Scotland’s Horoscope
March 28, 2009
I wrote this article on Scotland’s horoscope ten years ago, at an exciting time for the evolution of our small nation, just before we elected the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years in May 1999. Since then, there have been many turns and twists, possibly the most unexpected having been the election by a very narrow margin of a Scottish Nationalist government, and the redoubtable Alex Salmond as First Minister, nearly two years ago.
Whatever one’s view may be of Mr Salmond, there is no denying that he is an astute, articulate and charismatic politician. Until the credit crunch crushed the apparently rising tide of public support for the notion of Scotland as an independent nation, the mood in Scotland was buoyant and confident. Now, however, we seem to be lurking in all-pervasive economic gloom, wondering along with everyone else what a much grimmer-looking future holds.
As election time approaches both in Scotland and the UK as a whole, I thought since this website emanates from Scotland, it might be a good point to present some reflections on our national Horoscope.
Non-astrologers, don’t click off! It might be interesting for you to see what astrological symbolism reveals about we Scots’ complex psyche….
” The most commonly used chart for Scotland is that of the crowning of Malcolm the Second at Scone on 25 March 1005 at noon (see DATA at end of article). In this chart can be seen quite clearly some of the main themes which the wider world associates with Scotland. In a brief piece like this, one can only cover the most obvious.
The first thing to strike the eye is the powerful emphasis on fire, with Leo rising , Aries MC, and both rulers in Aries in the tenth house. Mercury Venus conjuncts the MC from the Ninth House. This conjures up a picture of an exuberant, creative and confident nation not wishing to keep its talents to itself but launching them (in the shape of its people) out into the wider world. Scots are to be found everywhere, and every modern Scot has relatives in Canada, America and Australia in particular. Some of the world’s most famous explorers were Scots, David Livingstone and Alexander MacKenzie, who named the MacKenzie river in Canada, being two examples.
Uranus, ruler of the Aquarian Descendant, is placed in the Ninth House in a watery grand trine with Saturn and Pluto. This conjures up a powerful image of strongly inventive and imaginative abilities which can structure the natural forces of nature in innovative ways: James Watt whose steam condenser leading to the steam engine drove the Industrial Revolution, and John Logie Baird who invented television, come immediately to mind.
Uranus’ conjunction with Mercury, Venus, the MC and trine the Leo Ascendant combines restless travelling with innovative writing and artistic expression: Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, neither of whom ended their days in their native land, but both of whom exerted powerful influence as writers and artists, fit this pattern well.
Overall, Scotland is a country which has contributed to the positive dimensions of human endeavour quite out of proportion to its small size.
Scotland 1005
Inevitably, there is a darker side to this bright picture, as with any nation. Saturn rising in Cancer in the Twelfth House is the powerful starting place from which to explore the painful side of Scotland’s complex sense of national identity. That identity under threat from an oppressive aggressor nation is a strong picture which arises from the square between the Twelfth House Saturn in Cancer, and Mars in Aries in the Tenth.
There are many examples of this oppression by England over the thousand years since Malcolm was crowned at Scone. Memories of the brutal putting down of the 1745 rebellion against English rule, the infamous Massacre of Glencoe and the suppression of the Gaelic language which followed, and the Highland Clearances which forced thousands of Scots to emigrate in the eighteenth century, still fester in the national psyche.
Mars in Aries in the Tenth is exuberant, bold and adventurous; the square to Twelfth House Saturn in Cancer shows the undertone of rage and pain at being torn from one’s deepest roots which lies behind that bright spirit. Poverty and oppression in many cases were the driving forces behind the Scots’ wanderlust.
One of Scotland’s many paradoxes is that a great, and justified, sense of national pride seems to co-exist with angry feelings of resentment and a hidden inferiority complex; symbolically, this fits well with the square sitting behind Leo rising. If you are in any doubt about this, try keeping company with Scots who are the worse for drink, particularily if the location is England! One of the most unattractive facets of contemporary Scotland seems to be the need to put down (with the exception of Sean Connery !) those who have done well, rather than praising them.
Scotland’s passionate and at times tortured relationship with the spirit at its different levels can also be seen from this chart. Look at the dominant grand cross involving the Cancer/Capricorn Nodal axis with Neptune, crossing the MC/IC axis T-square involving the prominent Sun and Venus.
This is a highly imaginative, spiritual, musical, passionate,cultured, artistic, adventurous, justice-seeking, visionary pattern in its bright face. It speaks of the many gifts this small nation has given to the wider world, and through which its own national life has been, and is, a rich experience for many of us who live here. But its dark face is that of the maudlin drunk, abandoned by God, oppressed by England, singing exiles’ songs in some parochial bar, longing to return to the unchallenging safety of the womb/home – or failing that, the oblivion of alcohol.
The 1005 chart reflects well the momentuous changes currently going on, as we move towards electing the first Scottish parliament for nearly three hundred years on the 6th May 1999. Prog Uranus at 4 degrees Aries is crossing natal Mercury and Venus (IC ruler) in the Ninth House, with prog Asc at 24 degrees Pisces close to natal Uranus, also in the Ninth. Prog Sun (Chart Ruler ) is conjunct Prog MC at 28 Sagittarius, both falling on the natal Part of Fortune – all indications of the radical nature of current changes, and the nation’s optimism and expansive spirit as it prepares for its first step towards self-government for nearly 300 years. Transits reinforce this. As the time of the elections approaches, Jupiter crosses all the Aries planets at the top of Scotland’s horoscope, as well as the MC.
During the whole period since the sweeping New Labour victory in May 1997 made a Scottish parliament a reality instead of a romantic nationalistic fantasy, transiting Pluto in Sagittarius has been opposing Scotland’s Jupiter in the 11th in Gemini square the 2nd House Virgo Moon -Scotland’s Sun/Moon midpoint at 8 Gemini also being opposed by Pluto from Spring 98 until the end of 1999.
These are very appropriate significators for the debate centred around beliefs and values and the proper allocation of resources which has been going on; also, there is a death/rebirth process going on in Scotland’s ties with England and the UK. The outcome of that is by no means clear, many Scots wanting nothing less than the end of the long marriage with the UK. “
DATA :
Scotland : 25 March 1005, Scone,Scotland,Noon (traditional symbolic time for the coronation of the king). Coronation of Malcolm Canmore, aka Malcolm the Second. Source/s: this date is given as the start of the year 1005 in the Annnals of Ulster, as quoted in Early Sources of Scottish History Volume 1, p 521,covering AD 500-1296. This work was collected and translated by Alan Orr Anderson(1879 -1958)and first published in 1922 by Oliver & Boyd (Edinburgh). A corrected edition was published by Paul Watkins in Edinburgh in 1990. (note: the Horoscope in this article is set for Perth, a latitude and longitude so near Scone as to make no difference to the horoscope’s planetary positions, Ascendant or Midheaven – the computer hadn’t heard of Scone, apparently!)
(This article was first published in “Considerations” magazine (USA) in 1999, as well as in “DataPlus UK” in the same year.)
1350 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2009
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page
Favourite quotes: surviving crisis
March 21, 2009
As regular visitors to this site will know, a long family crisis triggered my collapse with severe burnout at the end of 2001. I had to let go of a busy, creative life and rest for years. It took me until 2008 to recover my natural vitality, once more able to re-connect with the world from which I had had of necessity to retreat.
However, some of you may have come across the Chinese ideogram for crisis which contains the two concepts of threat and opportunity. Energy collapse deprived me of the one constant which I had always relied on to get me through whatever life threw at me – my strong will. I discovered – and this was a brutal, frightening discovery – that my will had collapsed along with my energy.
Thus I had to learn, very slowly, the value of letting life shape me whilst lying on a couch much of the day, reading avidly and tapping my laptop. I discovered the virtues of passivity, and the creative space that opens up within when of necessity you do very little. I had to rely on the loving support of those closest – my husband, my brother and a small group of close friends, and remain full of gratitude for that constancy and care.
Fortunate to have a strong and rich inner life to draw on, a significant part of what sustained me was knowing that although this long ordeal was mine, it was also archetypal. As Stanislav Grof so vividly puts it, “the stormy journey of the soul” has been a central part of all human experience throughout the ages. I was not alone in my descent into the Underworld. It is a well-worn path. I also knew that through the tests encountered in the Underworld, your soul grows into a shape which more closely fits the essence of who you are meant to be. So I hung on, called upon Spirit to guide me, survived, and grew.
Now I am beginning to reap the rewards of that long crisis which was so threatening yet so full of opportunity. Offering out some of the fruits of retreat, I hope that these offerings may inspire others. All my life I have loved and been inspired by quotes. Here are two which I pinned up in our kitchen, absorbing their energy and wisdom when my own energy was perilously low.
I do hope you find them of value!
“It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will.Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their lives into shape. If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go.”
John O’Donohue, pp 83-4 “Anam Cara” Bantam Books 1999
(John O’Donohue 1956-2008 was an Irish poet turned priest, whose writing merged Celtic spirit and love of the natural world )
“In the midst of winter
I finally learned
That there was in me
An invincible summer”
This is a popular quote whose original source I have as yet not traced, but have come across a slight variation ie ‘within me there lay an invincible summer’ - different sites have different versions. Come on, detectives out there! Where in Camus’ writings does this quote appear? Let me know!
( Albert Camus 1913-1960 was a French philosopher best known for his book L’Etranger (The Outsider) whose existentialist philosophy influenced a whole post-war generation)
600 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2009
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page
Working with Moondark
March 14, 2009
I wrote this article for the August 2007 Issue of Connections Magazine, and have decided to re-publish it here, within the “Just let me get old, ok?” theme. In the last two years, we have become even more aware of our dangerous disconnection from the rhythms of Nature of which the article speaks, and the price that comes with it. As individuals we tend to feel powerless – but we are not. There are innumerable routes we can take to limit our destructive use of the planet’s finite resources. There are also small ways in which we can begin to pay more attention to the weave of natural energies which includes us all.
Now read on…
The Botanic Gardens in Glasgow, Kirklee gate. Spring sunshine and the sharp tang of flowering currant. Birds singing cheerily as they nest. A light breeze rustling fresh green leaves. Walking briskly uphill toward the rose garden, I am filled with gratitude for my returned vitality, and the simple, lively beauty of the morning.
I smile at everyone in passing; mostly they smile back. A young woman heads downhill. Her ears are plugged with her I Pod. She is looking down at her mobile, texting as she goes. She looks tense. She does not notice me smiling at her. I feel a great pang of sadness for this girl – and for her generation, many of whom I have observed in this same park, totally disconnected from Nature in the very same way.
This small incident reveals how we have increasingly handed over the organising and patterning of our lives to technology and cyberspace, creating a work-obsessed 24/7 culture. But 2006/7 seems to be a turning point; it is dawning on us that we cannot live sustainably and healthily in defiance of the ancient rhythms of nature.
As I slowly contemplate how best to direct my renewed energy, the theme of disconnection and reconnection is very much on my mind – rather apt, as “Connections” magazine ends in its 23-year old format, beginning its own process of reconnection with a new format and wider audience.
One of the great challenges of growing older is that of avoiding ‘Golden Age-ism’. The first known recorded observation by boring middle aged farts that the younger generation is a disaster, and the world is going to the dogs, goes back to an ancient Persian clay tablet of around two thousand years ago.
No doubt our ancient Persian thought there was a Golden Age just before that, when things were just fabulous. There never was a Golden Age; there never will be. This is one of humankind’s most persistent myths.
Life on earth has always been a capricious and often brutal process. As enlightened and open minded middle aged people, if we can avoid falling into permanent ‘angry old person’ mode, we can, hopefully, apply the deepened perspectives arising from surviving five decades or more to the challenges of our particular time.
We cannot abandon technology, but can – if we choose – begin slowly to step aside from the destructive 24/7 ism which it fosters. People need to stop going to the supermarket at midnight and sending emails at 3 am if they want to have a proper life!
So where could we start?
Chill out time....
As I sit writing this, tucked away quietly in my office with some soothing Japanese incense burning, it is Moondark. ‘What on earth is that?’ I hear you say.
Moondark is the last three days of the 29.5 day sun/moon cycle. At Moondark, the Moon disappears. Full Moon is the high energy point of the cycle, fourteen days after the New Moon. A few month’s notetaking is sufficient to realise that life is more pressured and charged up at that time. Moondark is the low energy point. It is a time for rest and retreat, not a time to initiate new projects or demand great feats of one’s vitality.
“When I retire, I’m going to burn forty years of work diaries and run my life by the phases of the Moon!”
Yes, I said that, in a period of extreme work stress about ten years ago. Friends laughed; but now in the post-career phase of my life, I’m working at just that. I find it comforting, helpful and useful to tune into the Moon’s cycle as far as possible in plotting the ebb and flow of my energies these days.
My long retreat has taught me that regular and adequate periods of rest are essential. The bill for rest deprivation cannot be evaded by anyone. I find now that an hour’s retreat time daily, and careful planning to avoid taking on anything very demanding at Moondark, (if possible !) has provided a rhythm of alternating activity and rest which is stabilising and supportive of well-being. But it is important to be patient, realistic and gradual in any attempts to introduce lifestyle changes. It would be silly to suggest otherwise.
I hardly think the bosses of the land would take kindly to staff’s announcing that all work from now on was going to be run by the phases of the Moon!
You don’t need special tables to work out when Moondark is. Most diaries indicate by a small black circle next to the day and date, when the New Moon falls.
For example, you will find this year (2007) that Monday 13 August indicates the day of the New Moon. Tuesday 11 September is the next one, and so on for the rest of 2007. Thus Moondark in August is 10,11 &12 August. In September, it is 8, 9 & 10 September.
( UPDATE for Spring 2009: Thursday 26 March indicates the day of the New Moon. Saturday 25 April is the next one, and so on for the rest of 2009. Thus Moondark in March is 23-26th. In April, it is 22-24th….and so on.)
It is easy, as I do at the start of a new year and a new diary, to go through the year putting a red line through the days when Moondark falls.
A pattern of daily rest and retreat time, and observing Moondark as much as I can each month, has given me a sound support structure from which to return to a reconnected life. Observing Moondark is a regular reminder, also, that we belong to Mother Nature. Why don’t you try this for a while – and don’t forget to let me know how you get on!
(article first published in Connections Magazine, Scotland, UK, August 2007)
1100 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2009
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page
