Some astrology questions and answers….

Here are some interesting questions I was asked not long ago. If you would like to ask me any more, to keep the middle aged braincell from teetering into the abyss (all help gratefully received!) , please leave them in a comment and I will reply – provided they are genuine of course!

What transit always shows up for you in surprising ways?

They all do, especially the long-lasting ones. The deep challenges that force our growth lurk in the realms of the unconscious, just waiting to hitch a ride on the nearest really tough transit. For example, I didn’t think that ten years of Neptune transits was going to involve an enforced descent into the Underworld for most of that period! However, the good news is that I have now emerged, much improved (unless you ask my husband….!) with enough notes to keep me writing for a further ten years.

What is your funniest transit or retrograde experience?

There are several, not all of which can be aired publicly! The one which comes immediately to mind is the occasion, in March 1985, when Saturn turned retrograde on my 28 Scorpio IC. In the middle of lunch with an old friend who at that time was a bank manager, without warning, I passed out. Just then, a friend of his, who was also a bank manager, was passing by the restaurant window. I came round and insisted on going home – very groggily, with a bank manager holding me up by each arm. Very Saturn in Scorpio, don’t you think?!

Would you rather be ruled by Uranus or Jupiter? Why?

What a question! Both those planets are strong in my horoscope, Uranus in the tenth house leading an eastern bowl shape, with Jupiter in the third closing the bowl, and the two in bi-quintile aspect. My Ascendant is also on the Jupiter/Uranus midpoint. However, if forced to choose I would go for Jupiter, provided the aspects weren’t too difficult. My reasons are probably dictated by the stage I’ve got to in life: that disruptive, eccentric, unpredictable, stubborn individualism characteristic of a Uranus-ruled life feels too tiring to contemplate now!

Jupiter’s boundless energy and optimism, ability to inspire others and be inspired by the more positive dimensions of life, and willingness to be open to a sense of meaningful connectedness to that which is greater than oneself, are especially attractive to me at this point.

What advice would you give to someone learning how to read their own chart?

One, there are dozens of ways of evading personal responsibility – resolve at the outset never to do so by blaming your horoscope or your transits for your difficulties in life.

Two, realise that objectivity is something to be aspired to, which can never be achieved by mere human beings. This being the case, try to recognise that you can be most objective and therefore most helpful by reading the horoscopes of strangers, provided you have appropriate training and supervision. When approaching your own horoscope, or those of your loved ones, you will inevitably colour the planetary picture before you with your own hopes and fears.

Three, the illuminating light which is gradually cast as your understanding of the symbols in your chart grows, will be wonderfully helpful in shedding light on your gifts, pains, motivations and aspirations. But bear in mind that possessing astrological knowledge has a shadow side – for example, I have never known anyone including myself who didn’t look at upcoming transits, especially of Saturn and Pluto, without a certain amount of fear. To help my astrology students with this, I used to point out that 99.9% of the human race from the beginning of time has managed to stagger through life without the aid of astrology! So – enjoy the fascination of deciphering the astrological map of your life. But don’t get too precious about it – and be aware that this wonderful knowledge has a double edge….

What astrology books do you re-read or use the most?

The two astrologers who have most inspired and educated me have been Liz Greene and the late Charles Harvey, with both of whom I was fortunate to study – unofficially from the mid-1980s and formally between 1995 and 1998. As reference books for my interest in mundane astrology, my three favourites are: The outer planets and their Cycles by Liz Greene, Anima Mundi – the astrology of the individual and the collective by Charles Harvey, and Mundane Astrology by Michael Baigent, Nicholas Campion and Charles Harvey.

My copy of Stephen Arroyo’s Astrology, Karma and Transformation , that wonderful in-depth companion on the ‘stormy journey of the soul’ is now so well-thumbed that it is starting to fall to bits – and when I feel like some outrageous, light-hearted, funny, but deadly accurate astrological analysis I turn to Debbi Kempton-Smith’s Secrets from a stargazer’s notebook.

And….this Christmas 2011, I was given the brilliant present of “A History of Western Astrology” Volumes 1 & 2, by well-known and respected astrologer and historian Dr Nicholas Campion. I am really looking forward to reading them!

Biog:

Anne Whitaker has been an astrologer since the 1983 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius. She also has a long background in adult education, social work, counselling and supervision. Anne holds the Diploma from the Centre for Psychological Astrology where she studied with Liz Greene and Charles Harvey (1995-98 London, UK), an MA degree, and postgraduate diplomas in education and social work. Based in Glasgow in Scotland, she is now studying part-time at Edinburgh University on an MSc programme, and planning to set up a small astrology practice again this year after a ten-year gap spent reading, writing, blogging, and regaining her energy.

(thanks to The Know It All Astrologer who originally asked the questions)

900 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2011

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Big Picture series Part Three: Jupiter/Uranus through the four elements

To read Parts One and Two of the Big Picture series, click on links below:

Spring 2011 and The Big Picture: what Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions may reveal

Big Picture series Part Two: Jupiter/Uranus and the new world order?

Spring Equinox: 20.3.2011

CONTINUING….

Take One: Jupiter/Uranus through the four elements: 500 BCE to 2500 CE

I first selected the conjunction’s traverse through the four elements, the basic platform on which any astrological analysis rests, whether one is preparing an individual horoscope or looking at a chunk of historical time.

The conjunction occurred only in earth and water signs during the period 500-76 BCE. What are we to make of this ?

The above period roughly covers the time of the huge conceptual shift which occurred as mythological consciousness gave way to a more rational, objective view of the world and our relationship with the Divine. The work of the great Greek philosophers, culminating in Plato, which emerged during this period, had a huge influence on the course of Western civilisation from that point on.

Symbolically, the movement of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions through the stabilising elements of earth and water could be read as significators for a time in history where the existing foundations of civilisation, and continuity of beliefs and the social order, were utterly disrupted at the most fundamental of levels.

75 BCE to 146 CE saw the conjunction going through a mixed transition period featuring all four elements, until the last conjunction in the earth element in 146 CE. This could be seen as the period where the struggle between the old order (earth and water) and the new (fire and air) was particularly potent, exemplified in the West by the battle between rising Christianity and the old Pagan beliefs of the dying matriarchal religions.

A much longer period from 160 to 588 CE saw the conjunction taking place only in fire and air signs. This can be envisaged as a time when, in Robert Hand’s vivid phrase

“ the past has minimum hold upon the present, but the present has a maximum hold on the future.”

It roughly covers the rise of the Roman Empire: its colonial expansion, bringing civilisation of an entirely new level of technical innovation and sophistication to large swathes of the known world, its Christianisation, and its fall in the fifth century CE.

A great leap forward….and….

The next time that the conjunctions take place only in fire and air is from 1500 to 1845 CE.

This period of history, set within the context of the mighty 500 year Neptune /Pluto cycle which began in 1398, is renowned for its optimism, creativity, faith in human progress, and huge scientific and technological leaps forward. There was the rise of European colonialism beginning with the great sea voyages of discovery. As already mentioned, we had the Renaissance, Reformation, Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions, and American and French Revolutions all during this time.

Most significantly of all, in the eighteenth century we had the weave of the unfolding Scientific Revolution with the European Enlightenment, birthing a view of life more influenced by scientific materialism than religion for the first time in human history.

Since 1845, we have been in a mixed transition period again which will last until about 2045.

There is increasing realisation that the fire and air march forward into an exciting, rationally and scientifically based future has a hefty price tag attached to it. That is the literal survival of earth and water: the root of our being, the Earth itself. At the start of this new millennium, scientific progress rushes on ever faster. But disquiet increases, as evidence of the cost to our planet and our collective health becomes more and more compelling.

From around the middle of the 21st century we will once again be moving into a period where the Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions occur only in earth and water for 350 –400 years.

In the first example I gave, there was a move from an earth and water period, to a mixed element period, to a fire and air period. In the second example, there has been a move backward: from fire and air, to the mixed element period we now occupy, then earth and water still to come.

Take Two: the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in Aquarius

In “Jupiter Meets Uranus” I made a strong case for the conjunction in Aquarius being “the one most powerfully connected to particularly radical and disruptive social, political and technological shifts”.(p.33) I then returned to examining the Big Picture from 500 BCE to 2500 CE for a second time, creating a table on this occasion which revealed the number of these Aquarian conjunctions throughout each 500 year block. My results were very, very interesting.

TO BE CONTINUED

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800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2011
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Big Picture series Part Two: Jupiter/Uranus and the new world order?

To read Part One of the Big Picture series, click on link below:

Spring 2011 and The Big Picture: what Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions may reveal

CONTINUING….

Less of the doom and gloom!

There is a lot of doom and gloom around just now – hardly surprising, given current world-shattering geo-political upheavals. As usual, we are starting to project our ancient fear that something will come to annihilate us, onto the next big planetary event: this time it appears to be the Winter Solstice of 2012, supposedly denoting a major ending in the Mayan calendar.

Last year, as hysteria built up about the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction at 0 degrees Aries on 8 June 2010 in the context of the first of three Jupiter/Uranus meetings between June 2010 and January 2011 and the Cardinal Grand Cross, I wrote an article on 18th May 2010 called Jupiter meets Uranus, sky falls in: Yes,no….or merely maybe? We are still here.

Before that, it was the dreaded Millennium Bug. We survived that, too. I seem to recall another Mayan Calendar biggie in August 1987 or thereabouts. That co-incided with the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Leaping way back in history, there was a massive line-up of planets in Pisces in the sixteenth century. The Western world cowered, fearing a reprise of the biblical Great Flood. What it got was a symbolic Great Flood – the Reformation: preceded by the Renaissance, followed by the Scientific Revolution and European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A mere three hundred years, a flash of an eye in the context of Deep Time, has produced stunning scientific, religious, social and cultural changes which have impacted across the globe.

A new world order beckons….?

Are we moving into a new world order, as old certainties crumble and new ways of reflecting on human consciousness and our relationship with planet Earth emerge amid a worldwide pattern of growing instability? Increasing numbers of very well informed people at all levels of life think that we are. For a start, the race is undoubtedly on to develop and secure new sources of energy as the oil upon which our modern world depends, runs out. This situation alone will change everything.

When I was writing “Jupiter Meets Uranus”, I decided with the help of a wonderful researcher’s tool – Michelsen’s “Tables of Planetary Phenomena” – to explore the long historical pulse beat of that fascinating combination of planets which meets every fourteen years, described in “Mundane Astrology” as connected to the ‘growth and awakening of human consciousness’. What I found blew me away, and continues to excite me when I reflect upon what it has revealed about where we have come from – and where we may be headed.

In sum, I took the period 500 BCE to 2500 CE, divided it up into 500 year chunks, analysed the pattern of appearance and disappearance of Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions, and attempted to correlate this pattern with a very broad historical timeline – taking three complementary ‘takes’ on the movement of those unique conjunctions. (All the tables can be found in ‘Jupiter Meets Uranus’ )

Take One: Jupiter/Uranus through the four elements: 500 BCE to 2500 CE

The conjunction occurred only in earth and water signs during the period 500-76 BCE. What are we to make of this ?

TO BE CONTINUED

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600 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2011
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Jupiter/Uranus in Pisces do religion: Countdown to 19 September

You don’t have to be a very sage astrologer to work out that one of the likely backdrops to this upcoming 19th September 2010 Jupiter/Uranus conjunction at 29 degrees Pisces (the second of three during 2010/11) is going to be that perennial sustainer, challenger, inspirer, executor and persecutor of the human race – religion.

And sure enough, it is shaping up in bold primary colours already.

A major row has been rumbling in the USA since the end of August 2010 over the proposed location of a Muslim religious centre close to the site of Ground Zero.Check out:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1304368/Ground-Zero-mosque-row-One-FOUR-Americans-believe-Obama-Muslim.html#ixzz0z2tmasLx

Last week the UK’s most prominent and respected scientist Stephen Hawking grandly announced that God was not necessary in coming up with an explanation for the origins of the Universe. This could be found in the laws of physics. The book “Grand Design”, set for release on September 9, has him saying: “because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing….”

In recent days, it has become world-wide news that the pastor of a small church in Florida, Terry Jones, is planning a less than conciliatory act of remembrance of the 9/11 atrocity by burning 200 copies of the Koran on the 11 September. This plan has been roundly condemned from USA Secretary of State Hilary Clinton downwards. See http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/09/08/florida.quran.reaction/#fbid=lNzACjrNQ7c&wom=false

(NOTE: it just caught my eye in Google’s news headlines as I was signing off after publishing this post and doing some emails, that the pastor in question has called off his protest. How interesting that this should occur on the very day that Jupiter slips from combative, fiery Aries into the soothing waters of Pisces….)

And here in the UK, that anti-messiah and self-appointed High Priest of Atheism, the scientist and polemical writer Richard Dawkins, had planned to arrest the Pope when he visits the UK during 16-19 September, just at the exact point of the second Jupiter/Uranus conjunction.

“Campaigners supported by Prof Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist, had hoped to have Benedict XVI held over his supposed cover-up of child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

But leaders of the Protest the Pope coalition now admit that the Pontiff cannot be arrested as Britain acknowledges him as a head of state, granting him sovereign immunity from criminal prosecution.” Read more

The fingerprints of the Jupiter/Uranus combination in Pisces are all over these events. First of all, Jupiter and Uranus are planets associated with the ‘masculine’ dimension of life regardless of a person’s sex: outgoing and action-oriented.

Then, if we think of the mythology of Jupiter and Uranus, we have the arrogant and combative Olympian god Jupiter, who was always right, enjoyed laying down the law, (fundamentalism anyone?) and who threw thunderbolts from Mount Olympus at unfortunate humanity cowering down below. His ally Prometheus (I follow the Richard Tarnas view that Uranus in action most resembles the Greek god Prometheus) was an innovator who taught humankind the great arts of astrology, science and music.

He also decided that the gods’ fire was just what the human race needed to make them all-wise and powerful (without actually consulting any of them to see if they wanted this equivocal gift!) and proceeded to steal that precious substance, hidden in a fennel-stalk. Unfortunately he got caught and spent eternity chained to a rock having his liver pecked out by an eagle.

As I point out in my book “Jupiter Meets Uranus” ( AFA 2009) the Jupiter/Uranus combination can represent the very best in human aspiration, exploration, inventiveness and the sheer exuberance of being alive. However, arrogant conviction of their own rightness when working together can make this combination inflammatory, hubristic and downright destructive. We should therefore see both the positive and negative sides of this unique conjunction during the Jupiter/Uranus year of 2010/11.

The Jupiter/Uranus combination works out of the ‘left field’ more than any other combination of planetary energies. Its cycle is 14 years long.

In 1969 Man stepped on the Moon for the first time under an exact Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in Libra. In 1983 with the conjunction in Sagittarius, the world’s first artificially made chromosome was created at Harvard University. In February 1997 with the conjunction in Aquarius, Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned animal, was announced to the world.

2010/11 is gradually revealing unique developments too for good and ill: the Large Hadron Collider’s vast experiment and what it may reveal. Craig Venter’s company’s creating of the first artificial living cell – using highly sophisticated computer technology. The worst man-made oil spill in history. Scientists making hubristic statements about spiritual matters which go inappropriately beyond their reductionist terms of reference. Religious (and anti-religious) fanatics behaving in ways that no-one could have guessed or believed…..

Bring it on, Jupiter/Uranus!

We are waiting with bated breath for more left-field events: with a mixture of fascination, awe, humour (sometimes if you don’t laugh you just end up crying….) dismay and disbelief. Well, given that Pisces is involved, the word ‘belief” has to feature somewhere….

"Jupiter meets Uranus" by Anne Whitaker (2009)

To find up-to-the minute information on ‘Jupiter Meets Uranus’ : New Reviews, Pre-Publication Reviews, Promotional Interviews, etc

AND

many articles on the upcoming Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions of 2010/11

AND

a unique, unfolding research study of the lives of 12 subjects whose ages range from late 20s to early 80s “Tales from the Wild Ride”,

go to

http://jupitermeetsuranus.wordpress.com/

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850 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Jupiter/Uranus 2010/11: here come the stories!

(for more information, click HERE)

Those of you following the “Jupiter Meets Uranus” section of this 4-part site will know that I have been writing a series of preparatory articles, orienting readers toward the 2010/11 Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions, since the beginning of the year.

Last month I selected 12 volunteers strongly “plugged-in” to the late Pisces/ early Aries energy of the new conjunction. Then I sent them preparatory notes, followed by the first of six Questionnaires. They obligingly sent back varied and colourful feedback, and I hope now will continue to do so right through until next Spring 2011, by which time the new Jupiter/Uranus cycle will have become established.

By next Spring, then, through following the unfolding of those 12 lives, we should all have a better grasp of just how many branches can spring from the same recognisable core of the Jupiter/Uranus combo. Seeing this vital, unique essence shining through all 17 of the varied lives of my 1997 researchees made the slog of doing the research worthwhile then.

Having now stopped banging my head off the wall, moaning “Why, why, WHY am I doing this?” (Saturn/Pluto, anyone?) I am now surfing that unique wave of enthusiasm, excitement and anticipation of the new (and probably weird) which Jupiter/Uranus brings at its best.

Do join me and a great band of volunteers in following their unfolding drama over the next few months. Installments One (6.8.10) and Two (13.8.10) are now out there!

Check out

Jupiter/Uranus 2010/11: “Tales from the Wild Ride” Part One

AND

Tales from the Wild Ride ii) : Jupiter/Uranus 2010/11

And finally, I leave you with a trenchant observation on the ups and downs of the unique, turbulent energy field we are all currently moving through – from one of the volunteers, “Fiona”:

‘ I feel like the scales keep falling from my eyes on any number of fronts. But off we go – into the wild blue J/U yonder…..’

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AND

For a thorough and well – informed take on current collective patterns, check out Theodore White’s Global Astrology Blog

and Jamie Funk’s FUNK ASTROLOGY

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350 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

I saw some google ads appearing with this article. I did NOT authorise them and want them off!!!

A plug from Jonathan Cainer, the UK’s top astrologer

Yesterday was an exciting day. I logged on to “Writing from the Twelfth House” and “Jupiter meets Uranus”, my two sites, and found that traffic had shot up. Why? Had one of the comments I’d left on another site been spectacularly interesting? Not a bit of it. Jonathan Cainer, the UK’s top astrologer, had taken my newly-published book “Jupiter meets Uranus: from erotic bathing to star gazing” to read on an overseas trip. Yesterday, he gave it a nice plug on his site, complete with a brilliant cartoon. Thanks, Jonathan and team! Here, with his permission, is Jonathan’s comment:

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Monday 16th November 2009

Jupiter meets Uranus

While I was away last week, I did a lot of reading. I’ve found a fascinating book by Anne Whitaker, called ‘Jupiter Meets Uranus’. Although it’s published by the American Federation of Astrologers, Anne is actually a Scottish author who has made a special study of this powerful event that happens once every 14 years or so. It last took place in 1997 so we’re due for one next year. She thinks that, based on trends observed to date, it will bring much social change, scientific innovation and renewed optimism. I’m inclined to agree.

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Astrological illustrations and Astrocat by Sally Fisher

http://www.cainer.com/

JONATHAN CAINER’S SITE SUPPORTS:

Inspiration Foundation UK, Stand with Tibet, Freedom for Burma, Campaign to End Slavery, The Hunger Site, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Save the Rainforest, Friends of the Earth, Chicken Shed Theatre Company, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

260 words copyright Jonathan Cainer/Anne Whitaker 2009
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

An astrologer racks her brain cell….

As part of the process of promoting “Jupiter meets Uranus”, I have been doing some interviews. This one was particular fun to do, since Wendy of that excellent site The Know It All Astrologer sent me a list of questions which I was not expecting at all! The unexpected, of course, is useful for jolting one’s remaining brain cell into something approaching dynamic action….

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Interview between The Know It All Astrologer and Scottish astrologer Anne Whitaker

What transit always shows up for you in surprising ways?

They all do, especially the long-lasting ones. The deep challenges that force our growth lurk in the realms of the unconscious, just waiting to hitch a ride on the nearest really tough transit. For example, I didn’t think that ten years of Neptune transits was going to involve an enforced descent into the Underworld for most of that period! However, the good news is that I have now emerged, much improved (unless you ask my husband….!) with enough notes to keep me writing for a further ten years.

Would you rather be ruled by Uranus or Jupiter? Why?

Biog:

Anne Whitaker has been an astrologer since the 1983 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius. She also has a long background in adult education, social work, counselling and supervision. Anne holds the Diploma from the Centre for Psychological Astrology where she studied with Liz Greene and Charles Harvey (1995-98 London, UK), an MA degree, and postgraduate diplomas in education and social work. Based in Glasgow in Scotland, she is now focusing on writing, and on running “Writing from the Twelfth House” which has just been included in the prestigious and prolific USA astrology blogger Jude Cowell’s Top 10 Astrology Blogs 2009.

(permission to re-publish this interview, first posted on 18 June 2009, has been given by The Know It All Astrologer)

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

An Astrologer at Work: Part Three

(This is an edited version of a longer interview, published in Connections magazine,
Scotland, UK in February 1996. It appears on the website in three parts – click An Astrologer at Workto read the first two installments.)

extract from Part One….” The purpose of the “Not the Astrology Column” theme on this website is to introduce open-minded readers to the in-depth astrology which lies behind the entertainment facade offered by the Sun Sign columns. We are living in a time where awareness of the ‘interconnectedness of all things’ is fast returning to the forefront of public consciousness across the world. The evidence is piling up increasingly starkly: what happens in one part of our biosphere impacts everywhere.

The ancient maxim ‘As above, so below‘ has thus never seemed more relevant. The art and practice of astrology has been based on that maxim for at least six thousand years. Astrology links what happens in the individual and collective lives of human beings to the movement of the planets through the solar system of which we are part….”

Now read on!

The Principles and Practice of Astrology

“Connections” Editor Ian Holland interviews Anne Whitaker

Part Three:

AW: One of the many fascinations of astrology is how it shows the ever-changing patterns of the planets symbolically reflecting different kinds of energies in our collective life. If you as an individual are strongly plugged into collective patterns – which you can assess through comparing the natal horoscope with prevailing planetary positions in the here-and-now – it seems as if you are given a wee chip of the current pattern to work with in your individual life. Let me give a specific example. From the end of 1992 until the beginning of 1995 there was a particularly difficult combination of planets, which when it shows up tends to symbolise warring, destructive energies at work in our world. I’m talking about the Saturn/Pluto combination.

Every time these planets have connected this century the collective context has been war – they were linked at the start of World War 1, then at the end of the Second World War when we were confronted with the horrors of the two holocausts, Nazi and nuclear. This combination formed a key part of the planetary backdrop to the Arab/Israeli war (the State of Israel was born under the Saturn/Pluto conjunction of 1947/48) in the Sixties; the Falklands war in the Eighties; and 1992 saw the upsurge of the Balkan War. Over the following two years we saw in Europe a fierce and brutal period of terrible carnage – as well as genocide in Ruanda and various other horrors at different locations.

(2008 update: the atrocity of 9/11 took place during the subsequent major Saturn/Pluto combination in the autumn of 2001)

From 1992 to early 1995, I observed individuals, whose horoscopes showed them to be strongly plugged into this pattern, going through deeper and darker traumas in their personal lives, much of it involving family fate issues, than I had ever seen before. Because my own horoscope involved this pattern, I had to go through some very painful and difficult times regarding my own family of origin. It seems to me that I drew to me, as a practitioner, clients plugged into the same overall pattern as myself.

Thus I was aware of having to struggle hard to keep a balance between compassionate feeling and dispassionate judgement during this period – the danger of projecting my own experience was high. But at least I was aware of that fact. This is an illustration of how astrologers need both professional supervision and, when appropriate, personal therapy to ensure that they are fully aware of their own issues and avoid as far as possible projecting them into their astrological work.

You know the Shakespearean quote – ‘there is a tide in the affairs of men’…..if you practice astrology often enough, and for long enough, you can see the tides of history, the changing patterns of the times, running through the lives of individuals whose charts you read. It’s fascinating…and awesome.

IH : you were telling me earlier that on the 16 Feb 1997 there’s something pretty spectacular coming up for us all ?

AW : (laughs) Yes! There is no doubt in my mind that astrologers can look at the unfolding pattern of energies through spacetime, cut a section through any point or moment of the past, present or future, look at what the essence of that moment is, and speculate regarding what some of the branches manifesting in the wider world, or in individuals lives, may be.

What they can’t do is see how they’re going to manifest exactly. Our track record on hindsight is much better than it is on foresight, historically!

There have been some spectacularly accurate predictions made by astrologers in the public realm over the centuries; a famous one was made by Luc Gauricus in 1555 to the effect that King Henri the Second of France ( then aged 37) was in danger of death in his 42nd year, by a head injury incurred in single combat in an enclosed space. And five years later Henri duly died of a lance splinter which entered his eyes and pierced his brain.

There have also been some spectacular failures, eg to predict that the Munich agreement of 1938 would lead to World War Two.

We do much better at describing the essence of a pattern – identifying the exact branches is much more hit and miss. Personally this cheers me, since it appears to suggest a creative balance between fate and free will in the universe – chaos theory in contemporary physics also has strong parallels with the astrological paradigm. Not everything is pinned down – both the language of astrology and the language of contemporary physics tells us that!

So you can perhaps see that I am very hesitant about both the accuracy of prediction and the wisdom of doing it at all, especially for individuals, in any more than a “describing the core and speculating about the branches” kind of way. Predicting that a specific branch WILL manifest, in my opinion closes down options rather than opening them up, also taking us into the realm of self-fulfilling prophecy….

But there are some very interesting patterns coming up, including the one you referred to a moment ago. So perhaps we can have some fun as we move to the close of this interview by playing with some possibilities !

In Feb 1997 the planet Jupiter, which concerns expansion, growth, development and opportunity, meets Uranus which symbolises the urge to break through to new levels of experience. Of the 360 degrees of the zodiac, the exact conjunction takes place at 6 degrees of Aquarius from 15 to 17 of February.

What that should mean collectively is some kind of major step forward being announced in human development and awareness at that time. Jupiter/Uranus in Aquarius is a combination which has a strong feeling of technological & scientific breakthrough about it. Here are some examples:

The first powered aeroplane flight on 17 Dec 1903 took place in Carolina, USA. There was a significant link between those two planets then. On the day of the moon landing in July 1969, there was an exact conjunction between those two planets. What we might expect is something which takes us boldly where humanity has not gone before. ……

What I’d urge your readers to do is keep an eye on the news around that time. And to further tantalise and tease everybody, I want to give a special message to people who were born when the sun was at 6 degrees of Aquarius in any year – ie those of you whose birthday is 25, 26, or 27 January – this applies to every year. All those people should experience, in a variety of different ways, the same essential unusual, unexpected opening-out and development in their life’s path. Something quite out of the ordinary !

I would like people born on those days, whatever their age, to get in touch with me with their DATE, PLACE and TIME of birth, which I will then log into my computer. They could then contact me after the 15-17 February 1997 and let me know how it was for them! If I get sufficient feedback I will write it up, anonymously, as a research project.

IH : Great! I’m sure our readers will be only too glad to oblige.

(2008 update: The major event occurring a few days after the exact conjunction was the announcement to the world of a truly boldly-going scientific achievement – the creation of Dolly the Sheep, the world’s first cloned animal, by a team of Scottish scientists led by Dr Ian Wilmut. Read all about this, and other exciting developments around the same time, in Anne Whitaker’s book on the Jupiter Uranus conjunction of 1997.

The book, including the researched experiences of 17 people who participated in the project, is now published (April 2009) as “ Jupiter meets Uranus : from erotic bathing to star gazing” by theAmerican Federation of Astrologers. If you would like to read a brief summary of its content in the meantime, click on BOOKS where the back page blurb is displayed.)

1500 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2008
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Monday 16th November 2009

Jupiter meets Uranus

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The Principles and Practice of Astrology

Part Three:

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