Last night I found myself trying to navigate a driver who also did not know the route, in the pitch dark, with no lighting and signposts. It’s a Scorpionic sort of week coming up, and so that may be a metaphor: negotiating the darkness. We are truly on an unknown path, both with the economic situation, and the US Presidential Election which astrologically has become synonymous with the upcoming Saturn-Uranus opposition. I have been trying to get a handle on the Barack Obama enigma, so far with no success, despite having read both his books a while ago. I have seen him in the media this week referred to as both the returning Christ and his opposite. But the most promising lead came on Thursday night at a fundraiser when he finally revealed his true origins: “I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the Planet Earth”. So I am now on a mission to find an ephemeris for the planet Krypton…Anyway, all this stumbling in the dark is the lead-up to Wednesday’s sextile between the Sun and Pluto. If you’ve done your homework, looked into the Krypton ephemeris, remembered to take your torch and compass, looked at whereabouts in your life births, deaths, rebirths and transformations are being played out, Wednesday (22nd) could bring out the very best that this cycle of manifestation has to offer: acknowledging how far you have grown, and a real insight into what needs to go, and what needs to be built or re-built. Pluto works very much on a depth-psychological level, so ask fundamental questions. Imagine you could meet Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, R.D. Laing and Rufus May at a dinner party – what would you ask them about psychology in general? Not of course about your own psychology which is unique and your own speciality. This aspect is about bringing into wholeness the dark and the light, talking of which the Observer this morning headlines Boris Johnson as “No more Mr. Nice Guy”. Well I would also like to know what happened to Raymond Blanc’s nice guy image. On the last series of The Restaurant I thought “There goes a real gentil homme – a real contrast from all the other TV kitchen dictators”. Now in the current series, he is really cutting with his contestants. Though he, like Richard Branson of last week’s blog, is going through his second Saturn return, he shouldn’t be taking it out on them. That’s not the purpose of a Saturn return. It must be the added strain of Uranus being opposite his Saturn and transiting Saturn, but that’s still no excuse. I will be watching my own behaviour carefully when I have my second Saturn return on the US Election/Saturn opposite Uranus day. On Thursday (23rd) the Sun enters Scorpio, reinforcing the Plutonic theme of the previous day. We leave behind the lightness of Libra, and it seems like soul-searching all the way now – at least until November 4th! Saturday (25th) is significant for Chiron-watchers (failing information about Krypton) for Chiron is stationary prior to turning direct. Chiron has a similar energy to Pluto up to a point. While Pluto is into depth-psychology and letting go of outworn forms, Chiron is about depth-psychology too but with a healing twist. So when you are undergoing a Chiron transit it can feel very much like a Plutonian event and equally transformative at a cellular level, but you reach a point when you can suddenly see the purpose of the event much more easily and turn a crisis into a miracle. The timing of Chiron is also different from that of Pluto. A Pluto problem can take a long time to steal into your life and to resolve. Chiron events are often shorter in duration, often come to notice in a sudden crisis, and be instant in resolution. Chiron turning direct will enable us much more to take advantage of its positive process and healing potential. So to sum up: identify the planet responsible for your current crisis (assuming you have one), and never travel without your inner light.

Freshly energised by Tim Wheater’s cosmic gong, I bravely blog this morning amidst a background of worldwide economic meltdown. Is this, I wonder, the stage being set for the coming of Maitreya? And at this precarious time in the history of capitalism will the rich get poorer and the poor get richer? Again I say unto you, read Raymond Merriman’s fiscal astrology bulletins, if you haven’t already done so. Meanwhile, though I am not an economist, I have had my own lightweight musings on the subject…You see, ever since reading Richard Branson’s autobiography “Losing my Virginity” I have come to see him as a barometer of at least British economic fortunes. He has a most interesting relationship with the Source, as revealed in his autobiog. Virgin also happens to be our internet provider, and Richard is born in the same year as us (me and my hubby, who was also dragged along to see Tim Wheater). This week, starting last Sunday evening, our email service was disrupted. So I was deluged with people also with Virgin asking me what was happening. I realized that Richard’s brand was named after his Saturn sign (Virgo) and that he himself is going through his second Saturn return this year – in fact, it was exact last Sunday night. So if Richard Branson can find his way through the spiritual challenge of his second Saturn return, it may help us all. The main culprits of this current mega-crisis are Pluto’s entry into Capricorn and Saturn’s opposition with Uranus, both of which I have preliminarily blogged, and which occur a few weeks hence. But the North Node is also still conjunct Chiron (also already blogged) and that brings into issue collective karma. Karma can be worked out on a consciousness level very often, but economically it seems it has come right down to the material plane. What collective thoughtforms are we holding that need to be overhauled? What real values will remain when the illusory values collapse? We all have our own star we must follow, and that means developing our talents from our individuality at the Soul level, and that is our true currency. That’s my preamble, and the aspects start on Tuesday (14th) this week. We often do ponder a lot just before a Full Moon, and probably more so at this time. But before the Full Moon in Aries on Tuesday, there is a beautiful trine between the Sun and Neptune, so although there is a sense of anticipation many will take a serene view of “Let’s wait and see what the Divine plan has to offer”. The Full Moon itself occurs in the evening here in the UK, and emotions will peak at this time. But with the Moon being in Aries there may also be a sense of starting afresh, and an ability to rise above the opposite polarities which a Full Moon represents. The big news on Wednesday (15th) is that Mercury turns direct again, and recent communication difficulties may be resolved. And finally, at tea-time on Saturday (18th), Venus moves from Scorpio to Sagittarius, from charity begins at home towards a Dunkirk spirit. For Dunkirk, read the world. I will leave you with some words from the man of the week, Richard Branson, as quoted from a recent Guardian interview: “My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of ‘Oh God. I’ve got to do this today’ “

It gives me great pleasure to announce a fanfare for the opening of the week (Sunday 5th) to the tune of Venus sextile Jupiter. All you socialites out there, the lovely Librans and the vegetarian Sagittarians amongst you, will be in your element. It’s party time! Monday (6th) will be an interesting day, with a challenging but not unpleasing start to the working week which can be turned into fun-filled assignments and krypton-factor style puzzles. This day will benefit Clowns, Academics and Travellers (Sun square Jupiter, Sun conjunct Mercury and Mercury square Jupiter) but in a way which stretches them and their audiences, tutors and travelling companions. Interesting… Tuesday (7th) is not as interesting but more settled and sedate with Venus sextile Saturn, long-term commitments at the forefront of our minds, balanced talks about finances, savings and investments. Dealing without the wheeling. Loving the one you’re with. If you need to know more about the financial astrology of the time, consult Raymond Merriman’s weekly blog analysis. Friday (10th) could be your favourite day this week, with Venus trine Uranus – some of the outlandish antics of Monday could be paying off, and the loyalty of Tuesday also bringing dividends. coming together in a useful social or financial package. It would support unusual artistic or musical events, too. Just a note of caution: stay grounded and look at your ideals through plain glass, because illusion is the predominant influence on Saturday 11th. The gift of the square of Neptune to Venus will reveal which elements of the week were pie in the sky, or overblown ideas, bringing us closer to truth and the correction of our perceptions. You may look back at this week as a jamboree bag, which contained fond moments from Venus, some worthwhile wisdom from Saturn, plus a surprise from Uranus. The mystery prize is from Sun trine Chiron, healing but not necessarily in the form you’d expect.

Internationally acclaimed musician and sound healer Tim Wheater comes to Abington Barn Education Centre, Abington, Cambridge on Friday 10 October 2008, 7.30 pm for an 8 pm start. Be treated to an exclusive live performance, demonstration and insight into the strength and joy of music as a healing and developmental tool. For booking details go to www.inspiralonline.com – Tickets are £10 for pre-bookings, and £15 on the door. See you there!

Diary at the ready – what were you doing the Saturday before last (20th) at 3.21 am (UK time)? Some of you may have been nurturing a talent for writing (especially poetry), with Mercury trine Neptune. I was preparing to go and see Marianne Williamson. Did you have a significant dream, perhaps? Anyway, whatever it was, may re-occur today as Mercury retrograding again makes a trine to Neptune. So there’s a chance to fine-tune the poem, re-evaluate the spiritual philosophy, find more meaning in the dream. While you are flipping back through the pages of your diary, have you perhaps noticed any odd encounters with Scorpio animal totems over the last two weeks, during the period around the square of the Sun to Pluto? They seem to have been coming out of the woodwork for all around me: we’ve had a fox (cunning) in the garden, a friend had a bat (rebirth) in her conservatory, yet another found a black widow spider (shudder) in her supermarket grapes, and lastly another friend had a difficult encounter with a stoat (stealth) which may also qualify (although may be a Piscean creature). So I’m just wondering if these are harbingers of a collective shift in consciousness, possibly connected with the Saturn-Uranus opposition in November. The New Moon tomorrow (Monday 29th) at 6 degrees Libra will benefit relationships and the Arts especially for those with birthdays around this time or who have 6 degrees Libra rising (which seems to me the commonest rising degree of a sign, the least common being 1 degree Pisces). So there will be many out there who can take advantage of this New Moon to re-align harmoniously with their own hopes and for the world. It could also be a help in new peace initiatives. As we move into October on that wave of harmony, we find on Thursday (2nd) another helpful aspect in relation to peace moves, Mars sextile Pluto. It may have been this aspect which the aforementioned Scorpio animal totems were trying to highlight, for it represents a constructive harnessing of the aggressive forces of human nature and nuclear energies. As aspects go it’s not that rare, but it is essential that these forces are used helpfully and are not kicking off destructively. Under such an aspect it is possible to get people working together, and for loose cannons to arrive where they would do least harm. Mars is at the end of Libra too at this time, so we are placing last orders with diplomats and negotiators. The week ends on another Scorpionic note, with Mars entering Scorpio on Saturday (4th), and the message of those creatures may reach a clarion call. What forces are stealing a march into your life, and what needs to change or transform in order to bring about a new birth? I am currently buying stocks of “Communication with All Life” by Joan Ranquet to give as Christmas presents this year.

…As I was saying last week, we are in the midst of three trines to Neptune providing support and upliftment. Last Wednesday you may have discovered artistic talents (Venus trine Neptune), yesterday literary talents (Mercury trine Neptune) and still to come are the unknown talents of the trine between Mars and Neptune. I dragged my hubby along yesterday to a Marianne Williamson workshop, and he was suitably impressed by her wisdom. I found her to be as ever a beacon of faith and hope in our world now. And of course we need that focus now, with it being World Peace Day in a world not at peace, and with having Sun square Pluto to contend with today. It’s apt for us all to be focussing on peace today, with an aspect which dwells on the darkness. As Marianne kept saying yesterday, you have to bring the darkness to the light. Better energies tomorrow (Monday 22nd) which starts with the promised trine between Mars and Neptune, the third trine of the set of three. If you have kept up your Sunday yoga regime and daily meditation practices, you will fully feel the flowing energies of this aspect. If not, you’ll still enjoy activities which seem effortless and enjoyable. You may discover a new talent, or be moved to act in compassion. And if you’ve enjoyed this triad of helpful aspects, you’ll be pleased to know that at the beginning of next week there’s a little reprise or encore, a little more icing on the cake to come. Meanwhile, still on Monday, it’s a mellifluous start to the working week and also to the beginning of Autumn with the Sun entering Libra, so Happy Equinox all round! Get in tune with nature, hug and heal one of those poor Horse Chestnut trees with the fungus-ridden leaves who have taken the fall for our toxic practices. And Monday evening brings an extra blessing in the shape of Venus sextile Pluto. It’s a time when you can open your heart and see connectivity everywhere. You may also have insights about the current economic downturn, and understand the principles of manifestation at a deeper level. It is a good evening (UK time) for lovers, healers and peacemakers. On to Tuesday (23rd) and you can carry through the compassionate action of yesterday, but in a more organized and verbally active way. A dynamic day, and do what you can get done that day, because on Wednesday (24th) Mercury starts to go retrograde, and even if you have got your communications clear someone else might not have. But before that, in the early hours of the morning (our communication is going backwards remember) Venus enters Scorpio. Venus in Libra was an ideal climate to bring out a new peace website, but Venus in Scorpio will challenge us to deliver. For those venturing into weekend weddings, your union will benefit from the icing on the cake aspects of early next week which take place during your honeymoon period. Last words of advice to the happy couple: make your new double-barrelled names interchangeable.

It has been World Peace Week and now it’s World Peace Day and we have a brand new Peace initiative in the form of a website http://ipeace.me whereby we can promote our hopes for peace collectively. As soon as I joined, I felt hugged by the beautiful aura of peace that this website emanates. Inner Peace and Outer Peace are equally important and mutually dependent. So I am hoping that peace is an idea whose time has come.

Andrea Foulkes the celebrity regression therapist is also prominently involved in World Peace Day, and says today “Bring your Love, Friends and Cushion to sit on Chartres Labyrinth” (at Sedona!), but if you can’t get there at such short notice, download the world peace meditation from her website at www.andreafoulkes.co.uk. Om Shantih…

What is your peace lineage? And where are we going with the cultivation of peace as a human race? These are the questions I have been asking myself in the week leading up to World Peace Day. I have always thought of myself as a pacifist, though I have heard and digested the powerful contrary arguments. Among the most persuasive is Alice Bailey’s concept of the will-to-good being beyond the will-to-peace as particularly applied to the necessity for the second World War of the 20th Century. Here in the 21st Century the human race established a climate of war early on, with the terrorism against the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our choice of war or peace is still hanging in the balance. My own peace lineage as I look at it now is that I took a vow of peace at the Siege of Montsegur back in 1243, then carried that through a couple of incarnations in the hallowed halls of Tibetan lamaseries, only to get sidetracked on a downturn of the evolutionary spiral by Napoleonic fervour on the cusp of the 18th and 19th Centuries. In this lifetime, I have carried a peaceful heart, but done little actively to promote peace, other than a few years collecting subscriptions for CND in Watford in the 1980s! So I have found the new peace website (see next blog) a welcome opportunity to state my relationship to peace, and renew my hopes for it. Astrologically, I would look for tendencies to peacefulness in a birthchart in terms of a prominent Venus (the relation of Venus to peace is the desire to unite in harmony) or a well-aspected Neptune (the relation of Neptune to peace is the desire to bring the spiritual peace of the soul into conscious awareness). Where there is an absence of peace in the world or in a personality, it’s a symptom of spiritual disconnection. In our eternal Souls, we all have peace. In our personalities, deep down we all crave peace.

To make the most of tomorrow’s aspects you will need to gather the following ingredients: a notebook, a cafe, and like-minded friends. It has all the atmosphere of writers, philosophers and poets meeting in cafes on west banks to thrash out their angst. Select your equipment and venue in anticipation…The conjunction of Mercury and Venus at 18 degrees Libra actually occurs in the early hours of tomorrow Monday 15th (UK time), so if you are looking at cafe culture in a different part of the globe, please adjust accordingly. Later in the morning comes a Full Moon in Pisces opposing the Sun in Virgo. This may be felt as an emotional pull over two areas of your life. It’s important to notice what this brings up because it may highlight the two areas involved for you in November’s forthcoming opposition between Saturn and Uranus (see previous blog). A trine between Mars and Chiron ensures a healing thread at this time, and a constructive purpose. The rest of the week focusses on trines to Neptune, which can be sublime but for some it may mean going through illusion first before coming into clarity. The first trine occurs on Wednesday 17th at lunchtime, and involves Venus. If there is a romantic reunion planned for that day, your heart will be warmed while your head may be in the clouds. On Saturday 20th Mercury trines Neptune, and if you found your head was in the clouds on Wednesday, you’ll be seeing the clearer light above the clouds by then. If you were inspired artistically on Wednesday, you may be able to analyse the source of your inspiration on Saturday. Saturday’s trine is in the middle of a series of three trines, for next week Mars will trine Neptune. The accumulated effect could be quite stunning, especially in artistic realms and perhaps also in terms of group efforts. So create a buzz in your local cafe this week!

It is less than 2 months until the Saturn-Uranus opposition, on the day of the US Elections. This is being seen by Astrologers as a close contest between the New (as represented by Obama and Uranus) versus the Old (as represented by McCain and Saturn). I feel inadequate to see past the posturing, and do not feel qualified to comment about this unprecedented line-up and crew of candidates. There’s no denying the importance of the consequences of America’s choice on the day, but there will also be other things going on in the world, and in people’s lives. The Saturn-Uranus conjunction of 1988 was a friendlier version of the aspect occurring that day, and played its part in events prior to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall (which actually occurred during a subsequent conjunction of Saturn and Neptune). The Berlin Wall as a symbol or construct and as representing inner fortresses (a phrase borrowed from a friend) seems a good place to start as a concept when considering the upcoming aspect. In your own birthchart, the aspect will represent a long-term construct across two areas of your chart. Tomorrow’s Full Moon may highlight these two areas for you as the Sun and Moon oppose each other in the same signs, Virgo and Pisces. If a wall is involved it may be due for dismantling or renovation, especially if it represents a separation between two parts of yourself or between yourself and family or friends, which is being used to cover fear and paranoia. Trust and surrender are likely to be the antidotes and keys to breakthroughs, survival, and release in such a climate. The November event will occur around 18/19 degrees of Virgo and Pisces, so if any features of your chart are in those degrees the events could be momentous for you. Many of you have been leading double lives (and by that I don’t mean in the French farce sense) and you may be acting as a bridge or emissary between two places, two countries or heaven and earth. Some of you may be caretakers, translators and supporters of those scenarios, especially if you are spiritually or karmically rooted to a particular place. These bridges will be important at the time of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, because the separations need to be bridged at a deeper level than at the time of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Still others will be experiencing this aspect entirely inwardly, and may be finding that existing psychological or lifestyle structures don’t allow their Authentic Selves to flourish. When such cracks appear, it allows the divine to enter in more easily. And we all need to be caretakers, bridges, and carriers of the healing hologram.