know that after a few tears and a short walk to clear my head, I switched on the radio to hear the start of the programme and danced around to the music being played to release some more energy ease myself into the right mood for the interview.

Fate versus Free Will is something which is often discussed in the context of astrology. Is our life already mapped out for us in the natal chart? Or are we able to steer our own course through life and assert our free will and our ability to choose and make decisions in the real life situations we experience? My take on this is the latter. Of course we can utilise our own free will and make choices in our lives - that's what living is about. And if we get to know ourselves well we are able to approach life's experiences with confidence and the ability to roll with the changes and challenges that come along. That's where astrological psychology comes in.

The birth chart doesn't tell us what is going to happen to us. It provides us with the equivalent of a "Rough Guide" to life, complete with plenty of signposts showing how we can cope with the challenges that come our way as well as the best places to hang out and express our innate energies.

If we feel that fate has dealt us a blow, we may spend a lot of time railing against the unfairness of our situation and focus all our energy on this, forgetting that we have the ability, using our free will, to reclaim our power, make some choices and take responsibility for ourselves. Sometimes what seems like fate can be the start of the making of us, and astrological psychology is an invaluable tool to have when we are developing the use of the will, the use of the mind in making decisions, and when we are nurturing our ability to make choices and create our own lives as we want them to be.

A Tribute to Neill

My friend Neill died this morning. He was 37.

As a tribute to his life I want to say a few things about him, alongside his chart. It's not the first time I've looked at his chart because between us we've looked at it several times over the years, the first time being when he was 18 or 19, when I first got to know him.


Neill was born on 12.6.1970 at 21.00 in Beaconsfield, UK. His chart resembles a 4-sided box kite, held by 2 strings attached to the Moon's Node in the 2nd House. The Node is not a planet and has no energy or drive of its own; it can only indicate the way forward by the House and Sign it's positioned in. Remove it from the aspect pattern and the kite flies free; hear its call and the message is "develop your sensitivity, acknowledge and nurture your talents and abilities".

Neill did that. He trained at Goldsmith's College in London as an artist; he took a further degree in landscaping and architecture, he trained in T'ai Chi and became a teacher of this martial art, and he was a Buddhist. He was an accomplished gardener and his garden has numerous bonsai trees in different ceramic containers. The trees are exquisitely sculpted and positioned for maximum "chi" energy.

With Sun in Gemini, you might expect someone who talked a lot and always had plenty to say. Not Neill. His interests were diverse but he wasn't a talkative person. Often he didn't want or need to talk, but when he did it was on depth subjects where we shared common interests, sometimes laced with a very zen-type of humour!

Neill was something of a loner. His Moon, high in the 9th House of the chart and sandwiched between Uranus and Pluto may be an indication of this, together with his very definite air of being "different" and not a run-of-the- mill person by any means. The Buddhist principles that he aimed to live by were very important to his lifestyle, and his favourite picture of White Tara, one of the feminine Buddhist deities, reminded him of the qualities of compassion and the ability to self-heal as he coped with the rare form of cancer that he had.

The last time I saw him, we talked about White Tara and shared a meditation, using her mantra. This was quality time and I feel priviledged to have had this as our "goodbye".

May you be full of bliss Neill, and may your kite fly high and free.

Planets Personified

Over the years, we've had lots of fun amongst the learning at workshops and events run by the UK Astrological Psychology Institute. Always keen to get people involved in their learning of astrology in a practical, hands on way, there have been many opportunities on offer for letting our hair down at the end of an intensive seminar and dressing up as a planet of our choice, or maybe as one of the Zodiac Signs.

Here is a selection from the archives. In 1988, at the end of a seminar with Bruno and Louise Huber at the Froebel Educational Institute, London, participants risked all and dressed up as a planet of their choice, or as a part of their own natal chart.


L-R: Jupiter ( the kimono symbolising foreign travel); next is the whole Solar System! (this lady dressed in blue to symbolise space, and had the glyphs for the planets hanging from a mobile attached to her head): Saturn - he's dressed for safety & security, with a warm scarf, an electric lead ready to plug in hanging round his neck, and a comb in his hair. I also remember he had a toothbrush about his person as well! Jupiter again - this lady was larger that life & full of fun!


L-R: Jupiter again! Next comes someone with Moon in the 6th House, the check tablecloth representing the caring of others in 6th, and the white dress the Moon; next is the Moon's North Node in the 12th House - I think he's taking care of himself with that glass of beer! Jupiter yet again ( he was partnered with the lady on the left who is Jupiter. Lastly, Uranus.


Here's a close up of that Uranus costume, complete with silver lightning flashes across it. Guess who's behind that space age mask........??


This group has L-R, Mars in the red dress, Saturn in sensible brown, the Sun (she was facing front in her black suit which represented night; when she turned around she had a large Sun on her back ( you can just see the edges of it). Next comes Miss Virgo in her grey prim and proper suit, then Saturn again in mac and headscarf, carrying a shopping bag. Memory fails me as to who or what the lady in the coloured t-shirt might have been dressed as.

Fast forward a few years now to the 1990's, and to our annual "Face to Face" workshops in Devon. Here we have L-R, Mr. Saturn, inscrutable Scorpio, and Venus in Leo ( sigh...yes, that's me with a well-earned glass of wine in hand - I'd been running the workshop & teaching, so needed to unwind and have some fun as much as everyone else)

Scorpio in the centre of the picture is in conversation with Mars on the left and Saturn on the right.

Personifying the qualities of the planets can be great fun. You don't even need to dress up to do it either as you can observe the way people dress and behave, and link this to a planet. Mars could be a speeding red sports car, Mercury the person who never stops talking and who knows all the latest gossip. See if you can spot planetary energies at work or personified in your daily life. TV is always a good source of this - the newsreader with the tasteless, tacky outfit will have left Venus out when she chose what to wear; the character in the soap who is odd or eccentric (Uranus); the mystery drama where you don't know what's meant to be going on will be Neptunian, and so on.

Have fun, get creative. I'm off now for some Jupiterian travels. See you soon!

Richard Dawkins

One of the comments I received following my last post says:

“Unfortunately, Dawkins will claim that it is impossible for you to observe his chart in an objective, scientific kind of way because you already know things about him. And you've made judgements about him in response to the programme of his that you have commented on! Therefore, your analysis will only add fuel to the fire of his argument, I fear! Ah well.”

Ah well indeed, and to quote comedian Catherine Tate’s “Lauren the school girl” character, “Am I bovvered?” No I’m not. Dawkins was born on 26.3.1941 in Nairobi, Kenya (no time of birth available so I’ve set it for noon) and I’m going to approach his chart straight, as though it belongs to Mr. A. N. Other and not to Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, who I know little about anyway, apart from what I’ve observed of him in the recent TV programme.

In the chart of A. N. Other, indications are that this individual has an inner drive and motivation to be flexible and go with the flow of life. This approach to life will dominate, but is likely to be offset by the need this person has to feel secure and enjoy the fruits of their labour. The balance of colour (indicating inner motivation) in the chart is 4 red: 1 green: 8 blue aspects, giving a strong emphasis to the possibility of Fixed behaviour and the need to maintain the status quo. So alongside the ability to adapt, there is also a strong drive to keep things as they are.

The lack of green aspects in the chart ( there is only one) and its dominant red/blue appearance suggests a polarised, black and white approach to life. There is a strong possibility of viewing life through a lens of on/off, right/wrong, with little space allowed for shades of grey.

There is a Large Talent triangle ( all blue aspects), with pinning planets in Earth Signs, so his talent, skill, ability may be associated with practicality/reality of some kind. The planets involved, which would be a part of this inherent talent, are interesting: Uranus, Mars and Neptune. This conjures up pictures of creative thinking and ideas (Uranus), sensitivity or confusion (Neptune) depending upon the level of awareness at which this planet might be operating, and strong assertiveness (Mars). The talent embedded within this figure, however, may not be fully expressed if the individual is not using it consciously.

There are also 2 Single Ambivalence figures (red/blue triangles) which include all of the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) and 2 of the ego planets, Sun (mind) and Moon (feelings). The red opposition aspects stretching across the chart indicate where work can be done and energy expended; the pinning planets will be involved in this endeavour. But the planets at the all-blue corners of these 2 aspect patterns will suggest where the person might go to escape the drive and need to work: in A. N. Other’s case these are the transpersonal planets Uranus and Pluto, neither of them particularly enticing or easy as an “escape” route, unless our subject is keen on creative ideas and thinking (Uranus) and power/transformation (Pluto).

With no time of birth, there is no way of knowing which Houses or areas of life the striking red oppositions would point to, but wherever it is, there would be a strong chance of internal conflict involving the psychological drives concerned (as signified by the planets involved - Sun, Venus, Moon, Neptune). It’s noted that the Sun is opposite the Moon’s North Node, and therefore conjunct the South Node. This could indicate that moving outside of a familiar comfort zone might be too difficult, too challenging a task to contemplate, so it may be safer to stay put with what is known, tried and tested in terms of self, mind, ideas, creativity, self-knowledge, self-awareness, responsibility and the use of the personal will.

It’s possible that A. N. Other has a fair amount of charm and charisma, with Sun in Aries conjunct Venus. However, Sun and Venus are both weak by Sign, so it’s possible that the energies and drives related to Saturn and Jupiter could dominate. These planets are strong by Sign and may work together like a “push me pull you”, Jupiter encouraging a wider vision and broader horizons, with Saturn reining things in tightly, always adhering to the rules, requiring a safe structure and being reluctant to relinquish anything (note, they are both in Taurus!). With no time of birth there is no way of knowing the orientation of the chart, nor whether these planets would be strongly or weakly placed to express themselves in the outside world.