How NOT to write a book…thanks, progressed Mercury retrograde!

I blame that bout of tendonitis in around 2015.(i) I had been running no less than three blogs ( yes, mad, I agree…) since launching myself on the Web in 2008, had had one print book and four e-books published, when it struck. The only cure, which took quite a while, was to severely lay off writing, working mainly through a dictation app. NOT recommended if you wish to remain moderately sane, by the way…

I am left handed, which did not help the problem afflicting my left arm and wrist. In the end, I had to make a decision – a hard one, since by then I’d begun the research for book number 5. Either proceed to carpal tunnel syndrome, enduring the rest of my life with it and related arm and wrist unpleasantnesses – or confine myself largely to short pieces from then on. So I chose the latter. This mostly took the form of weekly pieces for only one blog at a time, writing columns (at one point I had three, deadlines falling in the same two weeks every couple of months!) and continuing to send out longer essays and articles to a wide range of magazines and journals – something I’d been doing for around twenty years already.

The result, half a Jupiter cycle later? I have actually arrived at book numero 5 anyway, albeit a very different one from originally envisaged: contents sixty published essays, columns and articles of mercurial variety. (btw I have a third house Jupiter square everything in the twelfth house, so this planet has been just a tad influential). Not only does this accidentally arrived at book have a title ie ‘Postcards to the Future’ and a subtitle ie ‘mercurial musings 1995-2021’ but it has also generated a small publishing company ie Writing from the Twelfth House Publications, and brought together a really experienced, talented production team, headed up by one V Olliver as editor.

And boy, has he been editing to within an inch of my sanity these last few weeks…but I jest… Compared to my last venture into having a print book published ie ‘Jupiter Meets Uranus’ by Arizona-based American Federation of Astrologers in 2009, it has been a breeze. Although I got on very well with the AFA editor, ease of technological transmission between Scotland and Arizona was much less flowing then than it is now. And I didn’t know her at all when the process began. I was just about on my knees, not to mention cross-eyed, by the time that edit was completed.

This time, the esteemed Victor has been editing my work, mainly through this column, for the last five years. We know each other’s literary weirdnesses. Not that I have any, of course…so book 5 edit has actually been a pleasure (well, mostly…)

It’s an interesting business, writing short pieces to deadlines. Here’s a flavour, extracted from one of my columns for the much-missed Dell Horoscope magazine, which you will find in ‘Postcards to the Future’ :

‘…Anyone who has ever written a regular column will know that there are times when inspiration is – not to put too fine a point on it – notable by its absence. At other times, so many ideas are flying around that catching one by the tail to pin it down is, to say the least, tricky. And – you never know, as the last deadline is met and you can now relax for a few weeks – which set of conditions is going to prevail the next time.

So, Reader, there I was, new deadline appearing over the horizon, and…nada. Nix. No–thing. At all. Braincell dry as an old chewed-up bone. In this situation there are generally two options: blind panic – or blind faith. I have six fiery planets. This is often a curse, let me tell you, but in the matter of column deadlines, it is a blessing. So, armed with nothing but blind faith, I headed for the office…‘(ii)

In the end, you simply have to have confidence and faith that your topic will appear from SOMEWHERE…in the above example, it appeared via a random phone call on the bus journey to my office – on the very day of the latest deadline. In the case of longer, more in depth subjects, the process can be rather different. As I put it in a recent AA Journal column: ‘…The idea usually lands in my mind either days or weeks before the deadline. If it refuses to go away and bother someone else, I know it’s mine to tackle…’

My approach is simple. The third time the idea drops into my mind and refuses to go away, I give in and start work. The last essay in ‘Postcards’ is titled Waning and Waxing Crescents: Windows to the Future and was published in the December 2020/January 2021 issue of TMA. The idea refusing to go away was that of linking the horoscope of Mary Shelley, born in 1797 during the waning crescent phase of the 200 year traverse of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions through the Fire element, with that of Greta Thunberg, born in 2003 during the waning crescent phase of the 200 year traverse of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions through the Earth element. What emerged and grew from that idea drove me hard for some weeks – but the end result was truly fascinating to me, and hopefully to my readers.

The subtitle of ‘Postcards’ ie “mercurial musings 1995-2021” offers clues both to the author’s horoscope – Mercury Ruler: conjunct, square, semi-square and sextile just about everything! – and the book’s subject matter. The hardest part for me of the whole editorial process was choosing the sixty pieces which were eventually included. (Let’s face it, Victor has by far done most of the other work, since I told him I’d rather pour hot melted butter into my left ear in the dark than have anything to do with anything technical…)

The range is indeed mercurial: from topics which deserve serious treatment ie ‘What is my job as an astrologer?’ , through a whole long section on planetary cycles, my current preoccupation, all the way to the quirky, ie ‘My Mary Shelley obsession: It has never gone away’ featuring unique synastry between a famous human (Mary) and a dead sheep (Dolly). Then there is a whole section titled ‘ Interviews: Featuring the Bacon Sandwich Motivational Technique, Plus Other Arcane Delights’. And lots more endless mercurial variety.

As I write this column, we are almost there…it’s now over to Ros, our meticulously Virgoan book designer, and Cat, hard at work on what will be a brilliant cover. Well, it’s all Victor’s fault, really, apart from the tendonitis. He is largely responsible for luring me out from behind that twelfth house sofa…

Endnotes

(i) ALSO: this is a collection of sixty selected essays etc going back to 1995. My students and more than one astro-colleague began suggesting that it was time for me to go back through my large stack of varied writings and put a collection together…yes, in 2018, the very year progressed Mercury, sitting stationary on top of my restless third house Jupiter, turned retrograde. Pretty apt, eh what?!

(ii) from ‘Fate, Uranus – and the astrologers’ degree…’.

(This post is an edited version of my 36th Not the Astrology Column featured in the July/August 2021 Issue of the UK’s Astrological Journal, edited by Victor Olliver.)

1250 words Copyright Anne Whitaker 2021

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see About Page

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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Astrology – beyond the sun signs

I am just about to depart to the South of France (Mercury Retrograde, ash clouds and general planetary mayhem permitting!) for a week of family celebrations and simply have not had time to think up something new to offer my expanding band of readers here at Writing from the Twelfth House.

Always being keen to demonstrate that the great and ancient art and science of astrology has much more to offer than its popular face in the sun sign columns would suggest, I thought I’d re-publish the following article which appears on this site on the “Not the Astrology Column” page, but which a number of new readers may not have come across. It is written for the general public with no formal knowledge, but an open-minded interest in astrology.

Check it out, and let me know what you think! See you all again early September.

My career as an astrologer began in a launderette in Bath, England, in the 1970s – although I didn’t realise that at the time ! Befriending a little girl who came to chat whilst I did my washing, I met her parents, Gloria and Seamus; they were astrologers, they said, and would I care to come back to their place for a cup of tea? They’d like to draw up my horoscope, to thank me for entertaining their child. Well, I remember thinking, nothing better to do for the next hour…….at that stage I was scornful and dismissive of astrology, basing my judgement on the Sun Sign material in the media which struck me as general, banal and trivial. I did not know then that there was a subject of great depth and power beyond the Sun Signs.

I was puzzled by my new friends’ dismissal of the Sun Sign columns – wasn’t that what astrology was all about ?. “We’re proper astrologers” they said firmly. “ Your Star Sign (Leo, in my case) only puts one character on the stage of your life. It’s impossible to describe who you are from only one factor.” They wrote down my date, place, and apparently vital TIME of birth, produced various reference books and did complex-looking calculations. Then they drew up my Birth Chart or Horoscope : this was a map of the heavens for the precise time I was born. It was apparently an unusual chart – lots of planets in the twelfth house, whatever that meant, and strong Pluto, Saturn and Uranus influences. So what, I thought.

Then came their interpretation into character analysis of the planetary symbols in my Birth Chart, in considerable depth and with a high level of accuracy. The experience shocked me to the core. How could they be so accurate about my career aspirations? How could they know what my deepest fears were ?How COULD they manage to describe my parents’ core characteristics and some of the key effects they’d had on me ? How could they describe so vividly the restless spirit which drove me ? I had met them less than an hour ago. They knew nothing of my personal history or life experience.

Worse was to come. “You tell me you’re a total sceptic,” Seamus chuckled . “But your Horoscope shows that you have a deeply sensitive, spiritual side to your nature which you’re currently refusing to acknowledge, preferring to identify with the intellectual and the rationalist in yourself. But I can see from your Chart, and where the planets will be in a few years, that in your early thirties the spiritual dimension will come calling. You are very likely to end up doing something like this yourself.”

What nonsense, I thought. But I had no acceptable way of explaining in rational terms what had happened. Uneasily, I filed the experience away in the pigeonhole reserved for the many incidents occurring in my twenties which did not fit my existentialist world view.

For my birthday that August, a friend gave me an odd present considering my scepticism – an astrology book. It was intelligently and sensitively written; I found myself compelled. My feelings were an uncomfortable mixture of attraction, rejection, fascination and embarrassment. What COULD I say to my friends and family?

Saying nothing, I carried on reading. After a year, astrology still fascinated me. By this time – and by a series of odd coincidences – I had found out about the Faculty of Astrological Studies, based in London. It offered a year-long correspondence course with some lengthy exams at the end of it, leading to a Certificate of the Faculty.

I embarked on my studies in an empirical spirit. If astrology WAS indeed merely superstitious nonsense of little value, at least I would have arrived at a conclusion based on knowledge and practice, rather than ignorance and prejudice. I had moved on sufficiently from intellectual arrogance to the awareness that it was very unscientific, and highly irrational, to dismiss a whole body of knowledge without ever having studied it. I obtained my Certificate in 1983, by which time my studies had demonstrated to me that the astrological model had worthwhile insights to offer.

(I was to further my studies much later on, at the Centre for Psychological Astrology, by commuting by plane from Glasgow to London from 1995-1998 to complete a three-year Diploma in Psychological Astrology with renowned teacher, writer and astrologer Dr Liz Greene.)

The teaching and practice of astrology became a major strand in my self-employed career from 1985 until 2001 when, following a long health crisis, I gave up all work (except writing!) for several years.

Working with the symbolic descriptions of collective and personal life provided by astrology was, and continues to be, a source of much insight. It offers a route towards integration of the rational dimensions with the intuitive, symbolic and spiritual. Time and time again my clients used to tell me that their Readings helped them to see and to accept who they were more clearly – and to make better use of the gifts they had been given.

Good astrological practice encourages people to take responsibility for their own lives, and supports their courage to be themselves.

We have not yet found anything which provides the ultimate answer to the puzzle of our existence on this earth. Astrology is no exception – although it is a fine way of asking intelligent questions about what life may mean. It is NOT a religion. The insights it offers do not interfere with whatever religious beliefs individuals may hold. But its perspective offers two very important things.

Firstly, a picture of an holistic universe in which our movement through space and time is not random, but meaningful. Astrology’s great insight is that the shaping forces or archetypes which govern all of life including human experience, are symbolically connected with the planets and their movements in the heavens as time unfolds. This is enormously comforting to those of us who cannot bear the idea that the turmoils and struggles of this life are capricious and pointless.

Secondly, from the horoscope drawn up for the date, place and exact time of birth, astrology can give individuals very useful insights into the characters who are enacting the drama of their individual life story. But it cannot tell who the director is, what the exact details of the plot are, or what the outcome of the play will be. Astrology, like quantum physics, can only deal with ranges of probability. The rest is as it will probably remain – a mystery known only to the Deity.

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Note : this is an updated and slightly altered version of an article first published in Scotland’s Glasgow “Herald” as “Future beyond the Sun Signs” on 20.8.96. Copyright remains with the author.

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1300 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!!!

Jupiter met Uranus 8.6.10. We’re still here……

…. a fresh Jupiter/Uranus 14-year cycle has just begun…..

AND – a new astrology study is about to commence (the sequel to the one I did in 1997), with a brilliant new group of volunteer researchers joining me to share their experiences over the next year.

But first, let me set a sensible context (astrologers? sensible? It is possible…) by quoting from one of the articles I wrote and published on this site in the run-up to the Great Event of 8.6.10 : (18.5.10: Jupiter meets Uranus, sky falls in: Yes,no….or merely maybe?)

“……It is an ancient human tendency to imagine that the end of the world or civilisation as we know it is just around the corner. Maybe it is – or maybe not. We don’t really KNOW what the upcoming Jupiter/Uranus conjunction and its attendant pattern will bring. It certainly represents a perfect backdrop onto which to project our burgeoning collective anxieties about the deteriorating condition of our culture and of our planet. But human life has always been turbulent, dangerous and often fatal, regardless of where the planets happen to be. So can we all calm down and just get on with life?

I trust that those few moderating paragraphs will have at least temporarily helped to reduce your blood pressure, and injected a rather needed note of philosophical detachment into your contemplation of the Summer of 2010……”

We also need to remember that, with any planetary cycle, the first time the two planets meet, as Jupiter and Uranus famously did on Tuesday, is just the beginning.

To read the rest of this article, click HERE

(Please NOTE: this is the last Jupiter/Uranus article to appear on “Writing from the Twelfth House”. There is a new series running, following the ups and downs of the first year of the new 14-year Jupiter/Uranus cycle and the fortunes of a bold band of researchees, on my popular “Jupiter meets Uranus” site. See you there!)

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

The summer of disruption starts here: Jupiter and Uranus team up!

Thursday 15th April, 6.50 am, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

I am lying in bed, groggy with sleep. Our suitcases are packed. The flight for Exeter airport, Devon, UK leaves at 10.30 am. We are due to leave the house for Glasgow airport at 8.45 am. Plenty of time for a cup of tea in bed, gratefully received from my husband, Ian.
“I have some interesting news for you”, he says, exuding Aquarian calm and detachment.
“What?” I ask.
“We’re not going.”
“What!!!” I yell, spilling my tea. “Why not?”

“There’s a very high cloud of volcanic ash heading for Scotland from yesterday’s volcanic eruption in Iceland. It could foul up jet engines. Glasgow airport is shut.”

Friday 16th April,11.50 am, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

As I write today, all UK airports are closed except for very few flights going to places the ash has passed over – eg the Outer Hebrides off Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Canada. There is chaos and disruption spreading across the world: Heathrow airport, London and Glasgow airport, Scotland are two major UK hubs for international flight transits.

We do not know how long the volcano will continue to spew out fiery molten rock and ash from hundreds of feet below a glacier in Iceland, which has been hurling amongst other things, “blocks of ice as big as houses”. Hundreds of people from Iceland have been evacuated from their homes – flooding comes next, as the glacier melts.

Explosions, fire and flood: Jupiter conjunct Uranus in Aries/Pisces, anyone?

Astrologers are odd people. I had several simultaneous reactions yesterday as I lay in bed – sipping my tea, shocked, watching dramatic images of fire, belching lava, chaos….

Disappointment – for us, our relatives and friends whom we would now not be seeing for the short visit we had planned. Fellow feeling for thousands of stranded passengers and disrupted lives. Alarm at the thought of the economic fall-out which even a few days of this upheaval could inflict on already creaking world economies. But – awe at the raw power of Nature in putting us humans firmly in our place. And wonder: at the planets’ unfailing ability to mirror “as above, so below”.

Any planetary energy pattern involving Uranus has as its signatures shock, disruption and most of all, unpredictability. New ground is broken (in this case, literally!). As a famous astrologer once observed: “If you can predict it, it isn’t Uranus….” Nevertheless, most of us can’t resist trying, at least in broad brush strokes!

Summer 2009

Last summer, in an article written for the American Federation of Astrologers AFA Interview: Jupiter, Uranus and the Purple People from Planet Zog as a promotional exercise to publicise my book “Jupiter Meets Uranus – from erotic bathing to star gazing”, the editor of the AFA journal asked me for my thoughts on what the upcoming conjunctions of 2010/11 in Aries and Pisces might bring. You can read those in Jupiter conjunct Uranus: a few thoughts on the 2010/11 encounter , which was re-published on my “Jupiter meets Uranus” website on October 31, 2009, in which I commented that ‘Also suggested is fiery eruption disrupting the very fabric of the Earth itself.’

Other astrologers in magazines and across the Web will have made similar comments regarding the upheavals and turbulence politically, economically, socially and personally which we can expect from the unusual and highly dynamic energy pattern involving Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn and Pluto which is currently shaping up.

Spring and Summer 2010

Jupiter meets Uranus - from http://www.cainer.com

I am currently publishing a series of articles on the “Jupiter meets Uranus” website, as the first of three Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions, at 0 degrees Aries (8 June 2010), 28 deg 43’ Pisces (19 September 10) and 27 deg 02’ Pisces (4 January 2011) begins to form.

Astrologers work with orbs, ie ranges of gradually increasing potency as planetary patterns approach exactitude. I decided to set a wide orb of 10 degrees for observing the effects of the upcoming Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in which I have a special interest, having written a research study of the 1997 conjunction in Aquarius – which, after a long series of unpredictable disruptions finally got published in April 2009!

At the end of March 2010, Jupiter was at 17 deg Pisces, applying to Uranus at 27 deg. Pisces: just within my observational orb. In early April 2010 we had a severe earthquake in China. This week we have had the major Icelandic event with its attendant chaos. What next, as the conjunction edges its way to exactitude at 0 deg Aries, on 8th June 2010?

As I say in my research study “Jupiter meets Uranus – from erotic bathing to star gazing”

“….The dynamic fire and air combination of astrological Jupiter combined with Uranus has a particular symbolic function in enabling evolution, which is to see no limits…..”

What limits will we see breached in the coming year, on all fronts?

In the next article which will appear on the “Jupiter meets Uranus” website at the end of April 2010, ie ‘Back to the Future! series: Part Three’, I will be looking in more detail at the Cardinal (Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn)
backdrop to the upcoming Jupiter/Uranus conjunction, and reflecting on the 14-year Jupiter/Uranus cycle, with special emphasis on individuals whose horoscopes are ‘plugged in’ to the upcoming series of conjunctions and its attendant ‘big heavies’ – Saturn and Pluto.

I have already had quite a number of volunteers contact me, prepared to tell me their stories as the observational year I have set unfolds (March 2010 to February 2011, after which the 10 degree orb fades out). So check out the site – and join in the excitement!

Changed Plans…

On Thursday morning early, we thought we were going South to Devon, England, to visit relatives and sun ourselves in that old hippy haven, the historic and scenic town of Totnes. Just over 24 hours later, we are now heading up North to the sacred Isle of Iona, Scotland, on what may turn out to be a spiritual pilgrimage. A 180 degree change of direction, in more ways than one!

Mars, planet of action and boldly-going, is 1.5 degrees of Cancer in my horoscope. Ian’s is almost exactly opposite, at 2.5 degrees of Capricorn. We are both firmly ‘plugged-in’ to the upcoming pattern. Maybe my next bulletin will be from Alpha Centauri. Watch this space….

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To buy “Jupiter meets Uranus: from erotic bathing to star gazing“, described in a five-star review by Leah Whitehorse as “a page-turner of the astrology world”, click HERE

UK buyers, click HERE

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1000 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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 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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