About Anne
(I loved this comment: ” your photos are very ‘you’. That kind of Scottish, wry, well-lived and come through a hedge backwards yet totally together again kind of look…”)… from my old friend and former fellow Centre for Psychological Astrology student Sarah Bartlett.
Anne Whitaker (2021)
Born and raised in the storm-tossed stark beauty of the Scottish Western Isles where my love for nature, sky and seascapes first arose. Driven always by restless curiosity about why we are here, and what we have to do to feel there is a point to it all.
Diverse work record, mostly vocational but not without its forays into interesting byways, eg the British Merchant Navy whose honourable discharge papers I hold – as well as various academic qualifications. I obtained my Certificate from the Faculty of Astrological Studies in 1983, and the Diploma from the Centre for Psychological Astrology, Regent’s University, London in 1998.
I have always written in one context or another, my very first column being in that illustrious local newspaper the Stornoway Gazette when I was only 22… Since then, I’ve had work published in a variety of newspapers, magazines and journals in the UK,USA, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Czechoslovakia, etc in recent years.
Details of my print and e-books, including the acclaimed recent collection ‘Postcards to the Future’ can be found HERE.
I’ve taught adult education students in a rich variety of settings; counselled for a long time both in generic and psychiatric social work and private practice; supervised social work and counselling students; teach, practise and mentor as a professional astrologer. Since 2019 I no longer do horoscope readings, but am more than happy to be contacted for trusted recommendations of colleagues I know personally.
You can find more details of my articles, essays and columns on astro-wiki.
About “Writing from the Twelfth House”
My horoscope has an overload of planets in the Twelfth House (For non-astrologers: that’s the sector just above the horizon line) – hence this blog’s title.
“I’m surprised you’re not a recluse!” said my first astrology teacher, Carole Wilson, when I turned up in her beginners’ astrology class in Glasgow, Scotland, UK in the early 1980s.The Twelfth House is where all things hidden, mysterious, collective, universal have their domain…rather a contradictory setting for my six fiery, extrovert Leo planets. As the saying goes, “Now you see me, now you don’t…”
I have been an astrologer since 1983. However, that mystical Twelfth House has provided the context for everything I have been and done since opening my eyes to the world. My site is therefore here to support, encourage, inspire and entertain open-minded people who, like me, are exhilarated and amazed by the beauty and complexity of the worlds we human beings inhabit – and for those writers and readers who share my preoccupation with questions of meaning, mystery, pattern and purpose.
I offer that support these days through the lens of in-depth astrology, a rich and complex practice stretching back at least six thousand years, rooted in the ancient dictum “As above, so below”.
Forget the Measurers and the Reductionists. However they may do their best to deny it, there are – and always will be – sublimely mysterious dimensions to life. Materialist science for all its undoubted brilliance can provide only one of many possible responses to the Big Questions: ‘Why are we here, and what for?’
NOTE: There is a considerable archive from Writing from the Twelfth House’s earlier incarnations, going back to 2008, which you will find at the bottom of the page covering a wide range of non-astrological topics also aimed at ‘…those writers and readers who share my preoccupation with questions of meaning, mystery, pattern and purpose…’ Do have a browse…