The Astrology Blog – 27 May 2015
JUNE EVENTS
8 JUNE THE GREEK ISLAND SUMMER SCHOOL – DISCOVERING ASTROLOGY
Early in the month of June is a beautiful time to be in Greece – fabulous sunny weather, warm evenings, eating out at the seafront or beach tavernas – all at amazingly good value for money. Group meals are organized for the evenings and you can still enjoy a two course meal with wine for less than 15 Euros a head.
The Greek Island Summer School continues with the Discovering Astrology week starting on 8 June (Sunday flights in and out on 7th and 14th June) and there are some fabulous bargains up for grabs if you’d like to join our 14th season of sun, fun and horoscopes.
Cosmos Holidays 0843 227 1464
http://www.cosmos.co.uk/search-results/package/package/eg/egl/eglni/any/2015-06-07/0/0/7/lgw/1/1-2-0-0/0/0/default
There are lots of lovely hotels to choose from but currently the top deal is the Avra Beach hotel – £235 per person, including flights, transfers to and from the hotel, accommodation and breakfast. These prices are based on two sharing a room but single person supplement is usually quite manageable – call them to get the best quote!
Olympic Holidays 0208 492 6868
http://www.olympicholidays.com/standard-pages/booking-search-results-inclusive
Demetra Studios or Sands Hotel are both good deals at £411 for one or two people – no single person supplement – but transfers tend to be expensive. Contact me for much cheaper options.
LONDON ASTROLOGY WORKSHOPS
Saturday 20 June
Level 1 Be Your Own Astrologer (13 of 20 places available)
Level 1 is suitable for all levels from beginner to intermediate.
This is a fun workshop, based on the material covered in my new book of the same name (Cico Books, March 2015). We pack a lot in, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to work on your own horoscope.
We will be covering the basics of Sun signs and planetary symbolism and houses – all very interactive and focused on working on your own charts. We’ll be studying transits and prediction in the afternoon session and I’ll be breaking everyone up into groups to learn more about their own horoscopes.
Sunday 21 June
Level 2 Planets and Prediction (14 of 20 places available)
Level 2 is suitable for refreshers and intermediate.
Your horoscope is a natal blueprint but is also a mechanism in perpetual motion. Learn how astrology reflects not only your nature but your life experience in the past, present and immediate future, as described by the cycles of the planets.
My colleagues astrologers Sally Kirkman and Grant Davis will be with us on both days to assist with the work on everyone’s charts.
All workshops run from 10am to 5pm, £85 for the day, non returnable deposit of 35 payable at the time of booking, or as close to as possible. If you are a new student you will need to send me send your data – date, place and time of birth – as I’ll be drawing up everyone’s horoscope as usual in advance.
Email me joannaw@otenet.gr if you’d like to reserve a place or if you have any questions that you’d like to discuss.
The venue for both workshops is:
The Astrological Lodge
The Theosophical Society
50 Gloucester Place
London W1U 8EA
http://www.astrolodge.co.uk/location
Nearest tube Baker St.
What’s happening this week?
All times stated in BST
Sorry for posting this blog so late in the week. As regular readers will know I’ve been back in the UK for my father’s funeral and my sincere thanks to everyone who sent messages of condolence. I’m now back home after an exhausting week – complete with bad throat caught on the plane coming back! This of course captures the retrograde Mercury theme – being out of circulation, communication issues, ie not being able to talk! – and apart from the expected emotional issues the usual retrograde havoc has been very noticeable on this trip.
It started with realizing that I hadn’t topped up the credit on my Greek mobile before leaving and there was no way to do this once I was in the UK. The second phone I’d bought before leaving, specifically to be used in the UK with a UK number, wouldn’t work at all as I’d obviously had crossed wires with the shop here. They assured me that it would work in the UK, but of course I had managed to omit the fact that I wouldn’t be using a Greek number in it… I did receive emails on my newly acquired tablet thanks to my students Lynne and Suzan who sorted out the problems there before the trip, but I answered only essential ones. If you’re waiting to hear back from me my apologies – am now catching up! I can no longer get the ink cartridges here for my printer so I bought these in the UK – only to return to find that the printer that was working perfectly well when I left has now packed up. Transport was also an issue – on two occasions in London I jumped in a cab in order to save time and ended up in traffic jams, so paid out a lot of money for getting precisely nowhere and walking instead. Flying back from Manchester to Heathrow also turned into an ordeal as the number of bags in the hold didn’t match the number on the paperwork, there was one too many. Obviously a plane can’t take off with an unaccounted for piece of luggage so we sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half while the poor ground staff did their sums over and over again. As the flight was full and I hadn’t paid for designated seats I wasn’t even sitting next to my sister – I was in a middle seat, squashed between two large men, one of whom was getting more and more stressed out as he realized that he was going to miss his connection to a US flight! When we got chatting it quickly transpired that he hadn’t allowed any extra time whatsoever and that the connection was wholly reliant on everything else being bang on time. No, I didn’t tell him I was an astrologer and that he should gen up on retrograde Mercury lol!
Not surprisingly this feature caught my eye when I was catching up on the news:
“The crazy idea of working non-stop for hours or even days on end has quietly become the new normal. Behaviour that our grandparents would have deemed insane is now rather pedestrian.
The average British worker spends 36 days a year answering work emails. London workers in particular receive close to 9,000 emails each year. As a result, work spills over into private time. One recent survey revealed that 80% of employers consider it perfectly acceptable to contact their employees outside business hours. And then there’s the commute. British workers waste 18 months of their lives commuting, which is often expensive and stressful.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32829232
This is a textbook story for retrograde Mercury, which always signals “problems with communication and transport” and all related matters. We live in a world in which communication is relentless and response time is virtually immediate. Gone are the days when we used to write letters and get a reply a couple of weeks later!
Retrograde Mercury periods (three times a year for about three weeks at a time) are however often characterized by waiting on others, or dealing with issues to which we can’t expect immediate answers. We still have a way to go before Mercury turns direct again on 11 June so here’s the usual checklist to bear in mind:
• Try to operate by “re” words – review, revise, research, reappraise, rethink and so on
• Back up all your computer work
• Write things down – forgetfulness, being distracted, inattention etc can be a troublesome theme
• Getting back to ideas on the back burner
• Getting back in touch
• Rest and relaxation, give the brain some time off
• Keep options open
• Assume nothing, double check everything
• When in doubt, check it out – second hand opinions are a dead cert for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick – and don’t believe everything you hear
• Keep a close watch on all belongings – especially keys or anything linked to communication such as phones, laptops, tablets, cameras etc and don’t even think about buying new ones for the time being
• The same for cars – never buy a car under a retro Mercury
• Plan any journey with extra care and don’t trust to luck
• Kill your speed when driving – allow extra time for getting there slowly but safely
• Take extra care with form filling/signing on dotted lines
• No matter how certain a situation might seem there is a good chance that it will morph into something else over the next couple of weeks – the “x” factor is at work
All of these issues and more are highly sensitized at the moment as Mercury is the key player this week –
Wednesday Mercury conjunct Mars (11.38)
Friday Mercury square Neptune (08.01)
Saturday Sun conjunct Mercury (17.57)
Sunday Sun square Neptune (14.09)
In brief this is a hotchpotch of a recipe for confusion, deception, uncertainty or sadness. The astrology that starts to kick in at the end of next week is a lot more dynamic and positive but for now it won’t pay to do anything in a rush. Take your time, and think ahead. With any difficult situation focus on what you want the outcome to be and set out your stall accordingly. At an emotional level accept that any painful issue needs to be processed. Patience in all things is paramount! If you push for information or answers the chances are that you won’t hear what you want to hear, or you’ll make a matter even more touchy or complicated. You could easily get fobbed off or even be fed a pack of lies.
The pick of the bunch however is the Sun conjunct Mercury on Saturday. When any planet is conjunct the Sun to within 17 minutes of arc (ie just over a quarter of a degree) it is said to be “cazimi” – which means being momentarily empowered by being in the heart of the Sun. So pay special attention to events or news late Saturday afternoon/early evening. This is the classic light at the end of the tunnel or flashes of insight/inspiration moment – which in turn may prove to be a vital link in any chain currently unfolding… all of which is paving the way for next week’s Full Moon in truth freak Sagittarius!
Until then, love from Greece,
Joanna