Mars and Venus by Sandro Botticelli (c.1483)The god of war –- naked, defenceless, vulnerable – sleeps with his mouth half open, exhausted by lovemaking (we suppose), while Venus, the goddess of love, with not a hair out of place, fully clothed, reg…
Author: Christina
Floods, I Ching and the Return of the Isle of Glastonbury
Port Meadow, Oxford this morning. The water level is still rising.First rain and snow, then floods. The old gods.Thousands of years ago, we’d have thrown iron into the water to propitiate them, or maybe sacrificed a white bull. Today we gaze …
January Horoscopes
Benozzo Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi to Bethlehem. This panel shows Caspar, the youngest Magus, on a white horseHappy New Year!2014 promises to be another extraordinary year. We are half-way through the world changing square between Uranus, the pla…
Astrology of Now: Welcome Savage, Rebel –– Stranger
Eurasian shaman, early 20th century from a Russian ethnographic collection.”Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.He is awkward and does not know the waysOf porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.His voice makes vinegar from wine.”When the wild go…
Astrology of Now: Solstice
Yuli Yulievich Klever — Winter AfternoonIt’s just after four in the afternoon and night already. Daylight went in a blinking here in the deep of theyear.Tomorrow the Sun moves into Capricorn, Saturn’s sign; the sign of responsibility, of the fath…
Movies: Gravity
Gravity opens with the longest, loveliest view of our pearlescent planet, so large and luminous — and behind it black space. The Earth is our home, our heart, our mother — but what happens when we cut the cord that ties us to her?(Spoiler alert. Pret…
Venus in Art: Frida Kahlo
Two Fridas (1939)Frida Kahlo’s paintings have become so much part of popular culture that it is possible to forget just how great they are. Her Venus is in Gemini, the sign of the storyteller, and it is closely conjunct Pluto, the planet of transformat…
Venus in Art: Rivera and Freud
Dona Elena Flores de Carrillo by Diego Rivera. (1952)The Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886.The British painter Lucian Freud was born on December 8, 1922.The sign of Sagittarius – half-man, half-beast. Centaurs were notorious …
Nelson Mandela: "I Am Prepared To Die"
“…[The ANC struggle] is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fough…
December Horoscopes
James Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life.The message this December is do your stuff before the 21st or so and then don your flak jacket and your helmet and take cover until January. Of course it’s not going to be that dramatic for everyone, but it would …