Just how many cookbooks are too many?

There is this bookshop in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne (the Smith St end of Fitzroy) that is jam packed to the ceiling and piled on the floor full of cook books. It is aptly named Books For Cooks…and after today I am possibly ready to give…

The Essence for 2 July 2011: Riding the Wave

A quincunx of the Moon to the North Node just after 2 AM PDT makes for a point where the current emotional perceptions meet future ones–should be at least disorienting, at most revelatory–and if you’re asleep at this time, place … Continue …

Ode to Independence Day 2011 w Uranus in Gemini

Ode to Independence Day 2011by Jude Cowell"Perhaps it’s time to shut down $17 billion worth of money going for reconstruction projects, when our track record really stinks," Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) asserted on Thursday.And if I’d found a visual of the June 30, 2011 hearing already posted in the C-SPAN Video Library in case you missed appreciating Senator Claire McCaskill’s

Venus in Scorpio

Cast a spell
With a look
So deep, so intense
It burns the soul
And makes the heart yearn
For just a little bit more of you
And afraid
Of that light and of that passion
That run so very deep.

Cancer Sun in the 6th House

ou are finding ways to display kindness and sympathy through acts of service. You discover personal power by doing even the most boring thing with sensitivity and care. Your central […]

The Music of the Spheres: Octaves, An Introduction

  There are those who dismiss the idea entirely.  Mercury the lower octave of Uranus?  Venus the lower octave of Neptune? Mars the lower octave of Pluto?  I’ve read and listened to endless words on the subject.  Some try to convince me that the concept of octaves doesn’t exist at all.  Others try to tell […]

Monthly Horoscopes: July 2011

Every cloud has a silver lining –
or possibly some putti nestling in it. These are by Tiepolo.

Well, you have to admit it’s been rather a tense June. I hope you’ve managed to navigate through reasonably unscathed. Today’s eclipse is a humdinger. It’s only partial – thank goodness – but it manages to slot right in opposite the planet of “transformation” (in the sense of whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger) Pluto, at right-angles to the planet of the big chill, Saturn and I-want-to-break-free Uranus.

It’s as if they are all having a shouting match and we, little people, are stuck in the middle.
But you know this already. If you haven’t experienced something coming to an abrupt halt in your life this month, then surely people around you have. (I have a friend whose long period of unemployment came to a stop on the mid-June eclipse – thank goodness.)
Some of us have been counting our lucky stars as we watch death, divorce and bad temper take their toll. If you’re solvent, sane and healthy – count your blessings. If you’re beloved too – then please stop complaining; a lot of people today are having some serious problems.
This month I want to focus on alleviation in the horoscopes. These are tough times and all of us need all the help we can get, so I’m hunting for the silver lining, because the storm clouds are overhead.

The trine on the 7th between Jupiter in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn gives a clue about what all of us should be doing: getting right down to the practical basics.

Click here to find out how your sign can take advantage of the bumpy zeitgeist.