adventures in astrologyThe year 2008 saw the Astrological Association celebrating its 50th birthday, and a whole bunch of us looking back over 40 years of membership. Collectively, we had achieved a tremendous amount over the decades, had a great deal of fun with our beloved astrology, and made many, many friends around the world. With Pluto poised to leave the extravagance and freedom of Sagittarius for the restraints of Capricorn, it was a good moment for anyone to pause and take stock. With the advent of computing, it had become possible as never before to explore unfamiliar territory in astrology and break new ground - but had it been worthwhile? Would our adventures have lasting value? When testing novel techniques, beginner’s luck runs true to form. The first couple of charts will always ‘work’ just as we hoped - routinely followed by a string of woeful failures and the demise of a brilliant idea. Finding consistency in astrology is still far rarer than we would like to believe. You can spend weeks, months on a promising project, and just end up with a headache. So, among the scores of inviting and innovative techniques by now at our disposal, which have been shown to work consistently? What, in no particular order, would be my Top Ten?
Where is all his fame and power and drive and massive wealth? Where is ‘Windows’? In the reflex/radix alignments. The Moon-Mars jumps to the meridian, the Sun collects Jupiter-Pluto. QED.
★Sidereal charts Tropical charts are based on the local space of the solar system, they describe very accurately the behavioural psychology of humans and animals, and the overall environment and viability of structures and organisations. Used for Horary questions, they can provide the skilled practitioner with a reasonably unambiguous answer. Sidereal charts, however, deriving their signs from the constellations of limitless space, picture life at a trans-personal, historic level; human behaviour in a public role is pictured here, and the sidereal pattern is always dominant in charts of historic significance.
Incidentally, the eclipses of 28th August 2007, February 21st 2008 and August 1st 2008 all hit Mugabe’s self-destructive Sun/S.Node head-on, the first two directly, the third opposing his sidereal Sun; you would have thought that the climax and denouement of Zimbabwe’s political drama could not be far away. Wrong! Here it is 2013 now, and this old despot has managed to 'win' yet another election.
★Draconic charts After 30+ years of work with the circle of signs that begins at the Dragon’s Head, the connection of these positions with the soul and its fundamental belief- system is pretty well established. People born (every 18+ years) with the Dragon’s Head at 0 Aries are more likely to practise (tropical) what they preach (draconic)! The draconic sun-sign is of central importance to one’s mission and conduct in life, and it’s location in the tropical houses shines a spotlight on the corner of the world stage where most of the key action will take place. Hence draconic work cannot be properly done without using a bi-wheel.
For good measure the drive and genius for PR is repeated here with the draconic Moon-Mars straddling the horizon - but he also has the typical high-profile pattern of draconic Ascendant conjunct Sun.
George W. Bush also gets an angular draconic Sun, as you would expect ... it is on his radix MC in Aries, constantly spoiling for a fight that he has to win. Enough said. At this point I need to emphasise that putting two, three or four dimensions of a chart together in a multi-wheel throws up visually the conjunctions and oppositions that link them; these characterise the life as syndromes, repeating patterns, recurring ideas, themes, that are a huge help in counselling, ripe to be explored (the client often comes when there are strong transits to important inter-dimensional clusters like this.) And don’t forget to map a composite chart in a tri-wheel between the two radices; again you will see lines of planetary energy you would otherwise have missed, which shed much more light on the relationship. ★Current Draconic (CD) This system of symbolic directions is calculated by making a draconic chart using not the chart’s radix North Moon’s Node but the currently transiting position of the Node. It has a lot to say about destiny. As the Nodes move fairly rapidly back through the sky - one circuit every 18+ years - these directions also approach and recede quite quickly. To chart them you need to check the transiting Node’s position, subtract this from 360º, and enter the result as a User Arc in Solar Fire’s progression menu. This will move the radix chart round to the correctly directed position, and this can be set against the radix in a bi-wheel.
★The Dwad
Of all harmonic charts, this special Vedic form of astrology’s natural fractal, mapping neatly onto the decanates, is one of the most valuable. It gives such a vivid insight into the living consciousness of the individual, showing how they experience themselves as a Mind behind the eyes. In all harmonic work you are literally raising the pattern’s - and the person’s - vibration; in so doing you are moving away from the obvious and the material to a subtler, invisible reality that is all the more significant. This maverick Cancerian woman whom I knew well enough to make sense of her dwad identity, has the Sun, Moon, nodes and Mc/IC polarised in the dwad between the 11th and 5th houses. She loved to run with the crowd, continually fell in and out of love, was dreadfully fickle, wanted her own nest, constantly flew from it, obsessed about horses, remarried her ex-husband, and never achieved anything to the best of my knowledge except to destabilise or break up a number of marriages.
Mars on dwad Moon and Asc on dwad Mars endowed her with sufficient testosterone to swing her relationships wildly between men and women, and dwad Uranus conjunct her 7th cusp guaranteed the unpredictability that left so many people stranded and broken in her wake. She knew deep within (Sun/IC/N.Node) that home and husband would be her salvation, the only alternative being the total burn-out and self-destruct of that Sagittarius Moon/MC/S.Node.
★Dwad Relocation/locality charts By now I would imagine every reader of the AA Journal relocates their nativity before flying off somewhere new or planning to move house! Chart orientation can alter dramatically - forewarned is fore-armed! But if you need to decide between a home in London or somewhere further out, say, Wantage, your relocated charts are not going to differ sufficiently to be helpful. However, if you convert each one into the dwad - thereby magnifying their differences 12-fold, you should have enough information to make an easier choice. And of course this throws a far brighter and more fascinating light on the way you relate to all the places where you choose to spend time - or avoid!
★Associate Angles
This was my term for Parans when I first found out that over the course of a birthday there would be times when the moving angles of the chart could be occupied by two or more planets simultaneously. These patterns (activated through daily or interpersonal Q-charts) will add their joint energies recognisably to the life, but all the more so if planets are angular at the same time as the Sun or Moon, in which case their particular activities often bring the person into the public eye. Diana Princess of Wales will go down in history for rocking the royal boat, the fairy-tale marriage that led to divorce, her crusade against landmines, and the violence of her end. These three charts tell the whole story on their angles. ★Daily Progressed Angles
In both direct and converse directions, the progressing MC moves through 361º over the course of a day/year, taking the related local Ascendant with it. As it moves it picks up contacts to progressed, natal and transiting planets and other points, which characterise the day in question. Working with these for the best part of 30 years I find them indispensible, as they pick out with great accuracy the Jupiter days when you are functioning at your best and the Saturn days when your resistance is low and you really need to get your priorities in order. A few pointers: Venus days are usually very pleasing; Mars gets the adrenalin going and can end up exhausting you if you’re not up to the sudden burst of activity. Chiron’s presence on an angle can be painful - or at least educational. Moon? Your girl-friend (or mother-in-law) turns up, your house is full of people, or you get more publicity than usual! Uranus on a daily angle always springs a surprise - and you can’t second-guess it. Pluto days are excellent for a purge; but may mean something big is about to hit you. Neptune can get you in a muddle - but I have found it is often a day when I have to get the camera out, or the media turn up. Watching the Daily Angles every day pays dividends in opportunities well taken, and hassles prudently avoided. ★The Q-chart What a find this was! A gift to any astrologer working with untimed data, it simply means putting one chart up for the natal or inceptional time of another to which it is closely related. So if you have no idea when your beloved Gran was born, set up her chart for her natal location but your own birth time. This turning of her chart will show what you bring out in her, and therefore 50% of the nature, quality and viability of your relationship. This works brilliantly for all synastry in any context, a technique in the super-league along with Relocation ... Q (Quotidian) charts are relocation in time. Robert Mugabe’s chart above is itself a Q-chart, set for the time, 11h15 GMT, when Zimbabwe’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence was broadcast on 11th November 1965. This culminating Uranus, with belligerent Mars-Jupiter near the Desc, would have been ‘the spur to prick the sides’ of his intent, after which he would stop at nothing till he had his own way.
The scope of astrology today is simply astonishing; and with so many superb programs to choose from we are equipped to be a generation of cosmic explorers. As empowering Pluto (still a planet to be reckoned with!) moves through Capricorn, astrology’s innovations may settle into established practice - but sidereal Pluto still on its Sagittarian journey should keep alive in us all ‘the sense of wonder and the joy of discovery’ that makes the study of the living heavens an endless adventure.
......................................................................................................................... References: Bill Gates - Clifford 2000 Robert Mugabe - Encyclopaedia Britannica Princess Diana and Prince Charles - Clifford 2000 ‘Maverick’ and ‘Leo’ - Pam Crane’s personal files. ‘A’ data from them. Zimbabwe UDI - Campion, World Horoscopes. Apple Newton launch -Wikipedia. |