14 April 2024
Welcome to a copy of the free fortnightly newsletter. You can receive this straight to inbox every other weekend for free, just join the mailing list or send me your email address and I can add you this end.
Am still focusing on keeping the weekly blog to a manageable length, it always used to be about 2.5k words but in recent months has mushroomed to 4k (spot the Jupiterian!) and I totally get that people don’t have the time for long reads.
So part of my editing includes putting any surplus material into this newsletter for everyone to read. This time around it’s some feedback on last week’s total Solar Eclipse.
IN THIS NEWSLETTER – You’ll also find:
- Updates on Summer School courses, two in June and two in September
- NEW – serialising Mercury through the signs, starting with Aries, the leader of the pack and the sign in which Mercury is currently retrograde
- Preview of next week’s blog – what topics will I be covering for the coming week? Blog goes out every Monday, see below for how to subscribe and be added to the mailing
SOLAR ECLIPSE – How events teach us the symbolism
Last week’s blog included a checklist of the kind of things to look out for on an Eclipse. Three of the ten points that I made related to timing, which has been a hot topic of debate this week if the social media stuff is anything to go by!
It’s extraordinary how much conflicting information there is out there, and how often people make definitive statements – eg “Eclipses last for 40 days” (do they?) – but without giving any examples.
If there’s one thing that I took away with me from my uni days – apart from several lifelong friends – it was the skill of essay writing, with the top rule of Make a point, Illustrate it. in other words, back up a theory with practice, give an example.
We can’t just trot out the things we believe, even if they are the things we were originally taught, without testing them out ourselves for truth and accuracy.
TIMING
In last week’s blog that focused largely on eclipse symbolism I wrote, Expect the corresponding event(s) to show on or very close to the date of the Eclipse. I gave the example of the abdication of Edward for the love of Wallis Simpson, with the relevant eclipse falling just three days before the event. Edward was “eclipsed” and spent the rest of his life in the shadows of exile.
That’s not to say that there can’t be longer timelines involved but often the story can be a continuation of what unfolded around the actual eclipse date. The day after last week’s Solar Eclipse the first story in the news was William Wragg, who lost a key position in UK government, owing to being caught out in a so called honeytrap plot:
He said he had been chatting with someone on an app who subsequently asked him for the numbers of others. “They had compromising things on me. They wouldn’t leave me alone… I gave them some numbers, not all of them.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68773702
This shrieked being “eclipsed” – when the shadows lift there’s a shift of power, the truth outs – and you just know that when these kind of stories coincide with an eclipse then the person in question will almost certainly have something at or very close to the eclipse degree. In this case it was bang on, the Solar Eclipse was 19 Aries, he’s a Sun Sagittarius with his Jupiter is at 19 Aries. He just totally screwed up his future.
This story echoed several of the points on my eclipse list –
- Dealing with that which, until now, has been hidden from us in some way
- Revelations – sometimes on the run up to the Eclipse, sometimes even exactly on the day
- Revelations in the not very distant future, when we learn what happened when we weren’t looking, when we were in the dark or “when the light went out”
The other huge story that broke, that exactly fits this line of interpretation, was the revelation of one woman’s level of corruption in Vietnam. Truong My Lan was found guilty of looting Saigon Commercial Bank over a stretch of 11 years to the tune of $44 billion. Her birthday is 13 October 1956, placing her Sun at 19 Libra, exactly opposite the eclipse degree. Her fate is the ultimate loss of power with the death penalty.
https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Truong_My_Lan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68778636
Another point on my list was about relationships –
- Relationships that end on an Eclipse are usually done and dusted. It was announced on the day of the eclipse that Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen have just filed for divorce –
- https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Isla_Fisher Jupiter at 19 Aries and https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Sacha_Baron_Cohen Sun at 19 Libra
I said in last week’s blog that this was no ordinary eclipse – 19 Aries is the Sun’s “degree of exaltation”, the eclipse was exactly conjunct Chiron and retrograde Mercury. There’s more about this combination in this week’s blog as we still have a way to go with tomorrow bringing the second of the three conjunctions between Mercury and Chiron.
THIS WEEK’S BLOG
As well as the continuing Mercury – Chiron story this coming week also brings the Mercury – Venus conjunction. There are only three of these in 2024, so am exploring this “love talk” combo.
In terms of the general backdrop this is another pivotal week as Jupiter finally catches up with Uranus. These two giants come together only once every 13 years and the rarer the event, the more astrological weight it carries. This meeting will be at 21.50 Taurus, so this is serious astrology for you if you have anything at or close to that degree or the opposite sign of Scorpio.
So I’m exploring the significance of this mega conjunction, which also has Mars muscling in on the act, and referencing some individual horoscopes, with Jennifer Aniston as my top example. I wish I could be a fly on her wall right now, you’ll see why!
We’re also on the last leg of the Sun through Aries, the ingress into Taurus is next Friday, just a few hours after the Mercury – Venus conjunction.
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SUMMER SCHOOL
Flight prices are starting to come down, as they usually do as the new season gets underway. For example, a return ticket to our local airport Preveza (PVK) via Stansted for the first week of Summer School 5th to 12th June is now £210.00, nearly half what it was.
This is with Jet2, and Easy Jet also fly here via Gatwick, again nearly half the price being quoted a few weeks ago, now £210.00. Prices for British Airways flights from Heathrow are still high but am watching that space.
SEE HOME PAGE OF THE WEBSITE FOR LINKS TO THE COURSES
In the last fortnightly newsletter I finished serialising the Moon signs so now we’re onto Mercury, which is good timing as Mercury is on his retrograde journey through Aries right now and won’t be moving into the next sign of Taurus until 15 May.
MERCURY
Signs of Dignity: Gemini and Virgo
Colour: All that is mixed or multicoloured
Day of the week: Wednesday
Metal: Quicksilver
Mercury is Hermes, winged messenger of the gods, and thus he rules communication and everything related to the spoken or written word. Phones, computers, emails, all correspondence, the media, books, diaries and information in all its guises are Mercury’s realm. He is our voice and our words, not just what we say but how we say it and what we sound like.
As planet of the mind he governs the thought processes too, including ideas, opinions, attitude and beliefs. He rules youth and early learning so has a say in how our outlook and world view is shaped and influenced in our formative years.
Mercury rules the hands and dexterity and is therefore the archetype of the magician or trickster and thief.
MERCURY IN ARIES
This Mercury thinks in straight lines and gets to the point. Speech is quick fire and incisive. These individuals much prefer action to deliberation and they are brilliant at simply getting things done with no messing around. They thrive on immediacy and other people’s ineptitude or prevarication can drive them crazy.
The downside is impatience, snap decisions that are not properly thought out or difficulty with entering into debate. Oh, you mean there are other opinions? Even if they listen politely they tend to drive down the “my way or no way” street. Their instant solution finding nature is a godsend in a crisis but not so hot in the arena of personal relationships. A client with a partner with this Mercury stated that the biggest problem was listening to him having his say but then finding it impossible to have her own. He always went first and once he had got things off his own chest he simply assumed that the “conversation” was over. Nothing was ever properly resolved and the relationship ended, to his mystification and her relief.
In a nutshell: opinionated, direct, witty.
If you want to get the vibe of Mercury in speed freak Mars’ sign then look no further than Anita Renfroe. She’s born on a New Moon in Aries as well as having Mercury in this sign. She condenses everything a mother would say into less than three minutes and belts it out to the tune of William Tell. It made her a U Tube sensation.
More celebs with Mercury in Aries –
- Agnetha Faltskog (Abba)
- Al Pacino
- Amber Heard
- Charlie Chaplin
- Eric Clapton
- Keira Knightley
- Maria Sharapova
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Marlon Brando
- Michael Caine
- Rene Descartes (philosopher famous for “I think therefore I am”)
- Ruth Ginsberg
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Shakespeare
- Sofia Coppola
- Victoria Beckham
- Brooklyn Beckham
- Vincent van Gogh
- Shirley MacLaine – Mercury at 15 Aries
- Warren Beatty – Shirley MacLaine’s brother, Mercury at 15 Aries
