Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: they’ve all crossed my 1C – and I’ve survived to tell the tale…

I often get asked about the effect of the transits of the ‘Big Heavies’ ie Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, over the IC or root/origin point of the horoscope. Here is my story of life-changing experiences occurring when the Big Heavies all crossed that point in my horoscope during my twenties, thirties and forties. Quite a long time ago now… Encouraging news for those of you currently going through one of those: I am still very much here!

It’s been one of the most-read essays I have ever written, published in a variety of magazines journals and on-line publications over the years including Astrodienst. It is also one of the sixty essays, columns and articles which is featured in my latest book “Postcards to the Future: Mercurial Musings 1995-2021”.

Please feel free to share YOUR stories of those powerful transits. It’s how we all learn…

Here is the essay:

Liz Greene once wryly observed in one of her seminars that, if you wanted a relatively quiet and peaceful life, you should arrange to be born when the outer planets were as far away from the personal planets and Angles as possible. I wish! say many of you reading this, as indeed does the writer, who has all the outer planets bolted onto all the personal planets and has had anything BUT a quiet life. (Encouraging note for the similarly challenged – I’m not young any more,  but I’m still here –more or less! – and pretty happy with what I have been able to make of my time on this earth to date).

In similar vein, many people – depending on the horoscope yielded by their particular date, time, and place of birth – will never even experience one of the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto crossing their IC ( for non-astrologers reading this, the IC symbolises the point of origin, roots and core of a person’s life).

However, I have had the lot – and am still here to tell the tale. Here it is….

Introduction:

In my horoscope the IC is conjunct the South Node at 28 degrees of Scorpio. Pluto, its ruler, is placed in the twelfth house conjunct Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Moon and Sun in Leo. As a child I would lie in bed watching the roses on the wallpaper turn into malevolent  faces as daylight faded; I had to make bargains with them before they would let me sleep.

I read voraciously, and particularly recall the works of Victorian novelist H Rider Haggard whose myth-steeped descriptions of his characters’ adventures in Africa last century fascinated me. But da Silva, the Dutch explorer whose frozen body was found centuries after his death in a cave high up Mt. Kilimanjaro, transferred himself from “King Solomon’s Mines” to the wardrobe in my bedroom, on and off, for a couple of years. Getting to sleep was no mean feat with an imagination like mine!

My ‘real’ life – eating, sleeping, going to school – was incidental to my inner life which was full of what I felt were the really interesting questions : why are we alive, where do we go after death, do we live on several planes of existence at once, what is happening in other galaxies, if there are x million Catholics and even more Buddhists and Hindus, how come they are all Wrong and Damned and a few thousand members of the Free Church of Scotland are Right and Saved ?

And what would happen if you unwrapped an Egyptian mummy and I wonder if I could make a shrunken head like the Jivaro Indians and why did people paint pictures on cave walls thousands of years ago?

These were the issues which preoccupied me for years. No-one knew about them except my maternal grandfather. He had spent time taming wild horses alone in the middle of Argentina before World War 1, and in later life was the only Church of Scotland missionary to visit ill or injured foreign sailors of all religions in the local island hospital, despite the disapproval of the Free Church. “We are all God’s children”, he would say firmly to his critics – and to me. He died when I was eleven, after which I spoke to no-one until I grew up and left home about anything which really mattered.

As Pluto squared 12th house Venus, Moon and Sun, then crossed the IC conjunct South Node from 93-95, what was left of my family of origin fell apart in a particularly painful and tragic way. I had to make choices in order to protect myself from the destructive urges of other family members which involved separation from loved ones which is probably permanent. The major decision I made during those years was that the blood tie does not give others the right to destroy your life. I was indeed fortunate in having an astrological framework, which helped to provide a meaningful context for the pain.

As part of trying to process what was happening, I decided to compile a family history, returning to my native island to collect some oral material from old people who knew my family back a couple of generations. The day I sat down to write it up, transiting Pluto was exactly conjunct the South Node, within half a degree of the IC.  During the same week, I looked back through some old writings of my own, finding two unpublished pieces.

Neptune exiting Scorpio transits the IC: across the sea, into The Deep:

The first was written in July 1970, six months after the start of Neptune transiting the IC. I had no knowledge of astrology then…….

“…….My sister and I decided to take the dog and walk from our house, just outside the  town, to a beach very exposed to the sea, well beyond the harbour. It would be a long walk, but it was a beautiful briskly windy sunny day – snatched from the usual bleak incessant rains of  a Hebridean July.

We took a curving route through the town, then via an outlying district overlooking the navigation beacon. This landmark had winked its electric eye reassuringly at the mouth of the harbour for as long as I could remember. Approaching the district cemetery, my sister walked on by, but I slowed down, never having passed through its gates. Only men attended funerals in the Outer Hebrides when I was growing up.

“The sun is shining on the dead today!” I called to my sister. “Let’s go and pay our respects.” She wasn’t too keen. “Have you ever visited Granddad and Granny’s grave?” I asked.

“No,” she said. ” I suppose we could do that.”
We pushed open the heavy creaking gate. The graveyard, beautifully tended, sloped gently down to within a few hundred yards of the sea. I realised that I did not know where my father’s parents lay.

Photo: Anne Whitaker

” I remember where Daddy said it was,” my sister said. “Follow me. With our English name, it shouldn’t be difficult to find.”

Our  paternal grandfather had been posted to the Outer Hebrides before the First World War, meeting our grandmother on his first trip ashore. English gentlemen were a great rarity in these parts; very desirable “catches” to aspiring island girls like Granny, who had by all accounts been a handsome, strong and wilful young woman. He was well and truly caught; apart from a period of war service he remained in the Outer Isles for the rest of his long life.

His death devastated my grandmother. They had been married for fifty two years. I remember sitting with her in her bedroom, she who had always turned herself out so elegantly propped up in bed, an old singlet of my grandfather’s failing to conceal her droopy, withered breasts from my young eyes. Up to then I had never known the desolation of not being able to console another human being – or that old people ever cried. She wept and wailed and moaned, repeating:
“I don’t want to live any more. What’s the use, what’s the use now he’s away? “

Live on she did, doggedly, for nine years, lightened only by a late addition to the family. I was fifteen when my brother was born. Granny was eighty two, and half way senile. The child was called Frederick, after Granddad; as the novelty wore off Granny slipped into senility, a querulous fractious husk, and finally just a husk, and a medical miracle, carried off at eighty six with her fourth bout of pneumonia.

I was at university when she died, having become so distant from her by then that  I felt nothing but a vague sense of relief ….

“I’ve found it !”
I had fallen behind my sister in my reverie. She was standing about twenty yards away; I hurried to the spot. It was a plain, simple grave. A low railing ran round it. The headstone was in sandstone, with only the facts of their births and deaths etched on it in gold lettering. Noting with satisfaction, which my grandmother would have shared, the absence of ‘fancy versification’, I stood and looked at the grave.

Without any warning, for I had felt quiet and composed, there was a rush and a roar in a deep silent centre of my being; a torrent of desolation and grief swept through me. I wept and wept and wept, quite uncontrolled.

There they were, half my being. Where had it all gone: the passion of their early love; the conception of their children; her sweat and blood and pain as she thrust my father into the world; their quarrels, silences, love, laughter, loneliness and grief; their shared and separate lives? And this was it. On a hot beautiful day with the sea lapping on the shore and the seabirds wheeling and diving, a few bits of cloth and bone under the earth, an iron railing and a stone above.

I was not weeping just for them. Overwhelmed by  total awareness of my own mortality and that of all human beings before and after me, I had never felt so stricken, so vulnerable, so alone.” (i)

Neptune transits the IC: 0 Sagittarius, bringer of inspiration:

The second piece, however, written in the autumn of 1971, at the end of the Neptune transit to the IC, whilst Neptune was at 0 Sagittarius, shows that something else was now emerging from the underworld which would offer me inspiration and support :

(The ‘pibroch’ referred to is the music of lament played on the Scottish bagpipes)

“ It was a clear autumn evening. Peter called just after seven; he was going out to practice some pibroch. Would I like to come along? It was a rare time of balance – in the weather, in the satisfaction of work which was still new enough to be stimulating, in the fact that Peter and I were falling in love.

Peter drove several miles out of town, winding slowly up deserted country roads to a hill above a small village. Taking out the pipes he began to blow them up, and after much tinkering began to play. To avoid distracting him, I strolled slowly down the road. Peter was standing on a bank of grass at the top of the hill; on his left was a little wood. On the other side of the road was a ditch thick with whin bushes.

Beyond the ditch was a rusty, sagging fence; on the far side of the fence, smooth, mossy moorland dotted with whins, their vivid yellow colour fading into the deepening dusk. In the distance I could just see the  Highland hills, purple and rust, gathering shadows in the autumnal twilight.

A myriad of stars, taking their lead from Venus, was growing bright with increasing intensity. A mellow harvest moon was slowly rising, casting a glow on the hills. The air held a hint of cold. I could feel the melancholy music of the bagpipes flowing through me like a magical current.

Reaching the foot of the hill, surrendering myself completely to the intensity of the moment, I lay down in the middle of the road. Spreading out my arms, I gazed up at the stars.

A gentle breeze blew over my body, soughing through the reedy grass. Drifting with the music through the night sky, slipping away from awareness of myself or the present, I was a timeless spirit of the air, travelling the vastness of space on the notes of the pibroch. An unobtrusive rhythm, a pulse, began to beat; growing more and more steady, it became a whispering message in my mind :

‘ There is nothing to fear,’  it said. ‘ There is nothing to fear.’

An image of my lying dead, under the earth, came to me. Such images, occurring at other times, had filled me with panic and disgust. Now, there was none of that. I could gladly have died at that moment; my flesh would return to the earth and nourish it, my spirit would soar to infinity. The pulse continued, flooding me with its light :

‘ There is nothing to fear, nothing to fear, nothing to fear….’

At that point of spiritual ecstasy, I felt the absolute reality of my soul.

Such a moment might have lasted a second, an hour, or a hundred thousand years; but the music ceased, and the chill which was gradually taking over my body drew me back gently into the present…….” (ii)

The knowledge that such a vitalizing sense of connectedness was possible, glimpsed during the above experience, kept me going through the long struggle to believe that  life had an overall meaning, and to find my own way of offering my energy creatively in the years which were to follow.

Uranus crosses the IC: Enter Astrology!

When Uranus crossed the South Node/IC in 1980/81, moving from Scorpio to Sagittarius, I began to study astrology, thereby fulfilling a prediction made by an astrologer I had casually encountered in a laundrette in Bath in England in the early 1970s. I also met, moved in with and later married my partner – his Scorpio Moon is conjunct my IC and South Node, and he has an Aquarian Sun and Venus. All very appropriate symbolism for the timing of the Uranus IC transit !

Chandra Observatory: Beautiful Uranus

His steadfast support, combined with the deep awareness of teleology which many years’ practice of astrology brings, have been vital for my personal and professional growth and development from the time Uranus crossed the IC until now, (ie end 1995-early 1996) as Pluto moves off that point.

When Pluto was still transiting the IC, but from Sagittarius, in 1995 I applied and was accepted for a major astrological study course with Dr Liz Greene and the late great mundane astrologer Charles Harvey, gaining my Diploma in Psychological Astrology in 1998. The very day that Pluto was exactly on the South Node and about to cross the IC for the last time saw me beginning the first year of study. I felt a powerful sense of standing on firm inner ground after the turbulence and trauma of the last few years – of being in the right place at the right time, of having done what I could, for now, with my family inheritance – of being ready to move on to the next growth cycle.

Now that the outer planets have crossed the IC and moved into the Western hemisphere of my Horoscope, I feel liberated from much of the pathology of the past, and  more able to use directly in the world the undoubted creativity inherited with it. Nor do I need any longer to make bargains with the shadowy figures who emerge when the light of day is dimming….

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Endnotes

i & ii : Both extracts have been published both together and separately  in several articles in the USA, the UK and  Australia, eg in “Of Cerberus and Blackest Midnight Born” which appeared in the UK’s Astrological Journal, 1996,  and was then reprinted in Considerations magazine (USA) in the same year.

and –

“Of Cerberus and Blackest Midnight Born” is a quote from ‘L’Allegro’ by the English poet John Milton

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2,500 words

©anne whitaker 2023

Six Reasons Why I love Astrology…and more news re “Postcards to the Future”

Delighted to say the Kindle ebook version of ‘Postcards’ is now out and selling well already…here’s the link for all reviews and worldwide purchase details…

Here is a short extract of me reading one of the 60 articles, essays and columns:

Six Reasons Why I love Astrology

I’d also like to take this opportunity to say thank you again to all family, friends, students, former clients, mentorees, astro-colleagues and lovely folk I don’t even know, who have so generously supported “Postcards” in various ways since publication of the first paperback version.

I’ve had several requests now for signed copies, so here’s a special thank-you offer (sorry, it’s for UK folk only, it’s too costly to post overseas): if you email me your postal address and send £15.00 to my PayPal a/c at contact.anne.w@gmail.com (normal price £18.00 plus postage) I’ll send you a signed copy by return.

(Anne Whitaker email : info@anne-whitaker.com)

150 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2023

An astrologer’s job description…here goes!

“…My  job as an astrologer is to help other people understand themselves more clearly. I don’t know what the balance is between fate and free will any more than any one else does. But the Birth Chart or Horoscope suggests strongly that we come into this world, not as tabulae rasae (blank slates)  but with certain characters on the stage poised to live out a complex drama as the process of our life unfolds from birth to death…” 

I am delighted to be having this article feature in the March/April 2023 issue of the well-known UK based Kindred Spirit Magazine: over a number of years it has been one of the most consistently read pieces on my Astrology: Questions and Answers blog (now an archive of very varied articles – do drop by and have a browse!) and is included in my recent, acclaimed collection of 60 essays, articles and columns published from 1995-2021 in a wide range of magazines, newspapers and journals world-wide, “Postcards to the Future, available worldwide on Amazon both in print and e-book versions.

click on image to enlarge

I was also pleased when Kindred Spirit’s editor Leah Russell contacted me shortly before the issue deadline to say I was going to be introduced as one of three front page featured contributors, and could I give her one line of advice to my younger self, to appear along with my mugshot. What a question! Anyway, here it is along with the mugshot which I took myself on mobile phone the day of my very first haircut just after lockdown – the first for nearly two years! (My hair has never looked so good before or since!…)

I do hope my readers – and welcome to lots of new subscribers in recent months! – enjoy the article, and appreciate the advice either retrospectively or in advance. Your thoughts are welcome, as long as they are constructive. Anything else will be binned!!

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©anne whitaker 2023

Some thoughts on…ethics, care and responsible astrological practice…

In keeping with many if not most of my astrological colleagues, I am both pleased at the upswing in popularity and scope that social media has brought to our field, and alarmed at the careless way that the art and craft of astrology is often used in the public realm.

Many of us have invested much time, effort and expense into becoming qualified and responsible practitioners. A number of us, including myself, have gone on to teach and mentor upcoming students who are studying with reputable schools. Some of us, myself included, have been involved in astrological practice, teaching and mentoring for decades.

I feel a particular sense of responsibility toward those young folks who are at an early stage in their investigation into astrology, and currently going through what those of us seasoned practitioners have gone through ourselves: increasing fascination, reading, realising the vast scope and depth of a practice way beyond the Sun Signs of its popular face, which has been part of human experience for at least 6000 years, exchanging exciting new ideas with others, maybe going to local or online classes, usually practising on friends, family, and whoever would like their charts “done”. Hopefully along with increasing knowledge and practice also comes an increasing awareness of the power of the art of astrology and an accompanying sense of responsibility to the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of those upon whom we practice. However– we all know that this is often not the case…

However – and this is a big however – that old cliche “He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” will kick in at some point as one slowly walks the path toward competence. Astrological symbolism can scare us as well as excite us. Astrology well and responsibly practised can be a healing art of deep value. But astrological knowledge can also be wounding. That is part of the risk we all take on, in moving deeper into such fascinating symbolic territory. However, as with most adventurous and life-changing journeys, we are often not aware of certain risks until we are well down the journey’s road.

In my recent collection of 60 essays, articles and columns, Postcards to the Future, p 128, there is a long study called “Astrology as a healing and a wounding art..” In that essay, to which a number of my students and clients contributed, I explore this sensitive topic in some depth.

An encounter with precisely this topic occurred for me this week, via an enquiry from a young person whose own astrological journey had brought up an issue of some concern to her. I have asked her permission to use our email conversation since I thought it might be of value to other young ( and perhaps not-so- young! ) folks who are beginning to experience the more challenging facets of astrology as their explorations continue. I am most grateful to “Jessica” – she chose her own pseudonym at my request! – for being so willing to share our exchange.

Here it is:

Dear Anne

Hello. I’ve been reading your website for a long time. Recently I was reading a book by Liz Greene, and I had a question. I decided to look for her students to ask this question, and found out that you studied with her. So I decided to write to you. Liz Greene in her book said this about retrograde Venus: “When Venus is turned inward in this way, the capacity to express erotic love on the body level may be somewhat inhibited”, “Often there is a kind of shyness or social clumsiness about a retrograde Venus, since the elegance and skill of a more extraverted Venus will operate on the inner, cerebral level rather than the outer one. There may also be considerable awkwardness in sexual matters, because the beauty of the fantasy may supercede the pleasure of physical encounter. A retrograde Venus does not thwart the capacity for sexual pleasure. But it may not be the most important aspects of relationship, and there may be inhibitions which need to be honoured because of the inner richness of feeling which results”.

My Venus will soon become retrograde in secondary progressions. It will be retrograde for more than forty years and I’m twenty-one. Please tell me, does this mean that all these negative effects will occur to me? Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Jessica

My Reply:

Dear Jessica

thank you first of all for following my writings. I really appreciate that, and it’s good to hear from my readers…

Liz Greene is a brilliant astrologer, teacher and writer: I consider it a great privilege to have studied with her throughout the 1990s. I don’t know what the specific context is of this quote. In any case, all astrological writers know that what they say in print can only be general, and to have a specific personal “tuning” requires a reading of your actual horoscope constructed from your date, place and accurate time of birth. There are many other facets to Venus than the sexual dimensions focused on here, depending on Venus’ location, aspects etc in your horoscope – and in any case any statement made about any planet /angle/house/ aspect/ node/asteroid either natally, by transit, or by progression can only be general unless the writer is examining a specific horoscope.

So – I really don’t think you should worry unduly about this, but take yourself off to an experienced astrologer and discuss the Venus retrograde issue with them. I realise that will involve cost, but as in everything in life, you get what you pay for, and a good astrology reading is worth saving up for – or you could perhaps ask for one as a birthday/special occasion gift. I’m enclosing some recommendations at the end of this message, since I only read charts now in the context of work my zoom mentorees wish to discuss with me.

Here’s a personal story which may help: a few years ago now, I noticed that Mercury (my ruling planet) was going to go retrograde in Scorpio in the third house – for the rest of my life! Professional astrologers are not immune to getting rattled by what they see coming up in their own charts, by the way. However, I thought I’d work WITH the grain of this shift, and got down to going over my many essays, articles, columns, blog posts etc which I ‘d written and published over the years, and make a selection of 60 of the best of them. That resulted a couple of years later in my book Postcards to the Future, which has gone down well and been very well reviewed. I am currently mining all my writings on The Moon’s Nodes going back over many years, and hope to produce that as a book as well in due course. And other material from my ‘back catalogue’ Also, during the covid lockdowns, which followed on my husband’s death in January 2020, I found that the deepening self-sufficiency and introspection brought by that retro Mercury by sign and house, was a huge help to me in coping with quite a bit of reflective time (and in my case, time for mourning) which we all had during the pandemic lock-downs. There have also been other benefits flowing from this retrograde turn – but I’m sure you get the idea!

In essence, try to go WITH the grain of whatever comes your way symbolically through your astrological studies, and work with these energies as best you can. In that way, you will find riches rather than affirmation of your fears. Astrology is indeed double-edged: with the wonderful enlightenment it can bring, it also can make us fearful – often unnecessarily. I have lost count of the things I worried about over the years of my studies and practice, that never happened! Now I am much more laid-back…

I ‘ve copied and pasted my standard letter to enquirers below my name in this email. I have confidence in all the practitioners I’ve recommended, and know them personally. 

Hope this helps – and enjoy your studies. 

Best wishes

Anne 

Jessica’s Reply:

Dear Anne, Thank you SO much for such a detailed answer! You have helped me a lot

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1400 words

©anne whitaker 2023

Astrology: a practice centred in Mystery…

   ‘ The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.’ (Albert Einstein) Engaging with mystery, which piques my curiosity into embarking on processes of exploration and discovery, has been a key feature of my somewhat wayward life. 

The most striking example of this was a chance encounter with astrologers who drew up and read my horoscope, stunning me with the depth and accuracy of the picture they were able to paint. I simply could not understand how drawing symbols on a piece of paper could provide a key to my – or anyone else’s–  inner world. Determined attempts to penetrate that mystery led me to to the astrological career which I have pursued to this day. 

Another mystery, which as a writer I especially love, is how the strands of our lives quietly weave themselves into a pattern without our noticing until much later, sometimes by decades. During my late twenties, a major preoccupation was whether life did in fact mean anything at all. Emerging from many years of nihilism, I found myself unable to sustain a belief that our struggles in this life were meaningless. 

On cue, came that life-changing encounter with those astrologers. My astrological studies were partly about unravelling the mystery held by those symbols on that powerful piece of paper. They were also about proving to myself that life was not a random meaningless accident in space/time, but was charged with mystery, meaning, pattern and purpose. 

As an astrologer I work ‘blind’ with no information about the client’s life beforehand apart from their chart, allowing my guide on our journey of exploration to be the client’s answer to the question “Why are you here today, and what do you hope to gain from our meeting?”. I realise, a long time later, that this mode has arisen from two formative strands. 

The first was the original experience of that ‘blind’ reading of my horoscope, which had such a powerful impact. The second was further affirmation gained from those early studies and practice, aimed at proving astrology’s validity: not just by the time-honoured mode of most of us, i.e. practising on willing friends and family, but also by doing a substantial number of my own ‘blind’ readings. 

The latter practice, in particular, provided me with the proof a demanding mind required. With Mercury ruling my chart, conjunct Saturn/Pluto, glib explanations have never cut much ice. As my skills and fluency grew, I found myself able do the same thing for complete strangers that the astrologers had done for me, thereby arriving at the stage to which all sincere and dedicated practice takes us: knowing that astrology works. 

Sitting here in morning sunshine, writing and contemplating, I am aware with gratitude of the debt owed to six thousand or more years of tradition in which my practice is rooted. What has astrology done for me, as well as providing an endlessly fascinating career? What do I try to do for my clients and students as a transmitter of that tradition? 

Primarily, it has provided a context of meaning where I can perceive my life as a small, but useful strand in the Big Weave. I often say to new astrology students: “ Think of your horoscope as a tiny symbolic chip of the universe’s energy pattern at the time you were born, which Someone handed to you, saying ‘Here – do the best you can with this.’ Your job is to hand it back at the end of your life with more light shining through it than there was at the beginning.” 

At a more practical level, my horoscope showed me that, far from trying to iron out my contradictions – a futile pursuit for much of my twenties – I needed to understand them, make peace with them as far as possible, and stop punishing myself for the parts of which neither I nor our wider culture particularly approved. Gradually, I discovered that those darker energies could be channelled creatively, with help from the insights offered by my horoscope. Plutonian power drives come to mind here… I have five planets including Pluto in Leo in the twelfth house, all squared by a third house Jupiter, with Virgo rising. Boy, did I need all the help I could get in making peace with that lot!

 In essence, I try to offer my clients and students what astrology has given me. The biggest help people can gain from a horoscope reading, I have found over many years’ practice, is being able to take a step forward in accepting themselves as they are. This can release energy, formerly used in self-punishment, denial or lack of confidence, to be channelled into using their gifts and strengths more constructively. Continuing this work remains a great joy, although these days I concentrate mainly on student mentoring, occasional zoom interviews, and writing

Yet mystery still remains. One can describe the symbolic patterns of the birth moment,  those characters on the stage of a person’s life, with considerable accuracy in essence; nevertheless each pattern has an infinite range of possible manifestations. We can never know until the client begins to tell us their story what level of consciousness they bring to the living of their unique life. Very often, this is what determines how the patterns play out in practice. But beyond that, lies mystery. As Carl Jung so wisely put it ‘… learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul…’  The nature of that miracle lies in mystery – as such, forever beyond our reach.

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This piece was published (May/June 2017 issue) in my column The astro-view from Scotland which ran for the final three years of Dell Horoscope Magazine: USA’s leading astrology magazine for over 80 years until the Spring of 2020.

©anne whitaker 2023

Astrology: gifting us a place in the cosmos…

“…I’ve loved listening to your conversation, Steffie and Steve. I was deeply moved by the way in which you shared your deep sense of wonder at the night sky, and the sense you both had of being connected to a larger consciousness. That sense precisely underlies my own core connection to astrology – and evolution as an astrologer over several decades now…”(i)

It was delightful recently to listen to a very lively discourse between master astrologer Steven Forrest, well-known USA astrologer, teacher and writer – and Steffie James, graduate from and tutor with the London School of Astrology, who runs the Stellium Astrology podcast which hosts a whole range of astrologers on all manner of interesting themes.

Lunar Cycle
Lunar Cycle. (pixabay.com)

Those of us who are regular students, practitioners and teachers of this 6,000 + years old practice, rooted in humans’ wondering about the stars, and where they fit in to the Big Picture we see stretched before us in the night sky, can get a bit blasé. We can forget in our quotidian preoccupations with clients, classes, writing and deadlines – not to mention the normal preoccupations of day-to-day living, the depth and wonder of the subject that is astrology.

We can be so immersed in computerland that we forget simply to go out on a dark, clear night (assuming this might be a possibility given one’s location and local weather!) and look up. Following the path of the Moon each month as she waxes and wanes in the heavens can be a reminder that we are woven into the cosmos – as are all living creatures.

So – it’s great every so often to stop and be reminded (recently for me by listening to Steven and Steffie talk about when astrology first gripped them) of the sheer grandeur and vast sweep of universal energies ebbing and flowing throughout the cosmos – their patterns brought down by the ancient practice of astrology to help us make sense of life here on Planet Earth.

Looking back a long way, I think the early beginnings of my own capture by the art of astrology can be traced back to my childhood on the Isle of Lewis, a wild and at times ferociously windswept island off Scotland’s West Coast. I still clearly recall lying cosy and tucked up in bed, listening to the fierce winter gales that used to scour our island, feeling that the wind was tearing the world apart – and wondering what the sheer Power could be that generated such ferocity. Feeling quite safe in my bed, I used to be exhilarated, not frightened by the weather’s wildness. ( Many years later, I was to discover that the planet of Power, Pluto, was very strong in my birth horoscope. So – no wonder those wild winds had such a powerful effect then!)

I was also deeply affected, growing up, by observing and gradually being able to identify celestial patterns in the clear, star-studded night skies. In those days, in that location, the effects of light pollution were minimal. The sense of wonder engendered by those skies, the feeling of being a tiny part of something too vast for me fully to comprehend, was triggered by that early closeness to Nature, and the wildness of the elements. 

Fast forward a couple of decades, to a rainy Sunday night in a laundrette on the outskirts of Bath, Somerset. A college lecturer in English in those days who considered herself a Marxist, I had no idea that the template for my future life was about to be set. I’ve written about and been interviewed about the event following, a number of times in recent years (ii): in essence, I encountered a couple who turned out to be astrologers. Such was their charm that they persuaded me to let them read my horoscope – over a cup of tea in their nearby flat.

I can still vividly remember reeling out of their house, completely staggered by the in-depth accuracy about me, my character, my family background as well as vocational tendencies, which they had been able to extract (without knowing anything about me), from marks on a piece of paper. I still have that hand drawn horoscope…

Anne W's Birth Chart
Anne W’s Birth Chart

The most baffling part of the whole thing was the prediction that in around seven years’ time whether I believed in Astrology or not ( decidedly not, in those Marxist days! ) I would end up practising it – or something very like it – myself.

And, Dear Reader, it duly came to pass!

I have now been an astrologer, teacher, writer and student mentor for decades. This represents undoubtedly the most satisfying period of my vocational life, my main interest in recent years being observation and writing about the larger planetary cycles. These can give us amazing insight into the unfolding patterns of energy and time throughout history, and are especially helpful in setting a meaningful context for the current turbulence world-wide. 

The practice of Astrology offers many gifts, allowing each one of us to weave our tiny threads of life meaningfully into the great tapestry of time and space. ‘As above, so below’…

This opportunity having come my way, its background being my Nature-dominated Hebridean childhood, and its unlikely foreground that encounter on a rainy night in Bath in Somerset, has left me feeling forever grateful to that

“…divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will…” (iii)

I’m always intrigued to hear folks’ experiences of their first encounters with Astrology, and especially from those of you out there who were so gripped that you went on to study and to practice the ancient Art. What was your experience, why did Astrology capture your imagination, what keeps you interested and involved?  Do let me know – I’d love to share your stories, perhaps in a future article!

Endnotes:

(i) from my comment left in response to the following podcast: November 1st 2022: Episode 118 of Stellium Astrology podcast with Steffie Jay:

‘Evolutionary Astrology: Beliefs, Empowerment & Reincarnation’ with Steven Forrest

(ii) ‘Postcards to the Future: Mercurial Musings 1995-2021’ pp…122-5

(iii) Hamlet to Horatio in ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare  Act 5, Scene 2.

Lunar Cycle
Lunar Cycle

© Anne Whitaker 2023 1000 words