Small World - April 1999 (Rushdie data; 1st NATO attack on Serbia)

Retrospectively  Happy Easter Everyone!  and a warm welcome to the new subscribers.

Well, I'm still working on the book, but the revisions and additions are nearly complete. So I can get your bulletin off to you roughly on time (I had no idea this would be a monthly event when I started over a year ago!)

I nearly fell off my chair at breakfast two days ago  Mark Pottenger had sent me and the other Asteroid Faithful his April list, and there I was looking at a conjunction, so to speak, of "Crane" and "Warner", our own name suddenly Up There together with that of the close friend whom Gerard had ordained to the LCC Diaconate only a week before on Palm Sunday!!! This was the quickest order I ever placed  and Mark had responded within a day. He is such a good friend to us all. What I subsequently found made me chuckle  this happened on an intimate conjunction of "Pamela"/"Crane" in 1314 Pisces (opposite my draconic Mercury), sidereally 1920 Aquarius (with the T. South Node), draconically 24 Libra  my draconic Desc., which in the context of asteroid phrases is just one end of the main Identity axis. For good measure, "Pamjones" is right there with them, adding weight to the viability of partial or mixed names; I was born with "Pamjones" exactly conjunct my Sun  and most folk call me Pam. Pamela is the formal bit! Formality comes with the professional self, and my brand new "Crane" has its Helio position (who I really am) on the Sidereal, public/professional, MC opposite tropical Pamela, writing my full name there interdimensionally, as I have seen in so many nativities by now.

More fun will be had with this.

 This wondrous Tale Of Woe by email from Mike Burns in Wales:

"I'm currently trying to work my way through a Saturn + Neptune hard transit to my natal Moon. Not surprisingly, this weekend there's been a jackdaw (Saturn) down the chimney, squawking away behind our living room gas (Neptune) fire  so I called the gas people who eventually turned up  by that time the jackdaw had gone back up the chimney, just leaving half its nest behind, and the gas man then said  after disconnecting our fire to rescue the wretched bird  that he wasn't allowed to put the fire back again  we'd have to call and pay someone else to do that(Neptune? Saturn?)!!!!! Then the loo no longer flushes  need to replace the diaphram or something  so called our plumber  he has trouble with his eyes right now, but will come and show me how to do it!!!!! (plenty of scope for Neptune to have some fun with me there!); now the washing machine is playing tricks and won't spin; then when I climbed on the roof to place some wire mesh over the chimney, what did I find but a hole in the roof for rain to pour into! I'm sure you don't want to hear any more  but you can see that I'm having fun with this transit! Oh yes  and we were due to have some double glazing put in on the 26th March  on the day they rang up to say they had only just realised that they needed four men + scaffolding to do the job, and they only had two that day  so postponed until this coming Friday  then this week the firm's surveyor turned up  we thought to inspect some work done last year, which they should do according to their contract  but no! He had driven across half of Wales to inspect the work they should have done on the 26th March but hadn't, but will now do on the 8th.... (Neptune!). Pity no one told him!

All the events I related led on to other situations, of a similar nature  e.g. the day before the doubleglazing was meant to be put in, we halfemptied the room concerned  our largest  with a hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, of my best books in it  and these, being ever so precious to me, were carried off to store in other rooms about the house (it took all day)  and of course I expected to be able to put them back again where they belong, in a couple of days. Well  they are still dispersed all over the show, and chaos reigns! "

Our collective sympathies are with you, Mike! Anyone else out there want to unload?

Salman Rushdie

19 Jun 1947, 02:19:27, IST 5:30

Bombay India 18N56 072E51

 ... was given top billing in the Sunday Times of March 21st '99 (well  second only to the Julia andHugh blurb, the free CDROM, and somebody's bottom with a bag on it) : EYE SURGERY LIFTS SALMAN RUSHDIE'S BROODING LOOKS! Apparently the poor man suffered from a genetic defect that meant his lids got heavier and heavier until he literally had to hold them up with his fingers so that he could see. Transits for March reveal nothing dramatic of this kind  until you look at the Other Zodiacs. Lo! he was born (according to the above data) with Sidereal Pluto on his Cancer IC, lining up appropriately with the angular Mercury that has caused so much grief in recent years. And lo, again! Here is transiting Draconic Pluto back on the same spot (yes, you too can have a Pluto Return), helped by a sidereal transit of Uranus on his MC opposite, waving their joint wand like a couple of fairy godmothers to magic his gaze from seemingly malign to wideeyed warmth. Well, what do you all think? Is he also a reformed writer? Will he manage to weave verbal spells from now on without wreaking spiritual havoc? Does the old adage, "You mustn't judge a book by its cover", hold true, or what is going on here in this karmic world where thoughts are things, and bodies are walking puns? I open it to the floor!

GOING UP LIKE A LEAD BALLOON???

Breitling Orbiter had an intriguing launch. Would you have expected a lead balloon to lift off, let alone make the record books? Because at the time given on its website, 09h05 CET at Chateau d'Oex near Geneva on March 1st this year, Saturn was still on the horizon, with Neptune square it! And we have already seen how this incongenial pair can put the mockers on all the bestlaid plans!

The Sun was closing its exact square to Pluto as well, AND the Moon was void of course. Hmmmph. So much for conventional astrology. We might as well pack up now. Wait a minute, though  what's this I see? Jupiter rising? "Where, where?" you ask! If you will get out the trusty quadwheel again and plot the full foursome thereon  tropical, draconic, sidereal, helio  then you will see the wonderful AriesLibra alignment of Jupiter / Ascendant / Moon / Venus / Mars. It is the Sidereal ascendant at work, because this is an historic and very public event indeed, the stuff that the Sidereal is made of. It collects all the essential energy and gas of the helio (helium?!?) JupiterMars opposition, the Tropical JupiterVenus for the delight and optimism of the adventure, and the draconic Aries Moon  which is all about enterprise and courage and winning races and getting lots of publicity. And with all that Jupiter, how could it fail? Saturn has to acknowledge that it's proper role is to ensure a steady and stately course from start to finish.

For good measure, helio Mercury is happy in Gemini at the Sidereal IC, picking up draconic Mars for a nice strong liftoff. Even better is the cracking conjunction of draconic Asc with tropical Pluto in Sag., and draco MC on the tropical Leo Moon/Dragon's Head. This is an enterprise that is meant to succeed, and make a far more positive impact that all poor Richard Branson's plummeting balloons.

Isn't it nice that the Dr. Piccard (not JeanLuc alas) on board is the direct descendant of the famous ballooning Piccard! Therefore it is extra nice to see that at the time Orbiter actually completed its circuit and broke the world recoed (not its rather anticlimactic landing miles from anywhere) the MC was just about to meet Uranus in midAquarius, and dynamically square this were asteroids "Pickard", "Britten" (Britain) and "Swissair".  So was "Phaethon" whose chariot rather more disastrously wheeled round the sky, and up in the Midheaven was "NoEther" ... they came close to suffocation near journey's end! But most of the interviews (over here, anyway) were with the replacement crew member Brian Jones, very much the star of the show. No wonder! ... conjunct the  Sun and Mercury is asteroid "Brian" tightly squared by "Jones" and "Starr"; completing this glowing picture is "Fama" opposite the Sun. I can't help wondering if an old Piccard is back seeing to unfinished business!

That Was The News At Ten, and This Is Trevor MacDonald  Goodnight!

Last month on 5th March, the famous Bongs of the UK's News At Ten Bonged for the last time, and the smiling face of Trevor MacDonald bade us farewell till the following Monday, March 8th, when he would get a decent early night at last after fronting the new ITN Evening News at 6h30 pm. I wonder how long his name will be associated with the new news  I can't find it any stronger than its square to Jupiter.

When the News At Ten was born in London on July 3rd 1967 (at ten pm if you hadn't guessed...!) it would be many years and several presenters before our Trevor got the job, but his name is already indelibly imprinted on the heavens: because we find "McDonalda" (also useful for bugs in the beefburgers) neatly conjunct the IC with the Public's Moon and  what else?  "Skytel"... on the Meridian, which also happens to be the name of the SouthEast's independent broadcasting franchise, which has carried the ITN news to us for a fair number of years now. (It has a lovely jazzy SunMoon logo.)

Another delight in this chart is the conjunction of "Telemann" (telly man!) with Mercury; its draconic position in compulsively communicative Gemini meets the Sidereal Gemini Sun, underlining the nature of his public role. (For the newcomers to Small World, the Sidereal has far more to do with a person's public life than their private affairs, which are Tropical. Draconic, karmic, spans both.) "Imago" and "United Nations" are both conjunct that Sun; here is the medium and the message  and Trevor McDonald as a uniter of our country's nations, as he is one of the pioneer black broadcasters. Lastly there is a lovely little collection of draconic Cancer asteroids on the Tropical Desc: "MonteVideo" and "Veritas" (truthful video footage!), plus "Ben Mayer", which is the closest I can get to the Bongs of Big Ben, and the closest of these three to the angle!

The News at 6h30 has good old "Telemann" setting, and "Jack London" ... for London ... where it should be, at the IC; "Skytel" is aligned to the draconic Sun; but the tropical Sun opposes both "Neufang" (newfangled!) and more coherently "Newman", also the SaturnNeptune square and the Dragon's Tail are very busy interdimensionally with the Angles. So I wonder what upsets lie ahead?

KOSOVO

On the first day of the NATO bombardment we in Britain were treated to the most extraordinary perspective on its inception: the intrepid Kate Adie reported from a NATO vessel off the Balkan coast. As the Aries Sun went down fiery into a kingfisher sea she told us (live) that this sunset was the moment when preparations were set to begin for the launch of missiles against Serbia. Later, nearer 7pm, the missiles arced and blazed into the darkness. But at that utterly beautiful Adriatic sunset, at the serious start of the action, asteroid "Srbija" was right on the Midheaven close to the quarter Moon and nearby "Nemesis". Sidereally (important  this is history) it fell in Gemini opposite helio and Tropical Pluto, and draconic Saturn. Draconically the angular conjunction was hit by tropical and helio Uranus, as on the draconic Taurus Ascendant  carrying opposite with the setting Sun tropical Mars and the closing conjunction of sidereal Chiron and Pluto  rose "Beograd" (Belgrade) and "Britten" (Britain.)

How graphic can astrology get?

COMING SOON ...

Later on, we'll have a look at Slobodan Milosevic  those of you who don't have his data will find this very enlightening, and those who do but haven't looked at this complex man interdimensionally will come to understand him far better.

Also, I hope to have an interim report on the new HERSCHEL Interdimensional Astrology program being lovingly compiled by Graham Bates. Already it has much to offer that no other program can, and it is incredibly quick and easy to use. Neither is it a Ramguzzler! Look forward to Herschel's availability later on this year, with upgrades during succeeding months.

Now I must send Small World spinning off to you before too much of April has gone by!

God Bless you all, my friends,

Pam