Tag: art

Magnified, Sanctified: Leonard Cohen

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A poet, a mystic, a lover, a joker — a man. Leonard Cohen, who died last week at the age of 82, wrote complexly layered lyrics, with deceptively simple tunes. His songs coil and then unwind, as images and fragments of stories twist freely into your imagination. “There is no God in Heaven And there is no Hell below So says the great professor Of all there is to know But I’ve had the invitation That a sinner can’t refuse And it’s almost like salvation It’s almost like the blues” — from Almost Like The Blues Cohen’s works are crafted like intricate jewellery, […]

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Astrology of Now: Through The Looking Glass

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As some readers of this blog may have noticed, I couldn’t bring myself to take a close look at the close of polls chart for the US election. It was just too important — and I was scared of what I might find. However, a couple of weeks ago, when I was writing your horoscopes for November, I saw something that made my heart leap into my mouth — in a manner of speaking — something which I could not ignore. It was the passage of Neptune through the South Node in Pisces this month. The image that sprang to into my mind […]

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The Autumn Equinox

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Today the Sun moves from mutable Virgo to cardinal Libra and the night is as long as the day. It’s one of the four corners of the year, when the season turns and we start our walk to the darkest day of the year. We are at one of the four Cardinal points (0° Libra), a beginning. And this year, Jupiter, for the first time in 12 years, magnifies Libra, and the things of Libra… What is more Mercury, the planet of speed and communication, turns direct today… That is something to bear in mind in the coming weeks. Happy Equinox! *This rather mysterious painting, titled […]

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Artist’s Birthday: Arthur Rackham

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They say that the best way to see fairies is slantwise, out of the corner of your eye. Twisting, twirling, pirouetting india ink, delighted detail, subtle washes of colour and something sinister: the drawings of Arthur Rackham. Fairies swirl into trees, spin into trolls, spin into wild flowers. It’s English illustrator Arthur Rackham’s 149th birthday today — or his third Chiron Return. And understanding Chiron in Pisces might be critical to understanding his work. Rackham drew the stunted, hunched, lame creatures of magic — the trolls and dwarves, giants and witches, wind-blasted hawthorns and twisted oaks — with a kind of beady zest that seemed […]

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The Wonderland Book

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Kirsty Mitchell has a magical opposition between Venus in Gemini and Neptune in Sagittarius. Her imagination, rooted in fairyland, branches out into stranger worlds. She is an artist whose brush is a camera. She is a photographer — a province of Neptune — and she photographs beauty (Venus) in extraordinary, vivid detail. The Wonderland Book, which has taken her five years to make, was created in memory of her mother, a schoolteacher, a reader, a storyteller. Mitchell is a mother-loving Cancer Sun. Her work could be sentimental as a result but not with that steely conjunction from Saturn and detailed Mercury. Cancer […]

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Thoughts on Transitory Mercury

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Mercury, messenger of the gods, will be crossing the face of the Sun in a few hours.  You’ll be able to see this from Earth — with the right equipment. This particular event is not rare — but it is unusual. It happens about 14 times per century — and it’s always in Taurus or Scorpio — two of the fixed signs, the bull and the eagle. This transit across the face of the Sun also happens within a narrow timeframe (5-14 Nov and 5-12 May). It’s a Mercury-Sun conjunction, of course, and traditionally, there’s a point at which Mercury is super-powered (cazimi) before […]

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Astrology of Now: Looking Deeper

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One of the pleasures of this retrograde period… Saturn Rx in Sagittarius, the sign of higher learning, the exotic and libraries Mars station (Rx on April 17) also in Sagittarius Mercury in shadow (Rx on April 28) in Taurus, ruled by Venus the goddess of beauty and art Jupiter Rx in Virgo, the sign of detail and craft …is the chance to take a deeper, longer look (or listen) at masterpieces of craftsmanship and art from the past. The Hieoronymous Bosch Museum in Holland has just put an interactive Garden of Earthly Delights on line, giving us a chance to […]

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Astrology of Now: Castrating Mars

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This extraordinary gory painting, possibly by Caravaggio, was found in an attic in the French city of Toulouse a couple of years ago, but not presented to the public until yesterday. It’s fascinating that it should be revealed at just this time of retrogrades, a time of retrieval — perhaps especially because of the subject matter. Mars, the sanguinary planet of blades, turns retrograde in a few days and is currently stationing in Sagittarius.   Saturn, also in Sagittarius, turned back at the end of March. So this is a time of looking back — and of publishing things that have […]

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RIP — Thornton Dial

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Wonderful, maverick, true artist Thornton Dial passed a couple of days ago at the age of 87. He had Sun in Virgo — the sign of detail and craft — Venus in Libra (artistic) conjunct Mercury. The titles of his works were important, and the works speak. Saturn was one degree past Return for him (3rd time), Jupiter had passed over his Sun and was making its way back to sweep him into the big beyond.

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