Author: Christina

Kitchen Alchemist

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When Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal wanted to check the best way to cook a really nifty pulse, allegedly he wrote a fan letter to Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking, the kitchen-nerd’s Bible. Harold McGee is the doyen of the science of cooking, from creating the perfect caramel to fermenting peas. He writes a great column for the New York Times, in which he tackles such knotty issues as how much water does pasta really need and how gross is it to share a dip? And he has a website called The Curious Cook, exploring the science of food and its transformations. Now from […]

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Chart For Medecins Sans Frontieres

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Further to our discussion on the previous post, here is the chart for MSF. There is no birth time although noon does work well, putting Jupiter on the MC. Note Chiron in Aries –pioneering doctors — ruled by Mars in Pisces — fighting for compassion. Jupiter in Sagittarius: no borders. Saturn Rx in Gemini opposite Neptune in Sagittarius: no borders. Sun at 29’56° Sagittarius about to jump over the border. Sagittarius/Gemini — the message is as important as the action, the teaching and training.

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The White Masks Of Ebola

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Someone asked last week when the white-masked people were coming to fight the black-masked Islamic State killers. Maybe the answer is, they are already here; but they’re busy. Healthworkers tackling the Ebola outbreak are sheathed in plastic. The white hoods and masks they wear do make them look like aliens. No wonder West Africans were at first suspicious. The battle against the virus is clearcut in one way: it’s humans vs. disease. But in another it’s a battle without boundaries. There is no cure as yet and Ebola crosses borders and travels along flightpaths invisibly. What might you look for astrologically? This is a story […]

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Venus in Libra: Grace, Balance… But Not Always

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I’ve often thought that Bill Clinton looks an awful lot like an older, whiter version of the actor Will Smith.     When the planet of beauty is in her own sign of Libra, you’d expect to find some real physical beauty. In particular, you might expect to find some perfectly balanced faces. Grace Kelly is always cited as an example of someone with a perfectly proportioned face. How about Beyoncé? For sheer glamour, it’s hard to bet Vivien Leigh or Rita Hayworth. One of the characteristics all these actors share — including Bill Clinton — is grace. Richard Gere moves […]

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Astrology of Now: Deep Thought

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If, like me, you find yourself plunged into deep contemplation in this post-eclipse period, you may find it useful to have your brain cells defragged. Bach’s music has the purity and precision of a golden toothpick. He was born with Sun and Ascendant in Aries, exactly trining Mars in Sagittarius: sharpness and purity. Feel your braincells realigning as you listen to this. Yo Yo Ma, who bows your mind into order, had the eclipse on his Sun this week — born October 7. His Libra Sun is opposite Bach’s Aries Sun, hence the perfect partnering. And here is something astrological to ponder. Today, […]

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What Blew Cloonuddin’s Commitment-Phobia Away?

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George Clooney, handsome, talented and famous, seems to unite some of the best blessings of existence. Amal Alamuddin, beautiful, successful, cosmopolitan and not just a top lawyer, but a human rights one! Cream at the top of the collective coffee cup. Both just so good on paper. Which one is more trophtastic? Clooney was until last week possibly the most eligible commitment-phobe on the planet. What changed? Well he has pretty much literally met the woman of his dreams. The new Mrs Clooney’s glamourous conjunction of Neptune (the great dreamer himself) and the Moon (her very soul) are right on George’s Midheaven in Sagittarius. Amal is what […]

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Virgins, Black Power, African Liberation…

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The month of Virgo was beautiful here, one warm soft day follows another. But the weather was also strange and unseasonable. The nights draw in but the days are as warm as summer. It’s dreamlike. Being deep in the dream of Virgo this year — with the help of an opposition from Neptune in Pisces perhaps — I understood the sign in a new way*, and this, in turn has brought on some thoughts about our on-going aspect between Uranus and Pluto. Here’s a rather Neptunian train of thought. In ancient times, virgin was less a description of a woman’s sexual experience than a description of her social status. When […]

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October Monthly Horoscopes

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You may cast sparks from your fingertips and whirl in the the circle of fire.  You may kiss an angel. You may hear the stars singing in silver voices across vast eternity. You may be struck by lighting, by an idea, by cupid’s arrow. Grace. Shock. Shadow. Light. Change. October promises much. A Grand Trine in Fire. A Mercury Retrograde. Two eclipses. To all of you two pieces of advice. For the first part of the month: charm. For the second: imagine. To find out how it (might) work for you, click here.

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T S Eliot On Inspiration

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When I read the following thoughts on creativity from the pen of the poet TS Eliot, I asked myself what’s happening in his 12th house? “I know, for instance, that some forms of ill-health, debility or anaemia, may (if other circumstances are favourable) produce an efflux of poetry in a way approaching the condition of automatic writing — though, in contrast to the claims sometimes made for the latter, the material has obviously been incubating within the poet, and cannot be suspected of being a present form a friendly or impertinent demon. What one writes in this way may succeed in standing the […]

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Islamic State Correction

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I’m afraid I got the data wrong. I misread my own handwriting. Apologies to Geoffrey Cornelius. I had to adjust it anyway, because my software was acting up, so I’ve redone it on astro.com. Here is the corrected chart. Thanks to Elizabeth Hathaway for pointing this out. I have also had a look around the web and found several more charts that seem to have just as valid reasoning backing them, so I’m afraid I am back to where I was before, which is I’m really not sure of which chart to use. Personally, I loved yesterday’s — so nasty. […]

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