We can see here that the path from Pluto – base compulsion – to the Sun – true solar consciousness, is interspersed by various levels or stages of self-awareness. Perhaps we should say, rather than levels, that what we are looking at here are the gradations of self-awareness, from none, to a completion, wherein the completion contains no compulsion at all. Mercury and Uranus are the only planets which are ‘difficult’ to place and I am uncertain as to why this should be so at this time.

In any case, it is possible to deduce that the progress of the soul is dependent upon a series of enlightenments, each progressively more conscious and progressively less compulsive than its predecessor. It’s interesting too that we talk about the transformation of Pluto, because this is in fact only the first transformation, and it therefore becomes the benchmark or mould for all transformation, which is why we learn the principle associated with the Crucible of Hades before we learn anything else. Once we understand this, in principle, we can apply the Plutonic energy to higher and higher paradigms of human consciousness. So while we begin with a Plutonic transformation, the seed transformation of base compulsion, we are only beginning the spiritual journey at this time and we have much work to do. The Plutonic transformation requires that we master our compulsions and immediately we have done that we are in the field for learning the Orcan paradigm. Let us call that integrity. For most people, integrity is just a word that is interchangeable with a phrase: let us call that phrase “the appearance of integrity”. I will not say too much on that because I have written a book on it and I don’t want to spoil the “plot”. Once we have mastered Orcus, we are into the various archetypes of human life and on we go.

So, the first important question must be: why do most people not understand what integrity means? I estimate 85% of all people alive today do not understand what integrity is, although they assume they do. This is because they have no soul. That is not to say that their soul is missing, everyone has a soul, but the majority have no access to it. It is too oppressed by ego. They effectively do not understand that they exist and instead believe that are acting under their own volition in all things. But they cannot see the puppetmaster, the ego, pulling the strings in the shadows. Once you are able to accept the simple truth that you cannot control anything in the entire Universe other than yourself, you have begun to transform Pluto. Then, when you have actually stopped trying to control anyone or anything else, you have done it.

Is that not incredibly simple? It is the easiest thing in the world to do, but nobody is very keen to do it. We can make it even simpler than that. If you’re serious about waking up, if you’re serious about wanting to be happy, if you are totally, starkly and unconditionally committed to becoming a truly spiritual being then you only have to do one thing, and it’s so incredibly easy that you can start today and have mastered it by tomorrow. Here it is:

Stop playing games.

Well, it sounds easy doesn’t it? The only obstacle to this objective is that most people believe that they are not playing games; they believe that the game is life, not that the game is what is preventing them from living their life. They think that without the game, they would not have anything, that it would all be taken away and they would be destitute, homeless, unloved. They worry. You probably believe that everyone worries, about everything, all the time, but it isn’t so. Only people that play games worry, because the game is a worrying game. When you stop playing, the worry fades and very soon, you have no worries. It is really tough for people to get it, because they are always concerning themselves with the game, and especially with the other players. This is because the ego is the gameplayer, and you are therefore competing with other gameplayers to win. But the great trick is, that since there is no game – it’s just a goad that the ego uses, your anxiety about losing something to keep you hooked on playing – there is nothing to win, or to lose.

Once you realise that the game is meaningless, you can stop playing, you can develop material integrity (the precept of taking nothing that is not freely given) and that in itself is liberating, then you can work through Saturn, that materialism is only another part of the game, and on you go.

So why is Chiron there, on the threshold of self-realisation? This is the Chirotic Awakening and as you can see, it is a fairly advanced stage of human consciousness. Individually speaking, the clue will be in your Chiron placement, so if you have Chiron in Aries and the 1st house then you will know that the one thing you cannot easily do is interact. When you do, you are prone to feeling irrelevant, talked over, talked down. People with this placement (I watch them) do one of two things: they either fade awkwardly into silence and allow themselves to be sidelined in an exchange, or they push too hard, force their statements out and create tension. Either way, they end up feeling awkward and self-conscious. At the point of the Chirotic Awakening, they quickly come to understand that all along, they had no need to be heard. That nobody has anything to say. Most of all, people with this Chiron, upon awakening, realise the truth of the maxim that while speech might be silver, silence is certainly golden.

Does it detract anything from you if nobody listens to you? Of course not, although it will be very damaging to your ego. Then you are into the game again. It is for this reason that Chiron is the point of true self-realisation, because our most vulnerable nature is the final and most compelling trigger to the avoidance of nothingness. Nobody wants to be nobody, right? That is true enough, at least until you reach the threshold of self-realisation, because then you realise that everybody is nobody, and nobody is all we ever can be. In truth, nobody is all we ever were, and having got past that, we become free to be exactly who we are!

Then you stop worrying and move increasingly into present time. Now you’re happy and life simply unfolds, without your having to do anything, not even having to express a view, a reservation, because you know that you cannot change anything anyway.

There is no game, so why play?

So, if there is drama in your life, a big hoo-har about this or that and a great deal of excitement, particularly where there is condemnation, mocking or contest, then chances are, Pluto is pulling the strings somewhere in the situation.

Another important insight lies in the fact that Pluto is an octave of Mars (I hesitate to say ‘higher’ perhaps we should say a more subtle octave), so while he may not manifest in direct, overt expressions of anger, he has the same agenda; he is pushing to get things working how he wants. Passive and covert aggression are therefore invariably signs that Pluto is in the mix. The classic Plutonian power struggle therefore becomes quite easy to spot when you understand all of these factors. Typically, the symptoms of Pluto in the driving seat are very clear once you’re familiar with them:

• A grimy, uncomfortable, edgy feeling in the air. If you zone in on it, you’ll realise that it is hitting you in the solar plexus chakra. You may have digestive ‘issues’ as a result. One common (and suitably Plutonic) feature of being unconsciously ‘violated’ by a Plutonian therefore manifests through a need to rush to the loo after the drama is over. You’ll note that you only need to think about certain people to cause an upset feeling in your solar plexus. Those people are Plutonic and toxic and they invade your subtle body with casual disregard. Plutonians are entitled.
• Plutonic people dehumanise. This can be as simple as calling the opponent a loser, a thief, a liar, through to something more extreme, like vermin, parasites, scum etc. This is all Plutonic language, and is designed to make the opponent appear less than human. A dehumanised person is much easier to target, isolate and annihilate than an equal. Plutonians thrive on dehumanising tactics, so if they can make you appear to be beneath respect they will. They will intimate that you’re dangerous, mentally ill or deranged, evil, abusive or dishonest. In this way, others will automatically begin to treat you contemptuously which serves the controller’s agenda.
• Inappropriate relationships. Healthy relationships should be based on love, trust and mutual respect. If you are involved in, or witness to, a relationship that does not have those features, then chances are, it’s a Plutonic relationship. Relationships without these features usually form out of mutual self-interest, and serve agendas rather than love. Once you see that the relationship isn’t based on love, it’s quite straightforward to deduce which agenda is being served.
• Covert evaluation. You will  note that when you come into contact with a negative Plutonian, while they might be all smiles, you come away from the exchange feeling somehow judged, evaluated or doubtful about yourself in some way. You might feel angry or resentful without really being able to say why. This is achieved through the Plutonian’s subtle, hard to spot evaluations. For example, if you’re a parent and you value yourself as a competent Mum or Dad, the Plutonian will accost you and wax lyrical about somebody else who is (self-evidently) half the parent you are, while not mentioning your dedication to your children. If you get riled, you’ll just look churlish and self-centred! Neat huh? Welcome to the ‘whatever you do, you lose’ world-rules of Pluto.
• The smear campaign. When the power struggle has escalated, the Plutonian always resorts to a smear campaign. This is like a big flashing beacon for Pluto issues. The Plutonian won’t say anything to your face, but they’ll be undermining you for all they’re worth behind your back, with anyone who’ll listen (and most people love a bit of gossip, right?). Usually they’ll take something with a grain of truth and omit or distort facts to make you look guilty. So, for example, if you had an argument with your partner and they were upset and hurt, they’ll tell people that you’re ‘emotionally abusive’ in your relationship – after all, they know that your partner was upset on that occasion, so they’re not really lying. Or, if somebody else tells them something about you that isn’t true, even if they know it isn’t true, they’ll repeat it,  because they didn’t originate the rumour and they’re not therefore responsible for it. It allows them to tell lies about you, without being responsible for formulating the lie.
• Resource control. Plutonians take control of the resources, it’s a kind of scorched earth policy in relationships. This means that all the things that sustain you; material, emotional, whatever, are procured by the Plutonian in order to leave you isolated and vulnerable. If the Plutonian can destroy your support network, then you’re a very easy target, and this is the major reason why they form inappropriate relationships. The Plutonians in your life will suddenly become bosom-buddies with somebody that they have nothing in common with, and never cared a fig for before the power struggle started just to deny you the relationship and to leave you without support. They may keep your possessions too, using the smallest expedience to rationalise their theft into something more ambiguous. This latter is especially relevant in relationship breakdown, where items are ‘jointly’ owned: if there’s a remotely ‘grey’ area about ownership, you’ve lost it!

If you challenge the Plutonian though, they’ll always have a great excuse for their manipulative and underhanded actions. Usually they’re only trying to either ‘stand up for what’s right’, to ‘protect some poor soul who is the victim of you,’ (especially ‘the children’, Plutonians are always doing things to protect the children: by associating their cause with the innocent and vulnerable, their motives become unquestionable: ‘why are you questioning me, do you want the children to be miserable/abused/oppressed etc?) or they’re simply being ‘normal and responsible’ (thus implying that by disagreeing with them you’re being abnormal and irresponsible).

So, using this checklist, it’s easy to spot the Plutonian at work. Of course, they don’t start this way, usually they’ll saunter casually into your life, and all might be well, until you press the right (wrong) button. I see this frequently with Plutonians who are usually very easy-going while you’re behaving in the way that they want. Then you do something that isn’t on their list of tolerated behaviours and suddenly you’re in the power struggle. Once the button’s pressed though, there’s no switching it off again. The compulsive Plutonian will just go on, poisoning everybody and everything in your life until you’re thoroughly sick: often quite literally.

What’s the solution to these Plutonic types? Simple. Run away.

That’s right. Don’t engage, don’t try and get your point of view across, don’t negotiate, don’t reason, don’t capitulate. If you give an inch to the Plutonian, he or she will only deduce that you’re controllable and press their covert agenda all the harder. They are like Plutonium, quite literally; if you are in their proximity for any time at all, they will make you sick and eventually they will kill you. It is, unfortunately, that serious.

Now finally, what if you are evincing these behaviours? I would be surprised if you knew that you were, because subjectivity is a giant obstacle to surmount, but it’s possible (usually after the struggle is done) to understand retrospectively that you have behaved in this sort of way, and been, if you like, the unwitting puppet of your own Pluto. The key is to learn from the experience and to keep a very tight leash on your future conduct. Indeed, try to follow the anti-Pluto checklist:

• If your stomach feels uncomfortable in a situation, try to step back and get some perspective. Ask yourself: “what’s really going on here?”
• Don’t dehumanise, sneer at, mock or denigrate other human beings. It is okay to complain about bad treatment, therefore it’s okay to call out bad behaviour, but it’s not okay to draw conclusions about a person’s character or motives on the basis of it. Therefore you can say that you’re hurt because you feel that somebody deceived you, but it’s not okay to accuse them of being a habitual liar or a fraudster, most especially not to a third party.
• Don’t maintain inappropriate relationships. If somebody you’re associated with makes you feel uncomfortable, drop them. At least minimise your association until you can work out the obstacles to enjoying an authentic and loving connection instead.
• Be very careful what you say to people and examine your motives for saying it. If it’s not kind and uplifting to that person, then it’s probably best to keep your mouth shut. This is especially true in the matter of offering unsolicited advice. By all means express your view if somebody asks for it, and it’s fine to state your position with somebody who is trying to blame, accuse or manipulate you, but you should try to avoid giving even well-meaning advice to others if they haven’t expressly asked you for it.
• Don’t gossip. I have a Buddhist friend who follows a rule of never talking about anyone unless they are physically present during the conversation. It makes it almost impossible for him to get involved in a smear campaign, even if he was compulsively motivated to do so.
• If something isn’t 100% unequivocally yours, don’t take it. Even if you think it should be yours, make your case for it, don’t just assume you have the right. If you follow this simple rule (that is, the Buddhist precept to take nothing that is not freely given), then you cannot go wrong.

Following these rules is not just a moral choice, it is important for the sake of your mental, emotional and physical health that you do so. Remember the tenets of medical astrology: all disease begins in the mind with your thoughts. Your thoughts upset your emotions, and your upset emotions make your body sick, especially in the areas ruled by the corresponding elements. Thus Plutonic people are especially prone to cancers, problems with the elimination system and the reproductive organs. They can also cause these symptoms in others who they target with their control agendas, so this makes it doubly important that you avoid the Plutonians in your life. It’s remarkable the number of clients I’ve had who have suffered from chronic digestive complaints (like for example IBS), who have experienced a complete cure when they finally managed to get rid of the compulsive control-freaks in their lives.

Last, it’s important to remember that in order to live spiritually, you have to live and let live and be respectful of other people’s life choices, even if you don’t agree with them. I find that it helps immensely to follow the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated yourself, Pluto doesn’t have much room to manoeuvre once you adopt this simple maxim.

May you live in interesting times! This is an old Chinese curse, although some mistakenly attribute it a blessing. Interesting times are of course, times of change, times of upheaval, times where the old and sedate ways of the world are undergoing transformation. They are, quite simply, Uranus-Pluto times. We live in such times.

As a standard-bearer for the Uranus-Pluto in Virgo generation of the late 1960s, I am under no illusions about what it might mean. It means that now, as Pluto squares Uranus for the first time since Hitler rose to the office of Chancellor – indeed, he was sworn into that sacred office exactly at the critical median pass of the Uranus-Pluto squares of the 1930s – we are likely to experience interesting times ahead. Every grating clash of these distant behemoths tells a similar story, whether it be the Norman conquest of the 11th Century, the Black Death in Europe, or indeed the rise of Fascism, these contacts, in the 4th harmonic at least, seem to encapsulate a time of darkness. The greatest pressure will fall therefore on those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s who have been serving their apprenticeship in handling these vast and unstable cosmic energies and whose lives to date have involved a remarkable training in uncertainty principles!

We all crave a life characterised by stability, by predictability, by safety, but the Uranus – Pluto adepts of the 60s are the generation that safety forgot. They have found themselves assuming the helm of a society that looks ahead and can see only darkness, and all the predictions are gloomy, shadows beset every horizon and we can take nothing for granted. To be born between 1963 and 1971 is in many ways a curse, but there is little point in feeling cursed, you were born to be forged in the crucible of Hades and remade through the power of uncertainty, into a magician. As I speak, people write to me and tell me how they are waking up to a new reality, and how the old reality is not so much redundant as it is laughable. Of course a few people write to me and tell me that I’m an idiot too, but that’s normal. If you believe it, then it’s true, right?

So, we were not born to be safe, we were born to handle it. Some of us are still struggling with the injustice of having to handle it, but there we are. All unhappiness stems from not wanting what is, and that means that one only has to choose to be happy. It’s the work of a moment to be happy, not a lifetime. But if you’re unhappy then it’s because somebody out there thinks you deserve to be, and you believe them. That doesn’t mean that you have to endure narcissists and bullies, only that you can choose not to believe in them, and then they can’t stop you being happy any longer. Uranus – Pluto: sudden insight into the source of the control issues in your life.

So, there’s no point feeling hard done by, or worrying about impending doom. The worst that can happen to you is that you’ll die, and that’s no big deal. If you’re a magician it’s your work to change reality, to change the world through the medium of magical intention. What’s stopping you? I know what’s stopping you, it’s all the haters, the mockers, the sneering hordes, the people who tell you that you’re a fool and that you’re never going to amount to a thing. So what does it matter if you don’t, so long as you operate from a place of spiritual intention and integrity.

Nothing else matters.

If you can accept that, then you’re in a good position, because any day now, you are going to be able to step it up. It’s not easy to do this work because the ego gets in the way – not just your ego either – and you have to stay on course. People with spiritual intentions always appear to be simpletons to people without them.

On October 28th we enter the Age of the Fifth Sun. There’s some argument around the exact date of course, but there always is, it’s only those people who think that you’re an idiot who care about the ‘exact’ date. It’s close enough. The Age of the 5th Sun is accelerating the frequency of human consciousness, but it only works on those who have adopted spiritual integrity. Spiritual integrity is a meaningless concept, of course, to those that don’t have it. Imagine that it’s like getting an upgrade on your TV to high-definition: it doesn’t make any difference to the blind.

It’s difficult to talk about astrology in this context because we’re talking about Galactic astrology, not Solar. The Galactic Centre is just one piece of the puzzle. Did you know that William Lilly believed that the Moon could never go void of course in Sagittarius, but he could never understand why? I think that with precession, the GC is about to move into 27 Sagittarius, a critical degree, trining the astrologer’s degree at 27 Leo. Last night I dreamt that 10 Capricorn was an all-important degree too, that it had weight and I felt it that way. Like one of those Einsteinian models of space-time where a weight is placed upon a rubber sheet, distorting the continuum. I have not made an investigation of that yet.

Uranus-Pluto concepts are ‘out-there’ in all the myriad understandings of that phrase, and the magical act herein is to personalise that weird and dangerous energy; to bring it into the personal sphere. That process is begun by no longer being at the mercy of the energy; the instability of your life is not your fault, but neither should you feel like the victim of it (and chances are you have the Neptune-Pluto sextile in the mix too). In which area of your life, your chart are you having to take control of the instabilities of your life? Where are you required to communicate the falsity of the  myths that have grown up around your reality. The time has come to break them apart, to break free, to challenge the shadow that threatens your world. As the forces of evil, narcissists and haters all, attempt to smother your truth and humiliate you into silence (negative Plutonians always peddle judgment and humiliation) be like the sky, rise above it all and let your truth shine.

You’re rare and remarkable and you have earned the right to be you.

The episode lasts for 45 minutes, and if you wish to download the file to listen to elsewhere, then you can find it here (45mb).

I’ve also compressed the file somewhat, without hopefully compromising the quality. The discussion lasts for 42 minutes and the file is 38mb in size.

As ever, if you would rather download the file so that you can listen while you’re in your car, going for a run, or rounding Cape Horn in your bathtub, then you can find it here…

Please do feel free to join the discussion on Facebook.

Once again, if you wish to download the source file then you can do so right here. The episode lasts 41 minutes.

For the first discussion, I recorded the material while out walking Juno. I had no material prepared, and the sound quality was perhaps less than optimum because of the blustery weather and the fact that I was walking at the time. I am excited by the possibility of recording a more considered discussion in future rather than this completely off-the-cuff ramble!

If you would prefer to download the audio file so that you can listen to it elsewhere, then please download the MP3 directly. Remember that you can join the discussion directly via Facebook.

Of course, the writing of a work such as this has altered my priorities a great deal. I have struggled especially to keep up with correspondence (an occupational hazard at the best of times for a professional astrologer), and this journal has suffered most of all. I look forward to the day (in the not too distant future) when the book is published and I can get back to writing articles on this journal with greater regularity.

In order to minimise some of the fallout from the change in priorities I have created a Facebook page for this journal where I will be writing daily updates and insights and I hope to be able to communicate more directly with everyone. I would be delighted to see you there.

Hermeneutics is the study of spiritual thought, usually through literature, as an integral facet of the search for meaning. We all search for meaning, although we invariably look for it in different places: for some our car gives life meaning, for others their job does the trick and for a few, meaning is found within a spiritual, rather than a material context. All meaning is subjective; reality for you cannot be the same as reality for me, because we each interpret experience according to our own unique perspectives, which means, very simply, that nobody is wrong.

It took me many years to work this out. When the realisation finally broke upon my consciousness, very recently in fact, it was both liberating and shocking. Liberating because in releasing others from the burden of my subjective expectations, I also released myself. And shocking because I came to understand how much energy I have wasted in my life as a result. Strange (and good) things have begun to happen to me, emotionally, mentally and physiologically.

I create all resistance. If my neighbour decides to mow his lawn at 7:30 am, as he did this very morning, the problem has nothing to do with his mowing the lawn, and everything to do with my expectation that he should be more considerate on a weekend. In that situation I could respond in one of two ways: I could either apply pressure on him to mow his lawn later in the day, or I could decide not to have a problem with him mowing his lawn at 7:30 am. The problem arises of course when I have made a rule. My rule might say that ‘people should not make excessive noise on the weekend before 9 am’, and all might be well in my life provided nobody breaks my rule. In a world which contains inhabitants with a different rule: one which says people ‘should not make excessive noise on the weekend before 7:30 am’ there is the potential for conflict.

Clearly this is a rule designed to make sense of the physical world and yet its existence contains a seed of disharmony. Were I to enforce my rule then I am quite sure that relations with my neighbour would deteriorate rapidly, because, what with all experience being subjective, we would both be right: and no compromise would be reasonable for either party. If a compromise were reached it would undoubtedly feature at least a modicum of resentment.

And while that’s only a potential, it is nonetheless a potential actualising from grass-mowing.

Hermeneutics is derived from Hermes, thus Mercury and comes from the Greek hermeneuō, meaning to interpret or translate, and in keeping with Mercury, it is within the derivation of meaning from what is said, that the potential for difficulty arises. Mercury was after all a trickster as much as a communicator. What is meant has almost no bearing upon what is understood.

This is really intriguing because if we accept that all understanding is subjective then we can posit the amazing understanding that no two people can understand the same reality. Scientists will argue, but increasingly the field of quantum study suggests that the Heisenberg principle is distinctly more far-reaching than even Werner Heisenberg himself suspected. Observation alters reality at the quantum level, therefore subjectivity affects reality in the most profound manner imaginable, since observation is intrinsically subjective. Objectivity is bunkum.

Therefore, hermeneutic results are only good for the one engaged in the study. So, I study my life in a spiritual context to elicit meaning and I can share that experience. Indeed, it is what I do every day in conversation, correspondence and in my work, and that is all to the good. Problems can only arise therefore when I create rules. Rules which are absolutely accurate and valid for me cannot, for quantum reasons, be accurate and valid for anybody else, and this applies to grass-mowing as much as to spiritual context. Objectivity is rule-making and therefore senseless.

Okay, so you can argue. You might say that surely it’s objectively correct that you should never physically assault another person. Here there is a confusion of content with context, which is the classic flaw of objectivity. The content (assaulting others) is only inappropriate in context: (e.g. while shopping for groceries). In another context assaulting somebody may be entirely appropriate (if they are threatening to kill your children for example). The realisation therefore is that objectivity cannot exist and this is true for everything of course.

Every problem in the world would resolve itself overnight if everybody realised this truth.

Hermeneutics, which found its natural home among countless Catholic scholars from the Middle Ages on, and to this day informs fundamentalists and moderates alike of various faiths, is enormously limiting to social harmony. If all interpretation is subjective, then interpreting objective truth is a failure of perspective, even if subjectively the interpreter cannot be wrong. Religion is the transformation of subjective spiritual truth into objective rules. While there may be a consensus among scholars, the law of attraction ensures that those of a like-mind collaborate, minimising the need for compromise. If my neighbour believed that mowing the lawn should never happen before 9 am, our conflict potential would be greatly minimised.

So where’s the problem? The same insight applies in reverse. There ought to be no problem with religion, since if that’s what a person chooses to believe then that’s only their reality, right? The problem with religion is that it seeks to quarantine personal hermeneutics and exalt one person’s interpretation over another’s. The priest who proclaims God’s message is denying another human being’s freedom to subjectively interpret their reality. When we deny others the right to choose their leaders, we call it totalitarianism. Defining spiritual truth in commandments, rules or judgements – and denouncing others for not following them – is spiritual abuse. Living by them privately is your choice and how wonderful that you have interpreted spiritual truth within the context of that consensus. If that is your choice, I respect your choice, because what you believe is absolutely, marvellously, beautifully perfect.

I think one of the great uncharted territories of astrology lies in the arena of prediction. It’s probably foolhardy, as an astrologer to even try, but we all fall for it from time to time, on any map of useful astrological employments, prediction ought to be accompanied by appropriate warning: “here be dragons” or somesuch. As it happens I have discovered a very powerful means of predicting the future, but even though it is astounding, it is also, without question a little like looking at the future as though it were a narrowly possible present. It resembles a distorted image, as though the lens of viewing were dark, uncertain and dim. Very often, the image we arrive at is rather like a jigsaw puzzle before assembly; once the future falls into the present we understand what we are looking at and how all those pieces fit together, and it makes complete sense; every piece is utilised and adds to the overall picture. Where then is the use? Well, I believe that even knowing the pieces is enough to give us clues about the general tone or theme of the big picture. When I look at those jigsaw pieces and discern a bright spray of hydrangeas, patches of thatch and blue sky, and dark glints of leaded glass, I can guess that the overall picture is of an ancient English country cottage, and the same is true enough for astrology. I can predict that somebody I know will become very sick this year, that somebody I love will die next year, and that too, for many people I know, the more things change, the more they will stay the same, and I can know all of this regardless of how the reality transpires once the future is realised.

It might seem strange, but this is not illogical. The art of prediction can never be an exact science, and while to a very great extent the exactitude of the future sketch – it cannot be more than impressionistic – is dependent upon the skill of the practitioner, even the most skilled cannot ever create a precise image of days to come.

One of the reasons for this is precisely because we do not have fate. Very few aspects of human life are set in stone. It appears to be true that our lifespan is fixed, the day we are born we are fixed into a specific timescale, which can be likened to a movie before we have watched it. We can read the back cover and discern the movie’s genre and broad themes, we can take note of its running time, and perhaps we can understand some of the characters that will be involved in driving the plot, but we cannot know the plot, nor can we understand how the movie will end.

We can make some generalisations. Generally, the purpose of a human life is to raise consciousness, but unless you are committed to that goal you will not manage anything but the most meagre of gains. The great trick of the world is to make that objective antithetic to reason. The obvious statements of human society are at odds with spiritual perspectives. But that is as it should be, because spiritual progress is synonymous with struggle. Spiritual collapse is too, but that’s a story for another day, the quality of character is everything in this world. For me these are undeniable truths that make me foolish and misguided in the eyes of the many, but which leave me no alternative but to pursue this difficult path to self-realisation. Anything else is just – at best – treading water, and how better can one define time-wasting, energy-wasting? What is astrology? Is it a map of your potential or is it the blueprint of your prison? Until we understand our true nature, we are all in solitary confinement. A little like the Buddhist who understands that to reach Nirvana we have to let go of pleasure as well as pain, we can see that we have to transcend our trines as well as our oppositions and squares, and that, of course, is very much harder to do.

I love the phrase “at odds with yourself.” I find that it describes so well the great conundrum of human life, and the gift of astrology. Society creates enormous pressure to subscribe to linear reality because:

1. It’s all there is.
2. Anything else is therefore madness and,
3. This is proven by the fact that there is no evidence that anything else works, therefore it’s all there is.

It’s a neat and circular system that leaves us devoid of options. You have to believe against all common-sense that a non-linear perspective is viable and make a leap of faith. Incidentally, nobody who ever made a genuine leap of faith regretted it, not once. So there is subjective evidence that it works, but that evidence is by design, immaterial. That’s the trap of course, moving beyond the material creates a dearth of (material) evidence.

So, while your future is within your astrology, with stunning precision, every detail mapped, we cannot without hindsight put it together in perfection. The evidence for the future is immaterial. It’s easy to understand why.

Most astrologers know that Pluto is often indicative of grandmothers. Nobody really understands why unless we put together the rulers of the 4th and 5th houses. Here then we have a concepts of generations, where we put together mothers and their children. If the 4th is your mother (in the lunar correspondence) then the 5th of the 4th is your mother as somebody’s child. The 4th of the 5th is the 8th, ruled by Pluto.

If you have Mars on the descendant, squaring Saturn in the 10th then you might deduce that since the 10th is the 4th of the 7th, the placement will likely manifest through the partner’s family. Alone, the 10th is the house that concerns itself with status, the 7th house alone is the partner, so with these two planets here there will be destructive and oppressive (Ma vs Sa) in-laws who are strongly status-driven; the native will find themselves drawn toward romantic relationships with people who have ‘difficult’ families. By the same token, the 7th is the 2nd of the 6th, which suggests that one would have to work quite hard for money. Now, you might think it’s the same for everyone, after all, who doesn’t have to work hard for money, but it’s not: a well aspected and strong Jupiter in the 7th is often indicative of somebody who comes into money easily, especially through marriage (see how it all adds up?) Both realities are honoured. The 10th is the 2nd of the 9th too, so here are philosophical, religious and civic values, and money earned from them. The 10th is also the 12th of the 11th, so it represents sorrow from friends, friends that are in truth enemies (the 12th is the house of secret enemies, the 7th of open enemies), or perhaps your alcoholic or addicted friends too, as well as those friends you make ‘down the pub.’ By the same token, the 10th is the 11th of the 12th too, so it represents your spiritual aspirations, charitable groups you might belong to and medical technology. As you can see, the range of possibility is vast, and while astrology tends toward clarity, as you become more and more self-aware, you begin to close off the channels of compulsive manifestation and the Universe has to get quite creative to find new combinations of derivative houses through which to manifest unowned energy blocks into your external reality. If you work with houses in this way, you can account for everything in creation. What is your car? Is it a pure 3rd house energy: something which gets you around within your local environment, or is it a 12th house manifestation: 10th of the 3rd, a status symbol encapsulated in a vehicle: no wonder that falls in the 12th house! You’re never going to be satisfied by that are you? Not for long anyway, no surprise that’s a Neptunian energy signature, and Pisces and Neptune often seem to give a great craving for ‘dream cars’.

This myriad array of potentials of course is what makes astrology ‘theoretically’ impossible, or at best, unwieldy. Fortunately we can see how astrology gets applied using various techniques – many of which have nothing much to do with astrology – and create a retrospective form of real-world astrology that is tailored to the individual. Anyone who claims they can look at your astrology without knowing the first thing about your life and tell you they know what makes you tick is lying. They can tell you only what is more likely to make you tick. Astrology can make educated guesses and very often they’ll pay off, but not always.

I’ve discovered something new however: a process of determining what makes a human being tick. It’s remarkable, eloquent and powerfully effective, very soon I will be making that information available, once I have structured it in such a way that it can be transmitted accurately. We astrologers are always trying to balance these two opposing energies: the need for precision and operating with a usable narrowness of focus with the complexity and infinite possibility of astrology’s descriptive language. It’s extremely skilled work, and even with the evidence of a life at one’s disposal it’s difficult, so the future adds another veil over the scene that is being explored, but things change, new discoveries are made, new methods are revealed and we move confidently into a future where astrology becomes that which it is: – undeniable.