Author: Christina

Deep Magic, Fire: The Gates of Winter

Bonfire Night, November 5, was perfect this year — cold and crisp and clear. It gets dark now by about 5.30, and we walked over to the bonfire field through dark streets lit by sulfury orange streetlights. The field very dark, except on the far side where the bright yellow flames from the vast, roaring bonfire, threw silhouettes and shadows, black and rusty. Children climbed flame-lit trees to see the fire; grown-ups stood around in groups, all facing the glowing flames, their backs to the night. At this time of year, we honour the element of fire. It is our friend bringing warmth and light […]

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USA Chart Analysis, November 9, Dawn

My friend Anton D’Abreu from Cycles of History has very kindly sent this chart analysis of transits to the chart of the United States on the day after the election. The Sibly chart (Koch) is used. Only the USA chart is analysed. All dates 2016 unless specified otherwise. Transiting houses are marked 1H while natal houses are marked 1st H. Rounded-up transit orbs are for November 9, 4.30 am) 1) Pluto (2H) opposes the US Sun (7th H). This is one of the most dramatic transits in the USA’s 240 year history. It suggests the transformation or destruction of the way American […]

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More Saturn in Sagittarius: The Birth of Trash Radio

In my previous post, I wrote about how last time Saturn was in Sagittarius, we saw the end of hot-metal printing and the transformation of newspapers. At the same time that this was happening in the centuries-old home of newspapers, Fleet Street, something else important ended for radio in the United States. Now just to recap. Sagittarius is the sign that rules publishing and broadcasting. Sagittarius spreads knowledge. When Saturn transits Sagittarius, we’re going to see changes in how that works. So back to the mid-1980s. In the United States, this was when something called the “Fairness Doctrine” was repealed. This was […]

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The Death of the Press

Hot-metal printing was finally killed off in the mid-1980s. Its demise had been a long time coming, as it was superseded by other cleaner, faster, cheaper technologies. London’s print unions were some of the last in the world to hold out, in the Wapping Dispute with Rupert Murdoch’s News International. When they caved in February 1987, it was the end. Imagine though, a composing room, in 1983 or even 1883. Lead type melts, is moulded, banged into place on the composing stones with wooden mallets by the compositor. On one side of the stone, the compositor; on the other, the editor: jobs strictly delineated. Editors […]

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Nasty Women

No matter what you think about the candidates for president in the USA, the campaign has given rise to some barnstorming feminist political speeches. It feels like a real breakthrough — a change in the weather. In astrology, we have a “nasty woman”. She’s called Black Moon Lilith, and she’s strutting around in Scorpio this year. She’s been here since May, and she won’t leave until February. Lilith in Scorpio seems pretty powerful. She’s even been given a voice by Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose speech about nasty women made some of us fall around laughing. “Nasty women are tough, nasty women are […]

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Astrology of Now: Volcanic Forces

Mars and Pluto are having their biannual conjunction — today, tomorrow, and the day after. Yes, that’s two warriors having a confab in ambitious, driven, earthy Capricorn; the planet of action, Mars, and the planet of the Underworld, Pluto, working together; war plus power. On the mundane level, watch the Mosul Offensive taking place over these days in Iraq. If you have planets in Libra, Capricorn, Cancer or Aries at 15°, pay attention. You can move the mountain now — maybe using some TNT. If you have planets at 15° in Pisces, Taurus, Virgo or Scorpio — you have may be able […]

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Hillary Clinton, Dragon-Slayer

This American election is an archetypal battle, the stuff of fairytale or legend. The two sides line up, accusing each other of hatred, lying and lasciviousness; of baseness, vileness, bestiality. In their vagueness sometimes, the smears require a leap of imagination from the public. What’s the worst thing you can think of? The words are Biblical, the accusations are of immorality. The candidates are speaking of a seething abyss of sin. It is extraordinary. Although this language has been used for a while by the right wing of the Republican Party, now it has irrupted into the mainstream. And in Donald Trump, the Republicans […]

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Astrology of Now: Six degrees of Jupiter in Libra

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: a game based on the idea that any player in Hollywood can be linked, through the films they have worked on, to character actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. So say, Kevin Bacon has a value of 0 — he being the centre of the Hollywood universe — then try linking Michael Caine. He has a Bacon number of 2: Caine was in Now You See Me with Woody Harrelson, and Harrelson was in She’s Having a Baby with Bacon. The truth is that you could pick almost any living actor in Tinsel Town and he […]

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