Small world - December 1998 (Pluto in Sag; Lunar Phase Returns; Dwads)

Greetings, everyone! Happy Eclipse Year!

First, a plea.

I am collecting an assortment of email addresses for some of you, and to avoid the embarrassment of possible overload, ie Small Worlds in Triplicate!... may I have an up date from those of you who have two or more active addresses, letting me know which one is the appropriate mailbox for Small World.

Some of you will be receiving this as a sample issue, and again I would be grateful if you too would update me in the same way (as well as letting me know if you would like to stay on the list of regular monthly subscribers this is a free magazine.)

Next, an apology: there has been no Small World since the November issue, as yours truly was getting an in depth, lungs on intro to T.Saturn Neptune=natal Sun which wiped out any hope of intellectual effort more ambitious than grinning weakly out of my pillows at the glorious idiocies of "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue!" on Radio 4 and keeping up with The Archers. (Overseas readers you don't know what you're missing!!!). Therefore there was no Christmas to speak of in this corner of Ospringe, either side of Midnight Mass (again overheard from bed), and nothing in any case to speak of it with as all carolling and conversation perforce ceased!

So what is Christmas all about, then?

On the strength (?) of this recent, locally dismal festival, one thing I have forcibly realised is that you get out of Christmas precisely what you put into it, plus interest. Cards had already flooded lovingly out; and cards duly flooded lovingly in. That was really nice. But that was "the run up to Christmas" or, as it used to be known in our purportedly Christian country, Advent. Come the 24th\25th\26th December with all those friendly cards still stacked on a table, no tree up, no pretty lights, baubles, tinsel delighting the glance, no crowding in the cold to warm our communal hearts with carols, no lovely invading smells of Christmas cooking, no voice to answer the phone, and only a lot of mainly bad TV to mark the occasion, we were marooned on a festive desert island. This is when you realise how much these little things matter, even when it all seems like too much hard work.

And is it the Solstice? Saturnalia? the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ?

This last has of course become a bit of a problem for me, now that it is so clearly May 7th, 5BC whose sunset saw the entry of Jesus into the world and into human history. It is a struggle to relate all this lovely stuff in December to the reality of a mid spring Nativity. So I figure that if our monarch can have a real birthday (in April) and an official birthday (in June), then why not Jesus? ... and let us be honest about the real and ancient origins of the Solstice celebration that warms and brightens the dark, brief Winter days.

STAR BARGAINS!!!

Now, it struck me as I was sorting through various useful and useless bits and pieces that not only I but also many of you might like to announce items for sale through Small World; so this month we have our first Classified Ads! Necessarily scanty for now, but do feel free to fill up these columns from next month onward; the list of subscribers is growing and with it a potential, modest marketplace. Head your email STAR BARGAINS.

So, to kick off!... I have FOR SALE: (bearing in mind that I live in the UK)

An ASTROLOGICAL WRIST WATCH with instruction book very scarce, only a few hundred specially made by CASIO in the early '90s, showing not only the time and date as usual, but programmed birthcharts and on going transits (Sun, Moon & Planets in decans around its zodiac face), plus several other functions. I will let this go to the highest bidder, as it will make a most interesting, useful, unique and entertaining Christmas gift. Make your offers by December 12th, when Mercury goes direct!

A SWATCH WATCH, mint, boxed, wonderful Leo/Aquarius blues and oranges, setting Sun on the face, constellations along the wristbands. One for the collector. Offers as for the Casio, by December 12th.

13 issues of WHITE's COELESTIAL ATLAS (EPHEMERIS) for 1814, 1816, 1818, 1821 1829, and 1832, all except the first two (fair) in good condition. Offers again, please.

DIE DEUTSCHE EPHEMERIDE vols 1 (1850-1889) & 2 (1890-1930) with a few annotations but otherwise in good condition. Offers.

Brand new shrinkwrapped Y2000RTC Millennium Bug Test and fix software, bought in error! Best of breed, fixes both BIOS and Realtime Clock. Recommended by all PC magazine reviewers. NB TWO single user copies enclosed, on floppies. You can therefore sort out both your desktop and notebook! Cost over £40, sacrifice at £30 plus postage.

One SHARP VIEWCAM Camcorder with LCD monitor screen, plus manual, mains lead, battery(for short sessions only) & charger, 6 tapes and a carry case, for £250 o.n.o.

and now for something completely different...

PLUTO HAS FUN IN SAGITTARIUS!

The burier of Treasure bounded up from his murky abodes in Scorpio to the rich lands of Sagittarius two days before my 1995 birthday, and ever since he has been tearing the wrappers off all the goodies he can lay his sticky hands on!

God

The evidence is all over the Media (as usual) it's Power To The Purple!... as men of the cloth escape their churches and do probing pieces to camera; or less happily get outed for nasty goings on behind the vestry. Attempts to banish or debase the "God Slot" have failed dramatically as spirituality and religion in all their forms find their way into soap operas, documentaries, plays and late night discussions. Tonight's offering on BBC1 wasn't content with a crusading journalist and the battle for Laura Norder it had to invoke the dangerous concept of Conscience, spiced with (!) notions of absolute right and wrong, soul, personal responsibility, redemption. Phew! The politically correct, the anti-judgmental, anxiety ridden relativists will be sweating cobs. What? Moral values? Higher Law? God? Mea culpa, not the System's or my disfunctional family's? In another corner of the media, the biggest row about the Millennium Dome at Greenwich has been the threatened paucity of actual Christian input into the "Spirit Zone", as if Jesus' impact on 2000 years of civilisation had nothing to do with the inspiration to invent AD and kick start a whole new dating system. Those in denial like to call it CE. My calendar will always carry an AD for Jesus! (And I say, what a waste of a twelve section circle, to admit no astrology to the Dome. Anyone up for guerilla artwork?)

Weather

The god's own artwork has shown a marked preference for watercolour wash of late. Jupiter Pluvius, at home again in soggy Pisces after 12 years absence, freed from alien restraints in reckless liaison with Pluto, has been reworking some major landscapes and wiping out generations of humble human endeavour. Prophecy has flourished, and much of it warned of storms and massive floods with appalling loss of life. Well, in 1998 they got it right. It never rained but it poured. The devastation in Central America, China and Bangladesh beggars belief, and even the lesser torrents in Italy, the UK and elsewhere have been costly and tragic.

Horses

On a much more positive note, I know a lot of you will insist that the aforementioned Pisces is the home of horseflesh; but Centaurs are halfhorses, and how can we ignore this wonderful, galloping movement to retrain the trainers, to become Horse Whisperers? All power to Robert Redford, who starred in the e-pony-mous film, with his 9th house Jupiter (ruler of Pisces ASC and Sag. MC) aligned closely to a wonderful Draconic trio of Moon, Mercury, Neptune in Sag. all square Draconic Saturn in Pisces! How's that for a sweet hippophile doing and sharing far and wide a quiet, sensitive communion he deeply believes in?

Greed

But, Hey!, Sag. Rules The World now, and under ZEITGEIST OPTIONS DEFAULTS has deselected Tact, Subtlety, Restraint. High on excitement, we mistake Quantity for Quality. And what can't we get enough of? Obviously food. There are probably more cookery programs seasoning the ether than at any time in the history of broadcasting. The other thing we can't get enough of is our photogenic little selves, and the TV companies are rubbing their hands in glee at our collective willingness to provide hours and hours of ! unpaid ! entertainment and a ratings bonanza to dream of. Pluto in Sag means everyone can be funny, everyone can be famous; anyone can, by fulfilling their bi weekly duty to the National Lottery and the Futures Market, be incredibly rich; and the airlines sell their souls to litter the empty places of the globe with the insatiable overspill from a thousand playas and National Parks. We all have a right to experience the wilderness, after all. For we all, every one of us, of the millions of us, have the human right to do just what we want, whenever we want, whatever the cost to ourselves, to each other, to social cohesion, to the health of the world. Don't we? More than ever before, in a glut of opportunity, it is my health, my wealth, my happiness that must come first. We of the First World are in a feeding frenzy that continues 24 hours a day. Our collective eyes are bigger than our bulimic tummy. We devour fat, sugar, glamour, time, sensation, ideas, applause, fashion, booze, images, distance, flattery, facts, publicity, drugs, noise, opinion, novelty, fun (everything once dignified now has to be 'accessible' and therefore Fun) wanting it all, wanting it now, impatient of the gentle disciplines that make all true freedoms really possible. On the 26th of January 2008, Pluto will follow Jupiter into Capricorn. Will there still be a cornucopia for us, I wonder? or will the poor and the meek at last inherit the earth? Answers, please, on a postage stamp.

Nudity

Frankly, the wraps are off everything and everybody as computers peel the skin away from pulsing communities of phages and platelets. Inner space and outer space yielded secret after secret as Pluto ground through Scorpio, and now all is displayed for our edification and great entertainment. Other people don't have to do the exploring for us any more WE are the explorers! we have the WWWeb, and we have the WWWorld!!! The skin flick has gone upmarket: the highbrows at BBC2 and Channel4 have found every excuse to expose kilos of unprotected human flesh to our voyeuristic gaze as nakedness is irretrievably in, modesty out in an autumn of deciduous figleaves, and honesty is far sexier than sin (vide all Clinton videos.) Male strippers are wildly popular over here in the UK clubs, and make great box office too (not that I've seen The Full Monty yet but then I'm happily married...and yes, my Saggy husband and I with my Saggy Mars once belonged to a Sun Club until everything got just a bit too Saggy...). We have never been privy to so many televised Closets, nor had to endure so much public puking, mooning, and wind. Letting it all hang out is now considered cool ... D.V., with a bit of Saggy luck it'll end embarrassingly in hypothermia.

ENOUGH OF ALL THAT - HAVE YOU TRIED THIS?

I love Solar Fire. So many adventurous astrologers have thrown their ideas and experience into its files thanks to the enterprise and skill of Esoteric Technologies, Astrolabe, and numerous enthusiastic ambassadors, that no matter how well used it is, there is always something left waiting to spring a surprise.

This happened (again) to me the other week and kept me so engrossed we nearly didn't eat that evening! What had I found this time? The Lunar Phase Returns.

There they were, looking at me, untouched, untried, in the Lunations menu; so experimentally I keyed in returns for my resident Sag. around the date I went into the Kent & Canterbury for a nearly life threatening (but in fact lifesaving) op. on some of my delicate bits, back in October 1989. There were three worth a look 6th September (included the op.), 6th October (post op and convalescence), 4th November (coping again, so he could fly off to Oklahoma and check out our new Liberal Catholic Bishops.

Born Twice

The whole point of this was to see how these patterns differed, according to the natal birth time. Because as some of you may already know Gerard James Crane of Blackburn, England, was born twice.

According to his ancient mother (nearly 99 now, and surely destined to outlive us all) when she was lucid enough to remember, Gerard's head emerged into the family bedroom "at midnight" on 15th December 1931, but got lethally stuck like Pooh in the Rabbit hole for no less than seven hours, tied to his mother and strangling with the umbilicus wound round his neck. The arrival of a midwife at "quarter past seven" that morning saved both their lives, cord cut, baby freed, lungs filling properly for the first time.

Now, ever since we met back in 1977 I have worked with a rectified chart of 07h12, Libra MC, early Sag. rising, and T. Pluto right there right now! But the aptness of a Virgo Ascendant has always nagged at me, and from time to time I would have another go at a "midnight" chart, only to end up frustrated with no way of choosing between the two. Clearly the head's emergence was a real birth, even if partial. A chart for 00h35 sat in my files for years, graphically describing a man whose favourite maxims (unaccountable from anything else anywhere in his chart) are "They don't make diamonds as big as bricks", "I'm only little!", "a man has no rights, only debts" (S.Node in 1 Libra conjunct 29 Virgo ASC.) Added to which, the draconic Moon actually changed signs back to Aquarius, to join his mother's Sun. But which was the dominant chart? That for the tied man (the prisoner of his commitments) or the free man?

Problem solved!

I wish I could show you these phase returns! They settled this 21year conundrum once and for all. The first has a Scorpio Moon angular in house 12, with Mars and MC on my own ASC: his wife is undergoing surgery in hospital. The second has the Moon conj. his own Sag. Sun at the IC with him at home again but Uranus, Saturn and Neptune in 4th upset all normal domestic arrangements, and Mercury in Virgo rising close to his ASC ensure he is kept busy doing all the little things for his wife that she would usually do for him. The third is a peach! N.Node on his Jupiter axis is in 9th, so off he goes to Tulsa to meet spiritually congenial folk (Neptune, Uranus setting) and have a simply wonderful and transformative time with a quartet in the 5th of Sun, Pluto, Mercury and Mars. Where am I? There's Saturn, in Capricorn, smack on the 7th, and Capricorn Moon in the same house, leaving his wife to cope alone very carefully, very slowly, very capably! And with Jupiter rising, what does he become in the process but the bishop elect for the church in England! Spot on. Needless to say, many more such charts were run, and overall the dominance of the Virgo rising chart was confirmed. Which is very interesting indeed, as it means the birth of the head and exposure of the eyes and fontanelle to light and ambient frequencies is at least as important as the cut cord, the first breath and the first cry.

And yet...

Thinking about the Free Man on February 22nd 1993 he was given the honorary Freedom of the City of London. How would that be reflected by the two births? My hunch was that only the 07h12 chart would have anything to say and I was right! both returns fell on January 29th, with lovely trines from Sun and Mercury to Jupiter; but the second birth put the Nodes and his Sun on the Meridian. A further check suggested itself , using the Lunar returns; these actually fell the day before, at a new moon, either in the 7th or the 11th. The key here was the pair of asteroids "Jack London" and "Freeman" only in the second Lunar Return chart did they register as they should, with "Jack London" near the 7th, but "Freeman" firmly, tightly conjunct the IC!

LITTLE THINGS THAT MEAN A LOT

These tiny asteroids are a wonderful way to show the unbeliever the descriptive accuracy of astrology. Mark Pottenger's latest delivery on his updated CD included the newly named MadreTeresa. Where else to apply it but the chart of this remarkable, feisty and saintly woman? She was born on August 27th 1910 at 14h25 CET in Skopje, Macedonia (Yugoslavia). Her Draconic chart is the dominant, with its mothering Cancer Sun and tough as they come Scorpio rising. The Tropical position of "MadreTeresa" is 1 Taurus 01, right on her draconic Descendant, its horizon position simultaneously identifying her and indicating her own identification with every one of those in her care.

In the next package, amongst other goodies will come asteroid "Martin Luther"; we already have "Martina" and "Luthera", and it's going to be fascinating checking out the accuracy of the chart for Martin Luther King as well as the first Martin Luther if Mark is able to supply the elements to type into "Dance of the Planets" and run back to the 15th century.

Like the dwads, for example!

I had a client a few days ago who was having difficulty opening up to her nearest and dearest, and found that at work her colleagues considered her somewhat forbidding. To the astrological eye this hardly came as a surprise, given the overgenerous serving of Scorpio, Capricorn, Saturn, Pluto and Mars in her very capable pattern!

But on the phone she was free, expressive, honest, good humoured, generous of spirit, and far from the chilly, silent, controlling woman whom her husband had recently divorced. It struck me forcibly that here was the perfect example of the Dwad in action. Ever since I started working with the precise Dwad 12 tiny signs mapped onto the Decans in each sign, with each planet and angle given its exact position it has proved itself over and over again to finger print the individuality, through its own elemental energies, its integral geometry, and its contacts back to the radix chart. So clearly does it reflect the invisible, mental life, that I have come to think of it as "the Idea behind the Form".

My client, in stark contrast to her radix nativity, had a dwad rich in Sagittarius and Aquarius; her spontaneity, wisdom and freedom of spirit flowed through every word of that long conversation. What I was meeting audibly but invisibly was her mind, her thinking, her idea of herself and her life.

Applying that to my now Virgo rising husband, he collects dwad Sun, dwad Ascendant and radix Jupiter all together in late Leo in his 11th. And what is he? How does he identify himself? What governs all of his thinking? His authoritative position as Bishop, and the hundreds, maybe thousands of social contacts he has made and lovingly maintains through both the church and Masonry. (And he's getting very creative on his PC!!!)

Believe me, if you haven't included dwads in your work as yet, you are in for such an adventure! Astrology ceases to be a language of generalities and moves nearer and nearer to the highly specific with which one can begin to offer the kind of repeatable patterns that for many necessarily constitute "proof". New Year, new astrology! Yes?

And finally ...

One last tantalising titbit the current Labour government announced recently that it will hold the next General Election on May 4th 2000! Now, did they decide this all by themselves, or has one of you out there been whispering in a Westminster ear about epochal New Moons and stellia in Taurus? It is mighty close to Tony Blair's birthday but more to the point it is the actual Solar Return of Jesus, His chart configured by everything in that Thursday sky. How tempting it is to expect spiritual drama! But if we ask for help in choosing wisely, some blessing may be His birthday gift to us.

May Joy be with you!

Pam