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THIS WEEK’S BLOG INCLUDES –
- The Scorpio New Moon – not an isolated event! Falls conjunct Mars, opposite Uranus and trine Neptune
- Mercury – Venus sextile
- Sun and Mars both trine Neptune (Friday)
- The annual Sun – Mars conjunction, this one at 25 Scorpio (Saturday)
- More on the Moon – arguably the most important timing factor in the horoscope, with lunations (new or full) and the Progressed Moon, who zooms us in on our big life changes
- Horoscopes – commentary on Raymond Moody (author of Life After Life, who invented the phrase NDE, near death experience) Charles III, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak – will he/won’t he sack her?
EUCLID TELESCOPE
This was rather a mind blowing way to start the week, a report on the BBC about the Euclid telescope and a reminder that a staggering 95% of the universe is unknown to us –
Europe’s Euclid telescope is ready to begin its quest to understand the greatest mysteries in the Universe. Exquisite imagery from the space observatory shows its capabilities to be exceptional.
Over the next six years, Euclid will survey a third of the heavens … to observe the contours, distances and motions of billions of galaxies, some of whose light has taken almost the entire age of the Universe to reach us.
Prof Carole Mundell, the director of science at the European Space Agency –
“We are human, we want to understand everything around us; whether that was as ancient people looking at the night sky and drawing constellations on our caves, or trying to understand whether the Sun would come back after the winter – we seek that knowledge and insight … We don’t currently understand 95% of the Universe, a universe that is 13.8 billion years old. We’re sentient beings who’ve been around for a tiny fraction of that time, but we could be the species that gets to figure it all out.”
Obviously this is astronomy, not astrology, but of course the two are inextricably intertwined. When I first started studying astrology myself I always remember being taught that astroNOMomy means naming the stars, and astroLOGOy means understanding them, asking what they mean symbolically.
We venture into astrology because of the human desire to understand, and that’s the fascination of horoscopy, that our own horoscopes can explain so much to us about our life, about all our experiences in this existence.
As I’m very fond of saying things get so much more interesting when we can move on from the question, does astrology work, to the far more extraordinary question of, how come it works? Nobody knows, there are only theories.
As astrologers we do know that in some magical unfathomable way the workings of the heavens reflect back to us the story of our lives here on planet Earth. I’ve seen enough horoscopes in the last 40 years to know that there’s a plan. The ultimate joy and reward of astrology is that it helps us to arrive at meaning.
SATURN SD – Stationary Direct
A subject I’ve been covering a lot in the blog in recent weeks is Saturn finally turning direct after being retrograde for the last five months. Here’s a reminder of Saturn’s journey this year and going into next –
- 1 January – started 2023 at 22 Aquarius
- 7 March – changed sign, moved into Pisces
- 17 June – got as far as 7 Pisces and then turned retrograde
- 4 November – gets right back to the beginning of Pisces and turns direct again at 00.30 (half a degree)
- February 2024 – gets back to 7 Pisces and carries on
Either at the end of December or beginning of January I’ll be doing a big year ahead blog in terms of showing the journey of all the planets for 2024, so that you can check that list against your own horoscope or others of interest to you. It saves wading through the Ephemerides or searching for the info online.
Whenever the slower moving planets (Jupiter onwards) turn retrograde they stay retrograde for several months. That never changes, so it’s not such a big deal. It’s the turning points (from retrograde to direct or vice versa) that are always the most potent moments and the ones to watch, especially as the slower moving planets take ages to pick up speed again, regardless of which direction they’re moving in. Think of them as running on electricity, not gas, it’s a long slow warm up instead of instant heat.
The fact that Saturn turned direct a week ago at 0 degrees makes this particular turning point even more significant as this is a “critical degree” – 0 degrees beginnings, 29 degrees endings. Critical can translate into crisis but more usually the meaning of the word is super charged.
This position also means that currently every planet changing sign (moving from 29 degrees of one sign to 0 degrees of the next) will run into Saturn as their first encounter on the new journey. And this will continue to be the case until Saturn picks up speed again and moves on, which will take many weeks.
MERCURY – SATURN
The most recent example of this was with Mercury who moved from 29 Scorpio to 0 Sagittarius just two days ago, on Friday morning. When Mercury receives difficult aspects from the other planets, especially Saturn, I usually say treat that date as if Mercury were retrograde.
The same sort of events can be expected, such as “expect cancellations” or “things not going to plan” or “bad news”. In action and when involved in the tougher aspects (square or opposition) Saturn is the bringer of things like frustration, obstacles, boundaries, health issues, limitations and endings.
I’d planned to meet up with a friend for a dog walk. We hadn’t seen each other properly for months, and as I put it in the diary I thought that’s not great timing, but it was our only mutually possible date. Of course it got cancelled, the end of the mild weather arrived overnight and it was lashing down with rain. I actually had several bits of bad news during the day but the worst was a close friend taking her dog to the vet and then having to have him put to sleep. After years of treating him for several conditions, including diabetes and pancreatitis, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and it was the end of the road.
We’ve got the pattern repeating the week after next when the Sun and Mars both move into Sagittarius and both immediately square up to Saturn, on the run up to the Full Moon. If you have either the Sun or Mars in aspect to Saturn in your natal chart these will be important dates for you.
I have Mercury in aspect to Saturn in my own horoscope, they’re conjunct in Sagittarius, so any time that they link up together, by any sign and by any aspect, these are significant times for me.
Suella Braverman has a tough Mercury – Saturn opposition as part of a T-Square and I’ll be covering that aspect pattern in the blog.
ALL ABOUT THE MOON
This is how the week started –
Monday 13 November
- New Moon 21 Scorpio 09.29
- Moon 21 Scorpio opposite Uranus 21 Taurus 10.06
- Sun 21 Scorpio opposite Uranus 21 Taurus 17.21
As I wrote in last week’s blog there are obvious correlations to warfare as the Sun is also heading for the conjunction with Mars, god of war, and Uranus is, amongst many other things, chaos, shock and rebellion. It was obvious that the protest marches for Gaza would conflict with Armistice Day, no matter what boundaries were put in place.
Here’s an excellent feature by Elisabeth Brooke about the astrology of the warmongers, those leading countless innocents into death and destruction. What do their horoscopes tell us?
https://elisabethbrooke.com/2023/11/05/the-dead-hand-of-old-men/
I’ll be saying more in the blog about this New Moon and its aspects.
MOON IN SYNASTRY
We sometimes forget just how important the Moon is, natally or in timing measures ie predictive work. This is another reason why the time of birth is so important to an astrologer. Without the time of birth we can’t know the Ascendant (the crucial rising sign) but neither can we know the exact position of the Moon.
If we take a Noon chart (assuming midday as time of birth) that’s pretty accurate for all the other planets but the Moon can be up to 6 degrees either side of the stated position.
It is notable how often a first born child has the mother’s Sun sign as their Moon sign. This is considered to be powerful “synastry” – which is astrospeak for compatibility and a spiritual/karmic connection.
Sometimes this shows in consecutive generations, no less than five in a row for the royal family, whose horoscopes are always great for learning as we have accurate birth times –
- The Queen Mother was Sun 11 degrees Leo – the Queen was Moon 12 degrees Leo
- The Queen was Sun 0 degrees Taurus – King Charles is Moon 0 degrees Taurus
- Diana was Sun 9 degrees Cancer – Prince William is Moon 5 degrees Cancer
- Kate is Sun 19 degrees Capricorn – Prince George is Moon 28 degrees Capricorn
Note that the first three on this list are also what is called the “cosmic marriage”, a point of synastry that happens when one person’s Sun is in the same sign as the other person’s Moon to within 5 degrees. Even if this happens with a much wider orb than 5 degrees it’s still great synastry.
Other textbook synastry is to have your Moon (or the Sun) on the other person’s Ascendant – Descendant horizon. In my own experience to see one person’s Moon on the other person’s horizon Angles, this is the strongest indication of a powerful relationship. Some astrologers say that if you don’t have any synastry between the two Moons then you won’t be able to live together easily. The Moon is how we like to operate and live on a day to day basis as well as being about our emotional nature.
MOON SIGNS
Taken from my book Essential Astrology I’m serializing the Moon signs, continuing today with Taurus –
Moon Glyph:
Sign of Dignity: Cancer
Colours: Silver and white
Day of the week: Monday
Metal: Silver
In traditional astrology the Sun is Lord of the Day and the Moon is Lady of the Night, known together as the Luminaries or the Lights. The masculine Sun symbolizes our day world, the essential self, consciousness and the life force, whereas the feminine Moon symbolizes our night world and the power of the unconscious. She also rules women, mothers and babies, our childhood and fertility.
The Moon symbolizes our emotions, instincts, needs and habitual responses, along with our home as well as early family life. Often she will describe the mother’s nature and character, and therefore the kind of mothering and emotional imprinting we received. If you want to understand the feeling nature, to find the little boy or girl within the man or woman, then the Moon’s sign is where to start.
MOON IN TAURUS
With the Moon’s 28 day cycle and connection to women, conception and nurturing it makes symbolic sense to find that she is exalted in the fixed and fertile earth sign of Taurus. Here all the lunar sensitivity and changeability is held, contained and nourished.
Individuals with this Moon often have strong family roots and a deep connection with one or both parents. As a result they in turn tend to take to parenting in a natural and hands on way.
The emotional nature is generally contented and not given to drama. They have a great deal of perseverance and don’t mind getting their hands dirty. This is Mother Teresa’s Moon, the ultimate Earth Mother.
This is also King Charles’ Moon. He is known for his love of agriculture and for being a pioneer of organic farming. Further, this is the perfect symbolic showing of the Moon’s sign of exaltation re women and family. The Taurus Queen was his mother and he is forever linked to the “exalted” Diana, herself carrying the name of the Roman goddess of the Moon and birth.
Charles’ and Diana’s children in turn have powerful Moons, Moon dignified in Cancer (William, and Cancer also being Diana’s Sun sign) and Moon exalted in Taurus (Harry).
Moon in Taurus celebs –
- Carl Jung
- Charles III
- Colin Firth
- Elton John
- Emmanuel Macron
- Hugh Grant
- Keira Knightley
- Meryl Streep
- Nicole Scherzinger
- Prince Harry
