Useful astrological counselling articles

To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear-Stephen Levine.   Tonight, a full-bellied Supermoon dusts the sky with silver. You may notice that she nudges protectively close to her sister earth and that her light appears brighter, her face, larger than usual. The Moon is in Scorpio tonight, and Scorpio has long been... [read more]

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions, he had money as well-Margaret Thatcher.   Money, digital currencies, bright shiny skyscrapers, land- wild, or tamed by industrial farming-are yoked to neck of The Bull.   As the Sun enters Taurus this month, this thing we call “money” calls our attention to what we value, to... [read more]

Be Brave—New Moon in Aries— April 12th.   Courage is found in unlikely places - J.R.R. Tolkien.   There are many ways to be brave in this world. That act of will that gets us out of bed, the strength to put the kettle on, when all the colour has faded out of the world we once knew. The courage... [read more]

  No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for 'we' are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives— Louise Hay.   In the metaphorical language of astrology, the Libran part of our own birth chart will be illuminated... [read more]

If your nerve deny you, go above your nerve—Emily Dickinson.   The days stretch long in the north. In the south, autumn’s honeyed light spills over sun-bleached grasses. On March 20th, the Sun slips into Aries, marking the spring or autumn Equinox. The start of the astrological new year.   Aries is associated with vibrant reds; with the purifying heat... [read more]

  The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever - May Sarton.   This New Moon embodies a Piscean weariness as she folds in on herself and rests in the velvety lap of the night... [read more]

So, this is how you swim inward. So, this is how you flow outwards. So, this is how you pray - Mary Oliver. For so many of us, the routines and rituals that swaddled and sustained us last March have begun to feel stifling. Some of us may dream of golden beaches, yearn for the crowded conviviality... [read more]

  The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest - Thomas Moore.   A restrained Full moon reflects the subtle changes we may feel in our bodies as we approach the Vernal Equinox on March 21st. Perhaps we’re tossing the clutter, sorting through, stowing away those... [read more]

Love is fearlessness in the midst of the sea of fear—Jalaluddin Rumi As cloyingly sentimental or overtly commercial as this celebration may seem, Valentine’s Day has survived world wars and financial crashes. It has evolved from rumbustious fertility ritual origins enacted by the Romans, emerged from the gruesome torture and execution of men we now call saints... [read more]

  For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice - T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets.     It may be a call from a dear friend today that brings comfort and joy, a conversation with family member or work colleague that mirrors our own impatience or anger; a sense of simpatico as we share... [read more]

  No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit— Helen Keller.   Gratitude is the homeopathic remedy for the heart and today as we look up at the stars; dream of sailing to an uncharted land…allow our spirit to soar…   Tonight’s Full Leo Moon... [read more]

The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what has passed away Or what is yet to be—Leonard Cohen In these fallow times, as we burrow down in the quiet containment of our ordinary lives, hesitant to trust the torrent of news that so often enters our... [read more]

There are years that ask questions and years that answer—Zora Neale Hurston.   The dark residue of 2020 is highlighted today by the New Moon in Capricorn. News of the turnaround on the stay of execution of Lisa Montgomery this morning is a grim reminder of a system rooted in retributive “justice”; the old code of human law—an... [read more]

  To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of Fate is strength undefeatable—Helen Keller   This is the year of reversals. Centrifugal forces tug at our priorities, upend our plans, propel us towards changing what feels too rigid or too obsolete.   The astrological autograph is imbued with a tincture of unpredictability and intensity.... [read more]

  Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards—Søren Aabye Kierkegaard   This is the last Full Moon of 2020, a year that has been so arduous and painful for so many of us. We may be clinging to a raft in an ocean of grief. We may be sitting with the familiar ache of... [read more]

The future of humanity and indeed all life on earth depends on us—Sir David Attenborough   The weary Sun lies low on the horizon and pauses at the mid-winter Solstice. The lights of Christmas sparkle in the windows and a cold wind rasps across empty streets. Many people will be at home alone this Christmas. Here in the... [read more]

Dark of the Moon—Sagittarius Solar Eclipse—December 14th.   Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us—Sir David Attenborough.   For most of us, this has... [read more]

    Tonight, the shadow of our Earth sweeps across the face of the Moon in Gemini. Imagine how our ancestors would have observed the Moon growing darker, redder, or paling into blue, depending on the amount of dust in our atmosphere—a sign from the Heavens?   Modern astrologers tend to agree that eclipses are wild cards, and the effects... [read more]

This is the month of Thanksgiving. For counting our blessings. For celebrating just how brave and how resilient we have been this year, for grieving all those who have suffered, all those who have died in this difficult year. The Sun blazes confidently through Sagittarius this month. As this annus horribilis comes to an end, we may... [read more]

  Healing begins where the wound was made—Alice Walker   “Endings seem to lie in wait” wrote mystic and poet, John O’Donohue who died so suddenly as he slept in the January of 2008.   The Moon is wrapped in darkness this weekend. Collectively, perhaps personally, we’re at a time of ending. We’re in the gap between the equinox and the... [read more]

  America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows what colour we will be? It is all something that, may our descendants—if they survive that long—will see—Alice Walker.   The whole world watched and waited as the divided states of America turned Red and Blue. Masks on or off... [read more]

  Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars - J.R.R. Tolkien.   Tonight’s Samhain Moon stands strong in the steady, stable sign of Taurus, but she’s twitchy as she brushes up against disruptive Uranus. We may have felt the energy of this lunation already in our lives this week. Uranus, like the Tower card in the Tarot, represents... [read more]

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings―J.R.R. Tolkien Darkness comes early in October. Shoals of fluttering leaves twist and turn like golden minnows and delicate spiderwebs spangled with diamonds of dew shimmer in the hedgerows. Autumn’s endings are accompanied by those things that are too quickly gone. So much has changed this year, simply... [read more]

  Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings—Rumi   Today, the New Moon (24 °Libra) makes a fraught opposition to Mars Rx in hot-headed Aries. She makes a tense T-square with Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn as COVID cases escalate here in the north. More restrictions are... [read more]

  “What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?” asks author Elizabeth Gilbert…and yet, as news rushes through the tendrils of technology, flooding our nervous systems, squatting for days and weeks in our divided minds, this time, for most of us living in it, is knotted with perplexing complexity and information... [read more]

The Harvest Moon tonight casts her light on a world of division and exile, a world where the harvest of this year is lean. At this pivotal moment in our human story, the Sun and the Moon oppose each other, and the Moon meets Chiron in the sign of the Ram. The archetype of Aries is a... [read more]

  But you know, you go on, right? Because what other choice have you got―Jodi Picoult     As the Sun moves into the sign of Libra at this turning of the seasons our “surge capacity”—as psychologist Ann Masten calls our human ability to stay the course during short term stressful situations—stretches to breaking point.   In the metaphorical language of astrology,... [read more]

  Amidst a bright blooming of burnished leaves here in the north, and an exuberant flourish of spring flowers in the south, Jupiter changed direction yesterday, a turning point in our own lives; a celestial turning point at this time in our human story.   Jupiter is associated with “good fortune”, with expansion and optimism. It is also about... [read more]

  There is a fire raging, and we have two choices: we can turn our backs, or we can try to fight it—Jodi Picoult   We may feel as if we have stumbled through a portal into a forgotten realm as we communicate with our thumbs-ups, as we crinkle our eyes over our masks. Perhaps a strange tiredness has... [read more]

Where do we begin? Begin with the heart—Julian of Norwich. Tonight’s shimmering Full Moon invites us to trust the ebb and flow of our feelings, to allow our heartfelt longings to gently dissolve into answers.  ​In the gentle brush of moonlight, we may feel more attuned to the messages from our body, those places that demand our... [read more]

  War-god Mars casts his scarlet light over our lives from June 27th till January 6th, igniting the warm embers of passion, engorging the hot thrust of anger, and, as temperatures soar, engulfing California in flames and ashes.   This week, Mars makes a tense square to Saturn in Capricorn, an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object. Both... [read more]

Scorched stubble shimmers in the pixilated August heat and as the harvest is gathered, the swallows swoop over bows weighted with blushing apples. As summer slips into autumn and harvest festivals echo with the songs of our sunburned ancestors, the Sun moves into the sign of Virgo. Virgo is the harvest maiden, her origins threaded and bound... [read more]

No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars―Ursula K. Le Guin Venus enters Moon-ruled Cancer tomorrow. Over the next weeks she will confront the men in suits—Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn, in Capricorn—indicating challenging close encounters that will require us to stay connected to our loving hearts. As we end another week, as we pass the half... [read more]

  Something wild is stirring in the collective energy. Subversive actions, independent thinking. A fervent passion to make this world a better, kinder place.   Monday’s quirky Full Moon is in progressive, humanitarian Aquarius; a sign with two rulers: the sky-gods Saturn and Uranus. The old and the new, the past and the future.   The Sun/ Moon square Uranus underscores... [read more]

As we begin our apprenticeship into this new way of living, sort out our priorities, obediently don our masks, dutifully comply with rules and restrictions that we hope will not rob us of our freedom and our human rights in the years yet to come, the taskmasters of the heavens—Pluto/Jupiter and Saturn—close ranks. Saturn is so... [read more]

  We hold the Moon in our bellies. Our bodies respond to her reflective light and her contemplative darkness. This is her invitation to return to the silence. To not to expect too much of ourselves today.   The Moon is in Cancer (Great Mother) as she embraces the Sun, she faces those great Titans of the sky, Jupiter,... [read more]

  The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned - Maya Angelou   Frank Baum’s “There’s no place like home,” and the clichéd “Home Sweet Home,” reflect our heart’s longing for safety and belonging as we pause in the dreamy haze of mid-summer heat... [read more]

  Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul—Victor Hugo   This weekend the Sun and the Moon dance a pas-de-deux, awakening our intentions, quickening our... [read more]

Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place—Rumi   Today, Venus returns from her sojourn in the darkness of the Underworld. She shimmers, resplendent and glorious on the eastern horizon at dawn each morning, a celestial reminder of those things that lighten our hearts.   Venus represents those people, those things, that matter to us.... [read more]

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible—Dalai Lama Within the constellation of Cancer is a delicate brush stroke of stars in the sky called Praesepe, the Latin word for “manger”. Cancer is associated with wombs, and cradles, with nourishment and containment. And during these long months of confinement, with the importance of home. Qualities like vulnerability, creativity,... [read more]

  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes—Marcel Proust   Mercury is between the sea and the shoreline, in the emotive sign of Cancer this week. Our vision may not be clear as the sea mists swirl around us. Today, Mercury begins to slow in preparation for his Retrograde... [read more]

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between—Oscar Wilde   The sound of falling statues reverberates through the bones of slaves from Africa buried in mass graves. Bronze tyrants tumble from their pedestals, and the dolorous ghosts of millions of native Americans, great herds of buffalo and forests of giant Redwoods... [read more]

Tonight the curtain rises to reveal this summer's eclipse season as an uncompromising lunar eclipse in Sagittarius tells it like it is.   Today’s Full Moon Eclipse in the element of fire symbolises the incineration and purification by fire of unexamined prejudices as all that is rotten in our societies rises through the cracks of inequality.   As tensions erupt... [read more]

ius There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you—Neale Donald Walsch   The sky-story this week speaks of change and tension as thousands chant, “I can’t breathe!” Uranus in earthy Taurus (revolution, rebellion, upheaval, breakthrough) squares Saturn in the air sign of Aquar (restriction, authority, the old order). Taurus... [read more]

An agitation of conflicting communication about COVID-19 eddies and twirls across our screens. “There shall in that time be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are,” says the Boring Prophet in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. We become deafened to our own thoughts amidst the... [read more]