A continuation

“My view of the way people begin learning about astrology is that they start at the wrong place.

As a consequence of this they don’t arrive where they should, or if they do, it’s only by chance as a result of heading up lots of blind alleys and having the sense to reverse out of them rather than keeping on going because that’s what the books told them to do.

Everyone starts with the signs of the Zodiac. They have been instructed to do that by the same people who write tabloid horoscope columns.

Most serious astrologers are fairly dismissive of them, but their practice is still largely dominated by the obsession with Sun signs which these columns have created.

I believe that people would learn a lot more about the true workings of serious astrology if they put Sun signs to one side and focus on planetary patterns instead.

Can we look at a chart and ignore the signs altogether?

Even forget about the houses to begin with at least.

The chart I want to use as an example is the one that I cut my astrological teeth on almost half a century ago, ex UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

If we start in the usual way with her Sun sign we will immediately be wrong. Thatcher was the most un Libran person you are ever likely to meet.

So let’s just drop that right away.

In fact if we look at the general shape of Thatcher’s chart we see that the area that is generally associated with Libra (the right hand side and the 7th house in particular) is empty.

All of her personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars) are either in the upper area of the chart or the right hand side, so her main focus is career and self.

Once you have a sense of main areas of life where the person is likely to channel their energies (upper-career, right side-self, lower-family, left side-relationship), I would suggest you look at the aspect lines.

And particularly focus on the thickest ones.

To that end it makes sense to have your own astrological software and adjust it to show clearly the closest aspects.

The thickest red line in Thatcher’s chart is the opposition between Jupiter at 14.29 Capricorn in the 2nd house and Pluto at 14.44 Cancer in the 8th.

The thickest blue lines are between Jupiter/Pluto and Saturn at 13.46 Scorpio and Ascendant at 15.16.

The tightness of these aspects (all under a degree) show the most powerful themes in Thatcher’s life.

Once we have identified these themes, then we can go on to use the house and sign placements to work out what they mean.

These main aspects lines can be totally different from the classic description of the Sun sign.

Not only is Margaret Thatcher not a typical peace loving, diplomatic Libran, she is in fact a ruthless authoritarian leader (Saturn on a Scorpio Ascendant) of an extreme capitalist (Jupiter in Capricorn in the 2nd house) death cult (Pluto in the 8th house).

So I’m glad we got that straight right away, rather than wading through hundreds of useless paragraphs telling us what it means to have Mars in Libra etc etc.

Once you have identified an opposition aspect in a chart, particularly a tight one like this, the next thing to ask is are there any planets that are square to both ends of it?

These planets would be the apex of a pattern called a T Square.

An opposition with two planets pulling in different directions in a person’s life creates a tension that demands to be resolved, and the native will spend a large part of their life trying to deal with the conflict it creates for them.

The energy generated by the opposition will be driven powerfully towards any planets that are square to both ends of it.

The apex planets become much stronger as a result.

Margaret Thatcher has two planets that perform this function, her Sun at 19.30 Libra and Mars at 9.27 Libra.

You can see this T square form the red triangle even though these lines are thinner than the Jupiter/Pluto one.

They are thinner because of the orbs (about 5 degrees rather than 1/4 degree).

Mars and the Sun are over 10 degrees apart so most astrologers would not consider them to be conjunct, but that is because most astrologers are obsessed with single placements rather than overall patterns.

The fact that both Mars and the Sun are apex planets brings them together to form their own conjunction.

So when considering Thatcher’s personality we should give far more weight to the Sun being conjunct Mars than to either of these planets being in Libra.

So now we get to the main thrust of her chart.

The capitalist death cult (Jupiter/Pluto opposition) is projected powerfully (T Square) as a warrior (Sun/Mars conjunction) in the field of politics (Sun/Mars in the 11th house).

The Sun and Mars will be very important in her life.

Modern astrologers would have got the wrong end of the stick entirely because of their sign obsession.

Traditional astrologers would have already identified Mars as being important because it is Thatcher’s ruling planet.

However they have an obsession with planetary dignities and will have claimed it as weak because Mars is in the sign of its detriment (Libra).

They will have also denounced the Sun as weak because it is in the sign of it’s fall.

As a suitable punishment for misunderstanding the main thrust of her chart, these astrologers should be forced to live on the dole in 1980s Britain.

Aspects are about life themes and as such are intrinsically linked with planetary transits.

They cannot be truly understood without reference to these transits.

I do not subscribe to ancient rulerships. I would say that Scorpio is quite clearly ruled by Pluto, not Mars.

But this also isn’t that important, it would strengthen Pluto but we have already identified it as a major player because of it’s involvement in the T square.

Because Pluto is such a slow mover, it would only make one (maybe two) major aspects by transits to any placement in someone’s chart.

As Pluto is square to Margaret Thatcher’s Mars and Sun, it will only make one transit to each of them in her lifetime.

Her Sun and Mars are conjunct so these transits will be strongly connected together.

Pluto was conjunct Thatcher’s Mars from November 1974 to September 1976.

She was elected leader of the Tory party on 11th February 1975 with Pluto at 9.00 Libra.

Pluto was conjunct her Sun from December 1978 to September 1980.

She was elected Prime Minister on May 3rd 1979.

So you can see from this aspects first approach to astrology that we fairly quickly reach the main themes in Margaret Thatcher’s character and life but we also see exactly when they will be played out.

If you studied astrology by the routes suggested in all the textbooks you would probably never get there.

And I believe that once we have become accustomed to seeing charts in this way, we could pick up the major themes and timing in a matter of minutes.”

to be continued

Posted 31 Jul 2024

YOU CAN BOOK YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASTROLOGY CONSULTATION HERE

HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE – ASTROLOGICAL REGRESSION AND PAST LIVES

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY – A DETAILED LOOK AT YOUR SYNASTRY WITH THE RELATIVES

TREAT YOURSELF – REMEDIES INDIVIDUALLY TAILORED TO YOUR BIRTHCHART AND TRANSITS

PROGRESSED LIFE SUPPORT – WHEN WILL YOUR SOULMATE BE COMING ?

WHAT’S HAPPENING MAN ? USING HORARY TO ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR FATE – USING ELECTIONS TO ENSURE THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME FOR EVERY VENTURE