Matters Topical & Sidereal ...

Long time no blog! - all down to the current crop of winter viruses (viri?...) and our old friend Saturn who is being more than usually attentive. Even raw garlic didn't work this time! Lo, tropical Pluto is now stomping along in his sign, too, so every one of us is entitled to our fair share of the prevailing Yuk.
Capricorn symptoms are beginning to show - today I learned of a new perk for underpaid office staff: UpTitling! In other words, if galloping recession erodes any chance of a pay rise, you may compensate yourself by assuming a posh and complicated new identity in the workplace such as Non-Executive Head of Temporary Finance Allocation or Director-in-Chief of Minor Stationery Enhancement. Just watch the rush up Snob Hill!
Also - more pleasantly - the Slow Food movement is (paradoxically) gathering pace, and a mood for fuzzy appointment-keeping. After the last frenetic 16 years of unbridled Jupiter-culture where every behavioural or conceptual negative was subverted to a positive with disastrous results, the globe really will get a chance to chill out and re-set its moral compass. The pendulum really is swinging at last; there is a prevalent yearning for a slower, quieter, steadier way of life within secure frameworks and with more realistic goals. We will learn to cut our collective coat according to our cloth.

The Passionate Prince

One person working as hard as ever to improve the quality of life not only of us here in the UK but all over the place, is our Passionate Prince - Charles, Prince of Wales.

The recent BBC documentary was very interesting and quite intimate - above all it illustrated for me yet again the importance of applying Sidereal charting to public figures. Yes, all the passion in his heart and the hunger for regeneration belong to his tropical Scorpio nature, and this drives him on ... but his role, the objects of his obsession, his principles are all shown elsewhere. Over and over again he stressed the importance of bringing beauty back into people's lives, the importance of balance - "It all comes back to balance." Here is the voice of the Libran Sun which is his at not just one but two levels, the Draconic (principles) and the Sidereal (role.) Instead of tropical Leo rising (conjoined by Reflex Sun and Chiron, branding him consciously a maverick Prince) there is Cancer moving him to actively care for the people whose world he can help to change. This caring nature goes very deep - in the Dwad Cancer is the sign of the Sun, sextile Uranus and trine Jupiter, constantly thinking of new ways to enhance environment and society. However this late Cancer Sun is squared by an opposition of Moon and Saturn across early Taurus-Scorpio marking his constant awareness of being son of the Queen and the unavoidable frustrations, present and future, inherent in that position. Mercury in Capricorn in the 4th pinpoints his preoccupation with the Built Environment; Chiron on the Ascendant again - the environmentalist and mentor - ensures that he will always, in his mind, be his own man.

The KleeneX Factor!

Topping the Christmas chart this year is (as planned no doubt by the musical movers and shakers) the winner of X Factor 2008. I don't usually watch this as it involves, to my untutored ear, much caterwauling; but this year I made the effort and was astonished at the quantity and liquidity of high-profile blubbing that went on at every personal set-back and every triumph, irrespective of gender!
Much of it centred on mentor Cheryl Cole, whose capacity for empathy set off fountains of self-pity and gushing gratitude from the stage; and ah, yes, a fruitful rummage in Wikipedia revealed a birthdate of June 30th 1983 - Sun Cancer trine Moon in Pisces nearly all day! Chief blubber was the eventual winner - now Hallelujah-ing in an unexpected duet/duel at pop-chart numbers 1 and 2 - Alexandra Burke. This is surprising in a Earth girl born 25th August 1988 under a Virgo Sun and a Capriquarian Moon ... but if you wind that Moon back to late Capricorn where T Jupiter was heading, at 1h10 am, she gets Sun at the IC and Cheryl's degree of Cancer rising right opposite a setting Neptune! I wonder...

What I really wanted to point out though was that as soon as she turned off the tap and started singing she turned into the Diva. And Divas are Solar. And underprivileged Virgoan Alexandra, stepping into her chosen, desperately desired role, is a Sidereal LEO.

Dragon Doodling

Let's top this off with some astrological froth! I love messing about with words, anagrams are great fun, and lately instead of counting sheep I've been rearranging some favourite phrases. Here are two of them.

First, Dragons Head -
- from which we get: Grand Shoe Ad, So Had Danger, Hard Aged Son, Rash Aged Don, Shaded Organ, Ah! Dread Song! and best of all, And Hears God! There are probably more.

Next (logically), Dragons Tail -
- which kept me awake for hours instead of sending me to sleep, because they just kept on coming! - Dagon's Trial (how apt!), Lasting Road (of course), In Gods Altar, Doing Altars, God Ra Last In, Last Adoring, Star Loading, Into Lad Rags, A Nod At Girls, I Roast Gland, ...Or Its A Gland..., Gloria Strand (are you out there, Gloria?), Altos In Drag (that would be our lot), Storing Lada (that would be the Top Gear Garage...), Glad On Stair, Aldo Staring, Roasting Lad, Rt. Diagonals, O Glad Strain! (please note the opposite of Ah, Dread Song!), A Lads Trigon, Grit On Salad (very S.Node!), Anodal Grist, Gain Old Star, In a Gold Star, Do a Starling, Trigonal Ads, Daring Altos, Gonad Trials, Atonal Grids, Dr. I Sang A Lot!, I Stand Largo, Load A String, Gads On Trail, Old Gas Train, ...As To Darling ..., Goats In Lard (the mind boggles!), Saint Or Glad, L.A. Trains Dog, Darts In Gaol, Also Trading, Losing A Dart, Lost Again, Dr.!, Ada Lost Ring, I Lost A Grand (even more S.Node!!!), I A Strong Lad, A Strong Dial, Dial Art Song, Land Gas Riot, So Garland It! Stain Old Rag, and for the Welsh-speaking Draconic astrologer, Tal Draig Nos! which means ginormous night dragon.

Email me your own anagram favourites!

VISIONS

(A note on this post: this is my third attempt to post successfully with charts included in the text. If the old one is still posted below this, I apologise - I am hoping I have removed it! The space between text and charts may be variable. Pam.)

I am looking at the most beautiful face. I could look into these eyes for an eternity and it would be rest to my soul. The first time I saw him, he was waiting for me in a caravan, and I was astonished at the meeting; his hair was short, darkish and quite curly, and the eyes were all love, laughter and joy. Desperate to remember, I woke up. No effort with a pencil on my part could do justice to the face of this re-embodied Jesus.

But here he is, as if my computer screen were a window and his gaze would melt the glass. He has been brought to life in a painting called 'The Prince of Peace' made in 2003 by a then eight-year-old girl from Illinois, who in visions from the age of four has been painting at the request of God. She has painted Mary, too, and captured the ineffable sweetness that invaded my soul in Lourdes.

Her name is Akiane Kramarik, and a visit to her official website ( www.artakiane.com ) told me that she was born (to non-relligious parents) on July 9th 1994 in Mount Morris, Illinois. My first chart for her is a Q-chart (not having any birth time) set for 4 am, which is the time she habitually starts work on the day's painting. At this time, Venus is at the IC and her Mercury rises! The Moon is just past New, in Cancer; her Sun is in the exaltation of joyous Jupiter, and these happy Lights are most powerfully configured with all three outer, spiritual planets - opposite the conjunction of Uranus/Neptune, and trine Pluto with the Moon's Ascending Node. Her extraordinary creative gift is clear from an immensely strong 5th harmonic - Mercury biquintile Pluto and tredecile Saturn, Leo Venus biquintile the Uranus/Neptune conjunction and decile the Sun. Not only is her output prodigious - she is very, very shiny!

How did I find her? After a restless night, once the seagulls woke up this morning I gave up trying to sleep and settled down to watch a video taped 11 days ago. It was a programme screened by ITV at 9 pm on August 18th, its title 'Superhuman: Genius', and it began with Akiane. By 7h30 I was down in the study and online to her website to find out as much as I could about the blonde little girl who was born in the year I went to Jerusalem and took my first small booklet on the Birth of Jesus to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. From that website, this wonderful face will meet you.

It is when you enter the dwad chart, leaving the material for the conscious self, that the real magic happens. At work time, 4 am, Pluto and the IC meet; a transformation is taking place. The steady flow of her inspired and guided work is guaranteed by the 'kite' formed by the trines of Mercury and Neptune to Sun and saturn opposed across the Monn's Nodal axis.

The second chart for Akiane is her Q chart with Jesus (born 7th May, 5BC), set for his time of 18h43m55s and zone -2:20:48, at her birth location. First of all, it gives her a 10th-house stellium, and his work has become her vocation. But look what happens when the dwad is added! Neptune/IC comes to her Ascendant, Jupiter sets, Ascendant meets her Mercury, and of course that Capricorn/Cancer Sun/Saturn opposition straddles the nodes from South to North in the dwad chart as we have already seen, collecting her Uranus/Neptune and the late Cancer Moon into a spiritually, karmically intense 'full moon'. Dwad Moon/Mercury is conjunct her radix South Node. This whole picture is of a sacrificial soul on a lonely and focussed path, bound to Christ and her destiny, and totally tuned to the Voice which guides her all the way.

A third chart was necessary, too; the Q-chart of Akiane with Mary (born 4th August 24 BC), thus in her zone -2:21:12, at her time, 12h49m21s. Again it is stunning. Her Cancer New Moon rises with dwad Mars to energise her; again Neptune and Jupiter are angular, dwad Neptune on radix IC and a dwad conjunction of Jupiter and Midheaven. In the dwad, Venus sets with Ceres; and her dwad Sun/South Node meets radix Uranus/Neptune again on that same 'full moon' axis as before. Across those two powerful horizons Akiane relates directly to all the sweetness and motherliness of Our Lady, taking from her encouragement and strength in the Mars and Jupiter.

As for the Composites, they left me momentarily speechless. Akiane/Jesus has Pluto on Asc, a trio of Chiron/Sun/Mercury in Gemini opposite Neptune, and the MC conjunct Venus and the South Moon's node. This is an old, old love bearing fruit in the present, a powerfully spiritual relationship centred on inspired teaching.
The past becomes present with Mary, too; the Sun and Venus go to the South Node (so close to Akiane's Moon!); Saturn (and maybe Ceres? - I have no idea if it is accurate for births BC) conjoins the MC to discipline and guide, and the trio of Mercury/Moon/Mars in Leo on Our Lady's Sun/Pluto burns with creative dialogue. In both these Composites there are hardly any stresses; the aspects are sweet.

And of course the chart for the programme is no less expressive. Here I have put the dwad at the centre of the biwheel - to show you that the Prince of Peace is indeed present. Because the dwad has the conjunction of Sun and Jupiter setting, just as Jesus does at his Nativity ... and they are still together, and still on the horizon, in his dwad. Akiane herself is shown in the sensitive, painterly trio of dwad Moon/MC/Neptune, as well as the radix pattern where the Pisces Moon has just risen conjunct Uranus and still opposite the 6th-house Mercury/Venus. Pluto is radically on the MC: Akiane and the other four people in this study are all exceptional people. But she has chosen the most exceptional life of all.