Go here and marvel...   So Mercury has stopped going retrograde, the world will slowly return to 'normal', and the last three weeks will be but a dream, yes?  No.  Whilst I'm sure that the rest of the world is looking at the UK with some bemusement, from the inside looking out I have never in my life known such widespread public anger as is currently being directed towards our so called elected representatives.  True, only about twenty percent have been shown to be on the fiddle so far, and many are competent or even good at their jobs.  But so many snouts in the trough has soured their reputation for decades to come, and the only way out of this is for complete and utter electoral reform.  What an excellent chance for the advocates of proportional representation to get their way, and I note that Saturn is shortly about to start its sojourn through Libra, perhaps indicating a fairer and more balanced way of government.  And - I've had great fun reading the responses to my latest slagging off constructive criticisms of the sun signs, thanks for the feedback, I've published the best.  So let's deal with ...

If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed.  And the truth is that history has failed, that for thousands of years we've been lied to by a succesion of priests, kings and rulers who have sought to suck us dry and disempower us by moral and religious control based on fear and lies.  Now, at the start of the conciousness revolution, humanity is saying 'enough'.  Whether it be through small round bits of common metal that we are told can be exchanged for food, or whether it is through being told how to believe and think according to which particular 2,000 year old theology is still dominant, the end of coerced manipulation is in sight.  There are simply too many people to control, and when people start thinking freely, who knows what can arise as a result?  'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds'.  Now, I've had a few emails suggesting that I'm going soft on some of the sun signs, many of them from a couple of Libran clients.  Silly really, seeing as I haven't covered their sign yet.  Some of the best fascists in history have ...

Saturn stood still a week ago, and is now beginning to move forward.  Mercury stands still in just over thirty hours time (Sunday, 02.22 am UK time) and begins to move forward.  About twelve hours ago, Neptune stood still and began to move retrograde backwards.  If we were on the Sun, we'd never see planets moving backwards.  But because we're on the Earth, some planets move faster or slower than us against the backdrop of the stars, so when we overtake them it appears as if they move backwards.  The outer planets go retrograde every year, Mars every 19 months, Venus five times every eight years ( in perfect pentagonal geometry) and Mercury seven times every two years.  The effects and the lessons of the planet are to be learnt at a more internal level during a retrograde phase, as opposed through direct experience with other or the outside world.  Part 10.  Why to feel sorry for Capricorns.  Well, because almost exclusively they're all stunted emotionally, for starters.  They hate being embarrassed in public, and open and overt shows of affection and emotion towards them make them cringe, or even worse run away.  They need a week off in advance ...

What is this temporal arrangement we loosely call time, and what really affects it?  Is it gravity, speed, as Einstein says?  Is it perception, consciousness, as the new age dictates?  Are there planetary indicators?  Mercury rules motion, whether mental, verbal or physical, and Mercury is currently standing still in the sky.  Saturn rules structure and order, he's also known as Old Father Time, and Saturn is currently standing still in the sky.  Both planets that astrologically rule time are stationary.  Once again, most of the clocks in my house have stopped.  The local city clock has stopped after going wrong.  Time seems to be slipping away.  Maybe it's just me because I work with time so much, but I'd be interested to hear of any other tales concerning the current passing (or not) of what passes for time.  OK, Cancerians, stop hiding under that rock and get out here. Time to face up to a few things, i.e. that most of you are obsessed with your mothers, your kitchens and other people's chests, regardless of gender.  The kitchen is your temple, and heaven help anyone who tries to reorganise it.  And as for those famous moods.......  one wrong word, or ...

For many Virgos, Pisces, Geminis and Sagittarians, the last eight months have been a time of considerable stress, tension and pressure.  The roots of this lie in the years 2002-4, where the Plutonian intensity and extremes forced you into shapeshifting in a way that hurt so bad that you survived, but only by going into limbo.  2007/8 brought you back out of limbo courtesy of Uranus' dramatic energies, and since September 2008 through to the present time and for the short term future, Saturn is examining every single development of the last seven years and testing it for validity.  Those things, people, situations and environments that pass this test will stay around long term, those that don't won't.  And the date that this Saturnine exam finishes obviously depends on your individual chart, but recent pressure will be off one way or another by mid August at the very latest.  Saturn's in Virgo, so where better to go?  Fussy, critical, analytical, anal, they like to think of themselves as pristine and untainted, but they all have dirty socks under the bed somewhere.  Most of them are so phobic of body odour that they sterilise themselves regulary.  If you want to get ...

I'm constantly rejigging my opinion of retrograde Mercury, every time is different.  Yes, there's the generic breakdown in comms, emails, letters and phone calls.  But despite the difficult aspects of this particular M Rx, it has its positive sides too.  For example - it's happening in my eight house of sex, death, power and other people's money - and i'm getting to grips with my accounts from the last year, and sorting out my affairs so I know where I stand.  I didn't mean to do it at this time, it just kind of happened.  So look at the house the current M Rx is in your chart, and look for the positives as well.  But over the coming two weeks, as Mercury stands still at 21-25 Taurus, lots of those born between the 12th and the 16th of May as well as the sub-generation born from 1953-5 with Pluto around 23 Leo are going to find out a great deal about whether or not things, people and situations in their life are tenable.  The good news is that by mid June this is all over and the treacle will have dissolved.  And guess what?  Here, here and ...

Doing so many readings for people, I get clear indications of when times are going to get eventful, and when I see the same time replicated again and again in people's charts I suddenly sit up and take notice.  It's a bit hit and miss, but the period of the last six days of August this year are hugely significant, especially if the period between Christmas and New Year and then the period of the last ten days of April this year were important to you.  Huge endings and new beginnings coming up, but then - I'm seeing this through the lens of a Mercury retrograde, squaring Neptune and Jupiter.  And many thanks to all those wonderful people I met in Bournemouth.  So - how to annoy a Sagittarius.  Show them all your photos of the places you've been but they haven't.  Wear baggier clothes than them.  Laugh louder, travel more, do everything bigger and better.  Point out the lack of realism in their philosophies.  And if you really want to swear at them, mention the words 'commitment' and 'responsibility' and watch the younger ones cringe.

There's never been such a debacle in my lifetime as there currently is in the UK political system.  Constant new revelations around sleaze, greed and selfishness of the worst type are becoming endemic, no-one in this country has any faith in politicians any more.  Claiming for their non existent mortgages, their duck houses, tennis courts, moats, charging the public for fences to stop rabbits eating their lawn  - but hang on a minute - these exposes started fifteen days ago, at the start of the Mercury retrograde.  First the bankers, now the politicians, the Catholic church is just seen as a haven for paedophiles - who's next?  Probably the highly paid sports stars.  How far does it go?  Well, all the major newspaper owners are off shore as far as tax and expenses go, but you won't see that in the papers.  OK - Gemini - you're up.  Sponsored silences are their thing, they really are the quiet type - not.  Corner them at parties so that they can't move about and circulate and then bore them to death with your emotional problems.  Make them wear just the one colour - any colour, but just the one.  Give them long ...

In the last four weeks, I've watched the markets go up 20% in value.  I've watched most currencies rally, and I've seen the gold, copper, cocoa and oil prices all improve, gold especially.  I'm not an economist, but I do understand pattern evolution and what I'm seeing here is a bubble, seemingly without foundation or substance once one goes beneath the surface.  This is the hiatus betwen correction part one and correction part two, which starts properly towards the end of the year - early September onwards.  And it's silly season, so don't go signing any new papers over the coming ten days, will you?  Remember that what the politicians, bankers and priests say is in the public interest is not what the public are interested in.  In that context, time to trash delicately and sensititively reconstruct and advise those poor misguided Taureans.  They need shocking out of their comfort zones especially, so give them bright red clothes to wear, borrow their possessions and forget to return them, eat them out of house and home, and constantly tell them to hurry up.  And if you really want to upset them, give them a present made from polyester or ...

'Knitting by the guillotine' - the bankers must be laughing their heads off at the UK MP's and their current debacle.  The hypocrisy and greed of mealy mouthed parasites angers me.  But be sure, if forced transparency is going to come to the UK political machine, how far will Europe and the US be behind?  I would not like to be a European or American legislator with a dodgy expense account right now.  I live in a country comprised of everybody else's mongrels - over millennia various Europeans have said to their troublemakers:  'Out!  Go on, clear off, there's a big island over there where you'll do well'.  In this country we invented civil war and punk rock, we chopped a king's head off once because he treatedd the commoners like dirt.  To my mind - and yes, I'm angry - we should bring the police in and charge them with fraud, as well as dissolve parliament immediately and hold new elections straight away.  And put them in the stocks and pelt them with rotten fruit....   I'm ranting again.  Just the right energy to have a pop at those dearly sensitive and lovable souls, the life and soul of the ...

My little experiement is over, Mercury has slipped behind the Sun, many thanks to the forty of so of you who contributed.  Hopefully you've all got your charts OK.  Out of the people who responded, 16 of them had their Moon being hit by either Pluto or Uranus, and 7 of the 38 were born between the 12th and 16th of February, where Neptune and Jupiter currently are!  Mercury is behind the Sun now, the unbearable pressures of recent weeks have begun to plateau, although clear signs of improvement won't become obvious until about the 13th June when Mercury re-emerges into Gemini.  Silly season part 2 - how to wind up a Leo.  Laugh at their ridiculous hair style, criticise their dress sense and make them wear green or dark blue.  Insulting their children or creative outpourings is always a good one, you can tread on a lion's tail but if you tread on their kids (their pride, yes?) you're dead.  They get haughty and stomp off with their nose higher than their forehead when they think you're ignoring them.  Try hiding all their mirrors if you want to see them go to pieces very fast. You can make it ...

All of a sudden, it's different.  Saturn's stopped retrograding (woohoo!), Mercury is about to slip behind the Sun, the dodgy Moon I've been referring to recently is fading and my headache is finally going, albeit being replaced by tinitus (?  I've never experienced so much ringing in the ears before, what the hell is happening?) but nevertheless it feels different to the last few days.  It's now officially silly season for the next thirteen days, and to start off with things let's disect everybody's favourite robot, those poor misguided emotionally bereft souls, Aquarians.  If you love them, buy them something different.  A build yourself pyramid, a wok, a time machine, a dirty book to remind them that they live in a flesh and blood body.  If, however you want to wind them up, get intimate and personal and insist that they tell you their exact plans.  Show off in their presence, reminding them of their unemotional inferiority.  Take them for granted.  Belittle their crystal collection.  Accuse them of being robots from Sirius.  Make them wear clothes that they hate - anything grey. How would you wind up your Aquarian friend?

So - nearly halfway through the Mercury retrograde and what's up, doc?  Feelings of lethargy and inertia seem to be prevalent, there's old patterns struggling for their last gasp of supremacy and there's ongoing confusion about ' where should I live', or 'does he/she love me?' or such like.  Doh!  Its Mercury retrograde- you aren't even going to begin to get answers until the end of the month, so don't try.  The next two weeks are silly season.  So as of tomorow, I'm going to decimate certain sunsigns in a nurturing and sensitive way. It's the return of how to wind up any sign of the zodiac using astrology, so get your minds sharp.....    

This year is a year of sudden swings, of peaks and troughs, and of moments of time that can suddenly change things forever.  I'm an astrologer, but I forecast, not predict.  Nevertheless, it seems to me that the early hours (UK time) of this coming Sunday are a pivotal choice point for many of us.  Saturn stops going retrograde at 3.06 am, and in the following four hours the Moon conjuncts Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune and then squares the Sun.  The over the top situations and clouds of confusion and uncertainty or recent times are reaching a peak.  How it affects one individually depends on the nature of their chart, but this is a time of fascination and mystery - the apparent nature of the real world may be shifted briefly.  Bubbles may burst, things come down to Earth with a bump (hmmm.....).  From next week onwards, things are slightly more - negotiable.

Few different things tonight.  Firstly, go back to 2001/02.  Those of you who got trashed at that time entered limbo which didn't end until 2006/7, when you re-emerged, willingly or kicking and screaming.  The time since October 2008 to current day, as Saturn stations, is an examination of the last seven years, and the choices you make from here, depending on your chart, echo far into the future so choose for the long term.   For many of us this is as hard as it gets.  The need to prune, streamline, restrict and focus is at a high.  From this week, the tide is turning, although I don't expect clear signs of this to emerge until mid-June.  I mean, who'd want to live on Saturn?  (Apart from a few fundamentalist Capricorns and Scorpios).  Its gas is so cold it's turned into ice crystals that compact in on each other creating density and gravity.  And the damn things got rings around it as well, holding things in, limiting and restricting.  Of course, the alternative positive side of this is words like patience and perseverance, stability, solidity, structure and form.  But overlying it all, there's the ongoing Mercury retrograde.  Right now, Mercury, Saturn ...

Isn't Skype a wonderful thing?  I spoke to a client on the eastern seaboard of the USA today for ninety minutes, didn't cost a penny.  Ten years ago I hadn't discovered the internet and now I'm talking - for free - anywhere round the globe.  Away from the madness and intensity of current times, I can see a future where the forced acceleration of the moment will be seen in retrospect as 'getting up to speed', and making further innovative use of the emerging soft technology.  Artificail Intelligence has so far only been a dream, but I can conceive of it within my lifetime, and the potential for conjoining of both human and AI in some sort of consciousness system is conceivable.  Might be the only answer if climate chaos descends.  Once we collectively breach that intelligence threshold, the psychic shock wave reverberating globally within twenty four hours will trigger some type of empathic call into areas of consciousness previously hidden from us, a kind of collective family.  Um- er - I'm rambling again, aren't I?  I was born in 1955, and remember the first televisions.  Now I'm file sharing and sending wav files all over the place.  From my ...

Brewing big time.  In the background, Pluto at the start of Capricorn, the start of world politic and the real correction.  Only slightly down the scale there’s the Saturn/Uranus opposition quietly operating in the background.  The foreground is being taken by the very strong conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in the skies at this time and for the coming week or three.  Regular readers will know that for many years I’ve talked about the late spring of 2009 as being the time of the false prophets, and as Obamamania shook the world I found myself thinking ‘please let him be for real’, hoping for something else to take the limelight.  Enter the Pope.  In the coming four days he’s going to visit Israel and Palestine.  In the coming four days the Moon in the sky, carrying the laden fullness of its Scorpio depth, joins with the big three.  Neptune can be illusion and doubt, yes.  It also can be spirituality.  Jupiter amplifies everything it touches, for both good and bad.  And Chiron either fragments and creates dichotomy, or assimilates and integrates.  And the Moon hits all of this in just over four days time, early morning on the 17th.  ...

And a little rider - I've got a thumping headache, which doesn't happen.  So have a number of people i've been talking to.  I don't do premonitions, but if I did....

A UK centred theme tonight. What does a Scorpio full Moon do? It uncovers the corruption that lies beneath… Pigs and related issues have been big news recently, but the current round of exposes that many of this country’s elected politicians have been to some extent corrupted by the sleaze and moral tawdriness that has pervaded the higher echelons of society is representative of pigs with their noses in the trough. We know that the bankers have ripped us all off, they’re profit mongers. But the politicians are elected to serve, not to swindle and cheat through interpreting the law to their own advantage – or is it that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others? I’d love to see parliament dissolved, and new elections held not along party lines but in ways that emphasise the willing transparency of all potential politicians. Everything, but everything must become transparent. Every single one of us must have our monies, expenses, perks and wages available for scrutiny. This will initially cause anger, but in a brief period of time will be a great leveller. Priests abusing our children, bankers stealing our money, politicians milking the system – at the ...

This is a bull market in many different ways.  It's Scorpio full Moon, and bearing in mind current circumstances I strongly suspect that some highly significant sudden change is likely to occur with four or five days of now that will exemplify Mercury retrograding into Taurus and amplify its ongoing square to Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter.  Seriously, what's going on in recent weeks is hype and spin, even if it's not deliberate or intentional.  There's a swell brewing which is going to lead to the next big wave, coming in from leftfield in a way few can predict.  But now is the time of freeing oneself from the treacle, and pushing out to the lip of the springboard.  Metaphorically, we collectively are being asked to take a blindfold leap of faith in a direction where there are no maps.  And it's only after you take that step that solid ground forms underneath your feet.  Nothing is safe at the moment, thirty hours into the Mercury retrograde and I'm hearing the normal stories - computers breaking down, missed appointments, misunderstandings...  But there is a positive spin to this.  Taurus is about sensuality, and with Mercury's logical and rational faculties seemingly working ...

Certain people are finding that the confusion and vagueness of the last two years has become amplified over the last six weeks, that situations are larger than life and that dramas are turning into crisis'.  And now during May, there are very mixed signals.  M Rx is bringing a degree of uncertainty into recent events, destabilising recent gains and creating an energy of uncertainty which can only get worse in the short term.  As a general rule of thumb, the more urgent a deal or proposition is, the more you should run away.  Question the urgency of anything that sems vital, and ask yourself why is it so improtant to get things done so fast?  There's a lot of information, opinion and attitudes to shift over the coming three weeks, so see where you stand by the end of May.

The pace of life marches on......   Dealt with three cases involving obsession and compulsion today, it's wierd how certain subjects all seem to gang up on me and present themselves for my attention on the same day.  Now, to the business end of things.  In just under fourteen hours time, at 06.00 UK time, Mercury goes retrograde until the end of the month.  It is possible, bearing in mind the muddles and confusion of recent days, that this will represent a massive log jam clearing.  But don't hold your breath.  I'm of the opinion that the coming month holds little at the day by day level apart from confusion and over exaggeration.  i think that the market upturn of recent days, for example, is nothing but a fools adventure, and that the idea of the markets bouncing back is just so much fantasy in the medium to long term.  Sorry to be a downer, but after all - it's Mercury retrograde!  Seriously though, it could get quite sticky during mid/end May, so don't believe everything you're being told this month, will you?  And here's one of the latest things aobut what the future may hold.  Watch this and imagine ...

As I write, the Moon is conjunct Saturn, Saturn itself is standing still ready to start going forward in two weeks time, Mercury is standing still ready to go backwards in two days time, Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron are all about to stand still and start going retrograde - it's a time of tidal change, the ebb and flow of planetary energy has brought us so far this year, and this month will see a number of complete changes.  Lots of confusing and melodramtic developments, with no serious clarity coming until mid June, this is a time for dream, vision and idea, but not  action or long term decision.  From your relative position of safety, throw a few fishing lines into the future - those that come back to you in mid June will bring a bountiful catch indeed.

'Yes, but what exactly IS a horoscope?', or 'What does an astrologer actually do?'.  The two most commonly asked questions, or so I've found.  The first is easy - a horoscope is a two dimensional representation of the planets in the heavens and their relationship to planet Earth - and by extension, oneself - at any given time.  This pattern changes every instant, never repeated, which is what makes every individual unique.  The translation of that unique pattern is where the astrologer comes in.  Every astrologer is different, but in my twenty nine years of doing charts I've developed my own ideas on this.  An astrologer should be able to translate the horoscope into English, revealing the natal gifts and skills and talents, as well as the potential difficulties and occasional challenges inherent in the chart/individual.  S/he should then be able to explain times from one's past that are still echoing into the present, expand the potentials of the 'now' (one month either side of the current day), and explore the potentials for at least the coming six months, if not a full year.  And s/he should be able to do this concisely, In clear English with no pyschobabble or ...

Exactly five days until the next Mercury retrograde starts, but in my time I've watched them come and go and in my experience the ten days before it starts are just as bad if not worse than the actual retrograde period itself.  So- seeing as I have'nt done it for a while, here the definitive 2009 version of M Rx.  Emails get lost, phone calls get missed, letters are delayed, people hear but don't listen, there are misunderstandings and miscommunication, it's when the universe throws a lot of different twists and turns in your path and challenges you to be flexible.  On a Mercury retrograde ( M Rx) do the 're' stuff - re-assess, review, repair, reform, rejuvenate and reconsider.  But don't make radical new choices of action, or sign long term agrements.  M Rx changes not the message but the delivery system, so that it's like everyone using a different software package where some bits just don't gell, no matter what is done.  For this particular period, which ends on the 31st May, look at your chart and see which house covers the end of Taurus and the start of Gemini.  This is the area you're most likely to ...