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.

” 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 !

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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©anne whitaker 2023

Why do TWINS hold such fascination? Astrology offers some clues…

There are perennial questions repeatedly asked by astrology students, clients, and members of the public concerning topics which puzzle or challenge them – and astrologers. I have three favourites: twins is the first. What are the other two? Keep checking this blog and you’ll find out!

By email: Helene’s question:

How does it work when you do a birth chart for twins? Or two babies born the same minute at the same hospital? Can two people have the same horoscope!?

My Answer:

During many years of teaching astrology classes, I found that the above questions came up very frequently.

It is important at this point to emphasise to readers who are familiar only with Sun Signs that to get ‘beyond the Sun Signs’ requires an individual’s horoscope to be drawn up for the date, place AND time of birth. Human beings are complex and contradictory. It’s not possible to approach any satisfying symbolic exploration of that complexity through the Sun or Star Sign alone.

A number of years ago, I decided to address the typical questions students asked about twins (summed up by Helene’s questions here) via one of the tutorial classes I ran for my more advanced students, all of whom had a good grasp of the basics of astrology, and some of whom were already practitioners in their own right.

One student – let’s call her Anna – was the devoted aunt to a set of twins in their mid teens, a boy and a girl – let’s call them Angus and Miriam. These two had been born less than fifteen minutes apart and had almost identical horoscopes.

I had formulated a theory about twins and astrology which I wanted to test out, so I obtained permission via Anna from Angus and Miriam’ s parents as well as the twins themselves, to calculate their horoscopes and discuss them anonymously in class.

My method was to put up on the board only one horoscope since there was so little difference between the twins’ horoscopes, and ask the students to take an hour to prepare along with me a basic outline of the key characteristics revealed by this one horoscope. We did the preparation as though we were preparing a birth chart for just one person.

The class knew nothing about either of the twins, and I asked Anna to observe us, but not to make any comments at all.

Once we had written up the outline, we spent the next hour discussing our findings with Anna, who knew her nephew and niece well.

I am writing this after a gap of some years and no longer have the notes for detailed reference, so can only give a summary of the essence of what emerged from our discussion.

Anna found our summary from the one horoscope of the basic characteristics of both her nephew and niece to be very accurate. What was very clear was that certain traits were held in common, but that the rest were, as it were, divided up between the twins. To put it very simply, looking at a range of traits: 1,2,3 and 4 were recognisable in both; Miriam manifested traits 5,6 and 10 whilst Angus lived out traits 7, 8 and 9.

This very interesting and enlightening experiment does not of course constitute any kind of proof: but it bore out my impressions from reading about the similarities and differences in the lives of twins about whom I had read, as well as my own observations of twins I had come across from my own experience, as well as the few horoscope readings I had done for individuals who were twins.

What was this impression?

Coming back to the analogy of the horoscope revealing the characters poised on life’s stage, waiting for the moment of birth to kick start the action of the play, it seemed that twins unconsciously chose which characters on their joint stage they were going to live out jointly – and the ones which they were going to live out separately.

The experiment which I did all those years ago with my students, Anna and her nephew and niece certainly bore out my theory….

After writing this piece I googled ‘astrology and twins’ to see what came up, and was pleased to find on my favourite astrology site, Astrodienst, that other astrologers including Dr Liz Greene had come to much the same conclusion.

As far as two people born at the same time in the same place is concerned, yes, they would in effect have the same horoscopes. You would certainly see considerable similarities if you studied both their lives over time. But each character on the stage at a given moment in time has a range of possible modes of expression. Thus the influence of different family circumstances and different opportunities, etc, would call forth a range of possible responses from the same basic character.

To read much more on this topic, do go over to the late master astrologer Donna Cunningham’s blog Sky Writer, where she has an excellent piece on the astrology of twins. I’ve also written a piece on Astrology, Twins and Epigenetics, if you’re interested in exploring a brief scientific ‘take’ on the topic…

Then come back and let me know what YOU think!

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Endnotes:

This post “From the Archives” was first published along with some other Twins posts on my Astrology: Questions and Answers archive blog which is packed with a range of astrology articles over a wide spectrum of topics aimed at both experienced astrologers, advanced students – and newcomers. Do pop over and have a browse! There are also some ebooks to buy: just click on the covers.

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©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…

Postcards to the Future: Mercurial Musings 1995-2021

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

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

Neptune transits: opening the door to ‘Otherness’…

As an astrologer, one of my favourite quotations is from Nobel Prize-winning German physicist, Max Planck (April 23 1858 – October 4 1947) :

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die…”

Do come in…

This strikes me as an observation pertinent in its essence to most of us, arising from amongst other things fear of the unknown – and desire to keep IT ( the Shadow) out, keep the light on. However, psychologist and mystic Carl Jung took the view that the major task of our lives was the reconciliation of those great opposites. Light and Dark run through the whole of life: we need them both, collectively and as individuals. Without the bleak apparently barren darkness of Winter, we cannot have the life-affirming beauty, light and energy of Spring.

Identifying too closely with either pole inevitably calls forth its opposite…at its worst, there are too many examples scattered throughout history: a perennial (and contemporary) example being religious and/or political persecution – and war – arising from one side knowing the Light of Truth and having Right on their side, being prepared to destroy those unfortunate enough to take a different view: in order to save their souls from the darkness of Hell – metaphorical or otherwise.

Those splits are especially acute in our era. Saturn in Aquarius is slogging it out with Uranus in Taurus, as Pluto concludes his long dredge through Capricorn mercilessly exposing the rotten underpinnings of a ubiquitous culture rooted in a materialistic set of values and practices which are severely damaging our mother planet, and intolerance runs rampant everywhere.

Another contemporary variation on this theme is the bitter split between materialist reductionism which posits scientific perspectives as the only Reality, and the recorded accounts of very many people over centuries and longer, who willingly or otherwise, have experienced decidedly ‘other’ versions of reality which simply do not fit the current prevailing reductionist paradigm.

I am one of those people. For a long, long time, despite being a decidedly rational individual – sceptical in the open-minded sense of the word – I experienced intermittent and unpredictable intrusions into my everyday Reality whilst going about being a stable and productive member of society. A period of unwelcome, intermittent and uninvited episodes of ‘otherness’ began when I was nearly 24 years old, with Neptune transiting my IC conjunct South Node in Scorpio. It took me a very long time, but eventually I was able to come to terms with and make peace with that ‘other’ side of myself.

Thirty years later, during a long Neptune transit in Aquarius opposite my six 12th house planets, I began writing the book in which I recorded those 37 ‘other’ experiences. Having completed the book and published it in PDF form, the episodes came (mostly) to an end. Here I am, talking about ‘Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness” and related topics with my colleague Ana Isabel – another open-minded rationalist who is no stranger to experiences of ‘otherness’ herself. I’m planning to incorporate ‘Wisps…’ into a longer memoir provisionally titled ‘Swimmer in a Secret Sea’ to be published in print and as an ebook sometime in 2023. Watch this space!

In the meantime, kick off your shoes, grab a coffee – or something stronger, and have a listen to this recording we did recently for Ana’s In the Light podcast.. I’d be most interested if you felt like sharing your experience(s) of episodes which reductionist science says do not exist…

Opening the door to ‘Otherness’…

©Anne Whitaker/Ana Isabel 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.

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.

Moon’s Nodes and Eclipses: Gemini/Sagittarius adventures 2020-22…

Ever since I began to decipher my own birth chart in the 1980s, discovering that a strange glyph looking like a pair of headphones was exactly conjunct my 28 Taurus Midheaven, the Moon’s Nodal Axis and its unfolding path through the heavens has continued to fascinate me….here, in my new mini research study featuring the recent traverse of the Moon’s Nodes and Eclipses traversing Gemini/Sagittarius during the period of 2020-2022, I tell the story of four people’s changing lives. Including my own…to read all about it, click HERE

Thanks, Astrodienst, for once again featuring my work…

As Pluto prepares to leave Capricorn for Aquarius: a world in waiting…

Pluto enters Aquarius in March 2023 for the first time since his 1778–1798 soujourn brought with it sweeping changes in social order and individual freedoms, including: the ratification of the American constitution, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, the publishing of The Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollestonecroft…

Along with other astrologers whose main interest is in the relationship between the larger planetary cycles and world affairs, I’ve been watching with fascination as people power asserts itself in the general direction of greater democratic freedoms and increasing rejection of oppressive rulers. I’ve written about this in more detail recently here (i)

There is a word which beautifully describes – at both a collective and a personal level – this disturbing but highly creative state of emerging from the past, being highly disrupted in the present, reaching out to an uncertain future. That word is LIMINAL.

Here are my thoughts on both the micro and macro dimensions of that wonderfully descriptive word, starting (of course – I used to be an English teacher, after all…) with a definition. Written as my ninth The Astro-View from Scotland column for that wonderful USA magazine Dell Horoscope, sadly no longer with us, it is still highly relevant. I hope you enjoy my musings: feel free to add your own as a comment should you feel inspired to do so!

‘…I always seem to have a favourite word. Maybe that’s one of the hallmarks of being a writer. It’s probably tiresome for other people when I cram it into conversations. By now, I’m sure you are quite desperate to know what the damn word is this time. Ok. It’s ‘liminal’. From the Latin ‘limen’ meaning ‘threshold’, it refers to that stage in life when one is hovering…departing from what is in the past: not quite at home here in the present: not quite arrived there, in the future…it’s an uncomfortable, fluid state to be in, but highly creative and full of potential.

How about this contemporary usage, definition from Wikipedia: ‘…More recently, usage of the term has broadened to describe political and cultural change… During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt…’ I don’t know about you, but this to me sounds just like where we are collectively on planet Earth at present. Let’s hope in the long run – which we baby-boomers likely won’t live to see – we end up with something better than the mess we have now.

‘As above, so below’ : no contemporary astrologers have come up with a pithier definition of the essence of our art than did fabled Ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus in the equally fabled Emerald Tablet. Hermes was conceived as apparently hovering between the divine and human worlds. Down here in that all-too-human world, thinking about Hermes in relation to the world ‘liminal’ is providing me with some inspiration; much needed in my case, as I hover uncomfortably and uncertainly between the end of one 12 year Jupiter cycle, and the beginning of a new one.

Jupiter cycles have always been a big deal for me, since third house Jupiter at 19 degrees 07 Scorpio squares all six of my Leo 11th and 12th house planets. I wrote about the dubious but transformative delights of this astro-lineup in my very first column for Dell.

This idea of hovering between the divine and human worlds might be of some comfort and inspiration also to those of you readers who are ending one cycle at present, without being able to see how the energy of the next one is going to form. Standing in this liminal place, one cannot bully, cajole or entreat the new order to reveal itself. There is divine time, and there is human time.

This may sound pretty mystical, but my feeling – from both personal and professional experience– is that the deeper wisdom of our soul knows the direction in which we need to proceed in order to become all we can be, and how long it may take to get there. The astrological cycles can put us in touch with that spark of divinity within each of us, offering profound insights into what a waning cycle has been about, and what the newly-forming one might bring. They also teach us that‘… there is… a time to every purpose under the heaven…’ (i).

Our egos, located in human, ordinary time, can often rail against this when we don’t like what we see of the shape of things to come, or how long a particular transitional period is going to take. Try consulting your ephemeris, as I did at the end of 1998, to realise that I was about to have a series of sixth house Neptune oppositions to twelfth house planets lasting from 1999 until 2012, as well as the ending/beginning of five major cycles. It was some immersion, I can tell you. Did my ego rail against it? You bet. I had to quit my career in 2002, and did not begin to surface, via writing on the Web at first, until 2008, not returning to consulting and teaching until 2012.

But guess what? I now look back on that period, when I felt liminal approximately twenty-four hours a day for years, as the most soul-enriching of my entire life. One of the many lessons I took from that period was to pay close attention especially to the feelings of restlessness, dissatisfaction and uncertainty which herald the end of, for example, the 29-30 year cycle of Saturn which we all share. Many of us recall – or are experiencing now! – the turbulence and pain of the end of our twenties, from which most of us emerged or will emerge by around the age of thirty-three with a much clearer idea of who we are, and most importantly, who we are not.

Those difficult feelings and experiences occurring in the twelfth house phase of any major cycle (where we are now, collectively, as Pluto traverses the final degrees of Capricorn…) are part of the dissolution of the old order of that part of our lives. An ending must take place– so that new energy may arise, taking us forward to the next stage of our unfolding.

Astrology’s great gift is to show us that we are not random butterflies pinned to the board of Fate. We each have our small, meaningful strand to weave into life’s vast tapestry. In the end, it was consent to my tough and frightening period of liminality, patient waiting, the love and support I was fortunate to have, and trust in the wisdom of the Unseen that got me through. So, my liminal fellow travellers, take heart. The old order may be waning, but something fresh and new is surely arising…’

Endnotes:

(i)https://anne-whitaker.com/2022/09/24/leo-aquarius-a-climate-bill-a-monarchs-death-pluto-and-a-changing-world-order/

(ii)Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)

“The astro-view from Scotland” was the bi-monthly column I wrote for Dell Horoscope Magazine from January/February 2017 until the last issue of Dell in March/April 2020. This ninth column first appeared in the May/June 2018 issue.

Leo, Aquarius, a climate bill, a monarch’s death, Pluto – and a changing world order

What a week!

As UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously quipped during the UK’s sterling crisis in 1964: “A week is a long time in politics.”

It feels like a very long time already since much of the UK – with, supposedly, around half the world’s population – watched Queen Elizabeth ii’s state funeral, signifying the end of an Era as the longest reign in British history came to an end. But, as I write, it is less than a week.

View of the entire near-infrared sky by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

And what a week – indeed, what a month it has been since Tuesday 16 August 2022 when US President Joe Biden signed into law the Democrat’s hard-fought healthcare, climate and tax package the Inflation Reduction Act. The law directs a colossal $369bn toward investing in renewable energy and reducing America’s planet-heating emissions.

“With this law, the American people won and the special interests lost,” Biden said.(i)

To me, this powerful Aquarian statement by the US President aptly signifies the turbulent, changing world era we are going through at present which the larger planetary cycles have been symbolically revealing to us so powerfully as we tiny humans struggle to cope – and try to make some sense of it all. His words are so apt.

Pluto’s Aquarian long march begins…

We will see some major developments at all levels as Pluto completes his 2008-2023/4 traverse of Capricorn and power (Pluto) shifts towards The People, away from crumbling traditional Capricornian institutions, plutocrats, oligarchs, and from politics rooted in gaining material power and control through exploitation of planet Earth’s diminishing resources.

Next spring, Pluto’s long 2023-2044 journey through Aquarius begins. The sign of the human collective, Aquarius symbolises an energy driven to pursuing and promoting ideals regarding how we should be moving forward in order to create a fairer, more equal world. It is a highly rational, technology and future-oriented, “Let’s get together to make the world a better place”, kind of energy.

The Jupiter/Saturn conjunction at 0 Aquarius on the Winter Solstice of 2020 (WHO chose that date?!) symbolised the end of that defining conjunction’s long trek from 1803 through the Earth Element, heralding the beginning of a new 200-year Air era, heavily weighted towards Aquarius in its opening stages by Pluto’s imminent entry.

Along with many other astrologers whose primary interest is in the outworking on planet Earth of the larger planetary patterns, I have been fascinated – and at times awestruck – to see how that oft-quoted ancient maxim “As above, so below…” has been playing out especially vividly in recent weeks. As Pluto transits the final degrees of Capricorn, and Saturn-ruled Capricorn/Cancer loses ground to the rising power of Uranus-ruled Aquarius/Leo in this very turbulent time world-wide between changing eras, we have seen those symbolic energies play out ‘on the ground’ so clearly.

Leo/Aquarius as the Air Era rises – dramatic world events

Here are a few highlights, in which the interplay between the Ruler(s) (Leo) and the People (Aquarius) can be seen with the dominant energy of the rising Air era coming to the fore and the ‘old order’ crumbling and collapsing.

In the spring of 2022 Vladimir Putin’s Russian army invaded Ukraine, confidently expecting victory within days. Six months later, the enormity of his misjudgement is becoming increasingly evident as the tide of war turns in Ukraine’s favour owing to the people’s courageous resistance – and solid Western support.

In early July, UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson finally resigned after a growing crescendo of scandal and popular dissatisfaction leading to mass resignations from his government forced him out. Then we had the historic USA climate bill in mid-August, already mentioned. Currently, too, the net of the USA’s legal system appears to be tightening around Trump and his family.

Also, this week in Iran, women have been at the forefront of escalating protests across the country – especially by young people – against the punitive mediaeval rule of male clerics, sparked by the death in custody of a woman detained for breaking hijab laws.

And, most dramatically in the UK on 6 September, Boris Johnson formally demitted office to Queen Elizabeth ii, who welcomed Liz Truss as the new UK prime minister –then died aged 96 two days later, doing her Capricornian duty to the end. The ancient archetype of the death of a monarch has caused powerful ripples through our collective and personal lives, regardless of what politics we espouse.

The Queue – Aquarian herald of the Air era

For me personally, the most moving manifestation of the incoming Leo/Aquarius polarity as the old Cancer/Capricorn era fades out, was observing the UK public’s reaction to our Queen’s death and short lying in state in Edinburgh, followed by the longer lying in state in London. What an enormous flow of The People filed past the Queen’s coffin both in Scotland and in England, accompanied by thousands of citizens from all areas of the UK as well as much further afield.

It was astounding that hundreds of thousands of people were prepared to wait all night in a queue which ultimately wove its way through the streets of London for 4-5 miles in the days before Elizabeth’s state funeral on Monday 20th September: Aquarius – the People – came to pay their last respects to Leo – the Monarch.

Striking, too, was the Aquarian ‘feel’ to the famous Queue. Many people expressed the view that being in The Queue was an event in itself. New friendships were made, people shared food and drink, generally supporting and entertaining one another during the very long wait. Wouldn’t it be great to think of that community spirit growing stronger as Pluto enters Aquarius and hopefully turbo-powers our interconnectedness?

Now, we have to wait and see what next Spring brings – but strong clues re the possible shape of the new era are already evident, as discussed in this article. People power is on the rise. Let’s hope that the enormous changes ahead, eventually, bring more light than shadow…

Endnote

(i) UK Guardian 16.8.22: “ ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill…”.

1000 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2022
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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There are perennial questions repeatedly asked by astrology students, clients, and members of the public concerning topics which puzzle or challenge them – and astrologers. I have three favourites: twins is the first. What are the other two? Keep checking this blog and you’ll find out!

My Answer:

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