Janet Saunders

Dimdim Event Widget

2010-06-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

Chiron in the birth chart

2010-05-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Chiron is not concerned with the errors of western civilisation. He invites us directly to re-connect with our own natural and non-domesticated way of being. This is not a wild or primitive world in the pejorative sense in which these words are sometimes used. Rather it is a world in which human society and the natural world thrive together.
So what are his attributes and qualities?

For Chiron all that exists qualifies as relatives. All my relations deserve respect, appreciation and understanding whether people, plants, animals or the earth itself. A symptom of Chiron working well is a desire to be in close, appreciative and informed relationship with the natural world rather than judging it in relation to our own needs or preferences.
Learning and teaching are vital to gaining a proper insight into the nature of all our relations in this sense. It also assumes a developmental view in which we want to support every one and everything to be most beautifully true to themselves and in balance one with another. The Chironian approach to learning and teaching depends upon noticing the stage of development and readiness of the learner and devising situations in which they can make their own experiments and discoveries. Learning is therefore owned by the student, not by any external institution.
In order to learn we need, literally, to be prepared to change our minds. Learning alters the structure of the brain. Our state of mind is a key factor in our receptivity to learning. For instance some lessons are best learned through stimulus and excitement, others need calm and reflectivity. Chiron as the shaman is an expert in states of mind. He can generate, manage and interpret states of mind with great skill.
the fourth attribute is healing. Chiron is a healer at every level, both personal, in human communities and in our relationship to nature. He does this by way of shifting mind states and working with the fruits of nature, herbs and ceremony. He may enter into relationship with the dis-ease to learn from it and find out whether it offers a lesson we should heed. Finally knowing no hindrance in any dimension he is not afraid of death and not unduly grasping towards life. Chiron is prepared to act as guide to the next world.

To find out more about Chiron in astrology contact me to book into my Chiron webinars.

Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change 2009

2009-09-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

OK, here's my best guess just now for the start of the conference. Of course the build up has been happening for months but it should be coming together at this point. Notice the Jupiter, Chiron, Neptune conjunction opposing the moon. The moon gives the whole situation a strong emotional tone. Mars is closing in but turns retrograde and does not complete the opposition until May 2010; putting promises into action could take time!

Of course the start time for this conference is a guess, but how nice it is when the guess looks interesting! The ascendant sextiles the conjuntion and trines the moon. If we could but see it, it also trines Eris in Aries, the goddess of discord who is retrograde at 20 degrees Aries 58 seconds. Although the conjunction has been referred to as "the Obama effect" implying high hopes and glamour, Eris suggests intense arguments as well.

If we want to know why this is, remember that Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and the fishes is retrograde at 21 Taurus 08. Sedna opposes Ceres in Scorpio. She speaks about the grief of seafaring and fishing people's at the potential loss of both fish stocks and their homeland. For many we are all in the last chance saloon. It may even be too late to save some countries.

Chiron conjunct Neptune February 2010

2009-09-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

I recently made my first visit to Aquarius Rising, the Glasgow astrology group, for a lively talk by Sheila O'Hara.
Her talk was on the Neptune, Chiron, Jupiter conjunction that has been with us for some time. Here is a chart for the Chiron, Neptune conjunction in 2010.
Neptune always has a mystical feel, but I am more interested in the link to the environmental movement. Sheila spoke about the Jupiter conjunction that falls on the 2009 solstice as literally pivotal - the inconjunct aspects operating as a pivot i.e. where one door opens and another door closes. This event closely follows the Copenhagen conference on climate change (7 - 18th December). I will show you charts for the conference and conjunction in spearate blogs.

Find me on the web

2009-09-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

I have a website at http://www.astrologer-edinburgh.co.uk/index.php

I can also be found at

http://www.findanastrologer.com/Community

Mystical Astrology - Consciousness in Action

2009-09-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Astrologers are constantly trying to work out why astrology works and how it does so. They are equally in a quandry about why it doesn't always work, or not in a clearly repeatable pattern. The answer is surely that our world is not a controlled experiment. Once we assume that all people are individuals, different in make up and experience, the idea of a controlled experiment involving human consciousness appears impossible. We have just enough in common to foster communication and relationship. We are not exactly the same, creating endless permutations; the need for communication, in order to constantly re-connect.

Our sense of what is going on around here is bound to inform our astrological interpretation. Without some notion of the nature of experience or of what is real, our interpretations will be buffeted this way and that by the encounter with the ambiguities of experience.

Many people approach astrologers as if they were 'barefoot counsellors' on a par with the barefoot doctors of the Chinese cultural revolution. They are often looking for meaning and certainty. Frequently they have run up against situations that disrupt their world view. Things are not the way they thought they were. The medical doctors offer only physic for the body. Astrologers, in offering meaning, offer physic for the soul.

This is dangerous territory. The astrologer, being only human and wanting to be popular and earn a living, is tempted to offer a certainty they do not possess and a confidence in the person's future that owes more to wishful thinking or the desire to instil confidence, than to careful analysis.

So what is really going on?

The birth chart is human and consciousness centric. Charts for situations and places are equally human and consciousness centric. They depend, not only on the time and place when this subject came into being, but on the time and place of the astrologer making the interpretation. Astrological reality in participative. We cannot stand outside our skins any more than we can stand outside the earth or solar system. The system is essentially anthropocentric and cannot be otherwise.

The interpretation of a chart essentially, brings the astroloer into relationship with their subject. Relationship is perhaps a rather hackneyed word so we should unpack its implications here. Relationship in this sense implies knowledge and understanding. If we are fortunate, the astrologer is a person who knows themselves. The chart components, planets, signs, houses and so on, are common to all charts of all beings, all places and all times. The self aware astrologer therefore has a wide field of view. They are capable of knowing all things through the extension of their knowledge of themselves. No other knowledge is possible.

This knowledge is essentially interior. Consciousness casts its view out into the world. The world in turn reflects back the observer in the observed. All efforts at objectivity are challenged by this sense that we are the creators of the world we see.

Again let us be careful of our words. the 'world' is frequently used only to refer to the world of human society. It is not necessarily used to refer to the earth or the planet. A child who is the apple of someone's eye, born in joy and raised in love, will be drawn to the things of this world the earth, soil, sky trees, animals, water and so on, as playthings and partners in delgiht. This world reflects the beauty of attraction and creation that is the innate property of all energy forms in the universe. Movement, unfoldment, a vivid fractal geometry, awaken in us a sense of living, changing and evolving beauty that evokes our desire for engagement and understanding.

For right relationship a further attribute is required. That is respect. If all things arise from the same energy matrix, represented astrologically and sympbolically in the chart, all things express the same desire for the free, creative unfoldment and self expression that we desire for ourselves. We are all of a piece with our world. Our creative self expression therefore demands the creative self expression of all earth forms in a dynamic equilibrium. Only this is the pathway to abundance. To diminish even the stones we walk on or the waters in our rivers is ultimately to diminish ourselves.

Relationship therefore depends upon appreciation of the beauty of the world. This in trun evokes the movement of desire which unlocks the unfoldment of the world. Noticing this awakens our observation and understanding. The realisation of our deep kinship with the world is the foundation of our respect for it and our desire, through honourable living, to earn the respect of all living things.

To put it in a Christian context, the matter distils into goodness (honour and respect), beauty (desire, loving appreciation) and truth (understanding and knowledge creation).

To put it in a Moslem and mystical context

"I was hidden treasure
and I desired to be known
so I created the universes
so that I might be known"

May this knowledge be made easy for us all.

Farm for the Future

2009-08-24T03:52:00.000-07:00

My article Farm for the Future will shortly be available in Earth Quaker (August 2009)

Living Witness Project Allotment Central Edinburgh

2009-08-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

The Living Witness project allotment is flourishing just now. It's great to have a share in an allotment. Working on it together is great and together we are learning new ideas about what works. For instance we have learnt some handy natural ways of dealing with bugs and slugs. Notice the boxed beds with nets. These have been really helpful. Thank you to Jonathan and Simon for making them.

Then again Paul found out for us that used coffee grounds really deter slugs. Keep the coffee grounds after use, it doesn't matter if they are a bit wet, and spread a line of coffee around the plants you want to protect. Slugs and snails can't get through.

One other tip concerns Lemon Balm. Lemon Balm or Melissa Officionalis has been prized as a healing herb since ancient times. It also has insect repellant qualities. I made some into a tea and poured the dregs over a plant that was infested with flies. The flies had died within a day.

2009-08-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here is Geoffrey as Oberon in the 2009 LYT Summer on Stage production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. This production featured steam punk fairies. The costumes were brilliant and matched our Geoffrey, strutting his stuff on stage.
Now he has joined a local group Ineffect who plan to produce the play Purple by Jon Fosse in a version by David Harrower. Watch their space!

2009-08-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Louise, Clare, Dom and Oz went to the Anphi V festival in Kokn in 2009. Louise has a neat hat, Clare has stars and sky colours. she also has her own site at deviant art.com