Astro Blog
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2009
In life there is what we think happens, and what actually happens. What actually happens is difficult, if not impossible, to establish objectively. There is a Russian proverb that says, “Never trust an eye witness”, and this theme has often been explored by artists and film directors. The most recent may be Vantage Point (2008), which is a film directed by Peter Travis in which a presidential assassination is recalled by six different witnesses. Their combined stories finally reveal the true story. In Kurosawa’s film Rashomon (1950), four different people recount different versions of the murder of a man and the rape of his wife, but in this case no objectively truthful version is established. In the last analysis “truth” is not absolute, but something arrived at by consensus, and this makes the cultural environment we are brought up in a crucial factor in how we all agree about reality. It is the very nature of the mind that makes it difficult to establish so-called objective truth. Even perception itself via the five senses is altered by various universal human factors. The mind has an inbuilt tendency to generalize experience, jumping to conclusions from a very limited sensory input, in the same way that on a film set, there is no need to present more than the facade of a building to trick the mind into thinking the building exists. When we learn from a very early age to put names to an object, this too removes us one more step from actually experiencing that object. And when we access our memory to relate to a repeated experience, then memory again removes us from direct experience. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2009
When I arrived in Herat, the most easterly city in Afghanistan, in June 1970, it was, or seemed to be, an idyllic kingdom, ruled by a king called Zahir Shah. Coming from the oppressive desert of Iran, with an equally oppressive regime, it was like entering heaven from hell. Suddenly there was music in the air, colorful horses and carriages ringing with bells, and people selling their wares to young people on the hippy trail… and many people enjoying those wares. Cool, friendly, laid-back, with little trace of extremist religion. Behind the scenes the religious fundamentalists chafed under the reforms the king had instituted under the years, and, as always, in the mountainous areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, most men bore weapons, which could be bought in the local markets. Afghanistan has a reputation for being able to look after itself, as the British discovered in 1842. At this time they sent out an expeditionary force of 16,000 men from India to pacify Kabul. These men were slaughtered in less than a week, and one man lived to tell the tale.The Soviet Union were also ultimately defeated in the 1980’s by Afghanistan resistance, which had considerable support from the USA in the form of advanced anti-aircraft missiles, conventional arms and dollars. Osama bin Laden was a prominent recipient of this support. A complete withdrawal of Soviet forces took place under Gorbatchev on February 15th 1989, with Mujahideen attacks wreaking havoc on Soviet troops until the last moment. The transition of Afghanistan from a kingdom to a divided state started with the overthrow of the king on July 17th 1973 by his brother in law, Daoud Khan, who established a republic. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2009
Planets seem to like to mark their territory, and when that territory covers the cusp of a sign, then border issues are always a major theme. With a flurry of outer planets changing sign over the next couple of years, establishing borders is going to be very difficult indeed. Generally borders are fiercely defended, but just as often they are very fluid, defined at different points of history by the geopolitical forces of the time. An example of the porous nature of a border was at the end of January 2008, when a border barrier established by Israel between Gaza and Egypt was blown up and over ½ million Gaza residents flowed into Egypt to buy goods. Venus and Pluto simultaneously moved from Sagittarius to Capricorn at this time – Venus being the reason why people came back loaded with goods.At the time of the imminent Pluto ingress into Capricorn the main foreign policy issue on the international agenda was the independence of Kosovo, a redrawing of borders. This took place with reluctant support from Europe and more whole-hearted support from the USA, and against intense protest from Serbia and Russia. Independence was established on February 17th 2008. Russia claimed that this set a dangerous precedent for other enclaves, like the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and events in August 2008 – when a newly assertive Russia occupied Georgia – proved that it was prepared to back its words with action. The retrograde movement of Pluto back into Sagittarius during the latter part of 2008 reminded the world of the dangers inherent in border disputes. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2007
Burma is rather a strange country. The country has strange astrologers too. They had a hand in the founding chart of Burma, choosing a birth time of 4.20 a.m. at which time independence celebrations took place in the bright light of a half-moon. Perhaps these astrologers liked the fact that Jupiter was rising and in good aspect to both the Moon and Venus. They were certainly blissfully unaware of one of the outer planets – Neptune – that constellates strongly with the Sun/Mercury conjunction of the chart. (Traditional Vedic astrology does not use Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). Thus it would seem that they did not foresee the state of virtual imprisonment that the government would inflict on a peace-loving population. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2007
In 1977 – the same year as the discovery of Chiron – the book Recent Advances in Natal Astrology was released, authored by Geoffrey Dean and Arthur Mather. Dean was a practicing astrologer who began to use statistical methods to examine traditional claims in astrology, and to discover correlations between astrology and behavior. Recent Advances is filled with one study after another, examining a variety of claims made by astrologers and astrology. These studies basically showed that there was no correlation between astrology and reality. (Note 1) …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2007
It is difficult to work with astrology and be politically correct at the same time, especially when the subject turns to gender issues. Traditionally gender has been assigned to planets, notably the “male” epithet to Sun and Mars, and the female to Moon and Venus. If you did not follow that guideline as a practising astrologer, you would soon go astray in the predictive field. Back when men were men and women were women – around a century ago – tradition said that a man would marry a woman represented by the position and aspect of the Moon, whilst a woman would marry a man represented by the position and aspect of the Sun. (That was in the days when people got married). …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2007
An era is drawing to a close. What began in January 1995 when Pluto entered Sagittarius, will change in January 2008, when Pluto leaves. 13 long years which have seen a religious transformation take place beyond our dreams, from Islamic terror to neo-conservative hegemony in the USA and prayer sessions between Bush and Blair. It is always the case that when Jupiter teams up with Pluto, which can be said to have happened with this long Pluto transit through Sagittarius, then wisdom is obscured by ideological fanaticism. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2007
When Jupiter entered Sagittarius on November 24th 2006, I thought it would be a good idea to keep eyes and ears open. Perhaps there would be a sign from heaven. Arriving at the train station on a journey to Copenhagen I struggled to get the ticket machine to work, and was joined by another man, and we ended up battling the machine together. This person happened to be perhaps the most famous rock musician in Denmark. So there: I met the Big Cultural Figure as befitted the astrological specification. There is a young American who I teach astrology (Note 1) who had to cancel this very day, because he was making a sudden visit back to the US to give his mother a birthday surprise. This was the exile making the long journey home (Jupiter returns to its own sign). So in both cases there was ample “evidence” that astrology was alive and well. …Read More
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2006
| It is probably fair to say that journalists in the USA are extremely grateful to Dick Cheney, who on February 11th 2006 supplied them with the first light relief of the year by shooting hunting partner attorney Harry Whittington whilst actually aiming at some quail. (Note 1) 78-year old Whittington ended up in hospital with pellets lodged close to his heart, but as a good Republican he was man enough to take full responsibility for the accident, and was able to say from his hospital bed: “My family and I are deeply sorry for everything that Vice President Cheney and his family had to go through this week”. Dick Cheney is an Aquarian, and yes, they certainly know how to choose their friends.There are however some who may think there is a certain symbology to the event. This is the man who immediately after September 11th 2001 asked his staff to find any information linking the terrorist act to Iraq, and went on to organize the invasion of a country which at the time was completely free of international terrorists. Cheney, who as Vice President is just a heartbeat away from the most powerful job on Earth, actually shot a lawyer… somebody dedicated to uphold the law. The metaphor is surely that Justice is endangered by this man. …Read More |
by Adrian Duncan | Aug 7, 2011 | Adrian's Articles 2011
By now it is well known that women come from Venus and men from Mars. Despite the attempted reversals or homogenization of male and female roles in the 1970’s,
when Uranus and Pluto transited the relationship sign of Libra, experience has
shown that little boys like guns and little girls don’t. Big girls are generally not attracted to men who are soft and dependent, whilst big boys go for beauty rather than muscle. That is the way of Venus and Mars, which are universal gender organizing principles for humanity. And whilst we may lament hat vast sums of money are spent by governments on military hardware, it is interesting to ponder on the fact that equal sums of money are spent on the fashion and beauty industry. …Read More
